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o o OF o o 



NORTHEAST ARKANSAS, 



COMPRISINO 



A Condensed History of the State, a Number of Biographies of D'stinguished Citizens ^f 

the sanqe, a Brief Descriptive History of eacl^ of the Counties named herein, and 

numerous Biograpl^ical Sketches of the Prominent Citizens of such Counties. 



ILLUSTRATBD. 



Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis : 
THE GOODSPEED PUBLISHING CO. 

1889 







"NKEY, BiNDKR. 



^n^ 



M 




M^^"r 




J 



^ ^ 



"HIS beautiful volume has been prepared in response to the popular demand 
for the preservation of local history and biography. The method of prep- 
aration followed is tiie most successful and the most satisfactory yet devised 
— the most successful in the enormous number of volumes circulated, and 
tlie most satisfactory in the general preservation of personal biograpliy 
and family record, conjointly with local history. The number of volumes 
now being distributed seems fabulous. Careful estimates place the number 
circulated in Ohio at 50,000 volumes; Pennsylvania, 00,000; New York, 75,000; 
Indiana, 40,(100; Illinois, 40,000; Iowa, 30,000; Missouri. 25,000; Kansas. 
20,000; Tennessee, 20,000; Kentucky, 25,000; Georgia, 20,000; Alabama, 20,000, 
and all the other States at the same proportionate rate. The entire State of 
Arkansas has as yet scarcely been touched by the historian, but is now being 
rapidly written. 

The design of the present extensive biographical and historical research is to 
gather and preserve in attractive form, while fresh with the evidence of tiuth, tlie enormous fund 
of perishing occurrence. In gathering the matter for the historical sketches of tlie counties, it 
was thought wisest, owing to the limited space, to collate and condense only the most valuable 
items, by reason of which such sketches are a credit to the book, and of permanent worth. 

In the preparation of this volume the Publishers have met with nothing but courtesj- and 
assistance from the public. Nothing promised is omitted, and much not promised is giv#Ji. 
About fifty pages of State history were guaranteed; over twice that number are given. Special 
care was employed and great expense incurred to render the volume accurate. In all cases tlie 
personal sketches wei-e submitted by mail, and in most instances were corrected and returned 
by the subjects themselves. Coming as they do from the most illustrious families of the State 
— all worthy citizens from the upper, middle and lower classes — they form in tiiemselves tlie 
most complete account of the Northeast Counties ever written, and their great value to future 
generations will be warmly acknowledged by all tlioughtful people. With many thanks to their 
friends for the success of such a diflicult enterprise, the Publishers res|)ectfully tender tliis fine 
volume to their patrons. 



THE PUBLISHERS. 



October, 18«y. 



I 






-^ 




CHAPTER I. 

(ieolog-y — Importance of (iculofjio Stiidj—Ari-a aud Cli- 
mate — Bouudarii's — Primiijal Streams of the State — 
The Mountain Systems — The Cfreat Springs — Diversity 
of Soils — Caves — The Mines, their Wonderful Deposits 
and Formations !»-] S 

CHAPTER II. 

Archajology — Kemains of Flint Arrow and Spear Heads, 
and Stone and Other Ornaments — Evidences of Prehis- 
toric People along the Mississippi — Mounds, etc., in 
Other Portions of the State — Local Archaeologists and 
tlicir Work — The Indians — Tribal and Race Character- 
istics — The Arkansas Tribes — The Cession Treaties — 
The Removal of IhcCherokecs, Creeks and Choetaws — 
An Indian Alarm — Assassination of the Leaders, etc., 
etc 19-2.3 

CHAPTER III. 

Discovery and Settlement — De Soto in Arkansas — Mar- 
quette and Joliet — La Salle, llenncjiin and Tonti — 
French and English Schemes of Conquest and Dreams 
of Power — Louisiana — The "Bubble" of .Tohn Law— 
The Early Viceroys and tiovernors — Proprietary Change 
of Louisiana — French and Spanish Settlers in .Vrkansas 
— English Settlers— .\ Few First Settlers in the Counties 
— The New Madrid Earthquake — Other Items of Inter- 
est 34-34 

CHAPTER IV. 

Organization — The Viceroys and tiovernors — The Attitude 
of the Royal Owners of Louisiana — The District Divided 
— The Territory of Arkansas Formed from the Territory 
of Missouri — The Territorial Government — The First 
Legislaturi' — The Seat of Government — Other Legisla- 
tive Bodies — The Due''. i— Arkansas Admitted to Slate- 
luiod — The Constitutional Conventions — The .Memor 
able Reeonstriietion Period— Legislative Attitude on 
the Question of Secession — The War of the Governors, 
etc., etc .34-44 

CHAPTER V. 

.Vdvunceinent of the State — .Misconceptions Removed — 
Effects of Slavery upon .\griculture — Extraordinary 
Improvements Since the War — Important Suirirestions 



— Comparative Estimate of Products — (irovvtii of the 
Manufacturing Interests— Wonderful Showing of Ar- 
kansas — Its Desirability as a Place of Residence — State 
Elevations 4.5-53 

CHAPTER VI. 

Polities — Importance of thi^ Subject — The Two Old Scliouls 
of Politicians — Triumph of the Jaeksonians — Early 
Prominent State Politicians — The Great (inestion of 
Secession — The Slate Voles to .Join the Confederacy — 
Horror of the War Period — The Rt^construelion Distress 
— The Baxter-Brooks Embroglio. . ,V.' :,.-, 



CHAPTER VII. 

Societies, Stale Institutions, etc. — The Kn Klii\ Klan — 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows — Ancient, Free and 
Accepted Masons — Grand Army of the Republic — Bu- 
reau of Mines — .\rkansas .\gricultural .Vssoeiatious — 
State Horticultural Society — The Wheel — The Slate 
Capital — The Capitol Building — State Libraries — State 
Medical Society— State Board of Health— Deaf Mute 
In.stitutc — School for the Blind — Arkansas Lunatic 
.Asylum — Arkansas Industrial University — The State 
Debt 56-(H 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Bench and Bar — -Vn Analytic View ..r ilie Profession 
of Law — Spanish and Freni'h Laws — English Comii<yii 
Law — Th» Legal Circuit Riders — Territorial Laiv ami 
Lawyers — The Court Circuits- Early Court Odiecrs — 
The Supreme Court — Prominent Members of the Slate 
Bench and Bar — The Standard of the Execution of Law 
in the Stale ." «5-73 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Lat.- Civil War— ^lualytieal Vi.w ..f the Troublous 
Times — Passage of the Ordinance of Secession — The 
Call to .\rms — The First Troops to Take the Field— In- 
vasion of the State by the FcdiTal .\rmy— Sketch of (he 
Regiments — Names of OHIeer — (lutliue of Field Oper- 
ations— Cleburne and Yill — KxtracUi from Privale 
Memoranda— Evacuation of the Stale — Re-oceupation 
—The War of ISl'i— The Mexican War— Standard of 
American Generalship 7!V-X1 



CONTENTS. 



'^ 



CHAFTEB X. 

I'lililii- KiiUTi>risi'» — Till- Kijal Kstate Bank nf Arkiin^iis — 
S(ati; Koiuls and Ollur Ui:;liH!iys — Tlio Milihiiy Knads 
— NaviK.itiou within tlic Stale frcmi tlie Kiirliisl Tinus 
to the Piesrut — Dcmdrucf of Stale Navigation — Stfani- 
hout Kaoiujr — Ai-c-idcnt» to Boats— The Rise and (irowlli 
of tlie Itailroad Systems — A Sketeli of the Diflferi'nt 
I/iM'-:, — otijer I in port lint Conflideration» s:J-8T 

CHAPTEK XI. 

The Counties of Hie State— Tlieir Foriniitii>n and I'liaiiires 
of Boundary Lines, ete. — Tlieir C'ciiinty Seats and Otlier 
Items of Interest Coneernin:; them — Defunel C"ouu(ies 
— New Counties — I'opulalion of all Hie Counties ol the 
Stale at every fieiieral Census S7-!ia 

CHAPTER XII. 

Kiliieatiou — Tile Mental I'yiu- I 'oiisi4lere<l — Territorial 
Siliools, Laws and Funds — Coiistilutiunal Provisions 
for Kdiieation — l.ejrislntive Provisions — Projrrcs.s sinee 
the War — Tlie State Superintendents — Statistics — 
Vrkansas Literature — The Arkan-iiw TravliT f»H-'.l7 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Chiirelii's of Arkansas'^ .\ppearnnee of (lie Mission 
uries— Chiireh Missions Kstaldislied in the Wilderness 
—The Leadin;;- Protestant Denominations — Eeelcsiasti- 
eal Statisties— General Outlook from a Relij^ious 
Standpoint 98-101 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Names Illustrious in Arkansas History— Prominent Men- 
tion of Noted Individuals- .\inhiiise H. Sevier— Will- 
iam K. WoodnitT — .lohii Wilson— .hdin Hemphill — 
.laeol. Barkniaii— Dr. Bowii — Sandy Faulkner— Samuel 
11. Ileinpstead— Trent, Williams, Sliiiin Families, and 
I »i hers— The Coiiways— Koherl Crittenden— Arehiliald 
Yell — .JiidiCe David Walker— Gen. G. D. Koyston — 
.Iiulf;c James W. Bates 103-112 

CHAPTER XV. 

<ireene County— Physical Features— Slreams—ForesLs— 

Iv'ndof Soil — AK'rieulturnl Proihiets — Stock Interests 

Keiil and Personal Property— Population— Railways — 
Kra of Settlement — .\ Noted Hunter— .\els of the Coun- 
ly Board— County Seat and Biiildinj,'s—Offieers— Polit- 
ical Outlook— Lejfal Matters- Military Affairs— Mnnic- 
ipalities— Schools— Chnrches-Bi.ijrraphy 113-188 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Clay I'ounty — Location and Description — Drainaire — Tim- 

her— Soil — Natural Kcsources— Live Stock — Taxation 

Population— Railroads— Set tleiiienl— County Orsraniza- 
lion— Chause of Name— The County Divided— Piililic 
Huildinss — County Olllcers — Politics— The Courts— 
i-ettal Kxeciitioiis— The Civil War— Towns and Villajjes 
—Newspapers— Edurallon and Keligion— Bioirrapliical 
.Sketches 18»-26!S 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Fulton County — Us Foriuatiou, Oi';;;uni/'.atiou and OHiccrs 
— Its Capital and Biiildinv:.* — P(ditical Record — The 
Bench and Bar — Situation of the I'ouuty — Important 
Statistics for the Instruction of Imtniirrants — Real and 
Personal Taxation — Airirrcijatc Pojinlation — Educa- 
tional and Rcliirioiis .Vdvanccmcnl — Selected Family 
Rciords — The (ireal Keliellion — .Municipal Ortfaniza- 
tions 2,59-30» 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Craighead County — Location ami l)e>eri|ition — Streams 
and Drainage — Timlier and Soil — Resources- and Pro. 
ductions — Live Stock— Properly, Rial and Personal — 
Population — Railroads — Settlement — County Organiza- 
tion—County Scut — County Buildings — Local Olticers 
—Politics — The Courts — The Civil War— Towns and 
Villages — County Biograjihy — Education — Religion — 
I ither Items . . ;W.»-:«a 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Randoljih County— The Pioneers— The County Formed and 
Organized — Seal of .Justice — Buildings — Local Officer- 
— Elections — Natural History — Wafer-courses — Miner 
als. Soil, etc.— Wood Supply -Vegetable and Other 
Products — Statisties — Taxables— The Censius- Public 
Highways — The Great War — Law and Lawyers — In- 
struction — Morals — Towns and Villages — Selected 
Biography 384^^145 

CHAPTER XX. 

Mississigipi County — Location, Boundary, Topography, 
etc.— The Expedition of De Soto into Mississipjii 
County — Towns— Settlements by Local Names — Secret 
Societies— Military .\ffairs of the County— The Lpris- 
ing of the t'olored People — Offlcers of the County — 
Public Buildings— Popnlation— Local Statistics— Coun- 
ty Organization— Levies-Schools and Churches — Se- 
lected Biographical .Sketches 445-570 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Poinsett County— Tile Re<-ords of the Courts— Formation 
of the County and Selection of the Seal of Law— List 
ofLocal Officers- Election Statistics— Centers of Popii 
lation — Societies, etc. — Local Instruction — Moral Or 
gaMizalions- The Soiitlieni Confederacy— The County 
Bounded — Its Topograjihy and Geology — Its Wonderful 
Soil and its Products— Population— Railroads— Names 
of Early Settlers- Private and Family Records .S7(M;-il 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Indeiieudence County— Formation and Organiziition— 
Public Structures— Catalogue of Officials— The Fran- 
chise— Administration of Law— The Coming of the Pio. 
neers- Location of the County- Its Water-courses- 
Numerous Personal and Business Sketches— Timber 
and -Mines— Lands and Crops- Census Returns — Rail- 
roads— Religion- (irow 111— Towns— Popular Instruction 
— War Record— Facts and Statisties 62I-72« 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Shiirp County — Loiatiou and Toi)oyrai>liy — Tlic Walir 
Supply — MiiHTuN, Tiiiihcr and Soil — Products — Valua- 
tion of Property — Piil)lic' i[i?;liways — Population — 
Erection of tlie County — TlU' Leyal Center — County 
Buildiujfs — Days of the Pioneers — Law and Equity 
Practiced — Tlie Strvif^ffle ovi'r Slavery and Secession — 
Villages Located and Ueseribed — Sclmol Statistics— 
Cliureli Peo])Ie — Catalogue of County Officers — Per- 
sonal and Business Meuuiranrta — Elections 739-761 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Lawrence County — Period of Settlenu^nt — The Mound 
Builders — Boundary of the County — Topography — 
Rivers orCreeks — Tiuiiier, Soil and Products — Minerals 
and Other Resources — Live StocU — Taxaliles — Popula- 
tion — Railroads — Legal Matters — The Civil War- 
School Affairs — Church Strengtli — The County Cre- 
ated — Its Otiicers, Buildings and Seat of .fustici — 
Political Statistics — Towns and Villages — Personal 
Notices 763-831 



CHAPTER XXV. 

•Taikson Counly— Act of Creation— Seat of .lusliee Lu 
cated— County Structures- OHlcial Catalogue— Voli's 
and Voters— The War of 18l)l-er.— The Administration 
of .lustice — Church Deuoniinalions Represented — 
School Matters Outlined— Names oftlic Early Settlers— 
Tlie County Located— Topography— Streams— Tiniher 
—Soil— Resources — Property Valuation — Railroads- 
Population— Towns and Villages — Personal Memoirs 

h:«-!M(1 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Izard County— The Arrival of Ihe Selller.s— Circuit and 
Probate Courts — Military Memoirs— The County 
Formed— The County Seat Located— Public Buildings 
Erected— Election 'Returns— Church Organizations- 
Towns and Village?— Educational Development— The 
County Bounded— Statistics Showing its Desirability 
as a Place of Residence — Population— Biography. .'.II7-!»K| 




mMMMIM- 



-4-+- 



Elisha Baxter 

.lohu B. Driver 

W. II. Cate 

S. S. Semmes 

G. W. Hurley 

II. C. Dunavant. . 

J. A. Lindsay 

Oapt. Dan Matthews. 

J. L. Aberncthy 

A. L. Cissell 

.1. W. Parish 

L. .V. Morris 

•lames Rutherford . , 

W. K. Harrison 

D. C. Montgomery. . . 

W. D. Jones 

T. D. Culberhouse . . 
Dr. Elliott Hickman 

K. M. Wayland 

.lames K. Jernigan.. 



. between 



H7-i>8 
133-l'i;i 
14(;-147 
170-171 
I'.l4-ia5 
31K-319 
242-343 
•2tit^3U7 
3!tO-3tll 
314-31.T 
3;i8-339 
3(;3-3(>3 
3'.Mi-;W7 
43(1-431 
444-145 
4ti,s-4t);t 
4(l3-4!t3 
.5II>-517 
.540-541 



John K. (iihsou 

H. M. McVeigh 

James T. Henderson.. 

B. A. Bugg. 

T. L. Musgrave .... 
William T. lluddleston 

J. W. Rhodes 

F. G. McOavock 

B. F. Jone.s 

W. J. Erwlu. 
E.J. McGavock 
J. H. MeGavovk . 

1). L. Ferguson 

V. Y. Cook 

R. W. Friend 

J. F. Davis 

Lieut. E. M. Ayres 

J. W. I'zzell 

Elliot H. Fletcher 

W. A. Townsend 



.between .iii4-.)0.. 
.5HK-r)Sfl 
tlia-613 
63(>-«37 
(J(KMi6I 
l»m5S.5 
70»rO!l 
T.V2-'iXi 
7.54J-757 
780-781 
804-805 
838-829 
.K53-853 
870-877 
!HX)-901 
m.^-'.lUi 
!l30-il31 
!<4.V1M« 
WiO-mil 
iC.VW'O 



>^. 




^Pv 



A 




ISTORY o OF 




ANSflS.e^ 



• > ♦ < » 



iiitf 11 1. 



Geology-Impoutance of Geologic Study— Area and Climate— Boundakies-Piuncipal Streams 
OF THE State— The Mountain Systems— The Great Springs- Diversity of Soils- 
Caves— The Mines, theiu WoNDf:RrrL Deposits and Formations. 



Such Iik'ssings Nature pours, 
O'erstocked mankiml enjoys bin half her stores.- 




-Young. 



HE matter of first iinpor- 
tancG for every civilized peo 
pie to know is tbo economic 
geology of the country they 
inhabit. The rocks and the 
climate are the solution in 
the end of all problems of 
life, as they are the prime sources 
from which all that human beings 
can possess comes. The measure of 
each and every civilization that has 
adorned the world is in exact de- 
gree with the people's knowledge 
^r^ )iC?l^oi the natural laws and the envi- 
t- S/^\ii ronments about them. 
jj^ /^v^tfiTj, The foundation of civilization 

^ ^ rests upon the agriculturists, and 

nothing can be of more importance to this class 
than some knowledge of what materials plants are 
composed, and the .source from whence they de- 
rive existence; the food upon which plants live 
and grow; how they are nourished or destroyed; 
what plant food is ajipropriated by vegetation 
itself, without man's aid or intorveutiun, through 
the natural operations in constant action. The 



schools will some day teach the children these use- 
ful and fiiiulainental lessons, and then, beyond all 
peradventure, they will answer very completely 
the lately propounded question: " Are the public 
schools a failure?" Tiie knowledge of the ele- 
mentary principles of the geology of this country 
is now the demand of the age, made upyon all na- 
tions, in all clinies. 

The character of vegetation, as well as the 
qualities of the waters and their action upon vege- 
table and animal life, is primarily determined 
by the subjacent rocks on which the soil rests. 
Earth and air are but the combinations of The 
original gases, forming the solids, liquids and the 
atmosphere surrounding the globe. The soil is 
but the decomposed rocks — their ashes, in other 
words, and hence is seen the imperative necessity of 
the agriculturist understanding something of the 
rocks which lie beneath the laud he would success- 
fully cultivate. He who is educated in the simple 
fundamental principles of geology — a thing ea-sier 
to learn than is the difference in the oaks and pines 
of the forest — to him there is a clear comprehension 
of the life-giving qujilities stored in the surface 
rocks, as well as a knowledge of the minerals to be 






-*fv*" 



10 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSA.S. 



found in their compauj'. A youth so educated 
possesses incomparable advantages over his school 
companion in the start of life, ^ho has coneeui rated 
his energies on the classics or on metaphysical sub- 
jects, whether they enter the struggle for life as 
farmers, stock raisers, miners or craftsmen. It 
is as much easier to learn to analyze a rock, min- 
eral or soil, than to learn a Greek verb, as the one 
is more valuable to know than the other. All true 
knowledge is the acquirement of that which may 
aid in the race of life, an education that is so prac- 
tical that it is always helpful and useful. 

The geology of Arkansas therefore, so far as 
given in this chapter, is in fact but the outline of 
the physical geography of one of the aiost interest- 
ing localities of the continent, and is written 
wholly for the lay reader, and attempted in a 
manner that will reach his understanding. 

Within the boundary lines of the State are 53,- 
045 square miles, or 33,948,800 acres. It haa 
3,868,800 more acres of land than the State of 
New York, and multiplies many times the com- 
bined natural resources of all the New England 
States. It has 2,750 miles of navigable rivers. 

It had a population in 1880, as shown by the 
census, of 802.525. Of these there were 10,350 
foreigners and 210,606 colored. In 1820 the Ter 
ritory had a population of 14,255; in 1830, of 30,- 
338; in 1840, of 97.554; in 1850. of 209,897; in 
1860, of 435,450; in 1870, of 481,471. (This 
was the Civil War decade.) In 1885 the popula- 
tion had advanced about 200,000 over the year 
1880, or was near 1,000.000. In 1887 it reached 
the figures of 1,260,000, or an increase of more 
than a quarter of a million in two years, and there 
is reason to believe this increa.sed ratio will pass 
beyond the two million mark in the next census. 
At least, an increase of one hundred per cent in 
the ten years is indicated. Keeping in miud that 
there are no great populous cities in the State, it 
will be known that this has been that healthy in- 
crease of population which gives glowing promises 
for the future of the State. Here the agricultural 
districts, and the towns and cities, have kept even 
pace, while in some of the leading States of the 
Mississippi Valley the gi-eat cities have grown 



while the rural population has markedly decreased. 
These are serious problems to reflective minds in 
those States where the cities are overgrowing and 
the country is declining. Happily, Arkansas is 
troubled with no such indications of the disturbed 
natural distribution of its people. The State, 
since it emerged from the dark and evil days of 
civil war and reconstruction, has not only not been 
advertised in regard to its natural resources, but 
has been persistently slandered. The outside world, 
more than a generation ago, were plaiTsibly led 
to believe the energy of its citizens was justly 
typified in the old senseless ballad, "TheArkan- 
saw Traveler," and the culture and refinement of 
its best people are supposed to be told in the 
witty account of Judge Halliburton's " Fir.st Piano 
in Arkansas." The ruined hopes, the bankrupted 
fortunes and the broken hearts that are the most 
recent history of the Western deserts, form some of 
the measure the poor people are jiaying for the de 
ceptions in this regard that have been practiced 
upon them. These silly but amusing things have 
had their effect, bat they were pleasant and harm- 
less, compared to tli ■ latest phase of pretexts for 
persistent publications of the cruelest falsehoods 
ever heaped upon the heads of innocent men. But, 
in the end, even this will do good; it is to be seen 
now among the people. It will put the people of 
the State upon their mettle, resulting, if that is 
not already the fact, in giving it the most orderly, 
law abiding, peaceful and moral people of any 
equal district of the Union. 

The State is in the central southern portion of 
the great Mis.sissippi Valley, and in climate, soil, 
rocks, minerals and water may well bo designated 
as the capital of this " garden and granary of the 
world," with resources beneath the surface that 
are not, taken all together, surpassed on the globe. 
Its eastern line is the channel of the Mississippi 
River "beginning at the parallel 36" of north lati- 
tude, thence west with said parallel to the middle 
of the main channel of the St. Francois (Francis) 
River; thence up the main channel of said last men- 
tioned river to the parallel of 36° 30' of north lati 
tude; thence west with the last mentioned parallel, 
or along the southern line of the State of Missouri, 



^ 



^ 9 



>_ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



11 



to the southwest corner of said State; thence to be 
bounded on the \v((st to the north bank of Red 
River, as designated by act of Congress and treat- 
ies, existing January 1, 1837, defining the western 
limits of the Territory of Arkansaw, and to be 
bounded west across and south of Red River by 
the boundary line of the State of Texas as far as 
the northwest corner of the State of Louisiana; 
thence easterly with the northern boundary line of 
said last named State to the middle of the main 
channel of the Mississi])|n River; thence up the 
middle of the main chHUU(>l of said last mentioned 
river, including an island in said river Imown as 
Belle Point Island, and all other land as originally 
surveyed and included as a part of the Territory, or 
State of Arkansas, to the 36° of north latitude, to 
the place of beginning."* 

The State includes between its north and south 
boundary lines the country lying between parallel 
of latitude 33° north, and parallel of latitude 36° 
30 ' north, and between its east to west lines the 
country between longitude 90° and a little west of 
longitude 94° 30'. Its geographical position on 
the continent assures the best conditions of tem- 
perature, salubrity and rainfall, this being shown 
by the absence of the intense heat and the cold 
storms of the higher latitudes and the drouths of 
the west. 

From the meteorological reports it is learned 
that the average rainfall in the State during June, 
July and August is sixteen inches, except a narrow 
l)elt in the center of the State, where it is eighteen 

*Tlie above dpscriptivo boundary lines are in the au- 
thoritative language of lUe 8tate Constitutional Conven- 
tion. To understand the south and west lines necessitates 
a referencelo tlie treatiesand acts of Congress. The fol- 
lowing would simplify the descriptive part of the west 
and south lines: Beginning at the southwest corner of 
jNIissouri, or in the center of Section 19, Township 31. 
Range 34 west of the fifth principal meridiiin line, thence 
in a straight line south, bearing a little east to strike the 
cast line of Section 4. Township 8 nmlli, liange 32 west; 
thence in a straight line south, bearing a little west to 
where the line strikes Red River in Section 14, Townshi)) 
13 south, Range 33 west; thence along said river to the 
southwest corner of Section 7, Township 14 south. Range 
28 west; thence south lotlie northwest corner of thcnortli- 
east quarter of Section 18, Township 20 south. Range 28 
west; thence east along the 33-' of latitude to the middle 
of the channel of the Jlississippi River; thence up said 
river to the place of beginning. The State lines run 
with the lines of latitude and I he meridional lines, and 
not with the government suivcy lines. 



inches, and a strip on the western portion of the 
State, where it is from eight to fourteen inches. 
Accurate observations covering fifteen years give 
an average of seventy-five rainy days in the year. 

Of twenty-three States where are reported 134 
destructive tornadoes, four were in Arkansas. 

The annual mean temperature of Los Angeles, 
Gal., is about 1° less than that of Little Rock. 

The watershed of the State runs from the 
north of west to the southeast, from the divide of 
the Ozark Mountain range, except a few streams 
on the east side of the State, which flow nearly 
parallel with the Mississippi River, which runs a 
little west of south along the line of the State. 
North of the Ozark divide the streams betir to a 
northerly direction. 

Of the navigable rivers within its Ijorders the 
Arkan.sas is navigable 505 miles; Bartholomew 
Bayou, 68 miles; Black River, 147 miles; Current 
River, 63 miles; Fourche La Favre River, 73 
miles; Little Missouri River, 74 miles; Little Red 
River, 48 miles; Little River, 98 miles; Missis- 
sippi River, 424 miles: Ouachita River, 134 miles; 
Petit Jean River, 105 miles; Red River, 92 miles; 
Saline River, 125 miles; St. Francis River, 180 
miles; White River. 619 miles. 

These streams flow into the Mississippi River 
and give the State an unusual navigable river 
frontage, and they run so nearly in parallel lines 
to each other and are distributed so e(juiilly as to 
give, especially the eastern half and the southwest 
part of the State, the best and cheapest transjjorta- 
tion facilities of any State in the Union. These 
free rivers will in all times control the extortions of 
transportation lines that are so oppressive to the 
people of less favored localities. 

The Arkansas River passes diagonally across 
the center of the State, entering at Fort Smith, and 
emptying into the Mississippi at Napoleon. 

South of this the main stream is the Ouachita 
River and its tributaries; the Saline River, which 
divides nearly eqtially the territory between the 
Arkansas and Ouachita Rivers; and the Little Mis- 
souri on the southwest, which divides the territory 
between the Ouachita and Red Rivers. North of 
the Arkansas, and about equally dividing the ter 



"~® 



to 



12 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ritory between tbe Mississippi and the Arkansas 
Rivers, is White River, running nearly southeast. 
Its main tributary on the west is Little Red River, 
and on the northeast Black River, which enters the 
State from Missouri, and flows southwesterly and 
empties into the White at Jacksonport, Jackson 
County. Another important tributary is Cache 
River, which flows a little west of south from Clay 
County, emptying into the White near Clarendon. 

Eel River is in the northeast comer of the 
State and partially drains Craighead County. 
Eleven Points, Currant, Spring and Strawberry 
Rivers are important tributaries of Black River. St. 
Francis River flows from Missouri, and from 36° 
30' north latitude to 30° north latitude it forms 
the boundary line between Missouri and Arkansas, 
and continuing thence south empties into the Mis- 
sissippi a few miles above Helena. 

Main Fork of White River rises in Madison 
County and flows northwest in and through ^\■ash- 
ingtou County iuto Benton County; thence north- 
east into Missouri, returning again to Arkansas in 
Boone County. Big North Fork of White River 
rises in the south central part of Missouri, flows 
southward, and forms its junction in Baxter County, 
Ark. La Grue River is a short distance south of 
White River; it rises in Prairie County and joins 
the White in Desha County. Middle Fork of 
Saline River rises in Garland County and flows 
southeast. Rolling Fork of Little River rises in 
Polk and passes south through Sevier County. 
Cassatot River also rises in Polk and passes south 
through Sevier County. Clear Fork of Little 
Missouri rises in Polk County and passes south- 
east. East Fork of Poteau River rises in Scott 
County and runs nearly due west into the Indian 
Territory. L'Augnille River rises in' Poinsett 
County and flows through Cross, St. Francis and 
Lee Counties, and empties into the St. Francis 
within a few miles of the mouth of the latter. Big 
Wattensaw River rises in Lonoke County and runs 
east into Prairie County, and empties into White 
River. Muddy Fork of Little Missouri River rises 
in Howard County and runs southeast. Yache 
Grass River runs north through Sebastian County 
and empties into the Arkansas River east of Fort 



Smith. Terre Noir River runs from northwest to 
the southeast in Clark County and empties into 
Ouachita River. Sulphur Fork of Red River en- 
ters the State fi-om Texas, about the center of the 
west line of Miller County, and running a little 
south of east empties into Red River. Sabine River 
flows south through the central southern portions of 
the State, and empties into the Ouachita River near 
the south line of the State. 

There are numerous creeks forming tributa- 
ries to the streams mentioned, equally distributed 
over the State, which are fully described in the re- 
spective counties. Besides these water-courses 
mention should properly be made of the nineteen 
bayous within the State's borders. 

The Ozark Mountains pass through the north- 
ern portion of Arkansas, from west to east, and 
form the great divide in the watersheds of the 
State. Rich Mountains are in tbe central western 
part, and run east from its west line, forming the 
dividing line between Scott and Polk Counties, 
and also between Scott and Montgomery Counties, 
and run into Yell County. 

South and east of the Rich Mountains are the 
Silver Leaf Mountains, also running east and west 
fi'om Polk County, through Montgomery to Gar- 
land County. These are the mountain formations 
seen about Hot Springs. Sugar Loaf Mountain 
is in Cleljurne County, and receives its name from 
its peculiar shape. It is in the northern central 
part of the State. Another mountain of the same 
name, containing the highest point in the State, is 
in Sebastian County, and extends into the Indian 
Territory. Boston Mountains are in the northwest- 
ern part of the State, running east and west in 
Washington, Crawford and other counties. These 
include the main mountainous formations. There 
are many points in these ranges that have local 
names. 

It would require volumes to give a complete 
account of the variety of the innumerable springs 
which I^urst forth with their delicious waters — 
warm, hot and cold, salt, mineral and medicated. 
The fame of some of the medical, and the Hot 
Springs of Arkansas, are known throughout the 
civilized world, and pilgrims from all nations come 



-^ 



J, 



HISTORY OF AliKANSAS. 



13 



to be washed aiul healed iu them. They were 
known to and celebrated by the prehistoric peoples 
of America; and the migrating buffaloes, ages and 
ages ago, came annually from the land of the Da- 
kotas to the spring waters of Arkansas. The in- 
stincts of the wild beasts antedate the knowledge 
of man of the virtues and values of the delicious 
waters so bountifully given to the State-. Nearly 
all over its territory is one wonder after another, 
tilling every known range of springs and spring 
waters, which, both in abundance of flow and in 
medicinal properties, mock the world's previous 
comprehension of the possibilities of nature in this 



respect. 



af,rU 1-T- l\ 



'ft,()^m:C- 



When De Soto, in June, \'i\:'l, discovered the 
Mississippi River and crossed into (now) Arkansas, 
and had traveled north into the territory of Mis- 
souri, he heard of the "hot lakes" and turned 
about and arrived in time where is now Hot Springs. 
Even then, to the aborigines, this was the best- 
known spot on the continent, and was, and had 
been for centuries, their great sanitarium. The 
tribes of the Mississippi Valley had long been in 
the habit of sending here their invalids, anci even 
long after they were in the possession of the whites 
it was a common sight to see the camp of repre- 
sentatives of many different tribes. The whites 
made no improvement in the locality until 1807. 
Now there is a flourishing city of 10,000 inhab- 
itants, and an annual arrival of visitors of many 
thousands. The waters, climate, mountain air and 
grand scenery combine to make this the great 
world's resort for health and pleasure seekers, and 
at all seasons of the year. The seasons round, with 
rarest exceptions, are the Mav and October months 
of the North. 

In the confined spot in the valley called Hot 
Springs there are now known seventy -one springs. 
In 1800 the State geologist, D. D. Owen, only 
knew of forty. Others will no doubt be added to 
the list. These range in temperature from 93° 
to 150° Fahrenheit. They discharge over 500,000 
gallons of water daily. The waters are clear, taste- 
less and inodorous; they come from the sides of the 
ridge pure and sparkling as the ])ellucid Neva; holjl- 
ing in solution, as they rush up hot and bubbling 



from nature's most wonderful alembic, every valua- 
ble mineral constituent. In the cure, especially of 
nearly all manner of blood and chronic diseases, 
they are unerjualed, and their wonders have be- 
come mainly known to all the world by the liv- 
ing and breathing advertisements of those who 
have proven in their own persons their wonderful 
curative powers. To reach Hot Springs and be 
healed, is the hope and aspiration of the invalid, 
when all other remedies have failed. And it is 
but just now that the pleasure seeker, the tourist, 
the scientist, and the intelligence and culture of 
the world are beginning to understand that this 
is one of the world's most inviting places to see 
and enjoy. 

But the marvels of the district are not confined 
to the immediate locality of Hot Springs. Here 
is indeed a wide district, with a quantity and variety 
of medical springs that are simply inapproachable 
on the globe. Going west from Hot Springs are sys- 
tems of springs running into Montgomery County 
a distance of forty miles. As continued discov- 
eries of other springs in Hot Springs are being 
made, and as these widely distributed outlying 
springs are comparatively of recent disclosure, it 
may be assumed that for many years to come new 
and valuable springs will become celebrated. 

In Carroll County, in the northwest part of 
the State, are Eureka Springs, only second to Hot 
Springs in the wide celebrity of fame as healing 
waters. They, too, may well be considered one of 
the world's wonders. There are forty-two of these 
springs within the corporate limits of the city that 
has grown up about thorn. They received no pub- 
lic notice until 1879, when with a bound they 
became advertised to the world. Their wonderful 
cures, especially in cases of rheumatism, cancer, 
dyspepsia and other, if not nearly all, chronic 
diseases, have bordered on the marvelous, if not 
the miraculous. 

In White County are the noted White Sulphur 
Springs, at Searcy, and the sulphur and chalyb 
eate springs, known as the Armstrong and the 
Griffin Springs, and the medical springs — Blan- 
chard Springs — in Union County; the Ravenden 
Springs, in Randolph County, and the Sugar Loaf 



•* 4— 



14 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Springs, in Cleburne County; the very recently dis- 
covered Lithia Springes, near Hope, in Hempstead 
County, pronounced by a leading medical journal, 
in its January issue, 1889, to be the most remark- 
able discovery of this class of medical waters of 
this century. These are some of the leading springs 
of the State which possess unusual medicinal 
properties. By a glance at the map it will be seen 
they are distributed nearly equally all over its ter- 
ritory. Simply to catalogue them and give accom- 
panying analyses of the waters would make a pon- 
derous volume of itself. In the aliove list have 
been omitted mention of the fine Bethseda Springs 
in Polk County, or the fine iron and chalybeate 
springs near Magnolia; Bussoy's Springs, near 
Eldorado, Union County; Butler's Saline Chalyb- 
eate Springs, in Columbia County; the double 
mineral spring of J. I. Holdernist, in Calhoun 
County; a large number of saline chalyljeatc 
springs in Township 10 south. Range 23 west, in 
Hempstead County, called Hubbard's Springs; or 
Crawford's Sulphur Springs; or those others in 
Section 16, Township 12 south, Range 10 west; or 
Murphy's or Leag's Mineral Springs, all in Brad- 
ley County; or Gen. Royston's noted chalybeate 
springs in Pike County, and still many others that 
are known to possess mineral qualities, though no 
complete examination of them has yet been made. 

Si)(>cial mention should not be omitted of the 
Mountain Valley Springs, twelve miles northwest 
of Hot Springs. The fame of these springs has 
demanded the shipment of water, lately, to distant 
localities in vast and constantly increasing quan- 
tities. The knowledge of them is but compara- 
tively recent, and yet their wonderful healing 
qualities are already widely known. 

Innumerable, apparently, as are the health 
springs of Arkansas, they are far surpassed by 
the common springs found nearly all over the 
State. 

Mammotli Spring is in J^ilton County, and is 
unrivaled in the country. The water boils up 
from an opening 120 feet in circumference, and 
Hows uninterruptedly at the rate of 9.001) barrels a 
minute. From the compression of so large an 
amount of carbonic acid held in solution, the whole 



surface of this water basin is in a continual state of 
effervescence. Spring River, a bold stream, is 
produced by this spring, and gives an unlimited 
amount of water power. 

The general division of the surface of the State 
is uplands and lowlands. It is a timber State, 
with a large number of small prairies. East and 
near Little Rock is Lonoke Prairie, and other 
small prairies are in the southwest part. In its 
northeast portion are some large strips of prairie, 
and there are many other small spots bare of tim- 
ber growths, but these altogether compose only a 
small portion of the State's surface. 

The variety and excellence of soils are not sur- 
passed by any State in the Union. The dark 
alluvial prevails in nearly all the lowlands, while 
on many sections of the uplands are the umber red 
soils of the noted tobacco lands of Cuba. About 
two-thirds of the State's surface shows yellow pine 
growth, the great tall trees standing side by side 
with the hardwoods, walnut, maple, grapevines, 
sumac, etc. A careful analysis of the soils and 
subsoils of every county in the State by the 
eminent geologist, Prof. D. D. Owen, shows this 
result: The best soils of Iowa, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota are inferior to the best soils of Arkan- 
sas in fertilizing properties. The following re- 
ports of State geologists tell the story: 





Ark. 


Minn. 


Iowa. 


Wis, 


Organic ami Volatile Matter. . 

Alumnia 

Carbonate Lime 


14,150 6,334 

8.7151 5.585 
21.865 fiflO 


6,028 

3.288 

940 


6.580 

4,610 

665 













In fertilizing qualities the only comparative 
results to the Arkansas soils are found in the blue 
limestone districts of Central Kentucky. 

Analysis of the soils shows the derivative geo- 
logical formation of soils, and their agricultural 
values; their losses by cultivation, and what soils 
lying convenient will repair the waste. Arkansas 
County, the mother of counties in the State, lying 
in the southeast, shows the tertiary formations. 
Benton County, at the opposite northwest corner, 
has the subcarboniferous. The tertiary is found 



^ Kj 



A 



It. 



HISTORY OF AKKAXSAS. 



15 



in Newtou County; Chirk, Hempstead and Sevier 
show the cretaceous; Conway, Oawlord, Johnson, 
Ouachita, Perry, Polk. Pope, Priiirie, Pulaski, 
Scott, Van Bureu, White, Garland and Montgom- 
ery, the novaculite, or whetstone grit; Greene, 
Jackson, Poinsett and Union, the quaternary. In 
addition to Benton, given above, are Independence, 
Madison, Monroe, Searcy and Washington, subcar- 
boniferous. The lower silurian is represented in 
Fulton. Izard, Lawrence, Marion and Randolph. 
These give the horizons of the rock formations of 
the State. The State has 28, 000, 000 acres of 
woodland — eighty-one and one-half per cent of her 
soil. Of this twenty-eight per cent is in cleared 
farms. 

If there be drawn a line on the map, beginning 
a few miles west of longitude 91°, in the direction 
of Little Koek, thence to the north boundary line 
of Clark County, just west of the Iron Mountain 
Railroad, then nearly due west to the west line of 
the State, the portion north of this line will be the 
uplands, and south the lowlands. The uplands 
correspond with the Paleozoic, and lowlands with 
the Neozoic. 

The granitic axis outbursts in Pulaski, Saiine, 
Hot Springs, Montgomery, Pike and Sevier Coun- 
ties, and runs from the northeast to the southwest 
through the State. In Northern Arkansas the dis- 
turbance shows itself in small faults, gentle folds 
and slightly indurated shales; but nearer the gran- 
ite axis, greater faults, strata with high dip and 
talcose slate, intersected with quartz and calcite 
veins, become common. These disturbances are 
intimately connected with, and determine to some 
extent, the character of the mineral deposits of 
the State. The veins along the granite axis were 
filled probably with hot alkaline waters depositing 
the metalliferous compounds they contained. 

Almost every variety of land known to the 
agriculturist can be found, and, for fertility, the 
soils of the State arc justly celebrated. Comj)Osed 
as they are of uplands and lowlands, and a variety 
of climate, Ihey give a wide range of products. 
In the south and central portions are produced the 
finest cotton in the markets, while the uplands 
yield fruits in abundance and variety. No place | 



in the great valley excels it in variety of garden 
vegetables, small and orchard fruits, grasses, 
grains, and other field crops. Among agriculturists 
in Arkansas, truly cotton has been king. It is 
grown upon lands that would produce a hundred 
bushels of corn to the acre. All over the State a 
bale of cotton to the acre is the average — worth at 
this time $50. Per acre it is about the same labor 
to raise as corn. In the varied and deep rich 
soils of the State are produced the vegetation - 
fruits, vegetables and plants — of the semi-tropic re 
gions, and also the whole range of the staple prod- 
ucts of the north. Cereals, fruits and cotton 
grow as well here as anywhere. In the uplands 
will some day be raised grapes and tobacco that 
will be world famous. 

That j)ortioii of the hilly lands in Clay, Greene. 
Craighead, Poinsett, St. Francis, Lee and Phillips 
Counties, known as Crowley's ridge, has a soil and 
vegetable growth distinctive from any other por- 
tion of the State. Its principal forest growth is 
yellow poplar, which is found in immense size. 
With this timb(>r are the oak, gum, hickory, wal- 
nut, sugar and maple. The soil is generally of a 
light yellowish or gray color, often gravelly, very 
friable and easily cultivated, producing abundant 
crops of cotton, corn, oats, clover, timothy and rett 
top, and is most excellent for fruits. 

The prevailing soil is alluvial, with more or 
less diluvial soils. The alluvial soils, especially 
along the streams, are from three to thirty feet 
deep, and these rich bottoms are often miles in 
width. There are no stronger or more producUve 
lands than these anywhere, and centuries of cul- 
tivation create no necessity for fertilizers. 

The swamp lands or slashes as a general thing 
lie stretched along between the alluvial lauds and 
second bottoms. They are usually covered with 
water during the winter and spring, and are too 
wet for cultivation, though dry in the summer and 
fall. They can be easily reclaimed by draining. 

The second bottoms are jjrincipally on the east- 
ern side of the State, extending from the slashes to 
the hills. The soil is mostly gray color, sometimes 
yellowish, re.sting u]>on a subsoil of yellowish or 
mulatto clay. The rich, black lauds prevail largely 



r'^ 



."^^^—^ 



ll£ 



lu 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ill Hempstead, Little River. Sevier, Nevada, Clark, 
Searcy, Stone, Izard and Independence Counties. 

In the mountainous range of the Ozarks, in 
Independence County, are remarkable cave forma- 
tions. They are mostly nitre caves and from these 
and others in the southeast and west of Batesville, 
the Confederacy obtained much of this necessity. 
Near Cushman, Independence County, are the won- 
derful caves. The extent and marvelous beauty of 
formations are in the great arched room, the 
"King's Palace." This cave has been explored 
for miles under the earth, and many wonders and 
beauties are seen on every hand. On the side of 
the mouth of one of the caves in this vicinity a 
strong spring leaps fi'om the mountain's side and 
into the cave, and the rumbling of the rushing 
waters beneath the earth can be heard quite a dis- 
tance. The notable saltpetre caves are in Marion. 
Newton, Carroll, Independence, Washington and 
Benton Counties. 

There are gold mines in Arkansas, yet no re- 
markable tinds that is, no marvelous wonders have 
as yet been uncovered. The universal diffusion 
of milky quartz in veins, seams and beds, as well 
as all the other geological tokens which lead on to 
fortune, are recent discoveries, and the intelligent 
gold hunters are here in abundance. Who can 
tell what the future may have in store? But 
should no rich paying gold fields ever be found, 
still in the resources of the State are ores of silver, 
antimony, zinc, iron, lead, copper, manganese, 
marble, granite, whet and honestone, rock-crystal, 
paints, nitre earths, kaolin, marls, freestone, 
limestone, buhr and grindstone and slate, which 
may well justify the bold assertion of that eminent 
geologist. Prof. D. D. Owen, in 1860, after care- 
fully looking over the State, ' ' that Arkansas is 
destined to rank as one of the richest mineral 
States in the Union." Its zinc ores compare 
favorably with those of Silesia, and its argentif- 
erous galena far exceeds in percentage of silver the 
average of such ores of other countries. Its 
novaculite (whetstone) rock can not be excelled in 
fineness of texture, beauty of color, and sharpness 
of grit. Its crystal mountains for extent, and 
their products for beauty, brilliancy and transpar- 



ency, have no rivals in the world. Its mineral 
waters are in variety and values equalled only by 
its mineral products. 

Anticipating the natural questions as to why 
the mines of Arkansas are not better developed, it 
will be sufficient to condense to the utmost Prof. 
Owen's words in reference to the Bellah mine in 
Sevier County: "It is the same vein that is found 
in Pulaski County, and runs northeast and south- 
west nearly through the State. Some years ago 
the Bellah mine was explored and six shafts were 
sunk. Three of the principal shafts were about 
thirty feet deep. The work was done under the 
supervision of Richard ^^'. Bellah, afterward of 
Texas. There was a continuous vein, increasing 
in thickness as far as he went. On the line other 
shafts were sunk from six to twelve feet deep, all 
showing the ore to be continuous. About five tons 
of ore were taken out. A portion of this was 
sent to Liverpool, England, to be tested, and the 
statement in return was ' seventy -three per cent 
lead, and 148 ounces of silver to the ton.' " Mr. 
Bellah wrote to Prof. Owen: "I am not willing 
to lease the mines: but I will sell for a reasonalile 
price, provided my brother and sister will sell at 
the same. I have put the price upon the mines, 
and value it altogether [4r)0 acres of land] at 
$10,000." Such was the condition of affairs at 
this mine when the war came. Substantially, this 
is the ante-bellum history of the Arkansas mining 
interests. Prof. Owen reports picking up from 
the debris of these deserted shafts ore that anal- 
yzed seventy-threo per cent lead and fifty-two and 
ono-lialf ounces of silver to the ton of lead. 

That these rich fields should lie fallow-ground 
through the generations can now be accounted for 
only from the blight of slavery upon the enter- 
prise and industry of people, the evils of a great 
civil war, and the natural adaptation of the soil and 
slavery to the raising of cotton. 

On the line of this vein, in Saline County, 
from very superficial explorations, were discovered 
veins bearing argentiferous lead and copper. 

Lead is found in about every county in North- 
ern Arkansas. These are a continuation of the 
Missouri lead ores. The richest argentiferous lead 



3>>. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



17 



ores reported are in Pulaski, Saline, Montgomery, 
Polk, Pike, Ashley and Sevier Counties, being 
found in the quartz and calcite gangues. It is as- 
sociated in the north of tho State with zinc, cop- 
per, and with antimony in Sevier County. 

One of the latest discoveries is the value of the 
antimony mines of Polk and Sevier Counties. A 
mine is being worked successfully for antimony, 
and the increase of silver is improving as the 
shaft goes down. At any hour in the progress of 
the work, according to the opinions of the best 
scientific mining experts, this shaft may reach one 
of the noted silver deposits of the world. In the 
Jeff Chirk antimony mine, at a distance of 100 
feet down, was found a rich pocket of silver. In 
every particular, so far, this mine is a transcript of 
that of the noted Comstock mine. The Comstock 
mine showed silver on the surface; so did the Sev- 
ier County mine; then it passed down 100 feet, 
following a vein of antimony; so has the Sevier 
mine; then in each has silver been found. 

There is an unchanging law which governs the 
rock and mineral formations. Nature never lies, 
and there is no doubt that the Arkansas mineral 
belt, through Montgomery, Polk, Howard and Sev- 
ier Counties, will prove to be one of the richest 
mining districts of the world. 

The antimony mine has been quite successfully 
worked the past two years. The Bob Wolf mine, 
Antimony Bluff mine, and Stewart Lode are being 
profitably worked. Capital and the facilities for 
reducing ores by their absence are now the only 
drawback to the mineral products of the State. 

Iron is found native in the State only in meteor- 
ites. The magnatite ore is found plentiful in Mag- 
net Cove. Lodestones from this place are shipjied 
abroad, and have a high reputation. This is one 
of the best iron ores, and the scarcity of fuel and 
transportation in the vicinity are the causes of its 
not being worked. The limonite iron ore is the 
common ore of all Northern Arkansas; immense 
deposits are found in Lawrence, where several 
furnaces are operated. In the southern part of the 
State is the bog iron ore. The brown hematite is 
found in Lawrence, Randolph. Fulton and other 
counties. Workable veins of manganese are found 



in Independence County. This valuable ore is im- 
ported now from Spain; it is used in making Spie- 
gel iron. 

Bituminous and semi- anthracite coal is found 
in the true coal measures of the uplands of Ar- 
kansas. That of the northwest is free from sul- 
phur. The semi -anthracite is found in the valley 
of the Ai-kansas River. These coal fields cover 
10,000 acres. There are four defined coal hori- 
zons — the subconglomerate, lower, middle and up- 
per. The coal fields of this State belong to the 
lowest — the subcarboniferous — in the shale or 
millstone grit less than 100 feet above the Archi 
medes limestone. In the Arkansas Valley these 
veins aggregate over six feet. The veins lie high 
in the Boston Mountains, dipping south into the 
Arkansas Valley. Shaft mining is done at Coal 
Hill, Spadra and many other points. It is shipped 
down the river in quantities to New Orleans. 

Aluminum, corundum, sapphire, oriental ruby, 
topaz and amethysts are found in Howard and 
Sevier Counties. Strontianite is found in Mag- 
net Cove — valuable in the purification of sugar. 
In the synclinal folds of Upjjer Arkansas common 
salt is easily obtained. Good salt springs are in 
Sevier County, also in Dallas and Hot Springs 
Counties. Chalcedony, of all colors, cornelian, 
agates, novaculite. honestone, buhrstone, varieties 
of granite, eight kinds of elegant marble, sand 
stones, white, gray, red, brown and yellow, are 
common in the grit horizon; flagstones, roofing 
and pencil slates, talc, kaolin, abound in Saline. 
Washington, St. Francis and Greene Counties. The 
potter's clay of Miller, Saline and Washington is 
extensively worked. "Rock oil" has been dis- 
covered in large pockets in Northwest Arkansas. 

In the development of its mineral resources the 
State is still in its infancy, so much so, indeed, 
that what will prove yet to be the great sources of 
wealth are not even now produced as a commer- 
cial commodity. In some respects this is most re- 
markable. For instance, Arkansas might supply 
the world, if necessity required, with lime and 
cement, can produce the best of each at the least 
cost, and yet practically all these consumed are 
imported here from other States. Years ago Prof. 



18 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



D. D. Owen called attention to the valuable marls 
in the southwest part of the State, but the great 
beds lie untouched and cotton planters send off for 
other fertilizers. So also of the great beds of 
gypsum that lie uncovered and imtoucbed. The 
outside world wants unlimited supplies of kaolin, 
fire-clays and such other clays as the State pos- 
sesses in ine.stimable quantities, and yet the thrifty 
people seem to be oblivious of the fact that here is 
the way to easy sources of wealth. 

People can live here too easily it seems. In 
this way only can a reason be found for not strik- 
ing boldly out in new fields of venture, with that 
vigor of desperation which comes of stern and 
hard necessity. Where nature is stubborn and uu 
yielding, man puts forth his supremest efforts. 

Magnet Cove probaljly furnishes more remark- 
able formations than any other district in the world. 
The "Sunk Lands" in the northeast part of the 
State, the result of the disturbance of the New 
Madrid earthquake 1811-12, present features of 
interest to both lay and scientific investigators. 
The curious spectacle of deep lakes, beneath which 
can be seen standing in their natural position the 
great forest trees, is presented: and instead of the 
land animals roving and feeding among them are 
the inhabitants of the deep waters. 

The natural abutments of novaculite rocks at 
Rockport, on the Ouachita River, with the proper 
outlying rocks on the opposite side of the river, are 
a very interesting formation. 

Cortes Mountain, Sebastian County, as seen 
from Hodges Prairie presents a grand view. The 
bare hard rock looks as though the waves in their 
mighty swells had been congealed and fixed into 
a mountain. It is 1,500 feet high. Standing Rock, 
Board Camp Creek, Polk County, is a conspicious 
and interesting landmark. It rises from out the 



crumbling shales, like an artificial piece of masonry, 
to the height of ninety feet. 

The Dardanello Rock as seen from the Arkan- 
sas River, opposite Morristown, is composed of fer- 
ruginous substance, and the great column dips at 
an angle of 40° toward the river. From one point 
on the southeast is the wonderful Dardanelle Profile. 
All the features of the face, with a deep-cut mouth 
slightly open as if in the act of listening to what 
one is going to say to it, and the outlines of the 
head, neck and shoulders, are faithfully produced. 
Its faithfulness of detail and heroic proportions 
are its strong characteristics. 

Sandstone Dam across Lee Creek, Crawford 
County, is a curious instance of nature's perfect 
engineering. The formation here possesses as 
much interest to the scientist as the noted Natural 
Bridge. 

Investigations of the Mammoth Spring lead to 
the conclusion that it has underground connection 
with Ha veil's Valley, Mo; that here the waters 
from many springs, some rising to the surface and 
others not rising, are as the head of a vast funnel, 
which pour down the subterranean channel and, 
finally meeting obstructions to further progress, are 
forced up through the solid rock and form the 
Mammoth Spring, a navigal)le subterranean river 
in short, whose charts no bold seaman will ever 
follow. 

North of Big Rock are the traces of a burnt 
out volcano, whose tires at one time would have 
lighted up the streets of Little Rock even better 
than the electric lights now gleaming from their 
high towers. 

The track of the awful cataclysm, once here 
in its grand forces, is all that is left; the energies 
of nature's greatest display of forces lost in the 
geological eons intervening. 



D X# 



^1 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



19 



;iliif 1-R 11. 



• > ■♦ < « 



Archaeology-Remains of Flint Aituow and Spear Heads and Stone and Otiikk Ornaments- 
Evidences OF Pre-iiistoeic People Along the Mississippi— Mounds, etc., in Otiikk Poiitions 
of The State— Local Archaeologists and their Work— The Indians-Ti;ii!ai, 
AND Race Characteristics- The Arkansas Tribes— The Cession Treaties 
—The Removal of the Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws— An 
Indian Alarm— Assassination ok the Leaders, etc., etc 









Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease, 

No actions leave to busy chronicles; 

Such whose superior felicity but makes 

In story chasms, in epochas mistakes. — Drydeti. 



1^ 






^SJtW N the long gone agea, 
te'l'^^f reaches of time perhaps 
i^^W'i: ^"^'^ *° '°® measured by 
^■^ii geological periods, races 
of men have been here, 
grown, flourished, declined 
and passed away, raaiay not 
even leaving a wrack behind; others 
transmitting fossil traces, dim and 
crumbling, and still later ones, the suc- 
cessors of the earlier ones, who had no 
traditions of their predecessors, have 
left something of the measure of their 
existence in the deftly cut flints, broken 
pottery, adobe walls, or gi-eat earth- 
works standing in the whilom silent 
wilderness as mute and enduring mon- 
iimentsto their existence; man, races, civilizations, 
systems of religion passing on and on to that 
eternal silence — stormfully from the inane to the 
inane, the great world's epic that is being forever 
written and that is never writ. 

Arkansas is an inviting field for the iavestiga- 
tion of the archreologist, as well as the geologist. 
Races of unknown men in an unknown time have 
swarmed over the fair face of the State. Their 




restless activities drove them to nature's natural 
storehouses and the fairest climes on the continent. 
Where life is easiest maintained in its best form 
do men instinctively congregate, and thus commu- 
nities and nations are formed. The conditions of 
climate and soil, rainfall and minerals are the 
controlling factors in the busy movements of men. 
These conditions given, man follows the great 
streams, on whose bosom the rudest savages float 
their canoes and pirogues. 

Along the eastern part of the State are the most 
distinct traces of prehistoric peoples, whose hiero 
glyphics, in the form of earthworks, are the ii\pst 
legible to the archseologist. Here, earthworks in 
greatest extent and numbers are found, indicating 
that this section once swarmed with these barbaric 
races of men. 

In Lonoke County, sixteen miles southeast of 
Little Rock, and on the Little Rock & Altheimor 
branch of the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Rail- 
road, is a station called Toltec. It is located on 
the farm of Mr. Gilbert Knapp, and is near 
Mounds Lake. This lake is either the line of what 
was a bor.se-shoe bend in Arkansas River long ago, 
or is the trace of a dead river. The lake is in the 
form of a horse-shoe, and covers a space of abont 



^ 



20 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS 



three miles. The horse- shoe points east of north, 
and the heels to the southwest. Here is a great 
field of larfj^o and interesting mounds and earth- 
works. A little east of the north bend of the lake 
are two great mounds — one square and the other 
cone shaped. The cone shaped is the larger and 
taller, and is supposed to have been 100 feet high. 
while the other was about seventy-five feet in ele- 
vation. About them to the north and east are 
many small mounds, with no apparent fixed method 
in their location. These have all been denuded of 
their timber and are in cultivation, except the larger 
one above mentioned. Upon this is a growth of 
heavy timber, elms, hickory, and oaks with as high 
as 500 rings, and standing on an alluvial soil from 
eight to fifteen feet deep. Those large mounds 
are enclosed with an earth wall starting out from 
the bank of the lake, and circling at a considerable 
distance and returning to the lake, and keeping 
nearly an equal distance from the larger mound. 
The sloping base of each mound reaches the base 
and overlaps or mingles with the base of its neigh- 
bor. Around this big wall was once an outside 
ditch. The humus on the smaller mounds shows, 
in cultivation, a stronger and deeper alluvial .soil 
than the surrounding land. 

There are evidences in these mounds that while 
they were built by one nation, for objects now 
problematical, they have been used by other suc- 
ceeding peoples for other and different purposes, 
much after the manner that are now found farm- 
ers with well-kept gardens on the tops of the 
mounds, or stately residences, or on others grow- 
ing cotton and corn. In them human and ani- 
mal bones are seen, and there are indications that, 
while they were built for purposes of worship or 
war, when the builders passed away more than 
one race of their successors to the country used 
them as convenient bui'ial grounds. They were 
skillful stone workers and potters, and their mason's 
tools are frequently met with. Nearly every im- 
plement of the stone age is found in and about 
the mounds. 

M'-. Knapp, who has given the sul^ject consid- 
erable intelligent study, is so convinced that these 
works were made by the Toltec race that he has 



named the new station in honor of that people. 
On the line of this earth-wall mentioned are two 
deep pools that never are known to become dry. 

East of Toltec thirty or more miles, in Lonoke 
Prairie, are mounds that apparently belong to 
the chain or system which runs parallel with the 
river, through the State. The small mounds or 
barrows, as Jefferson termed the modern Indian 
burial places, are numerous, and distributed all 
over Arkansas. 

Wbat is pronounced a fortified town is found 
in well marked remains on St. Francis River. It 
was discovered by Mr. Savage, of Louisville. He 
reports "parts of walls, built of adobe Ijrick and 
cemented." On these remains he detected trees 
growing numbering 300 rings. He reports the 
brick made of clay and chopped or twisted straw, 
and with regular figures. A piece of first-class 
engineering is said to be traced here in a sap- 
mine, which had passed under the walls of the 
fortification. 

The bones and pottery and tools and arms of 
the prehistoric peoples of Arkansas are much more 
abundant than are found in any other spot in the 
United States. 

Mrs. Hobbs, living four miles southeast of 
Little Rock, has a very complete collection of the 
antiquities of the State. It is pronounced by 
antiquarians as one of the most valuable in the 
country. The Smithsonian Institute has offered 
her every inducement to part with her collection, 
but she has refused. It is hoped the State will 
some day possess this treasure, and suitably and 
permanently provide for its preservation. 

When the white man discovered and took pos- 
session of North America, he found tbe red man 
and his many tribes here, and under a total mis- 
apprehension of having found a new continent, he 
named this strange people Indians. The new world 
might have been called Columbia, and the people 
Columbians. Again, instead of being sparse tribes 
of indivitluals fringing the shores of the Atlantic 
Ocean there were 478 tribes, occupying nearly the 
whole of the north half of this western hemis- 
phere; some in powerful tribes, like the Iroquois; 
' some were rude agricultural and commercial peoples, 



5 "fy 



A 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



21 



somo living in houses of logs or stone, permanent 
residents of their localities; others warriors aiul 
hunters only, and still others migratory in their 
nature, pirates and parasites. One characteristic 
strongly marked them all — a love of liberty and 
absolute freedom far stronger than the instinct 
of life itself. The Indian would not be a slave. 
Proud and free, he regarded with contempt the 
refinements of civilization. He breathed the same 
free air as did the eagle of the crags, and would 
starve before he would do manual work, or, as he 
believed, degrade himself in doing aught but paint 
himself, sing his war songs and go forth to battle, 
or pursue the wild game or meet the savage wild 
beasts in their paths and slay them in regular com- 
bat. To hunt, fish and tight was the high mission 
of great and good men to his untutored mind, 
while the drudgery of life was relegated to the 
squaws and squaw-men. His entire economic 
philosophy was simply the attainment of his de- 
sires with the least exertion. In a short time he 
will have tilled his earthly mission, and passed 
from the stage of action, leaving nothing but a 
dim memory. From their many generations of 
untold numbers has come no thought, no inven- 
tion, no action that deserves to survive them a 
day or an hour. The Indians of to day, the few 
that are pure blood, are but the remnants, the use 
less refuse of a once numerous people, who were the 
undisputed possessors of a continent, but are now 
miserable, ragged and starving beggars at the 
back doors of their despoilers, stoically awaiting 
the last final scene in the race tragedy. And, like 
the cheerful sermon on the tombstone, who shall 
say that white civilization, numbers and power, will 
not in the course of time, and that not far distant, 
be the successors of the residue of wretches now 
representing the red race ? "I was once as you 
are, you will soon be as I am." A grim philos- 
ophy truly, but it is the truth of the past, and the 
great world wheels about much now as it has for 
ever. 

What is now Arkansas has been the possession 
of the following Indian tribes; no one tribe, it seems, 
occupied or owned the territory in its entirety, 
but their possessions extended into the lines, cov- 



ering a portion of the lands only, and then reach- 
ing many degrees, sometimes to the north, south 
and west: The Osages, a once numerous tribe, 
were said to own the country south of the Mis- 
souri River to Red River, including a large por- 
tion of Arkansas. The Quapaws, also a powerful 
nation, were the chief possessors, and occupied 
nearly the whole of the State, "'time out of mind;" 
the Cherokees were forced out of CJeorgia and 
South Carolina, and removed west of the Missis- 
sippi River in 183ft: the Hitchittees were removed 
from the Chattahouchee River to Arkansas. They 
speak the Muskogee dialect — were 600 strong when 
removed ; the Choctaws were removed to the west, 
after the Cherokees. In 1S12 they were 15.000 
strong. 

The Quapaws, of all the tribes connected with 
Arkansas, may be regarded as the oldest settlers, 
having possessed more of its territory in well de- 
fined limits than any of the others. In the early 
part of the eighteenth century they constituted a 
powerful tribe. In the year 1720 they were deci- 
mated by smallpox: reduced by this and other 
calamities, in 1S20, one hundred years after, they 
were found scattered along the south side of the 
Arkansas River, numbering only 700 souls. They 
never regained their former numerical strength or 
warlike importance, but remained but a liand of 
wretched, ragged beggars, about whose hunting 
grounds the white man was ever lessening and 
tightening the lines. 

January 5, 1819, Gov. Clark and Pierre Chou- 
teau made a treaty with the tribe by which was 
ceded to the United States the most of their terri- 
tory. The descriptive part of the treaty is in the 
following words: "Beginning at the mouth of the 
Arkansas River; thence extending up the Arkansas 
to the Canadian Fork, and up the Canadian Fork 
to its source; thence south to the big Red River, 
and down the middle of that river to the Big 
Raft; thence in a direct line so as to strike the 
Mississippi River, thirty leagues in a straight 
line, below the mouth of the Arkansas, together 
with all their claims to lands east of the Mississippi 
River and north of the Arkansas River. With the 
exception and reservation following, that is to say, 



« ^ 

r 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ik 



that tract of country bounded as follows: Begin- 
ning at a point on the Arkansas River opposite the 
present Post of Arkansas, and running thence a 
due southwest coiuse to the V^'ashita River; thence 
n]i that river to the Saline Fork, to a point fi-om 
whence a due north course would strike the Arkan- 
sas River at the Little Rock, and theuce down the 
right bank of the Arkansas to the place of begin- 
ning. '' In addition to this a tract was reserved 
north of the Arkansas River, which the treaty says 
is indicated by ' ' marks on the accompanying 
map." This west line of the Quapaw reservation 
struck the river about where is now Rock Street. 

In November, 1824, Robert Crittenden, the first 
Territorial secretarj-, effected a treaty with the 
Quapaws at Harrington's, Ark., which ceded the 
aliove reservation and forever extinguished all title 
of that tribe to any portion of Arkansas. The 
tribe vsras then removed to what is now the Indian 
Territory. 

The other original uccujjauts or claimants to the 
Arkansas Territory were the Osages. Of these 
there were many tribes, and in 1830 numbered 
I. (100 strong, but mostly along the Osage River. 
Tlieir claim lapped over, it seems, all that portion 
of the Quapaw lands lying north of the Arkansas 
River. 

The title of the Osages was extinguished to 
what is now Arkansas by a treaty of November 10, 
1808, made at Fort Clark, on the Mis.souri River. 
By this treaty they ceded all the country east of a 
line running due south from Fort Clark to the Ar 
kansas River, and down said river to its confluence 
with the Mississippi River. These Indians occu- 
j)ied only the country along the Missouri and 
Osage Rivers, and if they were ever on what they 
claimed as their southern boundary, the Arkansas 
River, it was merely on expeditions. 

About 1818, Georgia and South Carolina com- 
menced agitating the subject of getting rid of the 
Indians, and removing them west. They wanted 
their lands and did not want their presence. At 
tirst they used persuasion and strategy, and finally 
force. They were artful in representing to the In- 
dians the glories of the .\rkansas country, both for 
game and rich lands. During the twenty years of 



agitating the subject Indians of the tribes of those 
States came singly and in small bands to Arkansas, 
and were encouraged to settle anywhere they might 
desire north of the Arkansas River, on the Osage 
ceded lands. The final act of removal of the In- 
dians was consummated in 1839, when the last of 
the Cherokees were brought west. Simultaneous 
vrith the arrival of this last delegation of Indians 
an alarm passed around among the settlers that the 
Indians were preparing to make a foray on the 
white settlements and murder them all. Many 
people were greatly alarmed, and in some settle- 
ments there were hasty preparations made to flee 
to places of safety. In the meantime the poor, 
distressed Cherokees and Choctaws were innocent 
i of the stories in circulation about them, and were 
i trying to adjust themselves to their new homes 
and to repair their ruined fortunes. The Chero- 
kees were the most highly civilized of all the tribes, 
as they were the most intelligent, and had mingled 
and intermarried with the whites until there were 
few of piire blood left among them. They had 
men of force and character, good schools and 
printing presses, and published and edited papers, 
as well as their own school books. These condi- 
tions were largely true, also, of the Chickasaws. 
The Cherokees and Chickasaws were removed west 
under President Jackson's administration. The 
Cherokees were brought by water to Little Rock, 
and a straight road was cut out from Little Rock 
to the corner of their reservation, fifteen miles 
al)ove Batesville, in Independence County, over 
which they were taken. Their southeast boundary 
line was a straight line, at the point designated 
above Batesville, to the mouth of Point Remove 
Creek. 

The nistory of the removal of the Cherokee 
Indians (and much of the same is true of the re- 
moval of the Chickasaws and Creeks), is not a jileas- 
ant chapter in American history. The Creeks of 
Florida had waged war, and when conquered Gen. 
Scott removed them beyond the Mississippi River. 
When the final consummation of the removal of the 
Cherokees was effected, it was done liy virtue of a 
treaty, said to have been the work of traitors, and 
unauthorized by the proper Indian authorities. At 



"*t^]« 



9 ^ 



<<j (a_ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



28 



all events the artful whites had divided the head- 
men of the tribe, and procured their signatures to 
a treaty which di-ove the last of the uation beyond 
the Mississippi. The chief men in making this 
treaty were the Ridges, Boudinot, Boll and Rogers. 
This was the treaty of 183"). In June, 1839, the 
Ridges. Boudinot and Bell were assassinated. 
About forty Indians went to Ridge's house. Inde- 
pendence County, and cruelly murdered younc 
Ridge; they then pursued the elder Ridge and, over- 
taking him at the foot of Boston Mountains, as he 
was on his way to visit fi-iends in Van Buren, Ark., 
shot him to death. It seems there was an old law 
of the nation back in Georgia, by which any one 
forfeited his life who bartered any part of their 
lands. 

The Choctaws by treaty ceded to the United 
States all their claim to lands lying within the 
limits of Arkansas, October 20, 1820. 

On the 6th of May. 1828, the Cherokees ceded 
all claim to their lands that lay within the Territo- 
rial limit of Ai'kansas. 

This was about the end of Indian occupation 
or claims within the State of Arkansas, but not 
the end of important communication, and acts of 
neighborly friendship, between the whites and the 
Cherokees especially. A considerable number of 
Indians, most of them having only a slight mix- 
ture of Indian blood.remained in the State and be- 
came useful and in some instances higlily influ- 
ential citizens. Among them were prominent farm- 
ers, merchants and professional men. And very 
often now may be met some prominent citizen, 
who, after even an extended acquaintance, is found 
to be an Indian. Among that race of people 
they recognize as full members of the tribe all 
who have any trace of their blood in their veins, 
whether it shows or not. In this respect it seems 
that nearly all races differ from the white man. 
With the latter the least mixture of blood of any 
other color pronounces them at once to be not white. 

The Cherokee Indians, especially, have always 
held kindly intercourse with the people of Arkan- 
sas. In the late Civil ■\^'ar they went with the 



State in the secession movement without hesitation. 
A brigade of Cherokees was raised and Gen. Albert 
Pike was elected to the command. The eminent 
Indians in the command were Gen. Stand W'aitie 
and Col. E. C. Boudinot. Until 1803 the Indians 
were unanimous in behalf of the Southern cause, 
but in that year Chief Ross went over to the Fed- 
eral side, and thus the old time divisions in the In 
dian councils were revived. 

Col. Elias C. Boudinot was boi-n in Georgia, in 
August, 1835, the same year of the treaty remov- 
ing the Indians from that State. Practically, 
therefore, he is an Arkansan. He shows a strong 
trace of Indian blood, though the features of the 
white race predominate. He is a man of educa- 
tion and careful culture, and when admitted to the 
bar he soon won a place in the splendid array of 
talent then so greatly distinguishing Arkansas. A 
born orator, strong enough in intellect to think 
without emotion, morally and physically a hero, he 
has spent much of his life pleading for his people 
to be made citizens — the owners of their individ- 
ual homes, as the only hope to stay that swift de- 
cay that is upon them, but the ignorance of his 
tribe and the scheming of demagogues and selfish 
"agents," have thwartedhis efforts and practically 
exiled him from his race. 

A few years ago Col. Boudinot was invited to 
address Congress and the people of Washington 
on the subject of the Indian races. The masterly 
addi'ess by this man, one of the greatest of all the 
representatives of American Indians, will be fixed 
in history as the most pathetic epilogue of the 
greatest of dramas, the curtain of which was raised 
in 1492. Who will ever read and fully understand 
his emotions when he repeated the lines: 



Their liglit canoes have vanished 
From off the crested waves — 
Amid the forests where I hey roamed 
There rings no hunter's shout. 
And all their cone-like cabins 
Thai clustered o'er the vale. 
Have disappeared as withered leaves. 
Bc-f(ire the autumn gale. 



^^"T. 



Illicit HI. 



Discovery and Settlkjikxt— Ok >-ot<) in Akkansas— Marquktte and Joliet— La Salle, Hennepin 

AND TONTI— 1-KENClI AND ENGLISH SCHEMES OF CONQUEST AND DREAMS OF POWEU— LOUISIANA 

—The •• Hubble" of John Law— The Early Viceroys and Governors— Proprie- 
tary Change of Louisiana— French and Spanish Settlers in Ark- 
ansas—English Settlers— A Few First Settlers in the 
Counties— The New Madrid Earthquake- 
Other Items of Interest. 



Hail, memory, bail! In Uiy e.\haiistle.ss mine 
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine! 
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey. 
And place and time are subject to thy svmy.— Rogers. 




ERDINAND DE SOTO, the 
"' discoverer of the Missis- 
..o sippi, was the first civilized 
white man to put foot upon 
any part of what is now the 
State of Arkansas. He and 
?;!^-9^hi8 band of adventurous 
-^ % followers had forged their 

\ way over immense obstacles, through 
' the trackless wastes, and in the pleas- 
l^ ant month of June, 1541, reached th(> 
' Mississippi River at, as is supposed, 
Chickasaw Bluffs, a short distance be- 
low Memphis. He had sailed from 
San Lncan in April, 1538, with 600 
men, twenty officers and twenty four priests. He 
represented his king and church, and came to 
make discoveries for his master in Florida, a coun- 
trj' undefined in extent, and believed to be the 
richest in the world. 

His expedition was a daring and dangerous 
one, and there were but few men in the tide of 
time who could have carried it on to the extent 
that did this bold Spaniard. The worn and deci- 




mated band remained at the Chickasaw Bluffs to 
rest and recuperate until June 29, then crossing 
the river into Arkansas, and pushing on up the 
Mississippi River, through brakes and swamps and 
slashes, until they reached the higher prairie lands 
that lead toward New Madrid; stopping in their 
north course at an Indian village, Pacaha, whose 
location is not known. De Soto sent an expedition 
toward the Osage River, but it soon returned and 
rejiorted the country worthless.* He then turned 
west and proceeded to the Boston Mountains, at 
the head- waters of White River; then bending 
south, and passing Hot Springs, he went into camp 
for the winter on the Ouachita River, at Autamqua 
Village, in Garland County. In the spring he 

*It is proper to here state the fact that some local in- 
vestigators, and others wlio have studied the liistory of 
De Soto's voyaging thnnigli .Arkansas, do not believe that 
he reached and discovered the river as high up as Mem- 
phis. They think lie approached it a short distance above 
the moutli of Red Kiver. and from that point made his 
detour around Id Red River. Other.s in the State, who 
have also studied the sid)ject thoroughly, find excellent 
evidence of his presence in Arkansas along the Mississippi, 
particularly in Missi-ssippi County. See "History of 
Mississippi County. Ark." After examining the testi- 
mony carefully I incline to the account as given in the 
context as being the most probable. — Ed. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



25 



floated down the river, often lost in the bayous 
and overflows of lied Kivor, and tiually reached 
again the Mississippi. Halting here he made dil- 
igent inquiries of the Indians as to the month of 
the great stream, but they could give him no infor- 
mation. In June, one year from the date of his 
discovery, after a sickness of some weeks, he died. 
As an evidence of his importance to the expedition 
his death was kept a secret, and he was buried at 
night, most appropriately, in the waves of the 
great river that gave his name immortality. But 
the secrecy of his death was of no avail, for there 
was no one who could supply his place, and with 
his life closed the existence, for all practical pur- 
poses, of the expedition. Here the interest of the 
historian in De Soto and his companions ceases. 
He came not to possess the beautiful country, or 
plant colonies, or even extend the dominions of 
civilization, but simply to find the fabled wealth 
in minerals and precious stones, and gather them 
and carry them away. Spain already possessed 
Florida, and it was all Florida then, from the At- 
lantic to the boundless and unknown west. 

The three great nations of the old world had 
conquered and possessed — the Spaniards Florida, 
the English Virginia and New England, and the 
French the St. Lawrence. The feeblest of all 
these colonizers or conquerors were the English, 
and they retained their narrow foothold on the 
new continent with so little vigor that for more 
than a century and a half they knew nothing of 
the country west of them save the idle dreams and 
fictions of the surrounding savages. The general 
world had learned little of De Soto's gi-eat western 
discoveries, and when he was buried in the Missis- 
sippi all remained undisturbed from the presence 
or knowledge of civilized men for the period of 
182 years. 

Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit priest, had 
made expeditions along the Northern lakes, pros- 
elyting among the Indian tribes. He had con- 
ceived the idea that there was a great western 
river leading to China and Japan. He was joined 
in his ambition to find this route, and the tribes 
along it. l)y Joliet, a man fired with tlie ambition 
and daring of the hold explorer. These two men. 



with five employes, started on their great adven- 
ture May 17, 1673. They found the Upper Mis 
sissippi liiver and came down that to the mouth 
of the Arkansas River, thence proceeding up some 
distance, it is supposed to near where is Arkansas 
Post. Thus the feet of the white man pressed 
once more the soil of this State, but it was after 
the lapse of many years from the time of De Soto's 
visit. Marquette carried into the newly disco veretl 
country the cross of Christ, while Joliet planted 
in the wilderness the tricolors of France. France 
and Christianity stood together in the heart of the 
great Mississippi Valley; the discoverers, founders 
and possessors of the greatest spiritual and tem- 
poral empire on earth. From here the voyagers 
retraced their course to the Northern lakes and 
the St. Lawrence, and published a report of their 
discoveries. 

Nine years after Marquett(> and Joliet' S expe- 
dition. Chevalier de La Salle came fi-om France, 
accompanied by Henry de Tonti, an Italian, filled 
with great schemes of empire in the new western 
world; it is charged, by soin(> historians of that 
day, with no less ambition than securing the whole 
western portion of the continent and wresting 
Mexico from the Spaniards. When Canada was 
reached. La Salle was joined by Lduis Hennepin, 
an ambitious, unscrupulous and daring Franciscan 
monk. It was evidently La Salle's idea to found 
a military government in the new world, reaching 
with a line of forts and military possession from 
Quebec, Canada, to at least the Gulf, if not, as 
some have supposed, extending through Mexico. 
He explored the country lying between the North- 
ern lakes and the Ohio River. He raised a fgrce 
in Canada and sailed through Green Bay, and, 
sending back his boat laden with furs, proceeded 
with his party to the head waters of the Illinois 
River and built Fort Creve Cceur. He detached 
Hennepin with one companion and sent him to hunt 
the source of the Mississippi. He placed Tonti in 
command of Creve Cceiu', with five men, and him- 
self returned to Canada in the latter part of 1681, 
where he organized a new party with canoes, 
and went to Chicago: crossing the long portage 
from there to the Illinois River, he floated down 



that stream to the Mississippi and on to the Gulf 
of Mexico, discovering the mouth of the Mississippi 
River April T). 1082, and three days after, with 
becoming pomp and ceremony, took possession, in 
the name of France, of the territory, and named it 
Louisiana, in honor of his king, Louis XIV. The 
vast region thus acquired by France was not, as it 
could not be, well defined, but it was intended 
to embrace, iu addition to much east of the 
Mississip])i River, all the continent west of that 
current. 

After this expedition La Salle returned to 
France, fitted out another expedition and set sail, 
ostensibly to reach the mouth of the Mississippi 
River and pass up that stream. He failed to find 
the river, and landed his fleet at Metagordo Bay, 
Texas, where he remained two years, when with a 
part of his force he started to reach Canada via 
Fort St. Louis, but was assassinated by one of his 
men near the Trinity River, Texas, March lU, 
1687, and his body, together with that of his 
nephew, was left on the Texas prairie to the beasts 
and buzzards. La Salle was a born commander 
of men, a great explorer, with vast projects of 
empire far beyond the comprehension of his 
wretched king, or the appreciation of his country- 
men. Had he been supported by a wise and strong 
government, France would never, perhaps, have 
been dispossessed of the greatest inter-continental 
colonial empire on earth — from the Alleghanies to 
the Rocky Mountains. This was, in fact, the 
measure of the territory that La Salle' s expedition 
and military possession gave to France. The two 
great ranges of mountains, the north pole and 
South America, were really the boundary lines of 
Louisiana, of which permanent ownership belonged 
forever to France, save for the weakness and inef- 
ficiency of that bete noire of poor, beautiful, sunny 
France — Louis XIV. In the irony of fate the his- 
torian of to-day may well write down the appella- 
tion of his toadies and parasites, as the grand 
monarque. La Salle may justly be reckoned one 
of the greatest founders of empire in the world, and 
had poor France had a real king instead of this 
weak and pompous imbecile, her tri-colors would 
have floated upon every breeze from the Allegha- 



nies to the Pacific Ocean, and over the islands of 
more than half of the waters of the globe. 

The immensity of the Louisiana Territory has 
been but little understood by historians. It was 
the largest and richest province ever acquired, and 
the world's history since its establishment has 
been intimately connected with and shaped by its 
influence. Thus the account of the Territory of 
Louisiana is one of the most interesting chapters 
in American history. 

Thirteen years after the death of La Salle, 
1700, his trusty lieutenant, Tonti, descended the 
Mississippi River from the Illinois, with a band of 
twenty French Illinois people, and upon re;iching 
Arkansas Post, established a station. This was 
but carrying out La Salle's idea of a military pos- 
session by a line of forts from Canada to the Gulf. 
It may be called the first actual and intended per- 
manent possession of Arkansas. In the meantime, 
Natchez had become the oldest settled point in 
the Territory, south of Illinois, and the conduct of 
the commandant of the canton, Chopart, was laying 
the foundations for the ultimate bloody massacre 
of that place, in November, 1729. The Jesuit, Du 
Poisson, was the missionary among the Arkansans. 
He had made his way up the Mississippi and 
passed along the Arkansas River till he reached 
the prairies of the Dakotahs. 

The Chickasaws were the dreaded enemy of 
France; it was they who hurried the Natchez to 
that awful massacre; it was they whose cedar bark 
canoes, shooting boldly into the Mississippi, inter- 
rupted the connections between Kaskaskia and 
New Orleans, and delayed successful permanent 
settlements in the Arkansas. It was they who 
weakened the French empire in Louisiana. They 
coUeagued with the English, and attempted to 
extirpate the French dominion in the valley. 

Such was Louisiana more than half a century 
after the first attempt at colonization by La Salle. 
Its population may have been 5,000 whites and 
half that number of blacks. Louis XIV had 
fostered it by giving it over to the control of Law 
and his company of the Mississippi, aided by 
boundless but transient credit. Priests and friars 
dispersed through tribes from Biloxi to the Da- 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



•li 



kotahs, and propitiatpd the favor of the savages. 
But still the valley of the Mississippi remained a 
vcilderuess. All its patrons — though among them 
it counted kings and high ministers of state — had 
not accomplished for it in half a century a tithe 
of that prosperity which, within the same period, 
sprung naturally from the benovolouce of William 
Penn to the peaceful settlers on the Delaware. 

It required the feebleness of the grand mon- 
arque to discover John Law, the father of in- 
flated cheap money and national financial ruin. 
In September, 1717, John Law's Couij)any of the 
West was granted the commerce and control of 
Louisiana. He arrived at New Orleans with 800 
immigrants in August of that year. Instead of 
coming up the Mississippi, they landed at Dau- 
phine Island to make their way across by land. 
The reign of John Law's company over Ltmisiana 
was a romance or a riot of folly and extravagance. 
He was to people and create a great empire on 
cheap money and a monopoly of the slave trade. 
For fourteen years the Company of the West con- 
trolled Louisiana. The bubble burst, the dreams 
and illusions of ease and wealth passed away, and 
but wretched remnants of colonies existed, in the 
extremes of want and suffering. But, after all, a 
permanent settlement of the great valley had been 
made. A small portion of these were located at 
Arkansas Post, up the Arkansas River and on Red 
Rivei% and like the most of the others of Law's 
followers, they made a virtue of necessity and re- 
mained because they could not get away. 

John Law was an Englishman, a humbug, but 
a magnificent one, so marked and conspicuous in 
the world's history that his career should h&ve 
taught the statesmen of all nations the simple 
lesson that debt is not wealth, and that every at- 
tempt to create wealth wholly by legislation is sure 
to be followed by general bankruptcy and ruin. 

The Jesuits antl fur traders were the founders 
of Illinois; Louis XIV and privileged companies 
were the patrons of Southern Louisiana, while 
the honor of beginning the work of colonizing the 
southwest of our republic belongs to the illustri- 
ous Canadian. Lemoine D'II)erville. He was a wor 
thy successor of La Salle. He also sought to find 



the mouth of the Mississippi, and guided by floating 
trees and turbid waters, he reached it on March 
2, 1099. He perfected the line of communication 
between Quebec and the Gulf ; extended east and 
west the already boundless possessions of Franco; 
erected forts and carved the lilies on the trees of 
the forests; and fixed the seat of government of 
Louisiana at Biloxi, and appointed his brother to 
command the province. Under D' Iberville, the 
E'rench line was extended east to Pascagoula 
River; Beinvillo, La Sueur, and St. Denys had 
explored the west to New Mexico, and had gone 
in the northwest beyond the Wisconsin and the 
St. Croix, and reached the mouth of and followed 
this stream to the confluence of the Blue Earth. 
D'Iborville died of yellow fever at Havana, July 
9, 1700, and in his death the Louisiana colony 
lost one of its most able and daring leaders. But 
Louisiana, at that time, possessed less than thirty 
families of whites, and these were scattered on 
voyages of discovery, and in quest of gold and 
gems. 

France perfected her civil government over 
Louisiana in 1689, and a|)pointed Marquis de San- 
ville, royal viceroy. This viceroy's empire was as 
vast in teri'itory as it was insignificant in popula- 
tion — less than 300 souls. * By regular appoint- 
ments of viceroys the successions were maintained 
(including the fourteen years of Law's supremacy) 
until by the treaty of Fontainbleau. November 3, 
17G2, France was stripped of her American pos- 
sessions, and Canada and the Spanish Florida; 
everything east of the Mississippi except ^he 
island of New Orleans was given to England, 
and all Louisiana, including New Orleans west of 
the Mississippi River and south of the new .southern 
boundary line of Canada, was given to Si)ain, in 
lieu of her Florida possessions. Hence, it was No- 
vember 3, 1702. that what is now Arkansas passed 
from the dominion of France to that of Spain. 

The signing of this treaty made that day the 
most eventful one in the busy movements of the 

*The title of France to tlip t)Oiin<llcss contint's of 
Louisiana were conlirrneil by t'lc treaty of Utri'cbt. The 
contenlions l)etwtcn ICnitland anil France over the Ohio 
iinintry. afterward, are a pari of the aunals of the gen- 
eral history of the ciiMnirv. 



iu 



28 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



human race. It re- mapped the world, gave the 
English language to the American coutjuent, and 
spread it more widely over the globe than any that 
had before given expression to human thought, 
the language that is the alma mater of civil liberty 
and religious independence. Had France perma- 
nently dominated Ameiica. civil liberty and repre- 
sentative government would have been yet unborn. 
The dogmatic tyranny of the middle ages, with all 
its intolerance and war, would have been the herit- 
age of North America. 

Thus re-adjusted in her domain, Louisiana re- 
mained a province of Spain until October 1, 1800, 
when the Little Corporal over-ran Spain with his 
victorious legions, and looted his Catholic majesty's 
domains. Napoleon allowed his military ambition 
to dwarf his genius, and except for this curious 
fact, he was the man who would have saved and 
disenthralled the French mind, and have placed 
the Gaul, with all his volcanic forces, in an even 
start in the race of civilization with the invincible 
and cruel Anglo-Saxon. He was the only man of 
progressive genius that has ever ruled poor, un- 
fortunate France. The treaty of St. Ildefonso, 
secretly transfeiTing Louisiana from Spain again 
into the possession of France, was ratified .March 24, 
1801. Its conditions provided that it was to re- 
main a secret, and the Spanish viceroy, who was 
governor of Louisiana, knew nothing of the trans- 
fer, and continued in the discharge of his duties, 
granting rights, creating privileges and deeding 
lands and other things that were inevitable in 
breeding confusions, and cloudy land titles, such as 
would busy the courts for a hundred years, inflict- 
ing injustice and heavy burdens upon many inno- 
cent people. 

In 1802 President Jefferson became possessed 
of the secret that France owned Louisiana. He 
at once sent James Monroe to Paris, who, with the 
resident minister, Mr. Livingston, opened negotia- 
tions with Napoleon, at first only trying to secure 
the free navigation of the Mississippi River, but to 
their great surprise the Emperor more than met 
them halfway, with a proposal to sell Louisiana to 
the United States. The bargain was closed, the 
consideration being the paltry sum of $15,000,000. 



This imj)ortant move on the great chess-board of 
nations occurred April 30, 1803. The perfunc 
tory act of lowering the Spanish ensign and hoist- 
ing the flag of France; then lowering immediately 
the tri colors and unfurling the stars and stripes, 
it is hoped never to be furled, was performed at 
St. Louis March 0, 1804. Bless those dear old, 
nation-building pioneers! These were heavy drafts 
upon their patriotic allegiance, but they were equal 
to the occasion, and ate their breakfasts as Span- 
iards, their dinners as Frenchmen, and suppers as 
true Americans. 

The successful class of immigrants to the west 
of the Mississippi were the French Canadians, who 
had brought little or nothing with them save the 
clothes on their backs, and an old flintlock gun 
with which to secure game. They colonized after 
the French mode of villages and long strips of 
farms, and a public commons. They propitiated 
the best they could the neighboring Indian tribes, 
erected their altars, hunted, and frolicked, and 
were an honest, simple minded and just people, 
but little vexed with ambitioiis pride or grasping 
avarice. The mouth of the Arkansas River was 
the attractive jioint for immigrants on their way to 
the Ai'kansas Territory, and they would ascend that 
stream to Arkansas Post. There were not 500 
white people in the Territory of (now) Arkansas in 
1803, when it became a part of the United States. 
In 1810 the total population was 1,0(52. So soon 
as Louisiana became a part of the United States, 
u small but never ceasing stream of English speak- 
ing people turned their faces to the west and 
crossed the ' ' Father of Waters. ' ' Those for Ar- 
kansas established Montgomery Point, at the mouth 
of White River, making that the transfer place for 
all shipments inland. This remained as the main 
ship{)ing and commercial point for many years. 
By this route were transferred the freights for 
Arkansas Post. The highway from Montgomery 
Point to the Post was a slim and indistinct bridle 
path. The immigrants came down the Cumber- 
land and Tennessee Rivers to the Ohio in keel- 
boats and canoes, and were mostly from Tennes- 
see; beckoned to this fair and rich kingdom by its 
sunny clime, its mountains and rivers, and its pro- 



-rv" 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



2y 



ductive valleys, all enriched with a flora and fauna 
surpassing the dream of a pastoral poem. 

The French were the first permanent settlers 
of Arkansas, and descendants of these people are 
still here. Many bearing the oldest French names 
have attained to a position among the most emi- 
nent of the great men of the trans- Mississippi. 
Sometimes the names have become so corrni)ted as 
to be unrecognizable as belonging to the early illus- 
trious stock. The English-speaking people speak- 
ing French names phonetically would soon change 
them completely, The Bogys and Lefevres, for 
instance, are names that go back to the very first 
settlements in Arkansas. ' ' Lefevre ' ' on the maps 
is often spelled phonetically thus : ' ' Lafaver. ' ' 
Representatives of the Lefevre family are yet 
numerous in and about Little Rock, and in other 
portions of the State. 

Peter L. Lefevre and family were among the 
very first French settlers, locating in the fall of 
1818 on the north side of the river on Spanish 
Grant No. 497, about six miles below Little Rock. 
His sons were Peter. Enos, Francis G. , Ambrose, 
Akin, Leon and John B. , his daughter being Mary 
Louise. All of these have passed away except 
the now venerable Leon Lefevre, who resides on 
the old plantation where he was born in the year 
1808. For eighty- one years the panorama of the 
birth, growth and the vicissitudes of Arkansas 
have passed before his eyes. It is supposed of all 
living men he is the oldest representative surviving 
of the earliest settlers; however, a negro, still a 
resident of Little Rock, also came in 1818. 

The first English speaking settlers were Ten- 
nesseeans, Kentuckians and Alabamians. The ear- 
liest came down the Mississippi River, and then 
penetrating Ai'kansas at the mouths of the streams 
from the west, ascended these in the search for 
future homes. The date of the first coming of 
English speaking colonists may be given as 1807, 
those prior to that time being only trappers, 
hunters and voyagers on expeditions of discovery, 
or those whose names can not now be ascertained. 

South Carolina and Georgia also gave their 
small quotas to the first pioneers of Arkansas. 
From the States south of Tennessee the route was 



overland to the Mississippi River, or to some of its 
bayous, and then by water. A few of these from 
the Southern States brought considerable property, 
and some of them negro slaves, but not msmy 
were al)le to do this. The general rule was to 
reach the Territory alone and clear a small piece 
of ground, and as soon as possible to buy slaves and 
set them at work in the cotton fields. 

In 1814 a colony of emigrants, consisting of 
four families, settled at Batesville. then the Lower 
Missouri Territory, now the coimty seat of Inde- 
pendence County. There was an addition of fif- 
teen families to this colony the next year. Of the 
first was the family of Samuel Miller, father of 
(afterward) Gov. William R. Miller; there were also 
John Moore, the Magnesses and Beans. All these 
families left names permanently connected with 
the history of Arkansas. In the colony of 1815 
(all from Kentucky) were the brothers, Richard, 
John, Thomas and James Peel, sons of Thomas 
Peel, a Virginian, and Kentucky companion of 
Daniel Boone. Thomas Curran was also one of 
the later colonists from Kentucky, a relative of the 
great Irishman, John Philpot Curran. In the 1815 
colony were also old Ben Hardin — hero of so many 
Indian wars — his brother, Joab, and William 
Griffin, Thomas Wyatt, William Martin, Samuel 
Elvin, James Akin, John Reed, James Miller and 
John B. Craig. 

Alden Trimble, who died at Peel, Ark., in 
April, 1889, aged seventy-four years, was born in 
the Cal Hogan settlement, on White River, Marion 
County, June 14, 1815. This item is gained 
from the obituary notice of his death, and indicates 
some of the very first settlers in that portion of the 
State. 

Among the oldest settled points, after Arkan- 
sas Post, was what is now Arkadelphia, Clark 
County. It was first called Blakelytown, after 
Adam Blakely. He had opened a little store at 
the place, and about this were collected the first 
settlers, among whom may now be named Zack 
Davis, Samuel Parker and Adam Highnight. The 
Blakelys and the names given above were all locat- 
ed in that settlement in the year 1810. The next 
year came John Hemphill, who was the first to dis- 



30 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



cover and utilize the valuable waters of the salt 
sprin<js of that place. He engaged in the suc- 
cessful manufacture of salt, and was in time suc- 
ceeded by his son- in law, Jonathan O. Callaway. 
Jacob Barkman settled in Arkadelphia in 1811. 
He was a man of foresight and enterprise, and 
soon established a trade along the river to New 
Orleans. He commenced navigating the river in 
canoes and pirogues, and finally owned and ran in 
the trade the first steamboat plying from that 
point to New Orleans. He pushed trade at the 
point of settlement, at the same time advancing 
navigation, and opened a large cotton farm. 

In Arkansas County, among the early promi- 
nent men who were active in the county's affairs 
were Eli I. Lewis, Henry Scull, O. H. Thomas, 
T. Farrelly, Hewes Scull, A. B. K. Thetford and 
Lewis Bogy. The latter afterward removed to 
Missouri, and has permanently associated his name 
with the history of that State. In a subsequent 
list of names should be mentioned those of Will- 
iam Fultony, James Maxwell and James H. Lucas, 
the latter being another of the notable citizens of 
Missouri. 

Carroll County: Judges George Campbell and 
William King, and John Bush. T. H. Clark, Abra- 
ham Shelly, William Nooucr, Judge Hiram Davis, 
W. C. Mitchell, Charles Sneed, A. M. Wilson, 
Elijah Tabor, William Beller, M. L. Hawkins, 
John McMillan, M. Ferryman, J. A. Hicks, N. 
Rudd, Thomas Callen, W. E. Armstrong. 

Chicot County: John Clark, William B. Patton, 
Richard Latting, George W. Ferribee, Francis 
Rycroft, Thomas Knox, W. B. Duncan, J. W. 
Boone, H. S. Smith, James Blaine. Abner John- 
son, William Hunt, J. W. Neal, James Murray, 
B. Magruder, W. P. Reybiu-n, J. T. White, John 
Fulton, Judge W. H. Sutton, J. Chapman, Hiram 
Morrell, Reuben Smith, A. W. ^^'ebb. 

In Clark County, in the earliest times, were 
W. P. L. Blair, Coll)ert Baker, Moses Graham, 
Mathew Logan, James Miles, Thomas Drew, 
Daniel Ringo, A. Stroud, David Fisk and Isaac 
Ward. 

Clay County: John J. Griffin, Abraham Rob- 
erts, William Davis, William H. Mack, James 



Watson, J. G. Dudley. James Campbell, Single- 
ton Copeland, C. H. Mobley. 

Conway County: Judge Saffold, David Bar- 
ber, James Kellam. Reuben Blunt, James Barber, 
James Ward, Thomas Mathers, John Houston, E. 
W. Owen, Judge B. B. Ball, J. I. Simmons, T. S. 
Hayaes, B. F. Howard, William Ellis, N. H. 
Buckley, James Ward, Judge Robert McCall, W. 
H. Robertson, L. C. Griffin, Judge W. T. Gamble, 
D. D. Mason, George Fletcher and D. Harrison. 

Craighead County: Rufus Snoddy, Daniel 
O'Guinn, Yancey Broadway, Henry Powell, D. R. 
Tyler, Elias Mackey, William Q. Lane, John Ham- 
ilton, Asa Puckett, Eli Quarles, William Puryear. 

In Crawford County were Henry Bradford, 
Jack Mills, G. C. Pickett, Mark Beane, J. C. Sum- 
ner, James Billingsley. 

Crittenden County : J. Livingston, W. D. Fer- 
guson, W. Goshen, William Cherry, Judge D. H. 
Harrig, O. W. Wallace, S. A. Cherry, Judge 
Charles Blackmore, S. R. Cherry, John Tory, F. 
B. Read, Judge A. B. Hubbins, H. O. Oders, J. 
H. Wathen, H. Bacon. 

Fulton County: G. W. Archer, William Wells, 
Daniel Hubble, Moses Brannon, John Nichols, 
Moses Steward, Enos C Hunter, Milton Yarberry, 
Dr. A. C. Cantrell. 

Greene County: Judge L. Brookfield, L. 
Thompson, James Brown, J. Sutfin, G. Hall, 
Charles Robertson, Judge W. Hane, Judge George 
Daniel, G. L. Martin, J. Stotts, James Ratchford, 
Judge L. Thompson, H. L. Holt, J. L. Atkinson, 
J. Clark, H. N. Reynolds, John Anderson, Ben- 
jamin Crowley, William Pevehouse, John Mitch- 
ell, Aaron Bagwell, A. J. Smith, Wilej' Clarkson, 
^\■illiam Hatch. 

In Hempstead County: J. M. Steward, A. S. 
Walker, Benjamin Clark. A. M. Oakley, Thomas 
Dooley, D. T. Witter, Edward Cross, William 
McDonald, D. Wilbui-n and James Moss. 

Hot Springs Coiuity: L. N. West, G. B. 
Hughes, Judge W. Durham, G. W. Rogers, T. W. 
Johnson, J. T. Grant, J. H. Robinson. H. A. 
Wliittington, John Callaway, J. T. Grant, Judo-e 
G. Whittington, L. Runyan, R. Huson, J. Bank- 
son, Ira Robinson, Judge A. N. Sabin. C. A. Sa- 



i) ^T 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



:'l 



bin. W. W. McDaiiiel, W. Dimham, A. B. McDon- 
ald, Joseph Loranee. 

Independence County : R. Searcy, Robert Bean, 
Charles Kelly, John Reed, T. Curran, John Bean, 
I. Curran, J. L. Daniels, J. Redmon, John Rud- 
dell, C. H. Pelbam, Samuel Miller, James Micham, 
James Trimble, Henry Engles, Hartwell Boswell, 
John H. Ringgold. 

Izard County: J. P. Houston, John Adams, 
Judge Mathew Adams, H. C. Roberts, Jesse Adams, 
John Hargrove, J. Blyeth, William Clement, 
Judge J. Jeffrey, Daniel Jeffrey, A. Adams, J. A. 
Harris, W. B. Carr, Judge B. Hawkins, B. H. 
Johnson, D. K. Loyd. W. H. Carr, A. Creswell, 
H. W. Bandy, Moses Bishop. Daniel Hively, 
John Gray, William Powell Thomas Richardson, 
William Seymour. 

Jackson County: Judge Hiram Glass, J. C. 
Saylors. Isaac Gray, N. Copeland, Judge E. 
Bartley, John Robinson, A. M. Carpenter, Judge 
D. C. Waters, P. O. Flynn, Hall Roddy. Judge 
R. Ridley, G. W. Cromwell. Sam Mathews, Sam 
Allen, Martin Bridgeman, John Wideman, New- 
ton Arnold. Joseph Haggerton. Holloway Stokes. 

Jefferson County: Judge W. P. Hackett, J. T. 
Pullen, Judge Creed Taylor, Peter German, N. 
Holland. Judge Sam C. Roane, William Kinkead, 
Thomas O'Neal. E. H. Roane. S. Dardenne, Sam 
Taylor, Judge H. Bradford, H. Edgington, Judge 
W. H. Lindsey, J. H. Caldwell. 

Johnson County: Judge George Jameson, 
Thomas Jenette, S. F. Mason, Judge J. P. Kessie, 
A. Sinclair. William Fritz, W. J. Parks, R. S. 
McMicken, Augustus Ward. Judge J. L. Cravens, 
A. M. Ward, M. Rose, A. L. Black, W. A. Ander 
son. Judge J. B. Brown, A. Sinclair, William 
Adams. W. M. H. Newton. 

Lafayette County: Judge Jacob Buzzard, Jesse 
Douglass, Jo.shua Morrison. I. W. Ward, J. T. 
Conway, W. E. Hodges, J. Morrison, George Doo- 
ley, J. M Dorr, J. P. Jett, W. B. Conway, W. 
H. Conway, T. V. Jackson. G. H. Pickering, 
Judge E. M. Lowe, R. F. Sullivan, James Ab- 
rams. 

Lawrence County: Joseph Hardin. Robert 
Blane. H. Saridford. John Reed, R. Richardson, 



J. M. Kuykendall, U. R. Hyn.sou, James Camp- 
bell, 'D. W. Lowe, Thomas Black, John Rodney, 
John Spotts, William J. Hudson. William Stuart, 
Isaac Morris, William B. Marshall, John S. Fick- 
lin. 

Madison County: Judge John Bowen, H. B. 
Brown, P. M. Johnson, H. C. Daugherty, M. 
Perryman, T. McCuiston. 

In Miller County: John Clark. J. Ewing. J. H. 
Fowler. B. English, C. Wright, G. F. Lawson. 
Thomas Polk, George AVetmore, David Clark. J. 
G. Pierson, John Morton. N. Y. Crittenden, 
Charles Burkem, George Collum, G. C. Wetmore. 
D. C. Steele, G. F. Lawton and Judge G. M. 
Martin. 

Mississippi County: Judge Edwin Jones, J. 
W. Whitworth, E. F. Loyd, S. McLung, G. C. 
Bartield, Judge Nathan Ross, Judge John Troy, 
J. W. Dewitt, J. C. Bowen. Judge Fred Miller, 
Uriah Russell, T. L. Daniel, J. G. Davis, Judge 
Nathan Ross. J. P. Edrington. Thomas Sears. 
A. G. Blackmore, William Kellums, Thomas J. 
Mills, James Williams. Elijah Buford, Peter G. 
Reeves. 

Monroe County: Judge William Ingram, J. C. 
Montgomery, James Eagan, John Maddox, Lafay- 
ette Jones, Judge James Carlton, M. Mitchell. J. 
R. Dye, J. Jacobs. R. S. Bell. 

Phillips County: W. B. R. Horner. Daniel 
Mooney, S. Phillips, S. M. Rutherford, George 
Seaborn, H. L. Biscoe, G. W. Fereby, J. H. 
McKenzie, Austin Hendricks, W. H. Calvert, N. 
Righton, B. Burress, F. Hanks, J. H. McKe»l, 
J. K. Sandford, S. S. Smith, C. P. Smith. J. H. 
McKenzie. S. C. Mooney. I. C. P. Tolleson. Emer 
Askew, P. Pinkston, Charles Pearcy, J. B. Ford, 
W. Bettiss, J. Skinner. H. Turner and M. Irvin. 

Pike County: Judge W. Sorrels. D. S. Dickin- 
son, John Hughes, J. W. Dickinson. Judge W. 
Kelly, Isaac White, J. H. Kirkhan. E. K. Will 
iams, Henry Brewer. 

Poinsett County: Judges Richard Hall and 
William Harris. Drs. Theophilus Griffin and John 
P. Hardis, Harrison Ainsworth, Robert H. Stone, 
Benjamin Harris. 

Pope County: Judge Andrew Scott. Twitty 



32 



HISTOUY OF ARKANSAS. 



Pace. H. Stinnett, W. Garrott. AV. Mitchell. 
Judge S. K. Blythe, A. E. Pace, J. J. Morse, F. 
Heron, Judge Thomas Murray, Jr., S. M. Hayes, 
S. S. Haye.s, R. S. Witt. .Judge Isaac Brown, R. 
T. Williamson, W. W. Rankin, Judge J. J. Morse, 
J. B. Logan, W. C. Webb. 

Pulaski County: R. C. Oden, L. R. Curran, 
Jacob Peyatte, A. H. Renick, G. Greathouse, M. 
Cunningham, Samuel Anderson, H Armstrong, T. 
W. Newton, D. E. McKiimey, S. M. Rutherford. 

A. McHenry, Allen Martin, J. H. Caldwell. Judge 
S. S. Hall, J. Henderson, William Atchinson, R. 
N. Rowland, Judge David Rorer, J. K. Taylor, 
R. H. Callaway. A. L. Langham, Judge J. H. 
Cocke, W. Badgett, G. N. Peay, J. C. Anthony, 
L. R. Lincoln. A. Martin, A. S. Walker, Judge 
R. Graves, J. P. and John Fields, J. K. Taylor, 
W. C. Howell, J. Gould, Roswell Beebe, William 
Russell, John C. Peay. 

Randolph County: Judge P. R. Pittman, B. J. 
Wiley, William Black, R. Bradford, J. M. Cooper, 

B. J. Wiley, B. M. Simpson, John Janes, James 
Campbell, Samuel McElroy, Edward Mattis, 
Thomas S. Drew, R. S. Bettis. James Russell. 

St. Francis County: Andrew Roane, William 
Strong, S. Crouch, Judge John Johnson, T. J. 
Curl. G. B. Lincecum, William Lewis, Judge 
William Strong, Isaac Mitchell, David Davis, 
Isaac Forbes, Judge William Enos, N. O. Little, 
W. G. Bozeman, H. M. Carothers, Judge R. H. 
Hargrove, H. H. Cur], Cyrus Little. 

Saline County: Judge T. S. Hutchinson, Samuel 
Caldwell, V. Brazil, C. Lindsey, A. Carrick, Judge 
H. Pruddeu, G. B. Hughes, Samuel Collins, J. J. 
Joiner, J. R. Conway, R. Brazil, E. M. Owen, 
George McDaniel. C. P. Lyle. 

Scott County: Judge Elijah Baker, S. B. 
Walker, James Riley, J. R. Choate, Judge James 
Logan, G. Marshall, Charles Humphrey. A\'. Cau- 
thorn, G. C. Walker. T. J. Garner, Judge Gilbert 
Marshall, W. Kenner. 

Searcy County: .Judge William \\oi)d, William 
Kavauaugh, E. M. Hale, Judge Joseph Kea, Will- 
iam Ruttes, Joe Brown, V. Robertson, T. S. Hale, 
Judge J. Campbell. 

Sevier County: Judge John Clark, R. Hart- 



field, G. Clark, J. T. Little, Judge David Foran, 
P. Little, William White, Charles Moore, A. 
Hartfield, Judge J. F. Little, Henry Morris, 
Judge Henry Brown, George Halbrook, Judge 
R. H. Scott, S. S. Smith. 

Sharp County: John King, Robert Lott, Nich- 
olas Norris, William Morgan, William J. Gray, 
William Williford, Solomon Hudspeth, Stephen 
English. John Walker, L. D. Dale. John C. Gar- 
ner. R. P. Smithee. Josiah Richardson, Judge A. 
H. Nunn, William G. Matheny. 

Union County: John T. Cabeen, John Black, 
Jr., Judge John Black, Sr. , Benjamin Gooch, 
Alexander Beard, Thomas O'Neal, Judge G. B. 
Hughes, John Cornish, John Hogg, Judge Hiram 
Smith, J. R. Moore, John Henry, John Stokeley, 
Judge Charles H. Seay, W. L. Bradley, Judge 
Thomas Owens. 

Van Buren County: Judge J. L. Laferty, P. 
O. Powell, N. Daugherty, Philip WaU, L. Will- 
iams, Judge J. B. Craig, Judge J. M. Baird, J. 
McAllister, Judge William Dougherty, A. Mor- 
rison, George Counts, A. Caruthers, W. W. Trim- 
ble, R. Bain, J. O. Young. George Hardin, A. W. 
McRaines, Judge J. C. Ganier. 

Washington County: L. Newton, Lewis Evans, 
John Skeltou, Judge Robert McAmy, B. H. 
Smithsou, Judge John Wilson, James Marrs, V. 
Caruthers, James Coulter, J. T. Edmonson, Judge 
J. M. Hoge, James Crawford, John McClellan, 
Judge W. B. Woody, W. W. Hester, Judge John 
Cureton, L. C. Pleasants, Isaac Murpliy, D. Calla- 
ghan, Judge Thomas Wilson, W. L. Wallace and 
L. W. Wallace. 

White County: Judge Samuel Guthrie, P. W. 
Roberts, P. Crease. Michael Owens, M. H. Blue, 
S. Arnold, J. W. Bond, William Cook, J. Arnold, 
Milton Saunders, Jaues Bird, Samuel Beeler, 
James Walker, Martin Jones. Philij) Hilger, James 
King, L. Pate, John Akin, Reuben Stephens, Sam- 
uel Guthrie. 

Woodruff County: Rolla Gray, Durant H. 
Bell, John Dennis, Dudley Glass, Michael Hag- 
gerdon, Samuel Taylor, James Barnes, George 
Hatch, John Teague. Thomas Arnold and Thomas 
Hough. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



33 



The above were all prominent men in their lo- 
calities during the Territorial times of Arkansas. 
Many of them have left names and memories inti- 
mately associated with the history of the State. 
They were a part of those pioneers ' ' who hewed 
the dark, old woods away," and left a rich inheri- 
tance, and a substantial civilization, having wealth, 
refinement and luxuries, that were never a part of 
their dreams. They were home makers as well as 
State and Nation builders. They cut out the roads, 
opened their farms, bridged the streams, built 
houses, made settlements, towns and cities, render- 
ing all things possible to their descendants; a race 
of heroes and martyrs pre-eminent in all time for 
the blessings they transmitted to posterity; they 
repelled the painted savage, and exterminated the 
ferocious wild beasts; they worked, struggled and 
endured that others might enjoy the fruits of their 
heroic sacrifices. Their lives were void of evil to 
mankind; possessing little ambition, their touch 
was the bloom and never the blight. Granted, 
cynic, they builded wiser than they knew, yet they 
built, and built well, and their every success was 
the triumphant march of peace. Let the record of 
their humble but great lives be immortal! 

The New Madrid earthquake of 1811-12, com- 
mencing in the last of December, and the subterra- 
nean forces ceasing after three months' duration, 
was of itself a noted era, but to the awful display 
of nature's forces was added a far more important 
and lasting event, the result of the silent but 
mighty powers of the human mind. Simulta- 
neously with the hour of the most violent convul- 
sions of nature, the third day of the earthquake, 
there rode out at the mouth of the Ohio, into the 
lashed and foaming waters of the Mississippi, the 
first steamboat that ever ploughed the western 
waters — the steamer "Orleans," Capt. Roosevelt. 
So awful was the display of nature's energies, that 
the granitic earth, with a mighty sound, heaved 
and writhed like a storm-tossed ocean. The great 
river turned back in its flow, the waves of the 
ground burst, shooting high in the air, spouting 
sand and water; great forest-covered hills disap- 
peared at the bottom of deep lakes into which 
thev had sunk; and the "sunk lands" are to 



this day marked on the maps of Southeast Mis- 
souri and Northeast Arkansas. The sparse popu- 
lation along the river (New Madrid was a flourish- 
ing young town) fled the country in terror, leav- 
ing mostly their effects and domestic animals. 

The wild riot of nature met in this wilderness 
the triumph of man's genius. Where else on the 
globe so approjiriately could have been this meet- 
ing of the opposing forces as at the mouth of the 
Ohio and on the convulsed bosom of the Father of 
Waters? How feeble, apparently, in this contest, 
were the powers of man; how grand and awful the 
play of nature's forces! The mote struggling 
against the "wreck of worlds and crush of mat- 
ter." But, "peace be still," was spoken to the 
vexed earth, while the invention of Fulton will go 
on forever. The revolving paddle wheels were the 
incipient drive-wheels, on which now ride in tri- 
umph the glories of this great age. 

The movement of immigrants to Arkansas in 
the decade following the earthquake was retarded 
somewhat, whereas, barring this, it should and 
would have been stimulated into activity by the 
advent of steamboats upon the western rivers. The 
south half of the State was in the possession of 
the Quapaw Indians. The Spanish attempts at 
colonizing were practical failures. His Catholic 
majesty was moving in the old ruts of the feudal 
ages, in the deep-seated faith of the "divinity of 
kings,"' and the paternal powers and duties of 
rulers. The Bastrop settlement of "thirty fam- 
ilies," by a seigniorial grant in 1707. had brought 
years of suffering, disappointment and failure. 
This was an attempt to found a colony on*he 
Ouachita River, granting an entire river and a 
strip of land on each side thereof to Bastrop, 
the government to pay the passage of the people 
across the ocean and to feed and clothe them one 
year. To care for its vassals, and to provide 
human breeding grounds; swell the multitudes for 
the use of church and State; to "glorify God" 
by repressing the growing instincts of liberty and 
the freedom of thought, and add subjects to the 
possession and powers of these gild(>d toads, were 
the essence of the oriental schemes for peopling 
the new world. Happily for mankind they failed, 




and the wild beasts returned to care for their young 
in safety and await the coming of the real pioneers, 
they wlio came bringing little or nothing, save 



a manly spirit of self-reliance and independence. 
These were the successful founders and builders 
of eui]iirp in the wilderness. 



f mwii rw. 

— >.r-«^J^i.:e7'<JI9'^9{<#:/vl-■»->•«- 
OuGA^•IZATION.— The Viceroys ani> Goveknous— The Attiti de ov the Royal Owners of Louisiana- 
The District Divided— The Territory of Arkansas P'ormed from the Territory of Missouri 
—The Territorial Government— The First Legislature— The Seat of Government 
-Other Legislative IJodies— The Deullo— Arkansas Admitted to Statehood 
—The Constitutional Conventions— The Memorable Reconstruction 
Period— Legislative Attitude on the Question of Secession 
— Tni: War of the Governors, etc.. etc. 



I 










\t^<t ^- "^ *'^^ preceding chapter are 
.^.jk, - briefly traced the changes 



+■ i- < 



the 



the government of the 
Territory of Louisiana from 
its discovery to the year 
1803, when it became a 
part of the territory of 
United States. Discovered by 



the Spanish, possessed by the French, 
divided and re-divided between the 
French, Spanish and English; set- 
tled by the Holy Mother Church, 
in the warp and woof of nations it 
was the flying shuttle-cock of the 
great weaver in its religion as well 
as allegiance for 2(51 years. This 
foundling, this waif of nations, was 
but an outcast, or a trophy chained to the 
triumphal car of the victors among the warring 
European powers, until in the providence of God 
it reached its haven and abiding home in the 
bo.som of the union of States. 

As a French province, the civil government of 
Louisiana was organized, and the Marquis de San- 
ville api)oiuted viceroy or governor in 168U. 



UNDER FRENCH KDLE. 

Robert Cavelier ile La Salle (April 9. 

formal) 1683-1688 

Marquis de Sanville 1689-1700 

Bienville 1701-1712 

Lamolhe Cadillar 1713-1715 

De F/Epinay 1716-1717 

Bienville 1718-1723 

Boisbrianl (ad interim) 1724 

Bienville 1732-1741 

Baron de Kelerec 1753-1762 

DAI)badie 1763-1766* 

UNDER SPANISH RULE. 

Antonio <le Ulloa 1767-1768 

Alexaiuier O'Heilly 1768-1769 

Louis de Uiizaga 1770-1776 

Bernaiido de Galvez 1777-1784 

Estevar Miio 1785-1787 

Francisco Luis Hortu, Baron of Caron- 

delet 1789-1792 

Gayoso de Lemos 1793-1798 

Sebastian de Cosa Calvo y O'Farrell. . .1798-1799 
.luan Manual de Salcedo 1800-1803 

From the dates already given it will be seen 
that the official acts of Salcedo duiing his entire 

* Louisiana west of the Mississippi, altliougli ceded 
to Spiiiii in 1762, remained under French jurisdiction 
until 1766. 



i) fy 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



3r> 



term of office, under the secret treaty of Ildefonso, 
wen^ tainted with irre<:falarity. Thousands of land 
grants had been given by him after he had in fact 
ceased to be the viceroy of Spain. The contract- 
ing jjowers had affixeil to the treaty the usual ob- 
ligations of the fulfillment of all undertakings, but 
the American courts and lawyers, in that ancient 
spirit of legal hypercritical technicalities, had 
given heed to the vicious doctrine that acts in good 
faith of a de facto governor may be treated as of 
questionable validity. This was never good law, 
because it was never good sense or justice. 

The acts and official doings of these vice-royal- 
ties in the wilderness present little or nothing of 
intere.st to the student of history, because they 
were local and individual in their bearing. It 
was the action of the powers across the waters, in 
reference to Canada and Louisiana, that in their 
wide and sweeping effects have been nearly omnip- 
otent in shaping civilization. 

Referring to the acquisition of Canada and the 
Louisiana east of the Mississippi River, Bancroft 
says that England exulted in its conquest;* 
enjoying the glory of extended dominion in the 
confident expectation of a boundless increase of 
wealth. But its success was due to its having 
taken the lead in the good old struggle for liberty, 
and it was destined to bring fruits, not so much to 
itself as to the cause of freedom and mankind. 

France, of all the States on the continent of 
Europe the most powerful, by territorial unity, 
wealth, numbers, industry and culture, seemed 
also by its place marked out for maritime ascend- 
ency. Set between many seas it rested upon the 
Mediterranean, possessed harbors on the German 
Ocean, and embraced between its wide shores and 
jutting headlands the bays and open waters of the 
Atlantic; its people, infolding at one extreme the 
offspring of colonists from Greece, and at the 
other the hardy children of the Northmen, being 
called, as it were, to the inheritance of life upon 
the sea. The nation, too, readily conceived or aj)- 
propriated great ideas and delighted in bold re- 
solves. Its travelers had penetrated farthest -into 

*Bniicroft. vol. iv.— l.'iT; (layiirre's Histoire de la 
Loiiisiane, vol. ii.-131. 



the fearful interior of unknown lands; its mission 
aries won most familiarly the confidence of the 
aboriginal hordes; its writers described with 
keener and wiser observation the forms of nature 
in her wildness, and the habits and languages of 
savage man; its soldiers, and everj' lay Frenchman 
in America owed military service, uniting beyond 
all others celerity with courage, knew best how to 
endure the hardships of forest life and to triumph 
in forest warfare. Its ocean chivalry had given a 
name and a colony to Carolina, and its merchants 
a people to Acadia. The French discovered the 
basin of the St. Lawrence; were the first to ex- 
plore and possess the banks of the Mississippi, and 
planned an American empire that should unite the 
widest valleys and most copious inland waters in 
the world. But over all this splendid empire in 
the old and the new world was a government that 
was medieval^mured in its glittering palaces, 
taxing its subjects, it would allow nothing to come 
to the Louisiana Territory but what was old and 
worn out. French America was closed against even 
a gleam of intellectual independence; nor did all 
Louisiana contain so much as one dissenter from 
the Roman Church. 

" We have caught them at last,'' exiiltingly e,\- 
claimed Choiseul, when he gave up the Cauadas 
to England and the Louisiana to Spain. ■" Eng 
land will ere long repent of having removed the 
only check that could keep her colonies in awe. * 
* * She will call on them to support the Inn- 
dens they have helped to bring on her, and th(>y 
will answer by striking off all dependence, '' said 
Vergennes. 

These keen-witted Frenchmen, with a pene- 
tration far beyond the ablest statesmen of Eng 
land, saw, as they believed, and time has con- 
firmed, that in the humiliation and dismember- 
ment of the territory of France, especially tlie 
transfer to England of Canada, they had la d the 
mine which some day wouM destroy the British 
colonial system, and prolmbly eventuate in tlie 
independence of the American colonies. The in 
tellect of France was keeping step with the spirit 
of the age: it had been excluded of course from 
the nation's councils, but saw what its feeble 



1^ 



36 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



government neither could see nor prevent, that the 
distant wilderness possessed a far greater impor- 
taueo on the world's new map than was given it 
by the f^old and gems it was supposed to contain; 
and that the change of allegiance of the colonies 
was the great step in the human mind, as it was 
slowly emerging from the gloom and darkness of 
tht< middle ages. Thus it was that the mere Terri- 
tory of Louisiana, before it was peopled by civilized 
man, was playing its important part in the world's 
greatest of all dramas. 

The first official act of our government, after 
the purchase of Louisiana, was an act of Congress, 
March 20, 1 SO-t, dividing Louisiana into two dis- 
tricts, and attaching the whole to Indiana Terri- 
tory, under the government of William Henry 
Harrison. The division in Louisiana was by a line 
on the thirty-third parallel; the south was named 
the District of Orleans; that north of it was named 
the District of Louisiana. This is now the south 
line of the State of Arkansas. 

In 1805 the District of Louisiana was erected in- 
to the Territory of Louisiana. It was however a terri- 
tory of the second class and remained under the gov- 
ernment and control of Indiana Territory until 1812. 

By act of June 4, 1812, the name of Louisiana 
Territory was changed and became the Missouri 
Territory, being made a territory of the first class, 
and given a territorial government. Capt. William 
Clark, of the famous Lewis and Clark, explorers of 
the northwest, was appointed governor, remaining 
as such until 1819, when Arkansas Territory was 
cut off from Missouri. 

The act of 1812, changing the District of 
Louisiana to Missouri Territory, provided for a 
Territorial legislature consisting of nine members, 
and empowered the governor to lay ofF that 
part where the Indian title had been extinguished 
into thirteen counties. The county of New 
Madrid, as then formed, extended into the Arkan- 
sas territorial limits, "down to the Mississippi to 
a point directly east of the mouth of Little Red 
River; thence to the mouth of Red River; thence 
up the Red River to the Osage purchase," etc. 
In other words it did not embrace the whole of 
what is now Arkansas. 



December 13, 1813, the County of Arkansas, 
Missouri Territoiy, was formed, and the county 
seat was fixed at Arkansas Post.* 

Besides Ai-kansas County, Lawrence County 
was formed January 15, 1815, and Clark, Hemp- 
stead and Pulaski Counties, December 15, 1818. 

Missouri neglected it seems to provide a judi- 
cial district for her five southern or Arkansas 
counties. Therefore Congress, in 1814, authorized 
the President to appoint an additional judge for 
Missouri Territory, ' ' who should hold office four 
years and reside in or near the village of Arkan- 
sas," — across the river from Arkansas Post. 

March 2, 1819, Congress created the Territory 
of Arkansas out of the Missouri Territory. It was 
only a territory of the second class, and the ma- 
chinery of government consisted of the governor 
and three judges, who constituted the executive, 
judicial and legislative departments, their offi- 
cial acts requiring the consent of Congress. Pres- 
ident Monroe appointed James Miller, governor; 
Robert Crittenden, secretary; Charles Jouett, 
Andrew Scott and Robert P. Letcher, judges of the 
superior court. The act designated Arkansas Post 
as the temporary seat of government. In the ab- 
sence of the Governor, Robert Crittenden, "act- 
ing governor," convened the first session of the 
provisional government on August 3, 1819. The 
act continued the new territory under the laws of 
Missouri Territory. The five counties designated 
above as formed prior to the division of Arkansas, 
had been represented in the Missouri Territorial 
legislature. Elijah Kelly, of Clark County, was a 
representative, and he rode on horseback from his 
home to St. Louis. The se.ssion was probably not 
a week in length, and the pay and mileage little 
or nothing. 

This first Territorial legislature appointed a 
treasurer and auditor, provided a tax for general 
purposes, and divided the five counties into two 
judicial circuits: First. Arkansas and Lawrence 
Counties ; Second, Pulaski, Clark and Hempstead 
Counties. 

* During the latter purl of the eighteenth century, 
something of the same municipal division was made, and 
called " Arkan.sas Parish," the name being derived 
from an old Indian town called Arkausea. 






n Xj 



HISTORY Ol' AKKANSAS. 



37 



April 21, 18"i0, CoQgress passed aa act per- 
fecting the Territorial organization, and applying 
the same provisions to Arkansas that were contained 
in the act creating Missouri into a Territory of the 
tirst class. 

The first legislative body elected in Arkansas 
convened at Arkansas Post, February 7 to 24, 1820. 
In the council were: President, Edward McDonald; 
secretary, Richard Searcy; members, Arkansas 
County, Sylvanus Phillips; Clark County, Jacob 
Barkmau; Hem^jstead County, David Clark; 
Lawrence County, Edward McDonald; Pulaski 
County, John McElmurry. la the house of rep- 
resentatives: Speaker, Joseph Hardin (William 
Stephenson was first elected, served one day and 
resigned, on account of indisposition); J. Cham- 
berlain, clerk; members, Arkansas County, W. B. 
R. Horner, \V. O. Allen; Clark, Thomas Fish; 
Hempstead, J. English, W. Stevenson; Lawrence, 
Joseph Hardin, Joab Hardin; Pulaski, Radford 
Ellis, T. H. Tindall. This body later adjourned to 
meet October following, continuing in session until 
the 25th. 

At this adjourned session the question of the 
removal of the Territorial seat of government from 
Arkansas Post to "the Little Rock," came up on 
a memorial signed by Amos Wheeler and others. 
"The Little Rock" was in contradistinction to 
' ' the Rocks, ' ' as were known the beautiful bluffs, 
over 200 feet high, a little above and across the 
river from "the Little Rock." In 1820 Gov. 
Miller visited the Little Rock — Petit Rocher— 
with a view to selecting a new seat of government. 
The point designated was the northeast corner of 
the Quapaw west line and Arkansas River. Im- 
mediately upon the formation of the Territory, 
prominent parties began to look out for a more 
central location for a capital higher up the river, 
and it was soon a general understanding that the 
seat of government and the county seat of Pulaski 
County, the then adjoining county above Arkansas 
County on the river, would be located at the same 
place. A syndicate was formed and Little Rock 
Bluff was pushed for this double honor. The 
government had not yet opened the land to pub- 
lic entry, as the title of the Quapaws had just been 



extinguished. These parties resorted to the expe- 
dient of locating upon the land "New Madrid 
floats," or claims, under the act of February 17, 
1815, which authorized any one whose land had 
been " materially injured " by the earthquake of 
1811 to locate the like ijuantity of land on any of 
the public lands open for sale. Several hundred 
acres were entered under these claims as the fut- 
ure town site. The county seat of Pulaski County 
was, contrary to the expectation of the Little Rock 
syndicate, located at Cadron, near the mouth of 
Cadron Creek, where it enters the Arkansas River. 

On the 18th day of October, 1820, the Terri- 
torial seat of government was removed from the 
Post of Arkansas to the Little Rock, the act to 
take effect June 1, 1821. The next Territorial 
legislature convened in Little Rock, October 1 to 
24, 1821. The council consisted of Sam C. Roane, 
president, and Richard Searcy, secretary. In the 
house William Trimble was speaker, and A. H. 
Sevier, clerk. 

The third legislature met October '5 to 81. 
1823. Sam C. Roane was president of the coun 
cO, and Thomas W. Newton, secretary; while T. 
Farrelly was speaker, and D. E. McKinney. clerk 
of the house. 

The fourth legislature was held October 3 to 
November 3, 1825. Of the council, the president 
was Jacob Barkman; secretary, Thomas W. New 
ton. Of the house, Robert Bean was speaker; 
David Barber, clerk. 

The fifth Territorial legislature was held Octol)er 
1 to 31, 1827, and a special session held October 
G to October 28, 1828; E. T. Clark served as presi 
dent of the council, and John Clark, secretary ; 
J. Wilson was speaker of the house, and Daniel 
Ringo, clerk. 

In the sixth legislature, Charles Caldwell was 
president of the council, and John Caldwell, secre- 
tary; John Wilson was speaker of the house, and 
Daniel Ringo, clerk. 

The seventh legislature held October 3 to 
November 7, 1831, had Charles Caldwell as presi- 
dent of the council, and Al)salom Fowler, secre- 
tary; William Trimble was speaker "f tin- Imu^t., 
and G. A\'. Ferebee, secretary. 



In the eighth legislature, October 7 to Novem- 
ber 16, 183:5, John Williamson was president of the 
council and William F. Yeomans, secretary; John 
Wilson was speaker of the bouse, and James B. 
Keatts, clerk. 

The ninth legislature met October 5 to Novem- 
ber 10. 1885. The president of the senate was 
Charles Caldwell; secretary, S.T.Sanders. John 
Wilson was speaker of the house and L. B. Tully, 
clerk. 

This was the last of the Territorial assemblies. 
James Miller was succeeded as governor by George 
Izard, March 4, 1825. and Izard by John Pope, 
March 9, 1829. William Fulton followed Pope 
March 9, 1835. and held the o£&ce until Arkansas 
became a State. 

Robert Crittenden was secretary of State 
(nearly all of Miller' s term ' ' acting governor ' ' ), 
appointed March 3, 1819, and was succeeded in 
office by William Fulton, April 8, 1829; Fulton 
was succeeded by Lewis Randolph, February 23, 
1835. 

George W. Scott was appointed Territorial 
auditor August 5, 1819, and was succeeded by 
Richard C. Byrd, November 20, 1829; Byrd was 
followed by Emzy Wilson, November 5, 1831; and 
the latter by Milliam Pelham, November 12, 1833, 
his successor being Elias N. Conway, July 25, 1835. 
James Scull, appointed treasurer August 5, 
1819, was succeeded by S. M. Rutherford. Novem- 
ber 12, 1833, who continued in office until the 
State was formed. 

The counties in 1825 had been increased in num- 
ber to thirteen: Arkansas, Clark, Conway, Chicot, 
Crawford, Crittenden, Lawrence, Miller, Hemp- 
stead, Independence, Pulaski, Izard and Phillips. 
The territory was divided into four judicial cir- 
cuits, of which William Trimble, Benjamin John- 
son, Thomas P. Eskridge and James Woodson 
Bates were, in the order named, the judges. The 
delegates in Congress from Arkansas Territory were 
James W. Bates, 1820-23; Henry W. Conway, 
1823-29; Ambrose H. Sevier, 1829-36. 

The Territorial legislature, in common with all 
other legislatures of that day. passed some laws 
which would have been much better not passed, and 



others that remained a dead letter on the books. 
Among other good laws which were never enforced 
was one against duelling. In 1825 Whigs and 
Democrats allowed party feelings to run high, and 
some bloody duels grew out of the heat of cam- 
paigns. 

Robert Crittenden and Hemy W. Conway 
fought a duel October 29, 1827. At the first fire 
Conway fell mortally wounded and died a fortnight 
thereafter. 

December 4, 1837, John Wilson, who, it will 
be noticed, figured prominently in the preceding 
record of the Territorial assemblies, was expelled 
from the house of representatives, of which body 
he was speaker, for killing J. J. Anthony. 

A constitutional convention, for the purpose of 
arranging for the Territory to become a State in the 
Union, was held in Little Rock, in January, 1836. 
Its duty was to jii-epare a suitable constitution and 
submit it to Congress, and, if unobjectionable, to 
have an act passed creating the State of Arkan- 
sas. John AVilson was president, and Charles P, 
Bertrand, secretary, of the convention. Thirty- 
five counties were represented by fifty-two members. 

June 15, 1836, Arkansas was made a State, 
and the preamble of the act recites that there was 
a population of 47,700. 

The first State legislature met September 12 to 
November 8, 1836, later adjourning to November 
6, 1837, and continued in session until March 5, 
1838. The president of the senate was Sam C. 
Roane; secretary, A. J. Greer; the speaker of the 
house was John Wilson (he was expelled and 
Grandison D. Royston elected) ; clerk, S. H. Hemp- 
stead. 

The second constitutional convention, held 
January 4 to January 23, 1864, had as president, 
John McCoy, and secretary, R. J. T. White. This 
convention was called by virtue of President Lin- 
coln's proclamation. The polls had been opened 
chiefly at the Federal military posts, and the major- 
ity of delegates were really refugees from many of 
the counties they represented. It simply was an 
informal meeting of the Union men in response to 
the Pi'esident's wish, and they mostly made their 
own credentials. The Federal army occupied the 









HIST(JI{V OF ARKANSAS. 



39 



Arkansas River and points north, \vhik> the south 
portion of the State was held by the Confederates. 
It is said the convention on important legal ques- 
tions was largely influenced by Hon. T. D. W. 
Yonly, of Pulaski County. The convention prac- 
tically re-euacted the constitution of 18ii6, abolished 
slavery, already a fact, and created the separate 
office of lieutenant-governor, instead of the former 
ex-officio president of the senate. The machinery 
of State government was thus once more in oper- 
ation. The convention wisely did its work and 
adjourned. 

The next constitutional convention was held 
January 7 to February 18, 1868. Thomas M. 
Bowen was president, and John G. Price, secretary. 
The war was over and the Confederates had re- 
turned and were disposed to favor the constitution 
which they found the Unionists had adopted in 
their absence, and was then in full force in the 
State. Isaac Murphy (Federal) had been elected 
governor under the constitution of 1864, and all 
the State offices were under control of the Union- 
ists. His term as governor would expire in July, 
1868. 

This convention made sweeping changes in the 
fundamental laws. The most prominent were the 
disfi-anchisement of a large majority of the white 
voters of the State, enfranchising the negroes, and 
providing for a complex and plastic system of reg- 
istration. This movement, and its severe character 
throughout, were a part of the reconstruction 
measures emanating from Congress. Arkansas 
was under military rule and the constitution of 
1864, and this condition of affairs, had been ac- 
cepted by the returned conquered Confederates. 
But the Unionists, who had fled to the Federal 
military posts for protection, were generally eager 
to visit their vanquished enemies with the severest 
penalties of the law. A large part of the intel- 
ligence and tax payers of the State were indis- 
criminately excluded from the polls, and new vot- 
ers and new men came to the front, with grievances 
to be avenged and ambitions to be gratified. The 
unusual experiment of the reversal of the civic 
conditions of the ex-slaves with their former mas- 
ters was boldly undertaken. Impetuous men now 



prevailed in the name of patriotism, the natural 
reflex swing of the pendulum — the anti-climax was 
this convention of reconstruction to the convention 
of secession of 1861. The connection between 
these two conventions — 1861-1868 — is so blended 
that the convention of '61 is omitted in its chro- 
nological order, that the two may be set properly 
side by side. 

March 4, 1861, a State convention assembled 
in Little Rock. The election of delegates was 
on February 18, preceding. The convention met 
the day Abraham Lincoln was inducted into oflice 
as president of the United States. The people of 
Arkansas were deeply concerned. The conserva- 
tive minds of the State loved the Union as sin- 
cerely as they regretted the wanton assaults that 
had been made upon them by the extremists of the 
North. The members of that convention had 
been elected with a view to the consideration of 
those matters already visible in the dark war-clouds 
lowering upon the country. The test of the un- 
ion and disunion sentiment of that body was the 
election of president of the convention. Judge 
David Walker (Union) received forty votes against 
thirty-five votes for Judge B. C. Totten. Hon. 
Henry F. Thomasson introduced a series of con- 
servative resolutions, condemning disunion and 
looking to a convention of all the States to ' ' settle 
the slavery (juestion " and secure the perpetuation 
of the Union. The resolutions were passed, and 
the convention adjourned to meet again in May fol- 
lowing. This filled the wise and conservative men 
of the State with great hopes for the future. Bul^ 
most unfortunately, when the convention again 
met war was already upon the country, and the 
ordinance of secession was passed, with but one 
negative vote. The few days between the adjourn 
ment and reassembling of the convention had not 
made traitors of this majority that liad so recent- 
ly .condemned disunion. The swift-moving events, 
everywhere producing consternation and alarm, 
called out determined men. and excitement ruled 
the hour. 

The conventions of 18()1 and iSOb- sece.ssion 
and reconstruction I When the long - gathering 
cloud-burst of civil war had passed, it left a cen- 



40 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tury's trail of broken hearts, desolated homes, 
ruined lives, and a stream of demoralization over- 
flowiug the beautiful valleys of the land to the 
mountain tops. The innocent and unfortunate ne- 
gro was the stumbling-block at all times. The con- 
vention of 1861 would have founded an empire of 
freedom, buttressed in the slavery of the black man; 
the convention of 1868 preferred to rear its great col- 
umn of liberty upon the ashes of the unfortunate 
past: in every era the wise, conservative and patriotic 
sentiment of the land was chained and bound to 
the chariot-wheels of rejoicing emotion. Prudence 
and an intelligent insight into the future alone 
could prevent men from " losing their reason." 

The constitution of 1868, as a whole, was not 
devoid of merit. It opened the way for an age of 
internal improvements, and intended the establish- 
ment of H liberal pulilic free school system, and at 
the same time provided safeguards to protect the 
public treasury and restrain reckless extravagance. 

Then the legislatures elected under it, the State 
officers, and the representatives in the upper and 
lower Congress, were in political accord with the 
dominant party of the country. Gen. Grant was 
president; Powell Clayton, governor; Robert J. L. 
M'hite, secretary of State; J. R. Berry, auditor, 
and Henry Page, treasurer. The first legislature 
under the constitution of 18(kS passed most lilieral 
laws to aid railroads and other internal improve- 
ments, and provided a system of revenue laws to 
meet the new order of affairs. During 1869 to 
1871 railroad aid and levee bonds to the amount of 
$10,419,778.74 were issued. The supreme court 
of the State in after years declared the railroad 
aid. levee and Halford bonds void, aggregating 
$8,604,773.74. Before his term of governor had 
expired. Gov. Clayton was elected United States 
senator (1871-77), and in 1873 Hon. Stephen W. 
Dorsey was elected to a like position. 

The climax and the end of reconstruction in 
Arkansas will always be an interesting paragraph 
in the State' s history. Elisha Baxter and Joseph 
Brooks were the gubernatorial candidates at the 
election of 1872. Both were Repulilicans. and 
Brooks was considered one of the most ardent of 
that i)arty. Baxter was the nominee of the party 



and on the same ticket with Grant, who was can- 
didate for president. Brooks was nominated on a 
mixed ticket, made up by disaffected Republicans, 
but on a more liberal platform toward the Demo- 
crats than the regular ticket. On the face of the 
first retiu-ns the Greeley electors and the Brooks 
ticket were in the majority, but when the votes 
were finally canvassed, such changes were made, 
from illegal voting or bulldozing it was claimed, 
as to elect the Grant and Baxter tickets. Under 
the constitution of 1868, the legislature was de- 
clared the sole judge of the election of State officers. 
Brooks took his case before that body at its Jan- 
uary term, 1873 — at which time Baxter was in- 
augurated — but the assembly decided that Baxter 
was elected, and, whether right or wrong, every 
one supposed the question permanently settled. 

Brooks however, went before the supreme 
court (McClure being chief justice), that body 
promptly deciding that the legislature was by law 
the proper tribunal, and that as it had determined 
the case its action was final and binding. Bax- 
ter was inaugurated in January, 1873; had been 
declared elected by the proper authorities, and 
this had been confirmed by the legislature, the 
action of the latter being distinctly approved 
by the supreme court. The adherents of Brooks 
had supposed that they were greatly wronged, 
but like good citizens all acquiesced. Those 
who had politically despised Brooks — perhaps 
the majority of his voters — had learned to sym- 
pathize with what they believed were his and 
their mutual wrongs. Baxter had peacefully ad- 
ministered the office more than a year, when 
Brooks went before Judge John Whytock, of the 
Pulaski circuit court, and commenced quo warranto 
proceedings against Baxter. The governor's at- 
torneys filed a demurrer, and the case stood over. 
Wednesday, April 15, 1874, Judge Whytock, in 
the absence of Baxter's attorneys, overruled the de- 
murrer, giving judgment of ouster against Baxter, 
and instantly Brooks, with an officei', hastened to 
the State house, demanded the surrender of the 
office, and arrested Baxter. Thus a stroke of the 
pen by a mere circuit court judge in banc plunged 
the State into tumult. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



41 



Couriers sped over the city, and the flying news 
gave the people a genuine sensation. Indeed, not 
only Baxter but the State and the nation received 
a great surprise. 

As soon as Baxter was released, though only 
under arrest a few minutes, he fled to St. John's 
College, in the city, and from this headquarters 
called for soldiers, as did Brooks from the 
State house, and alas, poor Arkansas! there were 
now again two doughty governors beating the 
long roll and swiftly forming in the ranks of war. 
Brooks conv^Vted the State bouse and grounds 
into a garrison, while Baxter made headquarters 
at the old Anthonj' Hotel, and the dead-line be- 
tween the armed foes was Main Street. Just in 
time to prevent mutual annihilation, though not 
in time to prevent bloodshed, some United States 
soldiers arrived and took tip a position of armed 
neutrality between the foes. 

If there can be anything comical in a tragedy 
it is furnished just here in the fact that, in the 
twinkling of an eye, the adherents and voters of the 
two governors had changed places, and each was 
now fighting for the man whom he had opposed so 
vehemently. And in all these swift changes the 
supreme court had shown the greatest agility. 
By some remarkable legerdemain, Brooks, who was 
intrenching himself, had had his case again placed 
before the supreme court, and it promptlj' leversed 
itself and decided that the circuit court had juris- 
diction. The wires to Washington were kept hot 
with messages to President Grant and Congress. 
The whole State was in dire commotion with • ' mus- 
tering squadrons and clattering cars. ' ' The fre- 
quent popping of picket guns was in the land; a 
steamboat, laden with arms for Baxter, was at- 
tacked and several killed and many wounded. 
Business was again utterly prostrated and horrors 
brooded over the unfortunate State; and probably 
the most appalling feature of it all was that in the 
division in the ranks of the people the blacks, led 
by whites, were mostly on one side, while the 
whites were arrayed on the other. Congress sent 
the historical Poland Committee to investigate 
Arkansas affairs. President Grant submitted all 
legal questions to his attorney-general. 



The President, at the end of thirty days after 
the forcible possession of theofiice, sustained Bax- 
ter— exit Brooks. The end of the war. the cli- 
max of reconstruction in Arkansas, had come. 
Peace entered as .swiftly as had war a few days be 
fore. The sincerity and intensity of the people's 
happiness in this final ending are found in the fact 
that when law and order were restored no one was 
impeached, no one was imprisoned for treason. 

The report of the Poland Committee, 1874. 
the written opinion of Attorney- General Williams, 
the decision of the Arkansas supreme court by 
Judge Samuel W. Williams, found in Vol. XXIX of 
Arkansas Reports, page 173, and the retiring mes- 
sage of Governor Baxter, are the principal records 
of the literature and history of the reign of the 
dual governors. The students of law and history 
in coming time will turn inquiring eyes with 
curious interest upon these official pages. The 
memory of "the thirty days" in Arkansas will 
live forever, propagating its lessons and bearing 
its warnings; the wise moderation and the spirit 
of forbearance of the people, in even their exult 
ing hour of triumph, will be as beacon light.s 
shining out upon the troubled waters, transmit- 
ting for all time the transcendent fact that in the 
hour of supreme trial the best intelligence of the 
people is wiser than their rulers, better law- 
givers than their statesmen, and incomparably 
superior to their courts. 

The moment that President Grant officially 
spoke, the reconstruction constitution of 180S was 
doomed. True, the people had moved almost in 
mass and without leadership in 1873, and had 
repealed Article YIII of the constitution, disfran- 
chising a large part of the intelligent tax- payers 
of the State. 

The constitutional convention of 1874, with 
the above facts fresh before it, met and promul- 
gated the present State constitution. G. D. Roy- 
ston was president, and T. W. Newton, secr(>tary. 
The session lasted from July 14 to October 31, 
1874. From the hour of its adoption the clouds 
rolled away, and at once commenced the present 
unexampled prosperity of the State. Only here and 
there in Little Rock and other points in the State 



■I'i 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



may one see the mute but eloquent mementos of 
the past, in the dilapidated buildings, confiscated 
during the lifetime of some former owner, may- 
hap, some once eminent citizen, now in his grave 
or self expatriated from a State which his life 
and genius had adorned and helped make great. 
Municipalities and even small remote districts are 
paying off the last of heavy debts of the "flush 
times. ' ' Long suffering and much chastened State 
and people, forgetting the past, and full of hope for 
the future, are fitly bedecking (though among the 
youngest) the queenliest in the sisterhood of States. 
In this connection it will bo of much interest to 
notice the names of those individuals, who, by 
reason of their association with various public 
affairs, have become well and favorably known 
throughout the State. The term of service of each 
incumbent of the respective offices has been pre- 
served and is here given. The following table 
includes the acting Territorial and State governors 
of Arkansas, with date of inauguration, party pol- 
itics, etc: 









-= c = — 




c 


a 


.3^' = 


Sh 




















Ten iiory 


a 


Dale of E-i 


-1 •§! 


2= 


and State. 


"S 


Inauguration. 


a 


I-. I's 


>2 








be 


&S 


— 








.2 


^^ 




-^ 


James Miller... 


App't'd 


March 3, 1810 






George Izard... 


.\pp'ld 


March 4, 1825, 








Johu Pope 


App t'd 


March 9, 182'.i 








Wm. Fulton.... 


Appi'd 


March i>. 18;j5 








J. S. Coiiway.... 


1836 


.Septeuilier 13, 18:i6 4 yrs. 
Novemher 4,184ii4 yrs. 


Dem. 


I,I02M 


7,716 


Archibald Tell. 


184t 


Dem. 






Samuel Adams. 


Acting 


Apr. 29 to Nov. 9, 1844 








T. S. Drew 


1H4 


Novenihi-r .'i, IH44 .'» yrs. 


Dem. 


1,731 P 


17,.387 


J. WUIiamson. 


Acting 


Apr. 9 to May 7, 1S40; 








R, C.Kyid 


.\ciing 


Jan. 11 to A|ir. 19, 1»4<J| 








J. S. Roane 


1849 


April 19, 1849*1 


Dem. 


163 


6,809 


R. C. Byrd 


Acting 


1S49 








J. R. Hamptou 


Acting 


1851 








E. N. Conway.. 


185a 


November l.'i, l»;>a'4 yrs. 


Dem. 


3,027 


27,867 


E. N. Conway.. 


1864 


November 17, IS.'ifi 4 yrs. 


Dem. 


12,363 


43,861 


H. M. Rector... 


1861, 


November l.i, 1860 2 yrs. 


1. D. 


2,461 


61.198 


T. I'letcher 


Acting 


Nov. 4 to Nov. 1,1, 1863 


Con. 


(no re 


cord ) 


11. Flannagin.. 


IKBi 


Noveiiiber 15,1863.3 yrs. 


Con. 


10,013 


2ii,2<;6 


I. Murphy 


1864 


April 18, 18C,4| 


led. 


(no re 


cord) 


P. Clayton 


1868 


July 2, 186SI4 yr.s. 


Rep. 


(noie 


cord 1 


0. A. Hadley... 


Acting 


January 17, 1871,2 yrs. 


Rep. 


(no re 


cord ) 


E. Ha.xter 


1871! 


January 6, 1873)2 yrs. 


Rep. 


2,948 


80,721 


A. H. (iarland. 


1874 


November 13, 1874 2 yrs. 


Dem. 


76,4.53 




W. R. Miller.... 


1876 


January 11, I877|2 yrs. 


Dem. 


32,315 


108,633 


W. R. Miller.... 


1878 


January 17, 1879|2 yrs. 


Dem. 


88,7311 




T. .1. Churchill 


1880 


.lanuary 1.1,1881 


3 yrs. 


Dem. 


.52,761 


115,(119 


.T. 11. Herry 


1882 


January 1.3. I88;j 


2 vrs. 


Dem. 


28,481 


147,169 


n. T. Emiiry... 


Acting 


.Sep, 25 to Sep. 30,1883 










S. P. Hughes... 


1884 


January 17, 1885 


2 yrs. 




45,236 


166,310 


J. W. Staylon.. 


Acting 












S. P. Hugl.es... 


1886 




2 yrs. 


Dem. 


17,411 


163,889 


D. E. Barker... 


Acting 












J. P. Eagle 


1888 




2 yrs. 


Dem 


15.O0C 


187,.-!97 



*fiperiiil plection. 



The secretaries of Arkansas Territory have been : 
Robert Crittenden, appointed March 3, 1819; 
"William Fulton, appointed April 8, 1820; Lewis 
Randol|>h, appointed February 23, 1835. 

Secretaries of State: Robert A. Watkins, 
September 10, 1836, to November 12, 1840; D. 
B. Greer, November 12, 1840, to May 9, 1842; 
John Winfrey, acting. May 9, to August 9, 1842; 
D. B. Greer, August 19, 1840, to September 3, 
1859 (died); Alexander Boileau, September 3, 1829, 
to January 21, 1860; S. M. Weaver, January 21, 
1860, to March 20, I860; John I. Stirman, March 
24, 1860, to November 13, 1862; O. H. Gates, 
November 13, 1862, to April 18, 1864; Robert J. 
T. White, Provisional, from January 24, to January 
6, 1873; J. M, Johnson, January 6, 1873, to No- 
vember 12, 1874; B. B. Beavers, November 12, 
1874, to January 17, 1879; Jacob Frolich, January 
17, 1879, to January, 1885; E. B. Moore, January, 
1885, to January, 1889; B. B. Chism (present in- 
cumbent). 

Territoriiil auditors of Arkansas: George W. 
Scott, August 5, 1810, to November 20, 1829; 
Richard C. Byrd, November 20, 1829, to Novem- 
ber 5, 1831; Emzy Wilson, November 5, 1831, to 
November 12, 1833; William Pelham, November 
12, 1833, to July 25, 1835; Elias N. Conway, 
July 25, 1835, to October 1, 1836. 

Auditors of State: Elias N, Conway, October 

I, 1836, to May 17, 1841; A. Boileau, May 17, 
1841, to July 5, 1841 (acting); Elias N. Conway, 
July 5, 1841, to January 3, 1849; C. C. Danley, 
January 3, 1849, to September 16, 1854 (resigned); 
W. li. Miller, September 16, 1854, to January 23, 
1855; A. S. Huey, January 23, 1855, to January 
23, 1857; W. R. Miller, January 23, 1857, to March 
5, 1860; 11. C. Lowe, March 5, 'i860, to January 24, 
1861 (acting); W. E. Miller, January 24, 1861, to 
ApiillS, 1864; J. R. Berry, April 18, 1864, to Oc- 
tober 15, 1866; Stephen "Wheeler, January 6, 1873, 
to November 12, 1874; W, R. Miller, October 15, 
1866, to July 2, 1868: John Crawford, January 

II, 1877, to January 17, 1883; A. W. Files, Jan- 
uary, 1883, to January, 1887; William R. Miller 
(died in office), January, 1887, to November, 1887; 
W. S. Dunlop, appointed November 30, 1887, to 



,k 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



43 



January, 1889; W. S. Dunlop, January, 188U 
(present incumbent). 

Territorial treasurers: James Scull, August 15, 
1819, to November 12, 1833; S. M. Rutherford, 
November 12, 1833, to October 1, 1836. 

State treasurers: W. E. Woodruff. October 1, 
1836, to November 20, 1838; John Hutt, November 
20, 1838, to February 2, 1843; John C. Martin, 
Febriiary 2, 1843, to January 4, 1845; Samuel 
Adams, January 4, 1845, to January 2, 1849; Will- 
iam Adams, January 2, 1849, to January 10, 1849; 
John H. Crease. January 10, 1849, to January 26, 
1855; A. H. Rutherford, January 27, 1855, to Feb- 
ruary 2, 1857; J. H. Crease, February 2, 1857, to 
February 2. 1859 ; John Quindley, February 2, 1859, 
to December 13, 1860 (died); Jared C. Martin, 
December 13, 1860, to February 2, 1861; Oliver 
Basham, February 2, 1861, to April 18, 1864; E. 
D. Ayers, April 18, 1864, to October 15, 1866; L. 
B. Cunningham, October 15, 1866, to August 19, 
1867 (removed by military); Henry Page, August 
19, 1867 (military appointment), elected 1868 to 
1874 (resigned); R. C. Newton, May 23, 1874, to 
November 12, 1874; T. J. Churchill, November 
12, 1874, to January 12, 1881; W. E. Woodruff, 
Jr., January 12, 1881, to January, 1891. 

Attorneys-general: Robert W. Johnson, 1843; 
George C. Watkins, October 1, 1848; J. J. Critten- 
den, February 7, 1851; Thomas Johnson, Septem- 
ber 8, 1856: J. L. Hollowell, September 8, 1858: 
P. Jordon, September 7. 1861; Sam W. Williams, 
1862; C. T. Jordan, 1864; R. S. Gantt, January 
31, 1865; R. H. Deadman, October 15, 1866; J. R. 
Montgomery, July 21, 1S6S; T. D. W. Yonley, Jan- 
uary 8, 1873; J. L. Witherspoon, May 22, 1874; 
Simon P. Hughes, November 12, 1873, to 1876; W. 
F. Henderson, January 11, 1877, to 1881; C. B. 
Moore, January 12, 1881, to 1885; D. W. Jones, 
January, 18S5, to 1889; W. E. Atkinson. January, 
1889 (present incumbent). 

Commissioners of immigration and of State 
lands: J. M. Lewis, July 2. 1868; W. H. Grey, 
October 15, 1872; J. N. Smithee, June 5, 1874. 

These officers were succeeded by the commis- 
sioner of State lands, the first to occupy this position 
being J. N. Smithee, from November 12, 1874, to 



November 18, 1878; D. W. Lear, October 21, 1878, 
to November, 1882; W. P. Campbell, October 30, 
1882, to March, 1884; P. M. Cobbs, March 31, 
1884, to October 30, 1890. 

Superintendents of public instruction: Thomas 
Smith, 1868 to 1873; J. C. Corbin, July 6, 1873; 
G. W. Hill, December 18, 1875, to October, 1878; 
J. L. Denton, October 13, 1875, to October 11, 
1882; Dunbar H. Pope, October 1 1 to 30, 1882; 
W. E. Thompson, October 20, 1882, to 1890. 

Of the present State officers and members of 
boards, the executive department is first worthy of 
attention. This is as follows: 

Governor. J. P. Eagle; secretary of State, B. 
B. Chism; treasiu-er, William E. Woodniff, Jr.; 
attorney-general, W. E. Atkinson; commissioner 
of State lands, Paul M. Cobbs; superintendent 
public instruction, W. E. Thompson; State geolo- 
gist, John C. Brauner. 

Board of election canvassers: Gov J. P. Eagle, 
Sec. B. B. Chism. 

Board of commissioners of the common school 
fund: Gov. J. P. Eagle, Sec. B. B. Chism, Supt. 
W. E. Thompson. 

State debt board: Gov. J. P. Eagle: Aud. W. 
S. Dunlop, and Sec. B. B. Chism. 

Penitentiary board — commissioners: The Gov- 
ernor; the attorney -general, W. E. Atkinson, and 
the secretary of State. 

Lessee of penitentiary: The Arkansas Indus- 
trial Company. 

Printing board: The Governor, president; W. 
S. Dunlop, auditor, and W. E. Woodruff, Jr., 
treasurer. 

Board of railroad commissioners (to assess and 
equalize the railroad property and valuation within 
the State): The Governor, secretary of State and 
State auditor. 

Board of Trustees of Arkansas Medical College: 
J. A. Dibrell, M. D., William Thompson. M. D.. 
William Lawrence, M. D. 

The Arkansas Stiite University, at Fayetteville. 
has as its board of trustees: \\. M. Fishback, Fort 
Smith; James Mitchell, Little Rock; W. B. 
Welch. Fayetteville; C. M. Taylor. South Bend; 
B. F. Avery, Camden; J. W. Kessee. Latour; Gov. 



44 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Eagle, ex -officio: E. H. Murfree, president, A. I. 
U. ; J. L. Cravens, secretary. 

Of the Pine Bluff Normal, the president is J. 
Corbiu, Pine Bluff; the board is the same as that 
of the State University. 

Board of dental surgery: Dr. L. Augspath, 
Dr. H. C. Howard, Dr. M. C. Mar.'^hall. Dr. L. O. 
Roberts, and Dr. X. N. Hayes. 

State board of health: Drs. A. L. Brey- 
sacher, J. A. Dibrell, P. Van Patten, Lorenzo K. 
Gibson, W. A. Cantrell, V. Bruusou. 

Board of municipal corporations: Ex-officio — 
The Governor, secretary of State and State auditor. 

Board of education: The Governor, secretary 
of State and auditor. 

Board of review for donation contests: The 
Governor, auditor of Slate and attorney-general. 

Board of examiners of State script: The Gov- 
ernor, secretary of State and auditor. 

Reference to the presidential vote of Ai'kansas, 
fi'om the year 1836 up to and including the elec- 
tion of 1888, will serve to show in a general way 
the political complexion of the State during that 
period. The elections have resulted as follows:* 

1836— Van Buren (D), 2,400; Harrison (W), 
1,162; total 3,638. 

1840— Harrison (W), 5,160; Van Buren (D), 
6,049; Birney (A), 889; total 11,209. 

1844 Polk (D), 8,546; Clay (W), 5,5C4; 
total 15,050. 

1848— Taylor (W), 7,588; Cass (D), 9,300; 
total 16.888. 

* Scattering votes not given. 



1852— Pierce (D). 12,170; Scott, 7,404; 
total 19,577. 

1856— Buchanan (D), 21,910; Fillmore, 10,787; 
total 32,697. 

1860 — Douglas (D), 5,227; Breckenridge, 
28,532; Bell, 20,297. 

1864 -No vote. 

1868-Grant (K), 22,112; Seymour, 19.078: 
total 41.190. 

1872— Grant (R), 41.377; Greeley, 37.927; 
total 79,300. 

1876— Tilden (D), 58,360; Hayes (R). 38.669; 
total 97,029. 



42,435; Hancock (D), 
72,927; Blaine, 50,895; 
58,752; Cleveland (D), 



1880— Garfield (R), 
60,475; total, 107,290. 

1884— Cleveland (D). 
total, 125,669. 

1888— Harrison (R), 
88,962; Fisk, 593; total, 155,968. 

In accepting the vote of Arkansas, 1876, objec- 
tion was made to counting it. as follows: "First, 
because the official returns of the election in said 
State, made according to the laws of said State, 
show that the persons certified to the secretary 
of said State as elected, were not elected as 
electors for President of the United States at 
the election held November 5, 1876; and, sec- 
ond, because the returns as read by the tellers 
are not certified according to law. The objec- 
tion was sustained by the Senate but not sus- 
tained by the House of Representatives." 



* "^KS-)ii2V^* * 



f- 



-|^ 



A 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



45 



'-^ 



lifttmi ¥. 



Advancement of the State— Misconceptions Removed— Effects of Slavery upon AoiticrLTURE- 

EXTRAOKDINARY IMPROVEMENT SINCE THE War— ImPOUTANT SUGGESTIONS— COMPARATIVE 

Estimate of Products— Growth of the Manufacturing Interests- 
Wonderful Showing of Arkansas— Its Desirability as a 
Place of Residence— State Elevations. 



Look forwaril what's to ooiiie, and l)ack what's past; 
Thy life will be with praise and prudence graced; 
What loss or gain may follow thou may'st guess, 
Then wilt thou be secure of the success. — Denham. 




EFORE entering directly up- 
on the subject of the mate- 
rial life and growth of Arkan- 
sas, it is necessary to clear 
away at the threshold some 
of the obstructions that have 
lain in its pathway. From 
the earliest settlement slav- 
^M WT^ P^^ ^^y existed, and the nergo 

slave was brought with the 
tirst agricultural communities. Slave 
labor was profitable in but two things 
— cotton and sugar. Arkansas was 
north of the sugar cane belt, but was a 
splendid field for cotton growing. Slave 
labor and white labor upon the farms 
were never congenial associates. These 
things fixed rigidly the one road in the 
agricultui'al progress of the State. 
What was therefore the very richness 
of heaven's bounties, became an incubus upon the 
general welfare. The fertile soil returned a rich 
reward even with the slovenly applied energies of 
the slaves. A man could pay perhaps $1,000 for 
a slave, and in the cotton field, but really nowhere 
else, the investment would yield an enormous profit. 



The loss in waste, or ill directed labor, in work 
carelessly done, or the want of preparation, tools 
or machinery, or any manner of real thrift, gave 
little or no concern to the average agriculturist. 
For personal comfort and large returns upon invest- 
ments that required little or no personal attention, 
no section of the world ever surpassed the United 
States south of the 36° of north latitude. Wealth 
of individuals was rated therefore by the number 
of slaves one possessed. Twenty hands in the cot- 
ton field, under even an indifferent overseer, with 
no watchful car« of the master, none of that saving 
frugality in the farming so imperative elsewhere 
upon farms, returned every year an income whicn 
would enable the family to spend their lives trav- 
eling and sight-seeing over the w'orld. The rich 
soil required no care in its tilling from the owner. 
It is the first and strongest principle in human na- 
ture to seek its desires through the least exertion. 
To raise cotton, ship to market and dispose of it, 
purchasing whatever was wanted, was the inevi- 
table result of such conditions. This was by far the 
easiest mode, and hence manufactures, diversity of 
farming or farming pursuits, were not an impera- 
tive necessity — indeed, they were not felt to be ne- 
cessities at all. The evil, the blight of slavery 



:7- 



46 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



upon the whites, was well understood by the intel- 
ligence of the South, by even those who had learned 
to believe that white labor could not and never 
would be prolitable in this latitude; that — most 
strange! the white man who labored at manual 
lal)or, must be in the severe climate and upon the 
stubborn New England soil. It was simply effect 
following cause which made these people send off 
their childi'en to school, and to buy their every want, 
both necessaries and luxuries — importing hay, corn, 
oats, bacon, mules, horses and cattle even from 
Northern States, when every possible natural ad- 
vantage might be had in producing the same things 
at ho-ne. It was the easiest and cheapest way to do. 
In the matter of dollars and cents, the destroying 
of slavery was, to the farmers of the Upper Missis- 
sippi Valley, a permanent loss. Now the New South 
is beginning to send the products of its farms and 
gardens even to Illinois. The war, the abolition 
of slavery, the return of the Confederates to their 
desolated homes, and their invincible courage in 
rolling up their sleeves and going to work, and the 
results of their labors seen all over the South, form 
one of the grandest disjalays of the development of 
the latent forces of the great American people 
that can be found in history. 

There is not a thing, not even ice, but that, in 
the new social order of Arkansas, it can produce 
for its own use quite as well as the most favored 
of Northern States. The one obstruction in the 
way of the completed triumph of the State is the 
lingering idea among farmers that for the work of 
raising cotton, black labor is better than white. 
This fallacy is a companion of the old notion that 
slavery was necessary to the South. Under proper 
Huspices these two articles of Arkansas — cotton 
iuul lumber — alone may make of it the most pros- 
perous State in the Union ; and the magician's 
wand to transform all this to gold is in securing the 
intelligent laborer of the North, far more than the 
Northern capital prayed for by so many. The North 
lias its homeless millions, and the recent lessons 
in the opening of Oklahoma should be promptly 
appreciated by the people of this State. For the 
next decade to manufacture every pound of cotton 
raised in the State, as. well as husbanding and man- 



ufacturing all the lumber fi-om these grand old for- 
ests, is to solve the questions in the race of State 
prosperity and general wealth among the people. 
When free labor supplanted slave labor what a won- 
derful advance it gave the whole section; when in- 
telligent skilled labor supplants ignorance and un- 
skilled labor, what a transcendent golden epoch 
will dawn. There is plenty of capital to-day in the 
State, if it was only jjut in proper co-operative 
form, to promote the establishment of manu- 
factories that would liberally reward the stock- 
holders, and make them and Arkansas the richest 
people in the world. Such will attract hundreds of 
thousands of intelligent and capable wage workers 
from tlie North, from all over the world, as well as 
the nimble-witted farm labor in the gardens, the 
orchards, the fields and the cotton plantations. This 
will bring and add to the present profits on a bale 
of cotton, the far richer dividend on stocks in fac- 
tories, banks, railroads and all that golden stream 
which is so much of modern increase in wealth. 
The people of Arkansas may just as well have this 
incalculable abundance as to not have it, and at the 
same time pay enormous premiums to others to come 
and reap the golden harvests. Competent labor- 
ers — skilled wage workers, the brawn and brain 
of the land — are telling of their unrest in strikes, 
lockouts, combinations and counter combinations; 
io short, in the conflict of labor and capital, they 
are appealing strongly to be allowed to come to 
Arkansas — not to enter the race against ignorant, 
incapable labor, but simply to find employment and 
homes, where in comfort and plenty they can rear 
their families, and while enriching themselves to 
return profits a thousand fold. Don't fret and 
mope away your lives looking and longing for capi- 
tal to enter and develop your boundless resources. 
Capital is a royal good thing, but remember it is 
even a better thing in your own pockets than in 
some other piu-sou's. Open the way for proper, 
useful labor to come and find emj)loyment ; each 
department, no matter how small or humble the 
beginning, once started will grow rapidly, and the 
problem will have been solved. Onlj^ by the North 
taking the raw product of the South and putting it 
in the hands of skilled labor has their enormous 



k_ 



-—4-^.. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



47 



capital been secured. The protits on high priced 
Labor will always far excel that oa ignorant or cheap 
workmen. The time is now when this kind of 
labor and the small farmers and gardeners are 
awaiting a bidding to enter Arkansas. When the 
forlorn hope returned from the late war, they met 
the stern necessity, and demonstrated the fact that 
here, at least, the people can create their own capi- 
tal. Let them now anticipate the future by this 
heroic triumph of the past. The Gods help those 
only who help themselves. 

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

but in ourselves." 

To the Northern home- seeker the thing of tirst 
importance is to tell of the temperate climate at all 
seasons, and its extraordinary healthfulness, cur- 
ing him of the false idea spread so wide that the 
topography of the State is seen from the decks 
of steamers, or on the lines of railroad which are 
built along the .swamps and slashes, mostly on ac- 
count of the easy grades on these lines. Then show 
from the records the low rate of taxation and the 
provisions of the law by which high taxation is for- 
ever prevented. From this preliminary may be 
unfolded to him some of the wonderful natural re- 
sources which are awaiting development. Here 
both tongue and pen will fall far short of telling all 
or nearly all. In climate, health, soil, timber, 
minerals, coal, rocks, clays, marls, sand, navigable 
streams, mineral and fresh waters, Arkansas may 
challenge any similar sized spot on the globe. It 
has more miles of navigable streams than any other 
State in the Union, and these are so placed as to 
give the whole territory the advantages thereof, as 
though the engineers had located them. It has 
unequaled water power — the Mammoth Spring 
alone furnishing enough water power to propel all 
the machinery west of the Mississippi River. The 
topograj)hy of the State is one of its most inviting 
features. Its variety in this respect is only equaled 
by the diversity of its soils. The traveler who in 
approaching this section concludes that it consists 
chiefly of swamp bottoms, and water-covered 
slashes, may readily learn from the records that 
three-quarters of the State's .surface is uplands, 
ranging from the gentle swells of prairie and 



woodland to the grandly beautiful mountain scen- 
ery; and on the mountain benches, and at the base, 
are as rich and beautiful valleys as are kissed by the 
rays of the sun in his season's round. Take the 
whole range of agricultural products of Ohio, Ind- 
iana, Illinois and Kansas, and all can lie produced 
(piite as well in Arkansas as in any of these States. 
In the face of this fact, for more than a genera- 
tion Arkansas raised scarcely any of the products 
of these Northern communities, but importeil such 
as it had to have. It could not spare its lands from 
the cultivation of the more profitable crops of 
cotton. In a word, the truth is the State was bur- 
dened with natural wealth — this and slave labor 
having clogged the way and impeded its progress. 
With less labor, more cotton per acre and ])erhand, 
on an average, has been produced in Arkansas than 
in any other Southern State, and its quality has been 
such as to win the prize wherever it has been en- 
tered in competition. Its reputation as a fruit- 
growing State is not excelled. In the New Orleans 
Exposition, in California. Ohio and everywhere en- 
tered, it has taken the premium over all competi- 
tors. Its annual rainfall exceeds that of any South - 
era State, and it cannot, therefore, suffer seriously 
from drouths. There is not a spot upon the globe 
which, if isolated from all outside of its limits, 
could .sustain in health and all the civilized comforts 
a population as large as might Arkansas. Fifty 
thousand people annually come hither and are 
cured, and yet a general nebulous idea prevails 
among many in the North that the health <md cli- 
mate of the State are not good. The statistics of 
the United States Medical Department show the 
mortality rate at Little Rock to be less than at any 
other occupied military post in the coimtry. There 
is malaria in portions of the State, but considering 
the vast bottom stretches of timber-land, and the 
newness of the country's settlement, it is a remark- 
able fact that there is less of this .disease here 
than in Pennsylvania; while all the severer diseases 
of the New England and Northern States, such as 
rheumatism, consumption, catarrh and blood poi- 
son, are always relieved and generally cured in 
Arkansas; malignant scarlet fever and diphtheria 
have never yet appeared. That dreadful deciruator, 



e k^ 



48 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



yellow fever, has only visited the eastern portion of 
the State, but in every case it was brought from 
abroad, and has never prevailed in this locality as an 
epidemic. Therefore, the largest factories, schools 
and universities in the world should be here. The 
densest population, the busiest haunts of men, will 
inevitably come where their rewards will be great- 
est — the struggle for life less severe. Five hun- 
dred inhabitants to the square mile will not put to 
the full test the limitless resources of this wonder- 
ful commonwealth. Ten months of summer with- 
out one torrid day, with invariable cool and re- 
freshing nights, and two mouths only of winter, 
where a man can work out of doors every day in 
the year in comfort, with less cost in physician's 
bills, expense in food, clothing and housing, are 
some of the inducements the State offers to the 
poor man. There are millions of acres of fertile 
lands that are offered almost without money and 
without price; land nearly any acre of which is 
worth more intrinsically than any other similar 
sized body of land in the world. There are 
5,000,000 acres of government lands in the State, 
and 2,000,000 acres of Stiite lands. The rainfall in 
1880 was 40.38; average mean temperature, 58.7"; 
highest, 97.8°; lowest, above zero, 7.6°. Of the 
33,500,000 acres in the State there are soils richer 
and deeper than the Nile; others that excel the 
alluvial corn belt of the Northern States; others 
thatmay successfully compete with the noted Cuba 
or James River, Virginia, tobacco red soil districts, 
or the most noted vineyards of France or Italy. 
Here is the land of wine and silk, where side by side 
will grow the corn and the fig— the land overhung 
with the soft, blue skies, and decked with flowers, 
the air laden with the rich perfumes of the magno- 
lias, on the topujost pinnacle of whose branches the 
Southern mocking-bird by day and by night swells 
its throat with song — 

" Where all, save the spiril ol iiiau. is (iiviiio." 

The artificial and local causes which have ob- 
structed the State's prosperity are now forever 
gone. There is yet the unsolved problem of the 
political negi-o, but this is in Illinois, Kansas and 
Ohio, exactly as it is in Arkansas. It is onlv the 



^^ 



common problem to the Anglo-Saxon of the United 
States, which, in the future as in the past, after 
many mistakes and even great wi-ongs, he will for- 
ever settle and for the best. Throw politics to the 
winds; only remember to profit by the mistakes of 
the North in inviting immigration, and thereby 
avoid the ominous presence of anarchism, socialism, 
and those conditions of social life latent in ' ' the 
conflict of labor and capital." These are some of 
the portentous problems now confronting the older 
States that are absent from Arkansas^ they should 
be kept away, by the knowledge that such ugly 
conditions are the fanged whelps of the great 
brood of American demagogues — overdoses of 
politics, washed down by too much universal vot- 
ing. It is of infinitely more importance to guard 
tax-receipts than the ballot boxes. When vice and 
ignorance vote their own destruction, there need be 
no one to compassionate their miseries, but always 
where taxes run high, people's liberties run low. 
The best government governs the least — the freest 
government taxes the least. 

Offer premiums to the immigration of well- 
informed, expert labor, and small farmers, dairy- 
men, gardeners and horticulturists and small trad- 
ers. Let the 7,000,000 acres of government and 
State lands be given in forty-acre tracts to the 
heads of families, who will come and occupy them. 
Instead of millions of dollars in donations to great 
corporations and capitalists, give to that class which 
will create capital, develop the State, and enrich 
all the people. Railroads and capitalists will fol- 
low these as water runs down the hill. Arkansas 
needs railroads — ten thousand miles yet — it needs 
great factories, great cities, universities of learn- 
ing and, forsooth, millionaires. But its first and 
greatest needs are small farmers, practical toil- 
ers, skilled mechanics, and scattered all over the 
State beginnings in each of the various manufac- 
tures; the beginnings, in short, of that auspicious 
hour when it ceases to ship any of its raw mate- 
rials. It is a law of life, that, in a society where 
there are few millionaires, there are few paupers. 
Where the capital of a country is gathered in vast 
aggregations in the possession of a few. there the 
children cry for bread — the poor constantly in- 



=:x: 



J, 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



49 



crease, wages fall, employment too often fails, and 
the hoarse mutterings of parading mobs and bread 
riots take the places of the laughter and the sougs 
of the laborers to and from the shops and the 
fields. 

The following from the government official re- 
ports of the growth and value of the manufactures 
of the State is to be understood as reaching only 
to 1880, when it had but commenced to emerge 
from the old into the new life: 





S 












DO 


m 




9) 

B 


n 


n 


S 


a 


00 




3 


Year. 


x: 


'S. 


13 




•o 


S 


sQ 


£ 




3 


5 


S 


& 


ja 


fe 




0) 

3 






















w 












> 


^ 


1860 


261 


$ 305,045 


812 


30 




$150,876 
554,240 
fi73,96i 
925,358 


8 215 789 


$ 537,908 
2,880,-578 
4,629,234 
6,756,159 


1860 


518 


1,316,610 
1,782,913 
2,953,130 


1,831 
3,077 
4,307 


46 




1/280.M3 
2,506,998 
4,392,080 


1870 


1,070 


47 


fi? 


1880 


1,202 


90 


160 





Ideas of values are most easily reached by com- 
parisons. The following figures, taken from offi- 
cial government reports, explain themselves: 



Value of 
Farms. 


Machinery 


Live Stock. 


Producls. 




$ 74,249,6.55 
105,932.541 
507,430,227 
235,178,631 
193,724,260 


$ 4.637,497 
7,8211,915 

29,371,884 
9,734.6.34 

13,089,783 


8 20.472,426 
3.3,440,26.1 
124.71,5,103 


S43 796 ''6* 




31,708,914 
36,103.073 






Minnesota , 


31,904,821 49,468,967 



The products are the profits on the capital in- 
vested. Words can add nothing to these figures 
in demonstrating the superiority of Arkansas as 
an agricultural State, except the explanation that 
Southern farming is yet more or less carried on 
under the baneful influences of the days of slavery, 
unintentional indifference and the absence of 
watchful attention by the proprietor. 

Cotton grows finely in all parts of this com- 
monwealth and heretofore in two-thirds of its terri- 
tory it has been the main crop. In the fertile 
bottoms the product per acre has reached as high 
as 2,000 pounds of seed cotton, while on the 
uplands it runs fi-om 600 to 1,000 pounds. The 
census of 1880 shows that Arkansas produces more 
cotton per acre, and at less expense, than any of 
the so-called cotton States. In 1880 the yield 
was TjOS. 256 bales, grown on 1,042,970 acres. That 



year Georgia raised 814,441 bales, on 2,617,138 
acres. The estimated cost per acre of raising cot- 
ton is $0. It will thus be seen that it cost 
$9,444,972 in Georgia to raise 256,185 more bales 
of cotton than Arkansas had grown — much more 
than double the land to produce less than one- 
fourth more cotton. Less than one-twentieth of 
the cotton land of the latter State has been brought 
under cultivation. 

The superiority of cotton here is attested by 
the fact that the greatest cotton thread manufact- 
urers in the world prefer the Arkansas cotton to 
any other in the market. The product has for 
years carried off the first prizes over the world's 
competition. 

The extra census bulletin, 1880, gives the yield 
of corn, oats and wheat products in Arkansas for 
that year as follows: Corn, 24,156,517 bushels; 
oats, 2,219.824 bushels; wheat, 1,269,730 bushels. 
Remembering that this is considered almost ex- 
clusively a cotton State, these figures of the cereals 
will be a genuine surprise. More wheat is grown 
by 40, 000 bushels and nearly three times as much 
corn as were raised in all New England, according 
to the official figures for that year. 

From the United States agricultural reports are 
obtained these interesting statistics concerning the 
money value of farm crops per acre: 





Corn. 


Rye. 


0at«. 


Potatoes.! 


Hay. 


Illinois 


1 6 77 

8 80 

11 52 

6 44 

7 52 
7 91 

11 SI 


$ 6 64 

7 30 
9 08 
5 98 
5 16 
7 32 
9 51 


$ 6 46 $30 32 

5 92i ;«) 08 
7 90 34 4S 

6 12 37 40 
5 34 43 .50 
5 78i 28 08 

11 07 78 631 


1 7 66 
7 66 


Ohio 


9 85 




17 TO 






14 95 


Arkansas 


33 94 



The following is the average cash value per 
acre on all crops taken together: 



Maine $13 51 

New Hampshire.... 13 .56 

Vermont 11 60 

Massachusetts 26 71 

Hhoile Island 29 32 

Connecticut 10 82 

New York 14 15 

New Jersey 18 05 

Penns3'lvania 17 68 

Delaware 15 80 

Maryland 17 82 

VirC'inia 10 91 



Xorlh Carolina $10 79 

Soiilh Carolina 10 Oil 

Georf;ia 10 35 

Florida 8 52 

Alabama 13 49 

Mississippi 14 76 

Louisiana 22 40 

Arkansas 20 40 

Tcnne.ssee 12 39 

West Vir<rinia 12 74 

Kentucky 13 58 

Ohio 15 68 



^ ^ 

^ 



IZ 



50 



HISTORY OF AKKANSAS. 



Michigan Sl8 96 

Indiana 14 66 

Illinois 13 47 

Wisconsin 13 80 

Minnesota 10 29 

Iowa 8 88 

Missouri 10 78 



Kansas f 9 11 

Nebraska 8 60 

Calilornia 17 18 

Oregon 17 11 

Nevada.Colorado and 

the Territories 16 13 

Texas 14 69 



The advance of horticulture in the past decade 
in the State has been extraordinary. Twenty years 
ago its orchard products amounted to very little. 
By the census reports of 1880, the total yield of 
fruit was SS07, 426. This was S 1 00, 000 more than 
the yield of Florida, with all the hitter's immense 
orange groves. As universally as has the State 
been misunderstood, it is probably in reference 
to its fruits and berries that the greatest errors 
have long existed. If one visits the apple and 
peach regions of the North, it is found to be the gen- 
eral belief that Arkansas is too far south to pro- 
duce either, whereas the truth is that, especially 
in apples, it has no equal either in the United 
States or in the world. This fact was first brought 
to public attention at the World's Fair, at New 
Orleans, 1884-85, where the Arkansas exhibit was 
by far the finest ever made, and the State was 
awarded the first premium, receiving the World's 
medal and a special notice by the awarding com- 
mittee. Thus encouraged, the State was repre- 
sented at the meeting of the American Pomological 
Society, in Boston, in September, 1887. Sixty- 
eight varieties of Arkansas seedling apples were in 
the exhibit, to contend with all tlic champion fruit 
growers of the globe. The State won the Wilder 
medal, which is only given by reason of extraor- 
dinary merit, and in addition to this was awarded 
the first premium for the largest and best collection 
of apples, consisting of 128 varieties. 

The collection which won the Boston prizes was 
then shipped to Little Rock, and after being on 
exhibition there twenty days, was re-packed and 
shipped to the National Horticultural meeting in 
California, which met at Riversid(!, February 7, 
1888. Arkansas again won the first prize, invad- 
ing the very home of Pomona, and bearing off the 
first honors as it had in eastern and northern sec- 
tions of the Union. The ' ' Arkansas Shannon ' ' 
is pronounced by competent judges to be the finest 
apple now grown anywhere. 



Strawberries are another late discovery of the 
resom-ces of Arkansas. The yield and quality are 
very superior. So rapidly has the industry grown 
that, during the fruit season, the Iron Mountain 
road runs a special daily fruit train, leaving Little 
Rock late in the afternoon and reaching St. Louis 
early the next morning. This luscious product, of 
remarkal)le size, ripens about the first of April. 

Of all cultivated fruit the grape has held its 
place in poetry and song, in sacred and profane 
history, as the first. It finds in Arkansas the same 
conditions and climate of its native countries, 
between Persia and India. The fruit and its wine 
produced here are said by native and foreign 
experts to eqiial, if not surpass, the most famous of 
Italy or France. The vines are always healthy 
and the fruit perfect. The wild muscadine and 
scuppernong grow vines measuring thirty -eight 
and one-half inches around, many varieties fruit- 
ing here to perfection that are not on the open air 
lists at all further north. 

The nativity of the peach is the same as that 
of the grape, and it, too, therefore, takes as kindly 
to the soil here as does the vine. Such a thing as 
budded jieach trees are of very recent date, and as 
a consequence the surprises of the orchardists in re- 
spect to this fruit are many. Some of the varieties 
ripen in May, and fo far every kind of budded 
peaches Ijrought from the North, both the tree and 
the fruit, have improved by the transplanting. 
The vigor of the trees seems to baffle the borers, 
and no curled leaves have yet been noticed. In 
quality and quantity the product is most encourag- 
ing, and the next few years will see a marked 
advance in this industry. 

For fifty years after the settlement of the State 
peach seedlings were grown, and from these, as in 
the case of the apple, new and superior varieties 
have been started, noted for size, flavor, abundance 
and never failing crops. 

The Chickasaw plum is so far the most sl^c- 
cessfully grown, and is the best. It is a perfected 
fruit easily cultivated, and is fi-ee from the curculio, 
while the trees are healthy and vigorous beyond 
other localities. 

In vegetables and fruits, except the tropical 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



plants, Arkansas is the banner State. In the fruit 
and vegetable kingdom there is found in luxuriant 
growth everything in the long list from corn to the 

The yield and quality of Arkansas tobacco is 
remarkable wlieii it ia remembered that this indus- 
try has received so little attention. Thirty years 
ago State Geologist Owen informed the people 
that he found here th(> same, if not better, tobacco 
soil, than the most favored districts of Cuba. The 
yield of tobacco, in 1880, was 970,230 pounds. 
Yet so little attention or experiment has been given 
the sul)ject that an experimental knowledge of the 
State's resources in this respect cannot be claimed 
to have been gained. 

In 1880 the State produced: Barley, 1,952 
bushels; buckwheat, 548 bushels; rye, 22,387 
bushels; hay. 23,295 tons; Irish potatoes, 492,627 
bushels; sweet potatoes, 881,260 bushels. 

From the census reports of the same year are 
gleaned the following: Horses, total, 146.333 
mules and asses, 87,082; working oxen, 25,444 
milch cows, 249,407; other cattle, 433,392; sheep 
246,757; swine, 1,565,098; wool, 557,368 pounds 
milk, 316,858 gallons; butter, 7,790,013 pounds 
cheese, 26,310 pounds. All parts of the State are 
finely adapted to stock-raising. The excellence 
and abundance of pure water, the heavy growth of 
blue grass, the cane brakes and abundant mast, 
sustain the animals dui'ing most of the winter 
in marketable condition. In respect to all domes- 
tic animals here are presented the same conditions 
as in nearly every line of agriculture — cheapness 
of growth and excellence of quality. 

The improvement in cattle has been retarded 
by the now conceded fact that the "Texas fever" 
is asserted by some to be seated in the State. 
This affects Northern cattle when imported, while 
it has no effect on native animals. Except for this 
unfortunate reality there would be but little time 
lost in developing here the great dairy industry of 
the country. But good graded cattle are now 
being raised in every portion, and so rich is the 
locality in this regard that in stock, as in its fniits, 
care and attention will ])roduce new varieties of 
unrivaled excellence. Arkansas is the natural home 



and breeding ground of animals, all growing to 
groat perfection, with loss care and the least cost. 

Taxes here are not high. The total taxation in 
Illinois in 1880, assessed on real and personal 
property, as per census reports, for State, county 
and all civil divisions less than counties, was 
$24,586,018; the same year in Arkansas the total 
tax was $1,839,090. Farm lands are decreasing 
in value in Illinois nearly as fa.st as they are in 
creasing in Arkansas. The total taxation in the 
United States in 1880 was the enormous sum of 
$312,750,721. Northern cities are growing, while 
their rural population is lessening. The reverse 
of this is the best for a State. The source of ruin 
to past nations and civilizations has all arisen 
from an abuse of the taxing powers. Excessive 
taxation can only end in general ruin. This 
simple but great lesson should be instilled into the 
minds of all youths, crystallized into the briefest 
maxim, and written over every threshold in the 
land; hung in the porches of every institution of 
learning; imprinted upon every plow handle and 
emblazoned on the trees and jutting rocks. The 
State that has taxed its people to build a $25. - 
000,000 State house, has given deep shame to the 
intelligence of this age. Taxes are the insidious 
destroyer of nations and all liberty, and it is only 
those freemen who jealously guard against this 
evil who will for any length of time maintain their 
independence, equality or manhood. 

The grade proiilo of the Momj)his Route shows 
the elevations of the various cities and towns 
along that line to be as follows in feet, the datnna 
plane being tide water of the Gulf of Mexico: 
Kansas City, 765; Rosedale, 825; Merriam, 900; 
Lenexa. 1,040: Olathe, 1.060: Bonita. 1,125: 
Ocheltree, 1,080; Spring Hill, 1.020; Hillsdale. 
900; Paola, 800; Pendleton, 855; Fontana, 925; 
La Cygne, 840; Barnard, 810; Pleasanton, 865; 
Miami, 910; Prescott, 880; Fulton. 820: Ham- 
mond, 875; Fort Scott, 860; Clarksburg, 885; 
Garland, 865; all in Kansas; Arcadia, 820; 
Liberal, 875; lantha, 990; Lamar, 1,000: Keno- 
ma, 980; Golden City, 1,025; Lockwood, 1,065; 
South Greenfield, 1,040; Everton. 1,000; Ash 
; Grove. l,02(t: Boisd'Arc. 1.250; Campbells, 1,290; 



Nichols Junction, 1,280; Springfield, 1.300; Tur- 
ner, 1,210; Rogersville, 1,475; Fordland, 1,600; 
Seymour, 1,680; Cedar Gap, 1,685; Mansfield, 
1,520; Norwood, 1.510; Mountain Grove. 1.525; 
Cabool, 1,250; Sterling, 1,500; Willow Springs, 
1,400; Burnham, 1,360; Olden, 1,280; West 
Plains, 950; Brandsville. 1,000; Koshkonong, 970; 
Thayer, last point in Missouri, 575; Mammoth 



I Spring. Ark., 485; Afton, 410; Hardy, 370; Willi- 
ford, 330; Ravenden, 310; Imboden, 300; Black 
Rock, 290; Portia, 285; Hoxie, 295; Sedgwick, 
270: Bonnerville, 320; Jonesboro, 275; Nettleton, 
250; Big Bay Siding, 250; Hatchie Coon, 250; 
Marked Tree, 250; Tyronza, 240; Gilmore, 225; 
Clarketon, 240; Marion, 235; West Memphis, 200; 
Memphis, 280. 



flllfli. 



♦^v-^* 



Politics— Importance of the Subject— The Two Old Schools of Politicians— Triumph of the 

Jacksonians— Early Prominent State Politicians— The Great Question of Secession 

—The -State Votes to Join the Confederacy— Horror of the War Period— 

The Recon.struction Distress— The Baxtek-Brooks Embroglio. 




In knots tliej- sUmd, or in a rank they walk. 

Serious in aspect, earnest iu their talk; 

Factions, and favouring this or t'other side, 

As their weak fancy or strong reason guide.— Lri/den. 



N one sense there is no 
portion of the history of 
^'iSrk'"^ Arkansas more instructive 
^&:f~ than its political history, 
because in this is the key 
to the character of many 
of its institutions, as well 
as strong indications of the trend of 
the pulilic mind, and the characteris- 
tics of those men who shaped public 
affairs and controlled very largely in 
,^ M iy the State councils. 

^^^^ Iinmodiately upon the formation 
of the Territorial government, the Presi- 
dent of the United States sent to Ar- 
kansas Post Gov. James Miller, Robert 
Crittenden, secretary, and C. Jouett, 
Robert P. Letcher and Andrew Scott, judges, to 
organize the new Territorial government. Gov. 
Miller, it seems, gave little attention to his office. 




and therefore in all the early steps of formation 
Crittenden was the acting governor; and from the 
force of character he possessed, and his superior 
strength of mind, it is fair to conclude that he 
dominated almost at will the early public affairs 
of Arkansas. 

This was at the time of the beginning of the 
political rivalry between Clay and Jackson, two of 
the most remarkable types of great political lead- 
ers this country has produced — Henry Clay, the 
superb; "Old Hickory," the man of iron; the one 
as polished a gem as ever glittered in the political 
heavens — the other the great diamond in the 
rough, who was of the people, and who drew his 
followers with bands of steel. These opposites 
wore destined to clash. It is well for the country 
that they did. 

Robert Crittenden was a brother of John J. 
Crittenden, of Kentucky, and by some who knew 
him long and well he was deemed not only his 



^' 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS 



53 



brother's peer, but in many respects his intellect- 
ual superior. It goes without the saying, he was a 
born Whig, who, in Kentucky's snp«r-loyal fash- 
ion, had Clay for his idol, and, to put it mildly, 
Jackson to dislike. 

President Monroe had appointed the first Terri- 
torial officers, but the fact that Crittenden was 
secretary is evidence that polities then were not 
running very high. Monroe was succeeded in 
1824 by John Quincy Adams. It would seem that 
in the early days in Arkansas, the Whigs stood 
upon the vantage grounds in many important 
respects. By the time Adams was inaugurated 
the war political to the death between Clay and 
Jackson had begun. But no man looked more care 
fully after his own interests than Jackson. He 
had large property possessions just across the line 
in Tennessee, besides property in Arkansas. He 
induced, from his ranks in his own State, some 
young men of promise to come to Arkansas.- The 
prize now was whether this should be a Whig 
or Democratic State. President Adams turned 
out Democratic officials and put in Whigs, and 
Robert Crittenden for a long time seemed to hold 
the State in his hand. Jackson's superiority as a 
leader over Clay is manifested in the struggles 
between the two in Arkansas. Clay's followers 
here were men after his fashion, as were Jackson's 
men after his mold. Taking Robert Crittenden 
as the best type, he was but little inferior to Clay 
himself in his magnetic oratory and purity of prin- 
ciples and public life; while Jackson sent here 
the Seviers, Conways and Rectors, men of the 
people, but of matchless resolution and personal 
force of character. No two great commanders 
ever had more faithful or able lieutenants than 
were the respective champions of Old Hickory 
and Harry of the West, in the formative days of 
the State of Arkansas. The results were, like 
those thoughout the Union, that Jackson triumphed 
in the hard strife, and Arkansas entered the Union, 
by virtue of a bill introduced by James Buchanan, 
as a Jackson State, and has never wavered in its 
political integrity. 

As an evidence of the similarity of the con- 
tests and respective leaders of the two parties 



here to those throughout the country, it is only 
necessary to point out that Crittenden drew to 
his following such men as Albert Pike, a genius 
of the loftiest and most versatile gifts the country 
has so far produced, while Jackson, ever supplying 
reinforcements to his captains, sent among others, 
as secretary of the Territory, Lewis Randolph, 
grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and whose wife 
was pretty Betty Martin, of the White House, a 
niece of Jackson's. Randolph settled in H(>mp- 
stead County when it was an unbroken wilder- 
ness, and his remains are now resting there in an 
unknown grave. 

Clay, it seems, could dispatch but little addi- 
tional force to his followers, even when he saw they 
were the hardest pressed by the triumphant onemj'. 
There was not much by which one could draw 
comparisons between Clay and Jackson — unless 
it was tiieir radical difference. As a great ora- 
tor. Clay has never been excelled, and he lived in 
a day when the open sesame to the world's de- 
lights lay in the silver tongue; but Jackson was 
a hero, a great one, who inspired other born 
heroes to follow him even to the death. 

Arkansas was thus started permanently along 
the road of triumphant democracy, from which 
it never would have varied, except for the war 
times that Ijrought to the whole country such con- 
fusion and political chaos. Being a Jackson 
State, dominated by the blood of the first governor 
of Tennessee — Gen. John Sevier, a man little in- 
ferior to Jackson himself — it was only the most 
cruel circumstance that could force the State into 
secession. When the convention met on the 4th 
of March, 1861, " on the state of the Union," its 
voice was practically unanimous for the Union, 
and that body passed a series of as loyal resolu- 
tions as were ever penned, then adjourning to 
meet again in the May following. The conven- 
tion met May 0, but the war was upon the coun- 
try, and most of the Gulf States had seceded. 
Every one knew that war was inevitable: it was 
already going on. bnt very few realized its immen- 
sity. The convention did not rush hastily into 
secession. An ordinance of secession was intro- 
duced, and for days, and into the nights, run- 






54 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ning into the small liours, the matter was delib- 
erated upoa — no prelimiuary test vote was forced 
to an issue. Delegates were present in anxious 
attendance from the Carolinas, Alabama and 
Georgia. They knew that the fate of their action 
largely depended upon the attitude of Arkansas. 
If Arkansas voted no, then the whole secession 
mov(!ment would receive a severe blow. The after- 
noon before the final vote, which was to take place 
in the evening, these commissioners from other 
States had made up their minds that Arkansas 
might possil)ly vote down secession. When the con- 
vention adjourned for supper, they held a hurried 
consultation, and freely expressed their anxiety 
at the outlook. It was understood that the dis- 
cussion was closed, and the night session was 
wholly for the purpose of taking a vote. All was 
uncertainty and intense excitement. Expressions 
of deepest attachment to the Union and the old 
flag were heard. The most fiery and vehement 
of the secessionists in the body were cautious and 
deliberative. There was but little even of vehe- 
ment detestation of the abolitionists — a thing as 
natural then for a Southern man to despise as 
hatred is natural to a heated brain. 

At a late hour in the evening, amid the most 
solemn silence of the crowded hall, an informal 
vote was taken. All except six members voted to 
secede. A suppressed applause followed the 
announcement of the vote. A hurried, whispered 
conference went on, and the effort was made to 
have the result unanimous. Now came the final 
vote. When the name of Isaac Muri)hy, afterward 
the military governor, was reached, it was passed 
and the roll call continued. It was so far unani- 
mous, with Mr. Murphy's name .still to call. The 
clerk called it. Mr. Murphy arose and in an 
earnest and impressive manner in a few words ex- 
plained the dilemma he was in. but said, "I cannot 
violate my honest convictions of duty. I vote 
'No.'" 

When the day of reconstruction began, at first 
it was under the supervision of the military, and 
it is yet the greatest pity that Congress did not let 
the military alon(> to rehabilitate the States they had 
conquered. Isaac Murphy was made governor. 



No truer Union man lived than he. He knew the 
people, and his two years of government were 
fast curing the wounds of war. But he was 
turned out of ofi&ce. 

The right to vote compels, if it is to be other 
than an evil, some correct and intelligent under- 
standing of the form of government prevailing in 
the United States, and of the elementary prin- 
ciples of political economy. The ability to read 
and write, own property, go to Congress or edit a 
political jDaper, has nothing to do with it, no more 
than the color of the skin, eyes or hair of the voter. 
The act of voting itself is the sovereign act in the 
economic affairs of the State; but if the govern- 
ment under its existing form is to endure, the 
average voter must understand aad appreciate the 
fundamental principles which, in the providence 
of God, have made the United States the admira- 
tion of the world. 

Arkansas, the Democratic State, was in political 
disquiet from 1861 to 1874 — th? beginning of the 
war and the end of reconstruction. When in the 
hands of Congress it was returned at every regular 
election as a Republican party State. The lirief 
story of the political Moses who led it out of the 
wilderness is of itself a strange and interesting 
commentary on self government. 

When the war came there lived in Batesville 
Elisha Baxter, a young lawyer who had been 
breasting only financial misfortunes all his life. 
Utterly failing as a farmer and merchant, he had 
been driven to study law and enter the practice 
to make a living. An honest, kind-hearted, good 
man, loving his neighbor as himself, but a patriot 
every inch of him, and loving the Union above all 
else, his heart was deeply grieved when he saw 
his adopted State had declared for secession. He 
could not be a diaunionist, no more than he could 
turn upon his neighbors, friends and fellow-citi- 
zens of Arkansas. He determined to wash his 
hands of it all and remain quietly at home. Like 
all others he knew nothing of civil war. His 
neighbors soon drove him from his home and 
family, and, to save his life, he went to the North- 
ern army, then in Southern Missouri. He was 
welcomed and offered a commission in the Federal 



3<i; 



:tz 



2iJf 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



55 



army and an opportunity to rotiirn to his State. 
He declined the offer; he could not turn and shed 
the blood of his old neighbors and former friends. 
In the vicissitudes of war this non couibatunt was 
captured by an Arkansas command, paroled and 
ordered to report to the military authorities at Lit- 
tle Rock. He made his way thither, and was 
thrown into a military prison and promptly indicted 
for high treason. Then only ho began to under- 
stand the temper of the times, for the chances of 
his being hanged were probably as a thousand to 
one to acquittal. In this extremity he broke jail 
and fled. He again reached the Northern army 
in which he accepted a commission, and returned 
to his old home in Batesville, remaining in mili- 
tary command of the place. He was actively 
engaged in recruiting the Union men of Northern 
Arkansas and forming them into regiments. It 
goes without saying that Baxter never raised a 
hand to strike back at those who had so deeply 
wronged him, when their positions were reversed 
and he had the power in his hands. 

At the fall election, 1871, Baxter was the regu- 
lar Republican candidate for governor, and Joseph 
Brooks was the Independent Republican nom- 
inee. The Republican party was divided and each 



bid for the Democratic vote by promises to the 
ex- Confederates. Brooks may have been elected, 
but was counted out. Baxter was duly inaugu- 
rated. ^Vhen he had served a year the politicians, 
it is supposed, who controlled Arkansas, finding 
they could not use Baxter, or in other words that 
they had counted in the wrong man, boldly pro- 
ceeded to undo their own acts, dethrone Baxter and 
put Brooks in the chair of State. An account of 
the Baxter-Brooks war is given in another chapter. 

Thus was this man the victim of political cir- 
cumstances; a patriot, loving his country and his 
neighbors, he was driven from homo and State; a 
non-combatant, he was arrested by his own friends 
as a traitor and the hangman's halter dangled in 
his face; breaking prison and stealing away like a 
skulking convict, to return as ruler and master by 
the omnipotent power of the bayonet; a non-party 
man, compelled to be a Republican in politics, and 
finally, as a Republican, fated to lead the Demo- 
cratic party to success and power. 

The invincible Jacksonian dynasty, built up in 
Arkansas, with all else of pul)lic institutions went 
down in the sweep of civil war. It has not been 
revived as a political institution. But the Demo- 
cratic party dominates the State as of old. 







50 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



eiiiTiit ¥». 



> ♦ < ' 



Societies, State Institutions, etc.— The Ku Klux Klan— Independent Order of Odd Fellows- 
.Vncient, Free and Accepted Masons— Grand Army of the Reitislic- Bureau of Mines- 
Arkansas Agricultural Association.?— State Horticultural Society— The Wheel 
—The State Capital— The Capitol Building— State Librarie.s— State 
Medical Society— State Board of Health— Deaf Mute Institute 
—School for the Blind— Arkansas Lunatic Asylum— Ar- 
kansas Industrial University— The State Debt. 



Heaven forming each on other to depend. 

A master, or a servant, or a friend. 

Bids each on other for assistance call, 

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 



-Pope. 




'I'.CRET societies are a form of 
social life and expressiou which, 
in some mode of existence, 
antedate even authentic his- 
tory. Originally a manner 
of securing defense from the 
common enemies of tribes 
and peoples, they have developed 
into social and eleemosynary insti- 
tutions as advances in civilization 
have been made. At first they 
vpere but a severe necessity, and as 
that time slowly passed away, they 
became a luxury and a pleasure, 
having peculiar and strong attrac- 
tion to nearly all men. That part of 
one's nature which loves to lean 
upon others for aid, even in the social scale, finds 
its expression in some of the many forms of 
societies, clubs, organizations or institutions that 
now pervade nearly all the walks of life. In every 
day existence, in business, church, state, politics 
and pleasure, are societies and organizations every- 
where — for the purposes of gain, charity and 



comfort — indeed, for the sole purpose of finding 
something to do, would be the acknowledgment of 
many a society motto. The causes are as diversi- 
fied as the bodies, secret and otherwise, are 
numerous. 

The South furnishes a most remarkable instance 
of the charm there is in mystery to all men, in the 
rise and spread of the Ku Klux Klan, a few years 
ago. Three or four yoimg men, in Columbia, 
Tenn., spending a social evening together, con- 
cluded to organize a winter's literary society. All 
had just returned from the war, in which they had 
fought for the ' ' lost cause, ' ' and found time 
hanging dull upon them. Each eagerly caught at 
the idea of a society, and soon they were in the 
intricacies of the details. Together, from their 
sparse recollections of their schoolbooks, they 
evolved the curious name for the society. The 
name suggested to them that the sport to be 
derived from it might be increased by making it a 
secret society. The thing was launched upon this 
basic idea. In everything connected with it each 
one was fertile it seems in adding mystery to mys- 
tery in their meetings and personal movements. 



-—-¥■ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



■01 



The initiation of a new member was made a grand 
and rollicking affair. So complete had the mem- 
bers occasioned their little innocent society to be 
a mystery, that it became in an astonishingly brief 
time a greater enigma to themselves than even to 
outsiders. It swiftly spread from the village to the 
county, from the county to the State, and over -ran 
the Southern States like a racing prairie fire, 
changing in its aims and objects as rapidly as it 
had grown. From simply frightening the poor 
night-prowling darkeys, it became a vast and 
uncontrollable semi-military organization; inflict- 
ing punishment here, and there taking life, until 
the State of Tennessee was thrown into utter con- 
fusion, and the military forces were called out; 
large rewards were ofPered for the arrest even of 
women found making any of the paraphernalia of 
the order. Government detectives sent to pry into 
their secrets were slain, and a general reign of 
terror ensued. No rewards could induce a mem- 
ber to betray his fellows; and the efPorts of the 
organizers to control the storm they had raised, 
were as idle as the buzzing of a summer fly. 
Thousands and thousands of men belonged to 
it. who knew really little or nothing about it, and 
who to this day are oblivious of the true history 
of one of the most remarkable movements of large 
bodies of men that has ever occurred in this or 
perhaps any country. It was said by leading 
members of the order that they could, in twenty- 
four hours, put tens of thousands of men in line of 
battle, all fully armed and equipped. It was 
indeed the "Invisible Empire." By its founders 
it was as innocent and harmless in its purposes as 
a Sunday-school picnic, yet in a few weeks it spread 
and grew until it overshadowed the land — but little 
else than a bloody, headless riot. The imagina- 
tions of men on the outside conjured up the most 
blood-curdling falsehoods as to its doings; while 
those inside were, it seems, equally fertile in 
schemes and devices to further mystify people, 
alarm some and terrify others, and apparently the 
wilder the story told about them, the more they 
would enjoy it. Its true history will long give it 
rank of first importance to the philosophic and 
careful, painstaking historian. 



Among societies of the present day, that 
organization known as the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows is recognized as a prominent one. The 
Grand Lodge of the order in Arkansas was organ- 
ized June 11, 1819. Its first past grand master 
was John J. Horner, elected in 1854. His succes- 
sors to date have been as follows : James A. Henry, 
1858 ; P. O. Hooper, 1859-1800 ; Richard Bragg, 
Sr., 1802; Peter Brugman, 1807, 1868, 1871; Isaac 
Eolsom, 1873; Albert Cohen, 1874; John B. Bond, 
1876; E. B. Moore, 1878; James S. Holmes, 1880: 
Adam Clark, 1881 ; W. A. Jett, 1882 ; James A. 
Gibson, 1884 ; George W. Hurley. 1885 ; H. S. 
Coleman, 1886, and A. S. Jett, 1887. The pres- 
ent able ofi&cers are K. P. Holt, grand master: 
J. P. Woolsey, deputy grand master; Louis C. 
Lincoln, grand warden ; Peter Brugman, grand 
secretary; H. Ehrenbers, grand treasurer; H. S. 
Coleman, grand representative; A. S. Jett, grand 
representative; Rev. L. B. Hawley, grand chap- 
lain; John R. Richardson, grand marshal; J. G. 
Parker, grand conductor; "William Mosby, grand 
guardian ; VV. J. Glenn, grand herald. In the 
State there are eighty-two lodges and a total mem- 
bership, reported by the secretary at the October 
meeting, 1888, of 2,023. The revenue from sub- 
ordinate lodges amounts to $13,832, while the 
relief granted aggregates $2,840. There were 
sixteen Rebekah lodges organized in 1887-88. 

The Masonic fraternity is no less influential 
in the affairs of every part of the country, than the 
society just mentioned. There is a tradition — too 
vague for reliance — that iMasonry was introduced 
into Ai'kansas by the Spaniards more than 100 
years ago, and that therefore the first lodge was 
established at Arkansas Post. Relying, however, 
upon the records the earliest formation of a lodge 
of the order was in 1819, when the Grand Lodge 
of Kentucky granted a dispensation for a lodge at 
Arkansas Post. Robert Johnson was the first mas- 
ter. Judge Andrew Scott, a Federal judge in the 
Territory, was one of its members. But before 
this lodge received its charter, the seat of govern- 
ment was removed to Little Rock, and the Arkan- 
sas Post lodge became extinct. No other lodge 
was attempted to be established until 1836, when 



a) V 



Al 



<5 w. 



-^ 



58 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



a dispensation was granted Washington Lodge No. 
82, at Fayetteville, October 3, 1837. Onesimus 
Evans, was master; James McKissick. senior wai'- 
den; Matbew Leeper, jtinior warden. 

In 1 838 the Grand Lodge of Louisiana granted 
the second dispensation for a lodge at Arkansas 
Post— Morning Star Lodge No. 42; the same year 
granting a charter to Western Star Lodge No. 43, 
at Little Rock. Of this Edward Cross was master; 
Charles L. Jeffries, senior warden; Nicholas Peay, 
junior warden. About this time the Grand Lodge 
of Alabama granted a charter to Mount Horeb 
Lodge, of Washington, Hempstead Count}'. 

November 21, 1838, tliese four lodges hold a 
convention at Little Rock and formed the Grand 
Lodge of Arkansas. 

The representatives at this convention were: 
From Washington Lodge No. 82, of Fayetteville, 
Onesimus Evans, past master; Washington L. Wil- 
son, Robert Bedford, Abraham ANhinnery, Richard 
C. S. Brown, Samuel Adams and Williamson S. 
Oldham. 

From Western Star Lodge No. 43, of Little 
Bock, William Gilchrist, past master; Charles L. 
Jeffries, past master; Nicholas Peay. past master; 
Edward Cross, past master; Thomas Parsol. Alden 
Sprague and John Morris. 

From Morning Star Lodge No 42, of the Post 
of Arkansas, John W. Pullen. 

From Mount Horeb Lodge, of Washington, 
James H. Walker. Allen M. Oakley, Josej)!] \V. Mc- 
Kean and James Trigg. 

Of this convention John Morris, of Western 
Star Lodge No. 43, was made secretary. Mi-. 
Morris is still living (1889), a resident of Auburn, 
Sebastian County, and is now quite an old man. 
Mr. John P. Karns, of Little Rock, was in 
attendance at the convention, although not a dele 
gate. These two are the only ones surviving who 
were present on that occasion. 

The Grand Lodge organized by the election of 
William Gilchrist, grand master; Onesimus Evans, 
d(»pnty grand master; James H. ^^'alker, grand sen- 
ior warden; Wa.shington L. Wilson, grand junior 
warden; Alden Sprague, grand treasurer, and 
George C. Watkins, grand secretary. 



The constituent lodges, their former charters be- 
ing extinct by their becoming members of a new jur- 
isdiction, took new numbers. Washington Lodge, 
at Fayetteville, became No. 1; Western Star, of 
Little Rock, l)ecame No. 2; Morning Star, of the 
Post of Arkansas, became No. 3, and Mount Horeb, 
of Washington, became No. 4. Of these Wash- 
ington No. 1, and Western Star No. 2, are in vig- 
orous life, but Morning Star No. 3, and Mount 
Horeb No. 4, have become defunct. 

From this beginning of the four lodges, with a 
membership of probably 100, the Grand Lodge 
now consists of over 400 lodges, and a member- 
ship of about 12,000. 

The following are the ofiBcers for the present 
year: R. H. Taylor, grand master, Hut Springs; 
J. W. Sorrels, deputy grand master. Farmer, 
Scott County; D. B. Warren, grand lectui'er, 
Gainesville; \V. A. Clement, grand orator. Rover, 
Yell County; W. K. Ramsey, grand senior ward- 
en, Camden; C. A. Bridewell, grand junior ward- 
en, Hope; George H. Meade, grand treasurer. Lit- 
tle Rock; Fay Hempstead, grand secretary. Little 
Rock; D. D. Leach, grand senior deacon, Augusta; 
Samuel Peete, grand junior deacon, Batesville; H. 
W. Brooks, grand chaplain, Hope; John B. Baxter, 
grand marshal, Brinkley; C. C. Hamby, grand 
sword bearer. Prescott; S. Solmson, senior grand 
steward, Pine Bluff: A. T. Wilson, junior grand 
steward, Eureka Springs; J. C. Churchill, grand 
pursuivant. Charlotte. Independence County: Ed. 
Metcalf, grand tyler. Little Rock. 

The first post of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, Department of Arkansas, was organized under 
authority from the Illinois Commandery, and called 
McPherson Post No. 1, of Little Rock. The 
district then passed undei' command of the Depart- 
ment of Missouri, and by that authority was or- 
ganized Post No. 2, at Fort Smith. 

The Provisional Department of Arkansas was 
organized June 18, 1883, Stephen Wheeler being 
department commander, and C. M. Vaughan, adju- 
tant general. A State encampment was called to 
meet at Fort Smith. July 11, 1883. Six posts were 
represented in this meeting, when the following 
State officers were elected: S. Wheeler, com- 



\ 



mander; M. Mitchell, senior vice; R. E. Jackson, 
junior vice; H. Stone, quartermaster, and the 
following council: John F. Owen, A. S. Fowler, 
W. \V. Bailey, A. Walrath, Bonton Turner. 

There are now seventy- four posts, with a mem- 
bership of 2,500, in the State. The present offi- 
cers are: Department commander, A. S. Fowler; 
senior vice commander, John Vaughan; junior vice 
commander, E. A. Ellis; medical director, T. G. 
Miller; chaplain, T. R. Early. 

The council of administration includes A. A. 
Whissen, Thomas Boles, W. S. Bartholomew, R. 
E. Renner and I. B. Lawton. The following were 
the appointments on the staff of the department 
commander: Assistant adjutant-general, N.W. Cox; 
assistant quartermaster-general, Stephen Wheeler; 
judge advocate, S. J. Evans; chief mustering 
officer, S. K. Robinson; department inspector, 
R. S. Curry. Headquarters were established at 
Little Rock, Ark. 

There are other bodies in the State whose aims 
and purposes differ materially fi'om those previously 
mentioned. Among these is the Arkansas Bureau 
of Mines, Manufactures and Agriculture, which 
was organized as a State institution at the session 
of the legislature in 1889. The governor ap- 
pointed M. F. Locke commissioner, the latter mak- 
ing M. W. Manville assistant. They at once pro- 
ceeded to organize the department and open an 
office in the State-house.- The legislature appro- 
priated for the next two years for the bureau the 
sum of 118,000. 

This action of the legislature was in response 
to a demand from all parts of the State, which, 
growing in volume for some time, culminated in 
the meeting in Little Rock of numerous promi- 
nent men, and the organization of the Arkansas 
State Bureau of Immigration, January 31, 1888. 
A demand from almost every county prompted 
Gov. Senior P. Hughes to issue a call for a State 
meeting. The meeting was composed only of the 
best representative citizens. Gov. Hughes, in his 
address, stated that "the State should have an 
agricultural, mining and manufacturing bureau, 
which should be a bureau of statistics and immi- 
gration, also." Hon. Logan H. Roots was elected 



president of the convention. He voiced the pur- 
poses of the meeting still further when he said, 
"We want to educate others on the wealth-mak- 
ing properties of our State." A permanent State 
organization was effected, one delegate from each 
county to constitute a State Board of Immigra- 
tion, and the following permanent officers were 
chosen: Logan H. Roots, of Little Rock, presi- 
dent; Dandridge McRao, of Searcy, vice-president; 
H. L. Remrael, of Newport, secretary ; George R. 
Brown, of Little Rock, treasurer; J. H. Clen- 
dening, of Fort Smith, A. M. Crow, of Arkadel- 
phia, W. P. Fletcher, of Lonoke, additional exec- 
utive committee. The executive committee issued 
a strong address and published it extensively, giv- 
ing some of the many inducements the State had 
to offer immigrants. The legislature could not 
fail to properly recognize such a movement of the 
people, and so provided for the long needed bu- 
reau. 

Arkansas Agricultural Association was organ- 
ized in 1885. It has moved slowly so far, but is 
now reaching the condition of becoming a great 
and prosperous institution. The entire State is soon 
to be made into sub-districts, with minor organ- 
izations, at least one in each Congressional district, 
with a local control in each, and all will become 
stockholders and a part of the parent concern. 
A permanent State fair and suitable grounds and 
fixtures are to be provided in the near future, when 
Arkansas will successfully vie with any State in 
the Union in an annual display of its products. , 

The officers of the Agricultural Association for 
1889, are as follows: Zeb. Ward, president. Little 
Rock; B. D. Williams, first vice-president. Little 
Rock; T. D. Culberhouse, vice-president First 
Congressional district; D. McRae, vice president 
Second Congressional district; W. L. Tate, vice- 
president Third Congressional district ; J. J. Sump- 
ter, vice-president Fourth Congressional district; J. 
H. Vanhoose, vice-president Fifth Congressional 
district; M. W. Manville, secretary; D.W. Bizzell, 
treasurer. 

Arkansas State Horticultural Society was or- 
ganized May 24, 1879, and incorporated Januarj- 
31. 1889. Under its completed organization the 



» V 



first fair was held ia Little Rock, commencing 
Wednesday, May 15, 1889. President, E. F. Bab- 
cock; secretary, M. AV. Manville; executive com 
mittee, S. H. Nowlin, chairman, Little Rock; 
George P. C. Rumbough, Little Rock; Rev. S. H. 
Buchanan, Little Rock; E. C. Kiuney, Judsonia, 
and Fred Dengler, Hot Springs, constitute the 
official board. 

In 1881 three farmers of Prairie County met 
and talked over farm matters, and concluded to 
organize a society for the welfare of the farming 
community. The movement grew with astonish- 
ing rapidity. It was organized as a secret, non- 
political society, and in matters of trade and com- 
merce proposed to give its members the benefit 
of combination. In this respect it advocated ac- 
tion in concert with all labor unions or organiza- 
tions of laborers. A State and National organiza- 
tion was effected, and the sub-organizations, ex- 
tending to the smallest school districts, were re- 
quired to obtain authority and report to the State 
branch and it in return to the National head. Thus 
far its originators sought what they believed to be 
the true co-operative method in their business af- 
fairs. 

The next object was to secure beneficial legis- 
lation to farmers — each one to retain his polit- 
ical party affiliations, and at the ballot-box to vote 
for either farmers or those most closely identified 
with their interests as might be found on the 
respective party tickets. 

The officers of the National society are: Isaac 
McCracken, president. Ozone, Ark., and A. E. 
Gardner, secretary and treasurer, Dresden, Tenn. 
The Arkansas State "Wheel officers are: L. P. 
Featherstone, president, Forrest City; R. H. 
Morehead, secretary, White Chapel, and W. H. 
Quayle, treasurer, Ozan. 

The scheme was inviting to honest farmers and 
the humble beginning soon grew to be a most pros- 
perous society — not only extending over the State, 
but reaching boldly across the line into other 
States. When at the zenith of its prosperitj', it 
is estimated there were 60,000 members of the 
order in A rkansas. This was too tempting a pros- 
pect for the busy political demagogues, and to the 



amazement of the better men in the society, they 
soon awoke to the fact that they were in the hands 
of the wily politicians. It is now estimated that 
the ranks in Arkansas are reduced to 20,000 or 
less — all for political causes. The movement now 
is to purge the society of politics and in the near 
future to meet the Farmer's Alliance in St. Louis, 
and form a combination of the two societies. It 
is hoped by this arrangement to avoid the dema- 
gogues hereafter, and at the same time form a 
strong and permanent society, which will answer 
the best interests of the farming community. 

As stated elsewhere, the location of a capital 
for Arkansas early occupied the attention of its 
citizens. On November 20, 1821, William Rus- 
sell and others laid off and platted Little Rock 
as the future capital of the Territory and State. 
They made a plat and a bill of assurances thereto, 
subdividing the same into lots and blocks. They 
granted to Pulaski County Lots 3 and 4 in trust 
and on the conditions following, viz. : ' ' That the 
said county of Pulaski within two years" should 
erect a common jail upon said Lots 3 and 4. Out 
of this transaction grew a great deal of litigation. 
The fir.st jail was built of pine logs in 1828. It 
stood until 1837, when it was burned, and a brick 
building was erected in its stead. This stood for 
many years, but through the growth of the city, it in 
time became a public nuisance and was condemned, 
and the location moved to the present site of the 
stone jail. 

The Territory was organized by Congress in 
1819, and the seat of government located at the 
Post of Arkansas. In the early part of 1820 
arose the question of a new site for the seat of 
government, and all eyes turned to Pulaski County. 
A capital syndicate was formed and Little Rock 
Bluff fixed upon as the future capital. The one 
trouble was that the land at this point was not yet 
in market, and so the company secured ' ' sunk land 
scrip" and located this upon the selected town 
site. The west line of the Quapaw Indian reser- 
vation struck the Arkansas River at "the Little 
Rock" and therefore the east line of the contem- 
plated capital had to be west of this Quapaw line. 
This town survey "west of the point of rocks, 



9 \- 



M 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



r.i 



immediately south of the Arkansas River, and 
west of the Quiipaw line," was surveyed and re- 
turned to the recorder at St. Louis as the new town 
site and Territorial capital — called Little Rock. 
The dedication of the streets, etc. , and the plat as 
laid off, was dated November 10, 1821. Grounds 
were given for a State house, and other public 
buildings and purposes, and for " the permanent 
seat of justice of said county (Pulaski)" was ded- 
icated an entire half square, ' ' bounded on the north 
by Markham Street and on the west by Spring 
Street and on the south by Cherry (now Second) 
Street" for court house purposes. In return the 
county was to erect a court house and jail on the 
lots specified for these purposes, ' ' within ten 
years from the date hereof. ' ' A market house was 
to be erected by the city on Lots 4 and 5, Block 99. 
The latter in time was built on these lots, the upjjer 
story containing a council chamber, which was in 
public use until 1864, when the present city hall 
was erected. 

By an act of the legislature, October 24, 1821, 
James Billingsly, Crawford County, Samuel C. 
Roane, Clark County, and Robert Bean, Inde- 
pendence County, were appointed commissioners, 
" to fix on a proper place for the seat of justice of 
the County of Pulaski;" the act further specify- 
ing ' ' they shall take into consideration donations 
and future divisions." Th"^ latter part of the 
sentence is made still more important by the fact 
that at that time the western boundary of Pulaski 
County was 100 miles west, at the mouth of Petit 
Jean, and the eastern boundary was a few miles 
below Pine Bluff. 

October 18,1820, the Territorial seat of govern- 
ment was removed from the Post of Arkansas to 
the Little Rock, the act to take effect June 1, 1821. 
It provided ' ' that there shall be a bond » » * 
for the faithful performance of the promise and 
good faith by which the seat of government is 
moved. ' ' 

In November, 1821 , about the last of the belong- 
ings of the Territorial capital at the Post were 
removed to Little Rock. It was a crossing point 
on the river of the government road leading to 
Missouri, and the place had often been designated 



as the "Missouri Crossing," but the French had 
generally called it Arkapolis. 

During the short time the Territorial capital 
was at Arkansas Post, no effort was made to erect 
public buildings, as from the first it was under- 
stood this was but a temporary location. When 
the capital camo to Little Rock a one-story double 
log house was liuilt, near the spot where is now 
the Presbyterian Church, or near the corner of 
Scott and Fifth Streets. This building was in 
the old style of two rooms, with an open space 
between, but all under the same roof. In 1826 
the log building was superseded by a one-story 
frame. March 2, 1831, Congress authorized the 
Territory to select ten sections of land and appro- 
priate the same toward erecting capitol buildings; 
and in 1832 it empowered the governor to lease 
the salt springs. With these different funds was 
erected the central building of the present capitol, 
the old representative hall being where is now the 
senate chamber. In 1836, when Arkansas became 
a State, there was yet no plastering in any part of 
the brick building, and in the assembly halls were 
plain pine board tables and old fashioned split 
bottomed chairs, made in Little Rock. 

In 1886,at the remarkably small cost of $35,000, 
were added the additions and improvements and 
changes in the capitol buildiug, completing it in 
its present form. And if the same wisdom con- 
trols the State in the future that has marked the 
past, especially in the matter of economy in its 
public buildings, there will be only a trifling 
additional expenditure on public Viuildings during* 
the next half century. The State buildings are 
sufiicient for all public needs; their plainness and 
cheapness are a pride and glory, fitting monuments 
to the past and present generation of rulers ami 
law makers, testifying to their intelligence and 
integrity. 

The State library was started March 3, 1838, at 
first solely as a reference and exchange medium. 
It now has an annual allowance of $100, for pur- 
chasing books and contains 25,000 volumes, really 
more than can suitably be accommodated. 

The Supreme Court library was established in 
January, 1851. It has 8,000 volumes, including 






02 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



all the reports iind tlio leading law works. The 
fees of attorneys' license upon admission to the 
bar, of ten dollars, and a dollar docket fee in each 
case in court, constitute the fund provided for the 
library. 

The State Medical Society, as now constituted, 
was formed in May. 1875. It held its fourteenth 
annual session in 1889, at Pine Bluff. Edward 
Bentley is the acting president, and L. P. Gibson, 
secretary. Subordinate societies are formed in all 
parts of the State and are represented by regular 
delegates in the general assemblies. In addition to 
the officers for the current year above given are 
Z. Orts, assistant secretary, A. J. Vance, C. S. 
Gray, B. Hatchett and W. H. Hill, vice presidents 
in the order named. 

The State Board of Health was established by 
act of the legislature, March 23, 1881. It is com- 
posed of six commissioners, appointed by the gov- 
ernor, "a majority of whom are to be medical grad- 
uates and of seven years ' practice in the profes- 
sion. " The board is required to meet once in 
every three months. The secretary is allowed a 
salary of $1,000 per annum, but the others receive 
no compensation except traveling expenses in the 
discharge of official duties. 

The present board is composed of Dr. A. L. 
Breysacher, president ; Dr. Lorenzo R. Gibson, sec- 
retary ; Doctors J. A. Dibrell, P. Van Patton, W. 
A. Cantrell and V. Brunson. 

The beginning which resulted in the present 
elegant State institution for deaf mutes was a school 
established near the close of the late war, in Little 
Rock, by Joseph Mount, an educated mute, who 
gathered a few of those unfortunate ones together 
and taught a private school. The State legislature 
incorporated the school and made a small provision 
for it, July 17, 18(58, the attendance that year 
being four pupils. The buildings are on the beau- 
tiful hill just west of the Union Depot, the im- 
provement of the grounds being made in 1869. . 
The attendance in 1870 was 48 pupils, which in 
the last session' s report, 1888, reached the number 
of 109; and the superintendent, anticipating an at- 
tendance for the current two years of 150, has 
solicited appropriations accordingly. 



The board of trustees of the Deaf Mute Insti- 
tute includes: Hon. George E. Dodge, president; 
Col. S. L. Griffith, vice-president; Maj. R. H. Par- 
ham, Jr., secretary; Hon. W. E. WoodiufF, treas- 
urer; Maj. George H. Meade and Col. A. R. Witt. 
The officers are: Principal, Francis D. Clarke; 
instructors: John W. Michaels, Mrs. I. H. Carroll, 
Miss Susan B. Harwood, Miss Kate P. Brown, Miss 
Emma Wells, S. C. Bright; teacher of articulation, 
Miss Lottie Kirkland. Mrs. M. M. Beattie is 
matron; Miss Luciuda Nations, assistant ; Miss 
Clara Abbott, supervises the sewing, and Mrs. 
Amanda Harley is housekeeper. The visiting phy- 
sician is J. A. Dibrell, Jr. , M. D. ; foreman of the 
printing office, T. P. Clarke; foreman of the shoe 
shop, U. G. Dunn. Of the total appropriations 
asked for the current two years, $80,970, $16,570 
is for improvements in buildings, grounds, school 
apparatus, or working departments. 

The Arkansas School for the Blind was incor- 
porated by act of the legislature, February 4, 1859, 
and opened to pupils the same year in Arkadel- 
phia. In the year of 1868 it was removed to Little 
Rock, and suitable grounds purchased at the foot 
of Center Street, on Eighteenth Street. 

This is not an asylum for the aged and infirm, 
nor a hospital for the treatment of disease, but a 
school for the young of both sexes, in which are 
taught literature, music and handcraft Pupils 
between six and twenty-sis years old are received, 
and an oculist for the purpose of treating pupils 
is a part of its benefits; no charge is made for 
board or tuition, but fi'iends are expected to fur 
nish clothing and traveling expenses. 

It is estimated there are 300 blind of school 
age in the State. The legislature has appro- 
priated $140 a year for each pupil. On this allow- 
ance in two years the steward reported a balance 
unexpended of $1,686.84. In 1886 was appro- 
priated $6,000 to build a workshop, store-room, 
laundry and bake-oven. In 1860 the attendance 
was ten — five males and five females; in 1802, 
seven males and six females. The year 1888 
brought the attendance up to fifty males and fifty- 
two females, .or a total of 102. During the last 
two years six have graduated here— three in the 



r^ 




industrial department, and three in the industrial 
and literary department. Four have been dis- 
missed on account of recovered eyesight. 

The trustees of the school are: J. R. Right- 
sell, S. M. Marshall, W. C. Ratcliffe, J.W. House, 
and D. G. Fones; the superintendent being John 
H. Dye. 

Another commendable institution, carefully 
providing for the welfare of those dethroned of 
reason, is the Arkansas State Lunatic Asylum, 
which was authorized by act of the legislature of 
1873, when suitable grounds were purchased, and 
highly improved, and buildings erected. The in 
stitution is three miles west of the capitol and one- 
half mile north of the Mount Ida road. Eighty acres 
of ground were originally purchased and enclosed 
and are now reaching a high state of improve- 
ment. The resident population of the asylum at 
present is 500 souls, and owing to the crowded 
conditions an additional eighty acres were pur- 
chased in 1887, making in all 160 acres. A care- 
ful inquiry shows there are in the State (and not in 
the asylum, for want of room) 198 insane persons, 
entitled under the law to the benefits of the insti- 
tution. Of the 411 patients in the asylum in 1888, 
only four were pay patients. 

John G. Fletcher, R. K. Walker, A. L. Brey- 
sacher, John D. Adams and William J. Little are 
trustees of the institution, while Dr. P. O. Hooper 
is superintendent. 

In 1885 the legislature made an appropriation 
of $92, 500 for the erection of additional buildings 
and other needed improvements. This fund was 
not all used, but the remainder was returned into 
the State treasury. The total cuiTent expenses for 
the year 1887 aggregated $45, 212. 00. The current 
expenses on patients the same year were $29, 344. 80. 
The comfort of the unfortunates — the excellence of 
the service, the wholesome food given them, and at 
the same time the minimum cost to the tax payers, 
prove the highest possible commendation to those 
in charge. 

The Arkansas Industrial University is the prom- 
ise, if not the present fultilhnont, of one of the 
most important of State institutions. It certainly 
deserves the utmost attention from the best people 



of the State, as it is destined to become in time one 
of the great universities of the world. It should 
be placed in position to be self-supporting, be- 
cause education is not a public pauper and never 
can be permanently successful on charity. Any 
education to be had must be earned. This law of 
nature can no more be set aside than can the law 
of gravitation, and the ignorance of such a simple 
fact in statesmen and educators has cost our civili- 
zation its severest pains and penalties. 

The industrial department of the institution 
was organized in June, 1885. The act of incor- 
poration provided that all males should work at 
manual labor three hours each day and be paid 
therefor ton cents an hour. Seven thousand 
dollars was appropriated to equip the shops. Prac- 
tical lalior was defined to be not only farm and 
shop work, but also surveying, drawing and labor- 
atory practice. Mechanical arts and engineering 
became a part of the curriculum. The large major- 
ity of any people must engage in industrial pur- 
suits, and to these industrial development and 
enlightenment and comfort go hand-in-hand. 
Hence the real people's school is one of manual 
training. Schools of philosophy and literature will 
take care of themselves; thit)kof a school (classical) 
endeavoring to train a Shakespeare or Burns! To 
have compelled either one of these to gi-aduate at 
Oxford would have been like clipping the wings 
of th(f eagle to aid his upward flight. In the edu- 
cation at least of children nature is omnipotent and 
pitiless, and it is the establishment of such train- 
ing schools as the Arkansas Industrial University 
that gives the cheering evidence of the world'l 
progress. In its continued prosperity is hope for 
the near future; its failure through ignorance or 
bigotry in the old and worn out ideas of the dead 
past, will go far toward the confirmation of the 
cruel cynicism that the most to be pitied animal 
pell-melled into the world is the new-born babe. 

The University is situated at Fayetteville, 
Washington County. It was organized by act of 
the legislature, based on the "Land Grant Act" 
of Congress of 1802, and supplemented by liberal 
donations from the State, the County of Wash- 
ington, and the city of Fayetteville. The school 



r 



04 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was opened in 1872. March 30, 1877, the legisla- 
ture passed the act known as the " Barker Bill," 
which made nearly a complete change in the pur- 
view of the school and brought prominently for- 
ward the agricultural and mechanical departments. 
"To gratify our ambitious" [but mistaken] 
' ' youth, ' ' says the prospectus, ' ' we have, under 
Section 7 of the act, provided for instruction in the 
classics." 

Under the act of Congress known as the 
'•Hatch Bill," an Agricultural Experimental Sta- 
tion has been organized. Substantial buildings 
are now provided, and the cost of board in the in- 
stitution is reduced to $8 per month. The attend- 
ance at the present time is ninety-six students, 
and steps are being taken to form a model stock- 
farm. The trustees, in the last report, say: " We 
recommend that girls be restored to the privi- 
leges of the institution." The law only excludes 
females from being beneficiaries, and females may 
still attend as pay students. 

A part of the University is a branch Normal 
School, established at Pine Bluff, for the purpose 
of educating colored youth to be school teachers. 
These Normal Schools have for some years been 
a favorite and expensive hobby in most of the 
Northern States. There is pi'obably no question 
that, for the promotion of the cause of education 
among the negroes, they offer unusual attractions. 

The following will give the reader a clear com- 
prehension of the school and its purposes. Its 
departments are: 

Mechanic arts and engineering, agriculture, 
experiment station, practical work. English and 
modern languages, biology and geology, military 



science and tactics, mathematics and logic, prepara- 
tory department, drawing and industrial art, and 
music. 

To all these departments is now added the med- 
ical department, located at Little Rock. This 
branch was founded in 1871, and has a suitable 
building on Second Street. The tenth annual 
course of lectures in this institution commenced 
October 3, 1888; the tenth annual commencement 
being held March 8, 1889. The institution is self- 
supporting, and already it ranks among the fore- 
most medical schools in the coimtry. The graduat- 
ing class of 1888 numbered twenty. 

The State Board of Visitors to the medical 
school are Doctors W. W. Hipolite, W. P. Hart, 
W. B. Lawrence, J. M. Keller, I. Folsom. 

The debt of Arkansas is not as large as a cur- 
sory glance at the figures might indicate. The 
United States government recently issued a statis- 
tical abstract concerning the public debt of this 
State that is very misleading, and does it a great 
wrong. In enumerating the debts of the States it 
puts Arkansas at $12,029, 100. This error comes 
of including the bonds issued for railroad and levee 
purposes, that have been decided by the Supreme 
Court null and void, to the amount of nearly 
$10, 000, ()()(). They are therefore no part of the 
State indebtedness. 

The real debt of the State is 12,111,000, 
including principal and accumulated interest. 
There is an amount in excess of this, if there is 
included the debt due the general government, 
but for all such the State has counter claims, and 
it is not therefore estimated in giving the real 
indebtedness. 







^^ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



65 




The Bench and BAR-A^f Analytic View of the Profession of Law-Spanish and French Laws- 
English Common Law-The Legal Circuit Riders-Territorial Law and Lawyers 
—The Court Circuits— Early Couiit Ofkicers— Thk Supkkme Court— Promi- 
nent Members of the State Bknch and Bar— The Standard 
of the Execution of Law in the State. 



Laws do not put the least restraint 
Upon our freedom, but maintain 't; 
Or it tliey do, 'tis for our good. 
To give us freer latitude: 
For wholesome laws preserve us free 
By stinting of our liberty. — Butler. 




HE Territory when under 
Sjiauish or French rule 
was governed by much the 
same laws and customs. 
The home government ap- 
pointed its viceroys, who 
were little more than nomi- 
under the control of the 
^ king, except in the general laws 
'■ of the mother country. The neces- 
** sary local provisions in the laws 
*" were not strictly required to be 
'^Q submitted for approval to the mas- 
,5T-ter powers before being enforced 
in the colony. Both govern- 
ments were equally liberal in 
bestowing the lands upon sub- 
jects, and as a rule, without cost. But the shadow 
of feudal times still lingered over each of them, 
and they had no conception that the real people 
would want to be small landholders, supposing 
that in the new as in the old world they would 
drift into villanage, and in some sense be a part 
of the possession of the landed aristocracy. Hence, 



these governments are seen taking personal charge 
as it were of the colonies; providing them masters 
and protectors, who, with government aid, would 
transport and in a certain sense own them and 
their labor after their arrival. The grantee of cer- 
tain royal rights and privileges in the new world 
was responsible to the viceroy for his colony, and 
the viceroy to the king. The whole was anti-doin- 
ocratic of course, and was but the continued and 
old, old idea of " the divine rights of rulers." 

The commentaries of even the favorite law- 
writers to-day in this democratic country ar« 
blurred on nearly every page with that monstrous 
heresy, "the king can do no wrong" — the gov- 
erning power is infallible, it needs no watching, no 
jealous eye that will see its errors or its crimes ; a 
fetich to be blindly worshiped, indiscriminately, 
whether it is an angel of mercy or a monster of 
evil. When Cannibal was king he was a god, with 
no soul to dictate to him the course he pursued. 
"The curiosities of patriotism under adversity" 
just here suggests itself as a natural title-page to 
one of the most remarkable books yet to be written. 

The bench and bar form a ver}' peculiar result 



<i k^ 



Of) 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of modern civilization — to-day fighting the most 
heroic battles for the poor and the oppressed ; to- 
morrow, perhaps, expending equal zeal and elo- 
quence in the train of the bloody nsui'per and ty- 
rant. As full of inconsistencies as insincerity it- 
self, it is also as noted for as wise, conservative and 
noble efforts in behalf of our race as ever distin- 
guished piitriot or sage. 

The dangers which beset the path of the law- 
yer are a blind adherence to precedent, and a love 
of the abstruse technicalities of the law practice. 
When both or either of these infirmities enter the 
soul of the otherwise young and rising practitioner, 
his usefulness to his fellow man is apt to bo perma 
nently impaired. He may be the "learned judge,"' 
but will not be the great and good one. 

The history of the bench and bar should be 
an instructive one. The inquirer, commencing in 
the natural order of all real history, investigating 
the cause or the fountain source, and then follow- 
ing up the effects flowing from causes, is met at 
the threshold with the question. Why ? What 
natural necessity created this vast and expensive 
supernumerary of civilization ? The institution in 
its entirety is so wide and involved, so comprehen- 
sive and expensive, with its array of court officials, 
great temples, its robes, ermine and wool-sacks; its 
halls, professors, schools and libraries, that the 
average mind is oppressed with the attempt to 
grasp its outlines. In a purely economic .sense it 
produces not one blade of grass. After having 
elucidated this much of the investigation as l)e.st 
he can, he comes to a minor one, or the details 
of the subject. For illustration's sake, let it be 
assumed that he will then take up the considera- 
tion of grand juries, their origin, history and present 
necessity for existence. These are mere hints, but 
such as will arrest the attention of the student of law 
of philosophical turn of mind. They are nothing 
more than the same problems that come in every 
department of history. The school of the lawyer 
is to accept precedent, the same as it is a common 
human instinct to accept what comes to him from 
the fathers — assuming everything in its favor and 
combating everything that would dispute "the 
old order." It is the exceptional mind which 



looks ancient precedent in the face and asks ques- 
tions, AVhence r Why ? Whither ? These are gen- 
erally inconvenient queries to indolent content, 
but they are the drive- wheels of moving civiliza- 
tion. 

One most extraordinary fact forever remains, 
namely, that lawyers and statesmen never unfolded 
the science of political economy. This seems a 
strange contradiction, but nevertheless it is so. 
The story of human and divine laws is much alike. 
The truths have not been found, as a rule, by the 
custodians of the temples. The Rev. Jaspers are still 
proclaiming ' ' the world do move. ' ' Great states- 
men are still seriously regulating the nation's 
' ' balance of trade, ' ' the price of interest on money, 
and through processes of taxation enriching peo- 
ples, while the dear old precedents have for 100 
years been demonstrated to be myths. They are 
theoretically dead with all intelligent men, but 
are very much alive in fact. Thus the social 
life of every people is full of most amusing curi- 
osities, many of them harmless, many that are not. 

The early bench and liar of Arkansas produced 
a strong and virile race of men. The pioneers of 
this important class of community possessed vigor- 
ous minds and bodies, with lofty ideals of personal 
honor, and an energy of integrity admirably fitted 
to the tasks set before them. 

The law of the land, the moment the Louisi- 
ana purchase was effected, was the English com- 
mon law, that vast and marvelous structure, the 
growth of hundreds of years of bloody English 
history, and so often the apparent throes of civil- 
ization. 

The circuit riders composed the first bench 
and bar liere, as in all the western States. In 
this State especially the accounts of the law prac- 
tice—the long trips over the wide judicial circuits; 
the hardships endured, the dangers encountered 
from swollen streams ere safe bridges spanned 
them; the rough accommodations, indeed, some- 
times the absence of shelter from the raging ele- 
ments, and amid all this their jolly happy-go-lucky 
I life, their wit and fun, their eternal electioneering, 
for every lawyer then vras a ])olitician; their quick- 
ened wits and schemes and devices to advantage 



^ s 



}£. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



(•.7 



each other, both in and out of the courts, if all 
could be told in detail, would read like a fascinat- 
iii<>- romance. These riders often traveled in com- 
panies of from three to fifteen, and among them 
would be found the college and law school gradu- 
ates, and the brush graduates, associated in some 
cases and opposed in oth(ir8. And here, as in all 
the walks of life, it was often found that the rough, 
.self educated men overmatched the graduates in 
their fiercest contests. While one might understand 
more of the books and of the learned technicalities 
of law, the other would know the jury best, and 
overthrow his antagonist. In the little old log 
cabin court rooms of those days, when the court 
was in session, the contest of the legal gladiators 
went on from the opening to the closing of the 
term. Generally the test was before a jury, and 
the people gathered from all the surrounding coun- 
try, deeply interested in every movement of the 
actors. This was an additional stimulus to the 
lawyer politicians, who well understood that their 
ability was gauged by the crowd, as were their suc- 
cesses before the jury. Thus was it a combination 
of the forum and "stump." Here, sometimes in 
the conduct of a noted case, a seat in Congress 
would be won or lost. A seat in Congress, or on 
the "wool sack," was the ambition of nearly every 
circuit rider. Their legal encounters were fought 
out to the end. Each one was dreadfully in earn- 
est — he practiced no assumed virtues in the strug- 
gle; battling as much at least for himself as his 
client, he would yield only under compulsion, even 
in the minor points, and, unfortunately, sometimes 
in the heat of ardor, the contest would descend 
from a legal to a personal one, and then the handy 
duello code was a ready resort. It seems it was 
this unhappy mixture of law and politics that 
caused many of these bloody personal encounters. 
In the pure practice of the law, stripped of polit- 
ical bearings, there seldom, if ever, came misunder- 
standings. 

They must have been a fearless and earnest 
class of men to brave the hardships of professional 
life, as well as mastering the endless and involved 
intricacies of the legal practice of that day. The 
law then was but little less than a mass of un- 



meaning technicalities. A successful practitioner 
required to have at his fingers' ends at least Black- 
stone' s Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and 
much of the wonders contained in the Rules of 
Evidence. Libraries were then scarce and their 
privations here were nearly as great as in the com- 
mon comforts for ' ' man and boast. ' ' There have 
been vast improvements in the simplifying of the 
practice, the abolition of technical pleadings es- 
pecially, since that time, and the young attorney 
of to-day can hardly realize what it was the pio- 
neers of his profession had to undergo. 

A judicial circuit at that early day was an im- 
mense domain, over which the bench and bar 
regularly made semi-annual trips. Sometimes 
they would not more than get around to their 
starting point before it would be necessary to 
go all over the ground again. Thus the court was 
almost literally "in the saddle." The saddle-bags 
were their law offices, and some of them, upon 
reaching their respective county-seats, would sig- 
nalize their brief stays with hard work all day in 
the court-room and late roystering at the tavern 
bar at night, regardless of the demurrers, pleas, 
replications, rejoinders and sur-rejoinders, declara- 
tions and bills that they knew must be confronted 
on the morrow. Among these jolly sojourners, 
' ' during court week ' ' in the villages, dignity and 
circumspection were often given over exclusively 
to the keeping of the judge and prosecutor. Cir- 
cumstances thus made the bench and bar as social 
a set as ever came together. To see them return- 
ing after their long journeyings, sunburned and 
weatherbeaten, having had but few advantages of 
the laimdry or bathtub, they might have passed for 
a retm-ning squad of cavalry in the late war. One 
eccentric character made it a point never to start 
with any relays to his wardrobe. When he reached 
home after his long pilgrimage it would be noticed 
that his clothes had a stuffed appearance. The 
truth was that when clean linen was needed he 
bought new goods and slipped them on over the 
soiled ones. He would often tell how he dreaded 
the return to his home, as he knew that after his 
wife attended to his change of wardrobe he was 
"most sure to catch cold." 



r'T 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



A 



On one occasion two members of the bar met 
at a county seat where court was in session a week. 
They had cume from opposite directions, one of 
them riding a borrowed horse seventy miles, while 
the other on his own horse had traveled over 100 
miles. Upon starting home they unwittingly ex- 
changed horses, and neither discovered the mistake 
until informed by friends after reaching their des- 
tination. The horses could hardly have been more 
dissimilar, but the owners detected no change. It 
was nearly the value of the animals to make the 
return exchange, yet each set out, and finally re- 
turned with the proper horse. No little ingenuity 
must have been manifested in finally unraveling 
the great mystery of the affair. 

Surrounded as they were with all these ill con- 
ditions, as a body of men they were nevertheless 
learned in the law, great in the forum, able and 
upright on the bench. Comparisons are odious, 
but it is nothing in disparagement to the present 
generation of courts and lawyers, to say that to be 
equally great and worthy with these men of the 
early bench and bar of Arkansas, is to exalt and 
ennoble the profession in the highest degree. 

Sixty years have now passed since the first 
coming of the members of this calling to the State 
of Arkan.sas. In 1S19 President Monroe appointed 
James Miller, governor, Robert Crittenden, secre- 
tary, and Charles Jouitt, Andrew Scott and Robert 
P. Letcher, judges of the Superior Court, for the 
new Territory of .\rkansas. All these, it seems, 
except Gov. Miller, were promptly at the post of 
duty and in the discharge of their respective offices. 
In the absence of Mr. Miller, Mr. Crittenden was 
acting governor. These men not only constituted 
the first bench and bar, but the first Territorial offi- 
cials and the first legislature. They were all lo- 
cated in the old French town of Arkansas Post. 
The lawyers and judges were the legislative body, 
which enacted the laws to be enforced in their re- 
spective districts. At their first legislative session 
they established but five statute laws, and from 
this it might be inferred that there wore few and 
simple laws in force at that time, but the reader 
will remember that from the moment of the Louis- 
iana ])urchase all the new territory passed under 



the regulation and control of the English common 
law — substantially the same system of laws then 
governing England. 

It is a singular comment on American juris- 
prudence that this country is still boasting the pos- 
session of the English habeas corpus act, wrung 
by those sturdy old barons from King John, — a 
government by the people, universal suffrage, 
where the meanest voter is by his vote also a sov- 
ereign, and therefore he protects himself against 
— whom? — why, against himself by the English 
habeas corpus act, which was but the great act of 
a great people that first proclaimed a higher right 
than was the " divine right of kings. ' ' When these 
old Englishmen presented the alternative to King 
John, the writ or the headsman's ax, he very sensi- 
bly chose the lesser of the two great inconven- 
iences. And from that moment the vital meaning 
of the phrase "the divine right of kings" was 
dead in England. 

In America, where all vote, the writ of habeas 
corpus has been time and time again suspended, 
and there are foolish men now who would gladly 
resort to this untoward measure, for the sake of 
party success in elections. There is no language of 
tongue or pen that can carry a more biting sar- 
casm on our boasted freemen or free institutions 
than this almost unnoticed fact in our history. 

One of the acts of the first legislative session 
held in August, 1819, was to divide the Territory 
into two judicial circuits. As elsewhere stated, the 
counties of Arkansas and Lawrence constituted the 
First circuit; Pulaski, Clark and Hempstead Coun- 
ties forming the Second. 

The judges of the Superior Courts were as- 
signed to the duties of the different circuits. At 
the first real Territorial legislature, composed of 
representatives elected by the people, the Territory 
was divided into three judicial circuits. The 
courts, however, for the diffei'ent circuits, were all 
held at the Territorial capital. There was no cir- 
cuit riding, therefore, at this time. 

Judicial circuits and judges residing therein 
were not a piirt of judiciary affairs until 1823. The 
judges of the First circuit from that date, with time 
of appointment and service, were : T. P. Eskridge, 



\ 



December 10, 1823; Andrew Scott, April 11, 1827; 
Sam G. Roane, April 17, 1829-36. The list of 
prosecuting attorneys includes: AV. B. R. Horner, 
November 1, 1823; Thomas Hubbard, November 
5, 1828, to February 15, 1832; G. D. Royston, 
September 7, 1833; Shelton Watson, October 4, 
1835; A. G. Stephenson, January 23, 1836. 

Of the Second circuit the judges were: Richard 
Searcy, December 10, 1823, and J. W. Bates, 
November, 1825, to 1836; while the prosecuting 
attorneys were R. C. Oden, November 1, 1823; A. 
H. Sevier, January 19, 1824 (resigned); Sam C. 
Roane, September 26. 1826; Bennett H. Martin, 

January 30, 1831 ; Alssalom Fowler, ; D. L. 

F. Roy.ston, July 25, 1835; Townsend Dickin- 
son, November 1. 1823; A. F. May, March 29, 
1825 (died in office); W. H. Parrott, April 21, 
1827; S. S. Hall, August 31, 1831; J. W. Robert- 
son, September 17, 1883; E. B. Ball, July 19, 
1836. 

Samuel S. Hall was judge of the Third circuit, 
serving from December, 1823, to 1836. As pros- 
ecuting attorneys, are found the names of T. Dick- 
inson, January 10, 1823; A. D. G. Davis, June 
21, 1829; S. G. Sneed, November 11, 1831; David 
Walker, September 13, 1833; Thomas Johnson, 
October 4, 1835; W. F. Denton, January 23, 1836. 

The appointment of Charles Caldwell as judge 
of the Fourth circuit dates from December 27, 
1828; while E. T. Clark, February 13, 1830; J. C. 
P. Tolleson, February 1, 1831; and W. K. Sebas- 
tian, from January 25, 1833, served as prosecuting 
attorneys. 

The Supreme Court of Arkansas has ever com- 
prised among its members men of dignity, wisdom 
and keen legal insight. The directory of these 
officials contains the names of many of those whose 
reputation and influence are far more than local. 
It is as follows: 

Chief justices: Daniel Ringo, 1836; Thomas 
Johnson. 1844; George C. Watkins, 1852 (re- 
signed); E. H. English, 1854 (also Confederate); 
T. D. W. Yonley. 1864 (Murphy constitution); E. 
Baxter, 1861 (under Murpliy regime); David 
Walker, 1866 (ousted by military); W. W. Wil- 
shire, 1868 (removed); John McClure, 1871, (re- 



moved); E. H. English, 1874. Sterling' R. (Jock 
rill is present chief justi- 

Associato justices: Thomas J. Lacey, 1836: 
Townsend Dickinson, 1836; George W. Paschal. 
1842; W. K. Sebastian, 1843; W. S. Oldham, 
1845; Ed ward Cross, 1845; WilliamConway, 1846; 
C. C. Scott, 1848; David Walker, 1847 and 1874; 
Thomas B. Hanley, 1858 (resigned); F. I. Batson. 
1858 (resigned); H. F. Fairchild, 1860 (died): 
Albert Pike, 1861 (al.so Confederate); J. J. Clen- 
denin, 1866 (ousted); T. M. Bowen, 1868; L. 
Gregg, 1868; J. E. Bennett, 1871; M. L. Steph 
enson, 1872; E. J. Searle, 1872; W. M. Harrison, 
1874; J. T. Bearden, 1874 (appointed); Jesse 
Tui-ner, 1878; J. R. Eakin, 1878; AV. W. Smith, 
1882; B. B. Battle, 1885, re-elected. By law 
three additional judges were elected April 2, 1889: 
Simon B. Hughes, W. E. Hemingway and Mont. 
H. Sandels. 

Reporters: Albert Pike, N. W. Cox, E. H. 
English, J. M. Moore, L. E. Barber, B. D. Turner 
and W. W. Mansfield (present incumbent). 

Clerks: H. Haral.son, L. E. Barber. N. W. Cox, 
and W. P. Campbell (in office). 

Special chief justices: William Story, F. W. 
Compton, J. L. Witherspoon, S. H. Hempstead. 

C. B. Moore, Thomas Johnson, R. A. Howard, 
George A. Gallagher, B. B. Battle. Sam W. Will- 
iams, A. B. Williams, G. N Cousin, Isaac Strain. 
N. Haggard, Edward Cross, R. C- S. Brown, L. 
A. Pindall, Sam C. Roane, George Conway, Sack- 
field Macklinin, John Whytock, C. C. Farrelley, 
W. W. Smith, W. I. Warwick, B. B. Morse, B. 

D. Turner, George W. Caruth, S. H. Harring- 
ton. 

In this list are the names of nearly all early 
members of the Arkansas bar. Commencing here 
as young attorneys in their profession, many of 
them have loft illustrious n.'imes — names that adorn 
the history of the State and Nation, and time 
will not dim nor change the exalted esteem now 
given them. Not one of them but that was an ex- 
ample of that wonderful versatility of American 
genius — the young lawyer l>i'oomiiig great in the 
practice of his profession in the wild wood: or cel- 
ebrated on the bench for decisions that came to the 



<s »^ 



70 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



world like beacon lights from the unknown land; 
or as senators holding civilized people apell-bouud 
bj' their wisdom and eloquence; and all, at all times, 
listening for their country's call to play as con- 
spicuous a part in camp and field as they bad in 
the walks of civil life. To undertake all these 
things is not wonderful with a people so cosmopol- 
itan as those of the west, but to be preeminent in 
each or all alike is most remarkable. 

Of this brilliant galaxy of pioneer legal lights 
— giants indeed- — there now remain as a connect- 
ing link with the present generation only the ven- 
erable Gen. Albert Pike, of Washington City, and 
Judge Jesse Turner, of Van Buren. 

Writing in a reminiscent way of the bench and 
bar, Albert Pike says: " M'hen I came to the bar 
there were William Cummins, Absalom Fowler, 
Daniel Ringo, Chester Ashley, and Samuel Hall, 
at Little Rock. I served on a jury in 183-1 where 
Robert Crittenden was an attorney in the case; the 
judge was Benjamin Johnson, who died in Decem- 
ber, 1834, at Vicksburg. Parrott and Oden died 
before I went to Little Rock. Judge William 
Trimble was an old meml)er of the bar when I en- 
tered it, as was Col. Horner, of Helena. Thomas 
B. Hanley had recently come to Helena from Louis- 
iana. I think Maj. Thomas Hubbard and George 
Conway were practicing at Washington in 1835. 
Judge Andrew Scott had been Territorial judge, but 
retired and lived in Pope County. Frederick W. 
Trapnall and John W. Cocke came from Kentucky 
to Little Rock in 1836, and also William C. Scott 
and his partner, Blanchard. I think Samuel H. 
Hempstead and John J. Clendenin came in 1836. 
John B. Floyd lived and practiced law in Chicot 
County." Gen. Pike further mentions Judge David 
Walker, John Linton, Judges Hoge and Sneed, 
John M. Wilson, Alfred W. Wilson, Ai'chibald 
Yell, Judge Fowler, Judge Richard C. S. Brown, 
Bennett H Martin, Philander Little, Jesse Turner 
and Sam W. Williams as among the eminent law- 
yers of the early courts of Arkansas. 

The list of those who have occupied positions 
as circuit judges and prosecuting attorneys in the 
various circuits, will be found of equal interest 
with the names mentioned in connection with a 



higher tribunal. It is as below, the date affixed 
indicating the beginning of the term of service: 

Judges of the First circuit: W. K. Sebastian, 
November 19, 1840; J. C. P. Tolleson, February 
8, 1 843 ; John T. Jones, December 2, 1842 ; Mark W. 

Alexander, ; George W. Beasley, September 

6, 1855; C. W. Adams, November 2, 1852; Thomas 

B. Hanley, ; E. C. Bronough, August 25, 

1858; O. H. Gates, March 3, 1859; E. C. Bronough, 
August 23, 1860; Jesse M. Houks, September 17, 
1865; John E. Bennett, July 23, 1868; C. C. Wat- 
ers, February 23, 1871; M. L. Stephenson, March 
24, 1871; W. H. H. Clayton, March 10, 1873; J. 
N. Cypei-t, October 31, 1874; M. T. Saunders, 
October 30, 1882. Prosecuting attorneys: W. S. 
Mosley, November 14, 1840; A. J. Greer, Novem- 
ber 9, 1841; S. S. Tucker, January 20, 1840: 
Alonzo Thomas, August 5, 1842; W. N. Stanton, 
December 2, 1842; N. M. Foster, December 4, 
1843; A. H. Ringo, March 2, 1849; H. A. Bad 
ham, March 12, 1851; L. L. Mack, September 
6, 1855; S. W. Childress, August 30, 1856; Lin- 
coln Featherstone, August 23, 1860; Z. P. H Farr, 
December 1, 1862; B. C. Brown, January 7, 1865; 
P. O. Thweat, October 15, 1866; C. B. Fitzpatrick, 
March 16, 1871; W. H. H. Clayton, March 23, 
1871; Eugene Stephenson, April 23, 1873; C. A. 
Otey, October 31, 1874; D. D. Leach, October 13, 
1876; P. D. McCulloch (three terms); Greenfield 
Quarl^s, October 30, 1884; S. Brundridge, October 
30, 1886. 

Judges of the Second circuit: Isaac Baker, 
November 23, 1840; John C. Murray, August 18, 
1851; W. H. Sutton, January 11, 1845; John C. 
Murray, August 22, 1858; Josiah Gould, Febru- 
ary 26, 1849; W. M. Harrison, May 17, 1865; 
T. F. Sorrells, August 22, 1853; W. C. Hazeldine, 
April 14, 1871; J. F. Lowery, December 12, 
1863; L. L. Mack, October 3l', 1874; William 
Story, July 23, 1868; W. F. Henderson, April 26, 
1874; J. G. Frierson, October 31, 1882; W. A, 
Case, vice Frierson, deceased, March 17, 1884, 
elected September 1, 1884; J. E. Riddick, Oc- 
tober 30, 1886. Prosecuting attorneys: John S. 
Roane, November 15, 1840; Samuel Wooly, Sep- 
tember 19, 1842; J. W. Bocage, November 20, 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



71 



1843; S. B. Jones, April 20, 184(5; T. F. Sorrells, 
February 26, 1849; W. P. Urace, August 22, 
1858; S. F. Arnett, August 23, 1850; D. W. 
Carroll, August 30, 1860: C. G. Goddeu, May 17, 
1865; W. F. Slemmons, October 15, 1866; D. 
D. Leach, December 16, 1868; R. H. Black. May 
6. 1873; J. E. Riddick, October 13, 1870; W. A. 
Gate, October 14, 1878; E. F. Brown, May 5, 
1870; W. B. Edrington (four terms). October 30, 
1880; J. D. Block, October, 1888. 

Judges of the Third circuit: Thomas Johnson, 
November 13, 1840; William Conway, November 
15, 1844; W. C. Scott, December 11, 1846; R. 
H. Nealy, February 28, 1851 ; W. C. Bevins, August 
23, 1856; W. R. Cain, August 23, 1860; L. L. 
Mack. March 15. 1806; Elisha Baxter, July 23, 
1868: James W. Butler, March 10, 1873; William 
Byers, October 30, 1874; R. H. Powell (threo 
terms). October 30, 1882; J. W. Butler, May, 1887. 
Prosecuting attorneys: N. Haggard, November 30, 
1840; S. S. Tucker, January 20, 1842; S. H. 
Hempstead. February, 1842; A. R. Porter, Decern 
ber 2, 1842; S. C.Walker, December 2, 1846; J. H. 
Byers. March 5, 1849; W. K. Patter.son, August 
30. 1856; F. W. Desha, August 30, 1860; L. L. 
Mack, July 8, 1861; T. J. Ratcliff, July 9, 1865; 
M. D. Baber, October 15, 1866; W. A. Inman, 
December 8, 1868; J. L. Abernathy, October 31, 
1874; Charles Coffin, October 14, 1878; M. N. 
Dyer (two terms), October 30, 1882; W. B. Padgett, 
October 30, 1886; J. L. Abernathy, October, 1888. 

Judges of the Fourth circuit: J. M. Hoge, 
November 13, 1840; S. G. Sneed, November 18, 
1844; A. B. Greenwood, March 3, 1851; F. I. 
Batson, August 20, 1853; J. M. Wilson, Febru 
ary 21, 1859; J. J. Green, August 23, 1800; Y. 
B. Sheppard, May 9, 1803; Thomas Boles, 
August 3, 1865; W. N. May. April 24, 1868; 
M. L. Stephenson, July 23, 1868; C. B. Filz- 
patrick, March 23, 1871; J. Huckleberry, April 
10, 1872; J. M. Pittman, October 31, 1874; J. H. 
Berry, October 21, 1878; J. M. Pittman (three 
terms), October 31, 1882. Prosecuting attorneys: 
Alfred M. Wilson, November 13, 1840; A. B. 
Greenwood, January 4, 1845; H. F. Thomasson, 
September 6. 1853; Lafayette Gregg. August 23, 



1856; B. J. Brown, December 1, 1802; J. E. 
Cravens, January 7, 1865; Squire Boon, October 
15, 1806; Elias Harrell, August 11, 18(38; S. W. 
Peel, April 26, 1873; E. I. Stirman, October 13. 
1876; H. A. Dinsmoro (three terms), October 14, 
1878; J. Frank Wilson, October 30, 1884; J. W. 
Walker, October 30, 1866; S. M. Johnson. Octo 
ber 30, 1888. 

Judges of t)ie Fifth circuit: J. J. Cleudenin, 
December 28, 1840; W. H. Field, December 24, 
1846; J. J. Clendenin, September 6, 1854; Liberty 
Bartlett, November 12, 1854; E. D. Ham, July 23, 
1868; Benton J. Brown, September 30, 1874; AV. 
W. Mansfield, October 31, 1874; Thomas W. 
Pound, September 9, 1878; W. D. Jacoway, Oc- 
tober 31, 1878; G. S. Cunningham (three terms), 
October 31, 1882. Prosecuting attorneys: R. W . 
Johnson, December 29, 1840; George C. Watkius, 
January 11, 1845; J. J. Clendenin. February 17, 
1849, to 1854; J. L. Hollowell, September 8, 1858, 
to 1860; Sam W. Williams, May 10, 1860; Pleas- 
ant Jordan, September 7, 1861 ; Sam W. Williams, 
July 6, 1863; John Whytock, December 19, 1865; 
R. H. Dedman. October 15, 1866; N. J. Temple, 
August 15, 18(38; Arch Young, August 24, 1872; 
Thomas Barnes, April 23, 1873; J. P. Byers, Oc- 
tober 31, 1873; A. S. McKennon, October 14, 
1878; J. G. Wallace (two terms), October 31, 
1882; H. S. Carter, October 30, 1886. • 

Sixth circuit — judges: William Conway, De- 
cember 19, 1840; John Field, February 3, 1843: 
George Conway, August 1, 1844; John Quillin. 
March 2, 1849; Thomas Hubbard, August 22, 
1854; A. B. Smith, February 7, 1856; Shelton Wat- 
son, September 26, 1858; Len B. Green, April 5, 
1858; A. B. Williams, January 28, 1865; J. T. 
Elliott, October 2, 1865; J. J. Clendenin, October 
31, 1874; J. W. Martin. October 31, 1878; F. T. 
Vaughan, October 31, 18S2; J. W. Martin, Octo- 
ber 30, 1886. Prosecuting attorneys: G. D. Roys- 
ton, November 11, 1840; O. F. Rainy, June 12, 
1843; Isaac T. Tupper, January 18, 1844; A. W. 
Blevins, January 11, 1847; E. A. Warner, March 
3, 1851; Orvillo Jennings, August 23, 1853; E. 
W. Gantt, August 22, 1854; James K. Yoimg, 
August 30. 1800; Robert Carrigau, September 13, 



72 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1865; J. F. Ritchie. October 15, 1866; T. B. Gib 
son. January 11, 1868; Charles C. Reid, Jr., April 
30, 1871; F. T. Vaughan, September 18. 1876; 
T. C. Trimble, September 30, 1878; F. T. Vaughan, 
September 30, 1880; T. C. Trimble, October 31, 
1882; R. J. Lea. October 30, 1884; Gray Carroll. 
October 30, 1886; R. J. Lea, October 30, 1888. 

Seventh circuit — judges; R. C. S. Brown, 1840; 
W. W. Floyd. November 30, 1S46. (December 
20, 1849, the State was redi.stricted into six cir- 
cuits. Hence this was abolished for the time.) 
William Byers, July 8, 18(')1; R. H, Powell. May 
11, 1866; John Whytock, July 23, 1868; J. J. 
Clendenin, May 29, 1874; Jabez M. Smith, Oc 
tober 31, 1874; J. P. Henderson (three terms), Oc- 
tober 31, 1882. Prosecuting attorneys: John M. 
Wilson, November 20, 1840; J. M. Tebbetts, De- 
cember 5. 1844; Elisba Baxter, December 7, 1861: 
W. B. Padgett. August 29, 1865; W. R. Coody. 
October 15, 1866; E. W. Gantt, July 31, 1868; 
J. M. Harrell, May 5, 1873; M. J. Henderson. 
October 31, 1874; James B. Wood, October 14. 
1878; J. P. Henderson (three terms), October 31, 
1882: W. H. Martin, October 30, 1888. 

Eighth circuit — judges: C. C. Scott, December 
2, 1846; William Davis. July 8, 1848 (abolished 
December 20, 1849); James D. Walker, July 25. 
1861; Elias Harrell, May 8, 1865; William Story, 
March 27, 1867; E. J. Earle, July 23, 1868; T. G. 
T. Steele, February 23, 1873; L. J. Joyner. Octo- 
ber 31, 1874; H. B. Stuart, October 31, 1878; 
R. D. Hearn, October 30, 1886. Prosecuting attor- 
neys: Richard Lyons, February 5, 1847; N. W. Pat- 
terson, October 25, 1865; C. G. Reagan, January 
7, 1865; J. C. Pratt, July 23, 1868; T. M. Gun- 
ter, October 15, 1866; Duane Thompson. January 
4, 1874: George A. Kingston, July 26. 1871; J. 
D. McCabe, October 31, 1874; J. H. Howard, April 
26, 1873; Rufus D. Hearn (three terms), July 6, 
1874; Lafayette Gregg, November 13. 1862; W. 
M. Green (three terms), October 30, 1884. 

Ninth cireuit^udges: H. B. Stuart, Novem- 
ber 28, 1862; W. N. Hargrave, , 1865; E. J. 

Searle, February 25, 1867; G. W. McCowan, July 
23, 1868: J.T. Elliott, April 26. 1873: J. K. Young, 
October 31. 1874; C. F. Mitchell. October 31. 1882; 



L. A. Byrne, November 4, 1884; A. B. Williams, 
vice Mitchell, resigned. September 10, 1884; C. E. 
Mitchell, October 30, 1886. Prosecuting attorneys: 

A. J. Temple, July 8, 1861; A. T Craycraft, 
January 7, 1865; E. J. Searle. Febraary 19, 1866; 
R. C. Parker, October 15, 1866; N. J. Temple. 
January 20, 1867; J. R. Page, January 9, 1869; 
J. M. Bradley, April 26, 1873; Dan W. Jones, 
October 31. 1874; B. W. Johnson, October 13. 
1876; John Cook, October 14. 1880; T. F. Web- 
ber (four terms), October 31, 1882. 

Judges of the Tenth circuit: H. P. Morse, 
July 23, 1868; D. W Carroll, October 28, 1874; 
T. F. Sorrells, October 31, 1874; J. M. Bradley, 
October 30. 1882; C. D. Wood. October 30. 1886. 
Prosecuting attorneys: J. McL. Barton, March 

29, 1869; H. King White, April 20, 1871; M. Mc- 
Gehee, April 29, 1873; J. C. Barrow, October 31, 
1874; C. D. Woods, October 30, 1882; M. L. 
Hawkins, rnce Woods, October 10, 1886; R. C. 
Fuller, October 30. 1888. 

Eleventh circuit — judges: J. W. Fox, April 

30, 1873; H. N. Hutton, July 24, 1874; John A. 
Williams. October 31, 1874; X. J. Pindall. Octo- 
ber 31, 1878; J. A. Williams (two terms). October 
30,1882. Prosecuting attorneys- H. M. McVeigh, 
April 26, 1873; Z. L. Wise, October 31. 1874; T. 

B. Martin. October 10, 1878; J. M. Elliott (five 
terms), October 10, 1880. 

Twelfth circuit — judges: P. C. Dooley. April 
26, 1873; J. H. Rogers, April 20, 1877;" R. B. 
Rutherford, October 2, 1882; John S. Little, Octo- 
ber 20, 1 886. Prosecuting attorneys : D. D. Leach, 
April 26, 1873; John S. Little (three terms), April 
2, 1877; A. C. Lewers (two terms), September 20, 
1884; J. B. McDonough, October 30, 1888. 

Thirteenth circuit — judges: M. D. Kent, April 
26, 1873; B. F. Askew, October 30, 1882; C. W. 
Smith, Octol>er 30. 1886. Prosecuting attorneys: 
W. C. Langford, April 26, 1873; W. F. Wallace, 
June 5, 1883; H. P. Snead (three terms), Octo- 
ber 30, 1884. 

Fourteenth circuit — judges: George A. King- 
ston, April 26, 1873; R. H. Powell, May, 1887. 
Prosecuting attorneys: Duane Thompson, April 
26, 1873; De Ross Bailey. May, 1887. 



.|^ 





y 



^C^--/- <--(-— 



I 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



L. D. Belden was appointed judge of the Fif- 
teenth circuit April 20, 187:^ the prosecuting at- 
torney being G. G. Lotta, elected April 23, 1873. 

Sixteenth circuit— judge: Elisha Mears, April 
2G, 1873. Prosecuting attorneys: H. N. Withers, 



September 27, 1873; V. B. Shepard, April 30, 
1874. 

By an act of April 10, 1873, the Stale was di- 
vided into sixteen judicial circuits, but two years 
later a reduction to eleven in number was made. 



» << - 



lliflt IX. 



The Late Civil War-An.vlytical Viisw of the Troublous Times-Passage of the Ordinanxe or 
.SECE.SSION-THE Call to Aiims-Tiie Fiust Tkoops to Take the Field-Invasion ok the State 
BY THE Federal Army— Sketches of the Regiments-Names ok Officers-Outline ok 
Field Operations-Claibourne and Y ell— Extracts from Private Memo- 
randa—Evacuation OF THE State— Re-Occupation— The War OF 1812— 
The Mexican War— Standard of American (Jeneralsiiip. 




ysiii. 



Tlie cannon's hiishd! nor dium nor claiion sound; 
Helmet and hauberk gleam upon llie giouud; 
Horsemen and horse lie weltering in their gore; 
Patriots are dead, and heroes dare no more; 
While solemnly the moonlight shrouds the plain. 
And lights the lurid features of the s\mn.— Montgomery. 



\ RKANSAS was not among 
the States that may be call- 
' ed leaders in inaugurating 
the late war. It only pass- 
ed a secession ordinance 
'i May 6, 1861, nearly a 
1?^ month after hostilities had 
commenced, and Lincoln had issued 
his call for 7-"), 000 ninety-day troops 
■ ' to put down the rebellion. ' ' The re- 
liictance with which the State finally 
joined its sister States is manifested 
Ijy the almost unanimous refusal of 
the State convention, which met in 
March, 1801 — the day Lincoln was in- 
augurated — and nearly unanimously voted down 
secession and passed a series of conservative resolu- 
tions, looking to a national convention to settle in 



some way tlie vexed (juostion of slavery, and then 
voting a recess of the convention. \\'hen this 
re assembled war was upon the country, and the 
ordinance of secession was passed, only, however, 
after full discussion, pro and con. There was 
but one vote against secession finally, and that wa* 
given by Isaac Murphy— afterward the military 
governor of Arkansas. 

Local authorities received instructions to arm 
and equip forty regiments of State troops. The 
ruling minds of the State were averse to war, 
and resisted it until they were forced into the po- 
sition of siding with their neighbors or with the 
Union cause. In the South, as in the North, 
there were inconsiderate hot-heads, who simply 
wanted war for war's sake — full of false pretexts, 
but eager for war with or without a i:)retext. These 
extremists of each party were, unconsciously, per- 



74 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



haps, but in fact, the two blades of the pair of 
scissors, to cut asunder the ties of the Uuion of 
States. Shivery, possibly not directly the cause of 
the war, was the haudie.st pretext seized upon at 
the time, with such disastrous results. In the dis- 
pensations of heaven, had the fanatics of the North 
and the tire-eaters of the South boon hung across 
the clothes-line, as a boy sometimes hangs cats, 
and left in holy peace to fight it out, what a bless- 
ing for mankind it would have been! 

The history of the late war cannot yet be writ- 
ten. Its most profound effects are not yet evolved. 
The actual fighting ceased nearly a generation ago, 
and the cruel strife is spoken of as over. It is the 
effects that true history observes. The chronicler 
records the dates and statistics, and tiles these 
away for the future historian. It is highly prob- 
able that there is no similar period in history 
where the truth will be so distorted as by him 
who tells ' ' the story of the war. ' ' 

Anyone can begin to see that there are many 
things now that were unknown before the war. 
Great changes are still being worked out, anti 
whether or not yet greater ones are to come, no one 
knows. The abolitionists thirty years ago hated 
the slave owners, — the slave holders loved slavery. 
The former thought to forever end slavery on this 
continent by liberating the slaves, and now the 
once alarmed slave owner has discovered that the 
great benefits of the abolition of slavery have been 
to the whites far more than to the blacks. 

There is little idea of what the real historian 
one hundred years from now will be compelled to 
say of these "' blessed times." He will mo.st prob- 
ably smile in pity upon all this self- laudation and 
wild boast. If men could have known the effects 
to follow in all the important movements of peo- 
ples, it is highly probable there would have been no 
civil war. Those who "sectionally hated" may 
sleep quietly in their graves, because they died 
unconscious as to whether their supposed Ijloody 
revenge, driven hiirtling at the enemy, was a bullet 
or a boomerang. 

The Southern individual may look with envy to 
the pension fund now being poured out in North- 
ern States, while, instead of this, ho should only 



remember that the Southern soldier is making his 
way unaided in the world. It should not be for- 
gotten that the rapid development of the South is 
sadly in want of the constant labor of thousands of 
immigrants, and that the New South is just entering 
upon a period of surprising and unexampled pros- 
perity, which certainly must continue. 

In Arkansas, as in Illinois, when Fort Sumter 
was fired on, instantly there was a storm of excite- 
ment to "let slip the dogs of war." Action took 
the place of argument. The best men in the com- 
munity, those who had so long talked and pleaded 
against war, closed their mouths, and with sore 
hearts turned their eyes away from the sad outlook. 
The young and the inconsiderate seized the power 
to rule, and (though they knew it not) to ruin. 
Bells were rung, drums were beaten, and fifes made 
strident martial music, and people rushed into the 
streets. Open air meetings for the Confederate 
cause gathered, and songs and speeches inflamed 
the wildest passions of men. Poor men ! they 
little r(>cked the cruel- fate into which they were 
plunging their country — not only themselves, but 
generatiotis to come. A tifer and drummer march- 
ing along the streets, making harsh and discordant 
noises, ■\tere soon followed by crowds of men, 
women and children. Volunteers were called for 
by embryo captains, and from these crowds were 
soon recruited squads to be crystallized into armies 
with heavy tramp and flying banners — the noisy 
prologue to one of the bloodiest tragedies on which 
time has ever rung up the curtain. 

The first official action of the State was that 
authorizing the. raising and equipping of seven 
regiments. These were soon ready to report with 
full ranks. Seven regiments ! Even after the 
war was well on foot, men were forming companies 
in hot haste, in fear that before they could reach 
the field of action the war would be over. And 
after they were mustered in and at their respective 
rendezvous, without iiniforms and with sticks for 
guns, learning the rudiments of drill, they were 
restless, troubled seriously with the fear that they 
would never see or feel the glory of battle. The 
youths of the State had rushed to the recruiting sta- 
tions with the eager thoughtlessness with which 



y-. 



i) I'y 



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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



75 



they would have put down their names for picnic, 
hunting or fishing expeditions, and the wild delights 
of a season of camp life. Perhaps to some came 
indistinct ideas of winning glory on the field and a 
triumjjhant return home, to be met by the happy 
smiles of a people saved — when the bells would 
ring and flowers be strewn in the highway. 

The seven regiments first authorized by the 
military board (the board consisting of the gov- 
ernor, Col. Sam W. Williams and Col. B. C Tot- 
ten) had hardly been formed when more soldiers 
were wanted. Ten additional regiments wore 
authorized, and of the ten seven were recruited 
and organized. Fourteen infantry regiments be 
sides the cavalry and artillery had been a strong 
demand on the people, but the calls for men were 
increased. By voluntary eidistments twenty-one 
infantry regiments were finally in the field. In- 
cluding cavalry and artillery, Arkansas had about 
25,000 volunteer soldiery. 

Then came the remorseless conscription. The 
glamour of soldiering was now all gone. Ragged, 
hungry, wounded and worn with hard marches, 
men had suffered the touch of the hand of the 
angel of destruction. The relentless conscripting 
went on. The number of years before old age 
exempted was lengthened, and the age of youth 
exempting was shortened, until as said by Gen. 
Grant, they were "robbing the cradle and the 
grave ' ' to recruit their decimated ranks in the 
army. 

There are no records now by which can be told 
the number of men Arkansas had in the Confeder- 
ate army, but it is supposed by those best informed 
to have had nearly 40,000. In addition to this the 
State furnished soldiers to the Union army. In 
the history of wars it is doubtful if there is anything 
to exceed this in the heroic sacrifices of any people. 

The original seven regiments were authorized 
as the first exuberant war expression of the State. 
They were State troops, armed and equipped by 
the State; but the fact is that the poorest men went 
into the army at their individual expense and armed 
and equipped themselves. This was the rule — not 
by men only who were fighting for their slave 
property, but largely by men who had never owned 



or expected to own a slave. When the Union army 
under Gen. Curtis was bearing down to invade Ar- 
kansas, ten more regiments were autlmrized and 
responded to this call, and seven additional regi- 
ments were raised and mustered into the State's 
service. 

A military board had been provided for, con- 
sisting of three men, the governor and two advis- 
ors, who had a general supervision in organizing 
and equipping the army. 

The first regiment raised in the State is known 
as the Pat Cleburne regiment. Patrick A. Cleburne, 
colonel, was soon made a general, and took his 
brigade east of the Mississippi River. The gal 
lant and dashing leader was killed in the l)attle of 
Franklin, Noveml)er 80, IHO-i. At the first call 
to arms he raised a company and named it the Yell 
Rifles, of which he was first captain, and on the 
formation of the first regiment he became colonel, 
rising up and up by rapid promotions to a major- 
generalship. 

The names of Yell and Pat Cleburne are en- 
twined closely in the hearts of the people of Arkan- 
sas. Yell was killed at the bloody battle of Buena 
Vista, Mexico, at the head of his charging column. 
The military lives and deaths of the two men were 
much alike. Their names and fames are .secure in 
history. There is a touch of romance about Pat 
Cleburne's life in Arkansas. A Tipperary boy, of 
an excellent family, born in 1828, he had, when not 
more than sixteen years of age, joined the English 
army, where he was for more than a year before his 
whereabouts became known. His friends secured* 
his release from the army, when he at once bade 
adieu to his native land and sailed for America. 
Stopping in 1849, a short time in Cincinnati, he 
was for a while a drug clerk. In 1859 he came 
to Helena. Ark. , and engaged here also as a pre- 
scription clerk, in the meantime reading law; he 
was made a licensed attorney in 1856. In the 
bloody street affray soon after, betwe;>n Hindman 
and Dorsey Rice, he was drawn into the fracas and 
was shot through the body by a brother of Rice's, 
who came upon tiie ground during the mel6e. The 
latter noticed the encounter, and seeing that Cle- 
burne stood at one side, pistol in hand, tired. On 



f- 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tvu-ning to see who had shot him, Ck^burne saw 
James Marriott, a brother-iu-law of Dorsey Rice, 
with pistol in hand, and imder the mistake that 
he was the assailant, shot him dead. Cleburne 
lingered a long time from his wound but finally 
recovered. 

In the yellow fever scourge in Helena, in 1855, 
he was at one time about the only well person re- 
maining to care for the sick and dying. He was a 
strict member of the church and for some years a 
vestryman in St. John's Episcopal Church, Helena. 
He was engacfed to wed Miss Tarleton, of Mobile, 
when he fell upon the battle field, and the dead 
soldier lay upon the ground, with his arms folded 
over his breast, as if even in death he would pro- 
tect the sacred tokens of love that he wore next his 
heart. 

The military board elected two brigadier-gen- 
erals — James Yell and N. B. Pierce. The latter 
was sent to Northwestern Arkansas, where was 
fought the first battle on Arkansas soil — Pea Ridge, 
or as it is better known in the South, Elkhorn. 
This was a severe engagement, and a decisive one. 

There is yet some confusion in referring to the 
respective numbers of the Arkansas regiments. 
Gen. Pierce, supposing he had full power, gave 
numljers Third, Fourth and Fiftli to what the 
board, the proper and only authority, designated 
as numbers Second, Third and Fourth. The fol- 
lowing shows the board's numbering and names 
of the colonels : 

First, Col. P. H. Cleburne; Second, Col. 
Gratiot; Third, Col. Dockery; Fourth, Col. Davis 
Walker; Fifth, Col. D. C. Cross; Sixth, Col. Lyon; 
Seventh, Col. Shaver; Eighth, Col. W. K. Patter- 
son; Ninth, Col. John Roane; Tenth, Col. T. D. 
Merrick; Eleventh, Col. Jabez M. Smith; Twelfth, 
Col. E. W. Gantt; Thirteenth, Col. J. C. Tappan; 
Fourteenth, Col. W. C. Mitchell, (never com- 
pleted); Fifteenth, Col. Dawson; Seventeenth, Col. 
G. \V. Lamar, Lieut. -Col. Sam W. Williams. 

In the scraps of records now to be found there 
are mentioned as the different arms in the Confed- 
erate service of Arkansas men, in addition to those 
above given, the following: Light artillery. Hill's; 
batteries, Blocher's. Brown's, Etter's, Hughey's, 



Marshall's and West's; cavalry battalions, Chris- 
man's, Crawford's, Hill's, Witherspoon's; detached 
companies. Brown's, Coarser' s, Desha's, Ranger's, 
Fitzwilliam's, Miller's and Palmer's; regiments, 
Carroll's, Dobbins', Newton's; infantry, regiments 
from one to thirty-nine, inclusive. 

Four regiments of infantry of Federal recruits 
were raised in Arkansas, the First commanded by 
Col. M. La Rue Harrison; the Fourth by Elisha 
Baxter. The First Arkansas Light Artillery was 
150 strong. The Arkansas Infantry Brigade was 
under command of Col. James M. True. August 
5, 1863, Adj't Gen. Thomas made a trip to the 
Southwest for the purpose of gathering in all the 
negroes possible by scouting bands, and to enlist 
the able bodied men. The First Arkansas Battery 
was commanded by Capt. Dent D. Stark, and the 
First Arkansas Cavalry by Maj. J. J. Johnson. 
The Second Arkansas Cavalry is mentioned. 
Lieut. -Col. E. J. Searle, authorized to raise the 
Third Arkansas Cavalry, reported 400 strong. 
The Foui'th Arkansas Cavalry comprised nine 
companies, commanded by Capt. W. A. Martin. 

The Second and Third Arkansas colored in- 
fantry regiments are mentioned, in addition to the 
Second and Third white regiments. 

In the spring of 1861, the Richmond govern- 
ment authorized Col. T. B. Flournoy to raise a reg- 
iment. It was collected in and about Little Rock 
and Col. Fagan was elected commander. This 
command went to Virginia. Gen. Churchill organ- 
ized the first regiment of cavalry, with rendezvous 
at Little Rock. Gen. T. C. Hindman organized 
Hindman's Legion. It consisted of infantry and 
cavalry and had fifteen companies. He took his 
command east of the river. Under the direction of 
the military board Col. Rosey Carroll's regiment 
of cavalry was raised. The Second Arkansas Reg- 
iment of Mounted Infantry was mustered at Osage 
Springs, by Col. Dandridge McRea. James Mcln 
tosh became colonel and Capt. H. H. Brown, major. 
J. P. Eagle was first lieutenant-colonel and after- 
ward colonel. Col. Mcintosh was killed at Pea 
Ridge, but had been promoted a brigadier-general 
a few days before his death. 

The absence of war archives from the State, 



r 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



77 



the most of them that were proserved until after 
the war being now in Washington, and the pass- 
ing away of so many of tho prominent participants, 
and a common fault of human memory, make it 
well-nigh impossible to gather for permanent form 
any satisfactory roster of the different Confederate 
commands or the order of their organization. No 
Arkansan so far, which is much to be regretted, 
has attempted to write a history of the State in 
the civil struggle. 

Gov. J. P. Eagle happened to keep dupli- 
cates of certain reports he made while in the ser- 
vice, and discovered them recently where they had 
been laid away and forgotten among old papers. 
Fortunately when he made the reports the idea 
occurred to him to keep a copy for himself, that 
some day he might look over them and be inter- 
ested. 

" This is a list of the killed and wounded in my 
regiment," he remarked, "the Second Arkansas, 
from May 8 to August 31, 1864, and the other is a 
report of the same from November 26, 1864, to 
March 21, 1865." 

The Second Arkansas at the beginning of the 
war was a mounted regiment, commanded by Col. 
James Mcintosh. It was dismounted early in the 
conflict. Col. Mcintosh was promoted to the rank 
of brigadier-general in the spring of 1862. He 
led his brigade bravely into the heaviest fighting 
at the battle of Elkhorn (Pea Ridge), where he 
was killed. He was succeeded by Col. Embry, 
who was soon after succeeded by Col. Flannagin, 
afterwards the "War Governor" of Arkansas. 
Flannagin was siicceeded by Col. James William- 
son, who lost a leg at the battle of Resaca, Ga. , 
May 14, 1864. Col. J. T. Smith then became 
colonel. He was killed July 28 following, in the 
fight at Lick Skillet Road, and J. P. Eagle, now 
governor of Arkansas, became colonel. Col. 
Eagle had been wounded at Moore's Mills, and at 
the time of his promotion was not with the famous 
regiment. He remained in command until the 
regiment was consolidated with other regiments 
and the whole formed into one regiment, with Col. 
H. G. Bunn commanding. Gov. Eagle became 
lieutenant-colonel and George Wells, major. 



The battle of Elkhorn checked the advance of 
Curtis' army into Arkansas, and the Federals re- 
mained hovering in the southwest of Missouri and 
northwest of Arkansas for some time. Immedi- 
ately after the fight Van Dom's forces were with- 
drawn and taken east of the Mississippi to resist 
the Federal advance down the river to Vicksburg. 
Gen. T. C. Hindman returned and took command 
of the Confederates in Arkansas and cstablislicd 
headquarters at Little Rock and slightly fortified 
the place. 

Gen. Curtis then moved with the Federal army 
down the valley of White River, acting in con 
junction with the river fleet, and when he reached 
Cotton Plant a flank attack was made on his army 
and the battle of Cotton Plant was fought. The 
Confederates were repulsed, and Curtis moved on 
and took possession of Helena, the Confederates 
retiring. Northern and Northeastern Arkansas 
were then in the possession of the Union army. 
The Federals were in the possession of the Missis- 
sippi down to a point just above Vicksburg. The 
Confederates made a futile effort to re-capture 
Helena, July 4, 1863, but heavy rains, swollen 
streams and impassable roads thwarted every 
move. 

June 2, 1862, Gov. Rector issued the following: 

"It being essential that but one military organization 
shall exist within the Trans-Mississippi department, all 
Arkansas troops are hereby transferred to the Confeder- 
ate service." (Signed) H. M. RKCTOn. 

Gov. «& Prest, Mil. Board. 

The authorities at Richmond, as well as in the » 
Trans- Mississippi district, were anxiously awaiting 
news of the war steamer, "Arkansas," then build- 
ing up the mouth of Red River. June 2, 1862, 
she steamed out of that river and passed the fleet 
guarding the river for the purpose of capturing the 
rebel steamer. The attempt and success in run- 
ning the fiery gauntlet was one of the most exciting 
scenes ever witnessed on western rivers. Proudly 
the vessel kept on her covu'se, sending volleys into 
every vessel to the right and left, and at nearly 
every turn of her wheels encountering new enemies. 
A Federal surgeon of the Union fleet said that 
wonderful trip of the "Arkansas" reminded him 



78 



HISTOKY OF AEKANSAS. 



of the Irishman's advice on going into the "free 
tight " — " wherever you see <i hoail hit it. ' ' The 
Confederate reports say two Federal gun-boats 
were captured and others disabled. 

August 7, following, the "Arkansas," when five 
miles above Baton Rouge on her way down the 
river, again encountered Federal gun -boats. Her 
machinery being disabled, after she had fought 
long and well, her crew "blew her up, and all 
escaped. ' ' 

January 3, 1863 Gen. J. M. Schofield wrote to 
Gen. Curtis, from Fayetteville, Ark. : "The oper- 
ations of the army since I left it have been a series 
of blunders, from which it narrowly escaped dis- 
aster * * At Prairie Grove (fought in Decem- 
ber, 1802) Blunt and Herron were badly beaten in 
detail and owed their escape to a false report of 
my arrival with re-enforcements." It now is 
revealed that Hindman did not know the extent 
of his victory, but supposed he was about to be 
overwhelmed by the enemy. Thus the two armies 
were as secretly as possible running away from 
each other. 

July 13, 1863, Gen. E. Kirby Smith wrote from 
Shreveport, headquarters of the Trans- Mississippi 
district, to Govs. Thomas C. Reynolds, F. R. Liib- 
bock, H. Flannagin and Thomas O. Moore, calling 
on these, as the heads of their respective States, to 
meet him at Marshall, Tex., August 15, following: 
"I have attempted to irajKirtially survey the field 
of my labor. * * j found on my arrival the 
headquarters of Arkansas district at Little 
Rock. * * Vicksburg has fallen. The enemy 
possesses the key to this department. * * The 
possession of the Mississippi River by the enemy 
cuts off this department from all communication 
with Richmond, consequently we must be self- 
sustaining, and self-reliant in every respect. * * 
With God's help and yours I will cheerfully 
grapple with the difficulties that surround us,'' etc. 

This was a gloomy but a correct view of the 
situation west of the Mississippi River after the 
fall of Vicksburg. 

On January 11, 1863, from Helena, Gen. Fiske 
reported to Washington : ' ' Found Gorman actively 
organizing expedition to go up White River to 



co-operate with Gen. McClernand on Arkansas 
River. Twenty-five transports are waiting the 
signal to start. ' ' 

Fi-om "Prairie Landing, twenty-five miles up 
Arkansas. January 13, 1863," Amos F. Eno. sec- 
retary jjro tern of Arkansas and adjutant-general, 
telegraphed Staunton: "Left Helena on 11th. and 
took with me books and papers of ofiice of military 
government of Arkansas. ' ' 

January 14, 1803, the Federals captured St. 
Charles, the Confederates evacuating the day before. 

January 18, Gen. W. A. Gorman occupied 
Devall's Bluff, which the Confederates had also 
evacuated. 

These captures and evacuations were the pre- 
liminary movements looking toward Little Rock, 
the Federals clearing out the small outposts, and 
the Confederates gathering in their forces. 

On August 5, 1863, Gen. Frederick Steele 
"assumed the command of the army to take the 
field from Helena, and advance upon Little Rock." 

In his order for movement mention is made of 
the following: First division — cavalry under 
commandof Gen. J. W. Davidson; Second division 
—Eighteenth, Forty-third, Fifty-fourth, Sixty- 
first, One Hundred and Sixth, and One Hundred 
and Twenty-sixth regiments, Illinois Infantry; 
Twelfth Michigan, Twenty-second Ohio, Twenty- 
seventh Wisconsin, Third Minnesota, Fortieth 
Iowa and Forty-third Indiana Infantry regiments; 
Third division — Twenty-ninth, Thirty-third and 
Thirty-sixth Iowa, Forty-third Indiana, Twenty- 
eighth Wisconsin, and Seventy-first Ohio Infantry 
regiments; and the Fifth Kansas, First Indiana 
Cavalry, and a brigade under Col. Powell Clayton. 
Four batteries of field pieces — five wagons to each 
regiment; 100 rounds of ammunition, 40 rounds to 
each cartridge-box; 400 rounds to each j^iece of 
artillery, and sixty days' rations for the whole 
army, were the supplies granted these forces. 

Gen. Steele was occupied in the expedition 
from Helena to Little Rock, from August 5 to Sep- 
tember 10. The cavalry under Gen. Davidson 
had to scour the country to the right and left as 
they made their slow advance. Twelve miles east 
of Little Rock, at Bayou Meta bridge, was a heavy 



"'^ ® 



Tv" 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



79 



skirmish, indeed, a regular battle, being the first 
serious effort to check the Federal advance upon 
the capital. Again there was heavy fighting sis 
miles east of Little Rock, at what is now the 
Brugman place. Here Confederate Col. Coffee, 
of Texas, was killed. This was the last stand 
made in defense of the city, and in a short time 
Davidson's cavalry appeared in Argenta, and 
trained their Held pieces on the city, and tired a 
few shots, when the place was surrendered by the 
civil authorities, September 10, 1863. The Con- 
federates had evacuated but a few hours before 
the Federal cavalry were galloping through the 
streets, and posting sentinels here and there. 

There was no confusion, no disorder, and none 
of the usual crimes of war under similar circum- 
stances. In an hour after Gen. Steele was in 
possession of the city he had it under strict con- 
trol, and order prevailed. Gen. Reynolds was put 
in command of Little Rock.* 

The Confederates wisely retreated to Arkadel- 
phia. They were pursued by the Federals as far 
as Malvern, but no captures were made and no 
heavy skirmishing occurred. 

It is said that Price evacuated Little Rock un- 
der the impression that his force was far inferior 
to that of Gen. Steele. Those who were Confeder- 
ate officers and in Little Rock now believe that his 
force was equal at least in numbers to Steele's. 

*Abstract from consolidated tri-montbly report of the 
Army of Arkansas. Maj.-Gen. Frederick Steele command- 
ine, for September 10, 1863; headquarters, Little Rock: 



Commaod. 


Present for 
duty. 








1 

o 




£ 

< 


Aggrega 
auu a 

Pieces of 


First Oivisioa (Davidson) 


200 
Mil 
123 
89 
30 
15 
4 


3,3281 5.372 

2.047 2,990 

1,083 2,:iI6 

1,790 2,2511 

445 736 

495! 607 

&»l 91 


7,735 

8,885 
4,007 
2,825 

i.aoo 

844 


18 


Second Division (Enyleiuann) 

Third Divi-'ionfRlce) 






6 




6 


Arlille'rv fHuvden) 


28 




12' 












619 


9,854 


14,362 


23,e30 


57 













Gen Price liad not made a mistake of the comparative 
strength of the two armies. The commissary informs 
me that on the mornins of tlie evacuation he issued 8.000 
rations — full number. 



They think that Price had based his idea of the 
enemy's numbers by allowing the usual propor- 
tion of armies of infantry and artillery t« cavalry. 
They believe also that the Confederates at Little 
Rock at the evacuation had between 11,000 and 
12,000 men present — not the number for duty — 
basing this upon the number of rations issued 
that day. 

After the occupation of Little Rock the Federals 
dominated all that portion of the State north and 
east of the Arkansas River, and yet their actual 
occupied posts were the only grounds over which 
Confederate rangers were not frequently roving 
with impunity. 

The Confederates exercised ruling power all 
south and west of the Ouachita River, and for quite 
a while the territory between the Arkansas and 
Ouachita Rivers was a kind of "No Man's Land " 
so far as the armies were concerned. 

Steele early in 1804, having been re-enforced, 
began to move on Arkadel()hia. Price retreated to 
Camden, where the Confederates had several fac- 
tories for the manufacture of war materials. 

Price made a stand against Steele and fought 
the battle of Prairie D'Ann, but there was noth- 
ing decisive in this engagement, although it was 
a severe one. Price withdrew and fell back on 
Rondo, in the southwest corner of the State. 

In the meantime Banks' expedition was as- 
cending Red River, the plan being to catch Price 
between Banks and Steele, and destroy the Con- 
federate army. Price and Gen. Dick Taylor did 
not wait for Banks, but met and overwhelmingly, 
defeated him. Having defeated Banks, they turned 
and gave Steele battle at Jenkins' Ferry, and de- 
feated him. This was the great and ili'cisiv.> bat- 
tle of the Trans-Mississippi district. 

Steele retreated and fell back on Little Rock, 
his superior generalship lieing shown in extricat- 
ing his badly crippled army and saving it on the 
withdrawal. 

The Federal expeditions were well plannetl for 
"bagging' 'the whole Confederate Trans-Mississippi 
army, but the vicissitudes of war ordained other- 
wise. Banks' expedition and its overwhelming mis- 
fortunes ruined him as a military man throughout 



80 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the North, while the brilliaat successes of Price 
raised the hopes of the Confederacy. Some, how- 
ever, still criticise. 

Price failed to follow up his advantage and 
either destroy or capture Steele's entire army. 
Had lie fully known the condition of affairs at 
Kichiuoiid possibly he might have adopted that 
course. The Federals were confined within their 
fortified posts and Confederate bands were again 
scouring over the State. 

Price, losing no time, then started on his raid 
back into Missouri to carry out his long cherished 
hope of re-possessing that State. The history of 
that raid and the dissolution and end of the Con- 
federacy are a familiar part of the country's 
history. 

Other wars than that mentioned have occupied 
the attention of people of this section, though 
perhaps not to such an extent as the great civil 
strife. There were not people in Arkansas to go 
to the AVar of 181 2, and the State becomes con- 
nected with that struggle chiefly because Archibald 
Yell, the brave young hero, was at the battle of 
New Orleans, and afterward l)ecame one of the most 
prominent citizens of Arkansas. He was born in 
North Carolina, in August, 1797, and consequently 
was but fifteen years of age when the Ropond war 
with England began. But the lad then and there 
won the inalienable friendship of Gen. Jackson. 

Arkansas acquired no little fame in the Mexican 
War, chiefly, however, through the gallantry and 
death of Gov. Yell, the leader of the Arkansas 
forces. AVhen troops were called for in the year 
1840, in the war with Mexico, Yell was a member 
of Congress. A regiment of cavalry was raised 
and he was asked to take the command, and obedi- 
ent to this request he promptly resigned his seat 
to assume leadership. Albert Pike was a captain 
in the regiment. 

At the battle of Buena Vista, on February 22, 
1847, Yell led' his cavalry command in one of the 
most desperate charges in the annals of war. In 
his enthusiasm he spurred on his horse far in 
advance of his men. He was charging the enemy, 
which outnumbered his force more than five to 
one. He reached the ranks of the enemv almost 



alone, and raising himself in the saddle commenced 
to slash right and left, totally unmindful that it 
was one against thousands. Just as the foremost of 
his men came up he was run through the body and 
killed. William A. L. Throckmorton, of Fayette- 
ville. it is agreed, was the first to reach the side 
and catch the falling form of his loved leader. Mr. 
Throckmorton says he saw the man who gave the 
fatal thrust and quickly killed him, thus avenging 
so far as the wretched greaser's life could go the 
life of as gallant and noble a knight as ever re- 
sponded to bugle call. He was the dashing cava- 
lier, great in peace, superb in war. Leading his 
trusty followers in any of the walks of life, death 
alone could check him, nothing could conquer him. 

After the war was over the government brought 
his remains and delivered them to his friends in 
Fayetteville, his home, who lovingly deposited 
them beneath the cold white marble shaft which 
speaks his fame. The burial ceremony occurred 
August 3, 1847, and a vast concourse of people, 
the humblest and highest in the State, were the 
sincere and deep mourners on the occasion. 

Arkansas won everlasting laurels through its 
gallant soldiers in the Mexican A\'ar. 

Omitting all reference to the Revolutionary 
War, there are conclusions to be drawn from the 
wars our countrymen have been engaged in since 
the days when Gen. Jackson was the national hero. 
None of these were significant enough to be used 
by the philosophic historian from which to draw 
conclusions as to the character of modern or 
contemporary Americans as warriors, or their dis- 
tinguishing characteristics as a warlike nation 
The late Civil War, however, furnishes a wide and 
aniple field for such investigation. An impartial 
view of the late struggle presents first of all this 
remarkable fact. In by far the longest and great- 
est war of modern times, neither side has given 
the age a great captain, as some call greatness, 
though one furnished Grant, the other, Lee, both 
men without a superior; whilst in the ranks and 
among the sub-commands, no battles in history 
are at all comparable for excellence and superior 
soldiership to those of the great Civil War. On 
both sides there were any number of great field 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



81 



commanders, as great as ever drew a sword. But 
they received orders, did not give them, and in 
the execution of orders never were excelled. Lee, 
Grant, Jackson, Sherman, Hancock, Johnston, 
Sheridan and hundreds of others on both sides, to 
the humblest in the ranks, were immortal types of 
the soldier in the field. These men were like 
Napoleon's marshals — given a command or order 
they would risk life itself to execute it. But on 
neither side was there the least exhibition of the 
qualities of a Napoleon or Von Moltke. 

Napoleon was his own secretary of war, gov- 
ernment, cabinet, and commander in the field, and 
for this very reason, he was Von Moltke' s inferior 
as a great commander, whose genius saw the weak 
point, the point of victory on the map of the 
enemy's country, and struck it with a quick and 
decisive blow. 

Our Civil War and the Franco- German War 
were closely together in time. War was hardly over 
in America when it commenced in Europe. Any 
student of German history who has studied the 
German-Prussian war, can not but know that Von 
Moltke was the pre-eminent captain in all the his- 
tories of wars. Had Washington or Richmond had 
his peer at the commencement of our struggle, the 
high probabilities are that the war would have 
been over before the first twelve months had ex- 
pired. 

In war, it is a fact, that it is the strategy be- 
fore the armies meet in battle array which decides 
the struggle. It is only thus that one man can 



become more powerful than a million with guns in 
their hands. It is in this sense — this application 
of the science of modern warfare, that a com- 
mander wins battles and decides victories. He 
conquers enemies, not by di-awing his sword, but, 
studying his maps in his quiet den when others 
sleep, he directs the movements of his armies and 
leaves the details of the actual fight to others. He 
is indifferent to the actual fighting part of it, be- 
cause ho has settled all that long beforehand by 
his orders. 

In all actual battles, as was testified by the 
Federal commanders before Congress about the 
battle of Gettysburg, if victory is not organized 
beforehand, all is chance, uncertainty, and both 
armies are little else than headless mobs — ignorant 
of whether they are whipping or being whipped. 
The field commander may save the day and turn 
the tide and gain a victory, but what is it after all, 
— so many men killed and captured on either side, 
and then recruited up, and rested a little, only to 
repeat the bloody carnage again and again. 

Let it be assumed that the absence of great mil- 
itary genius on both sides is the highest compli- 
ment that can be paid to American civilization. War 
is barbarism. The higher civilization will eradi- 
cate all practical knowledge of the brutality of 
warfare from men's minds. Then there will be 
no wars, save that of truth upon the false — intelli- 
gence upon ignorance How gi-andly divine will 
be, not only the great leaders in this holy stmggle 
for victory, but the humblest of all privates! 




:tx: 



82 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



;iftiTiR X. 



Public Exteuprises— The Real Estate Bank of Arkansas— State Roads and other Highways- 

The Military Roads— Navigation Within the State from the Earliest TniES to the 

Present— Decadence of State Navigation— Steamboat Racing— Accidents to 

Boats— The Rise and Growth of the Railroad Systems— A Sketch 

of the Different Lines— Other Important Considerations. 



From the blessings they bestow 

Our times are dated, and our eras move.- 



-Prior. 




*HE first session of the new 
State legislature, among 
other acts, incorporated the 
State Bank, and as if fur- 
ther determined to show 
that the legislature was at 
least in the front in those 
days of wild-cat bank enterprises, 
))rocoeded to make money cheap 
and all rich by incorporating the 
celebrated Real Estate Bank of 
Arkansas. Already John Law's 
Missis.sippi bubble had been for- 
gotten — the old continental money 
and the many other distressing 
instances of those cruel but fas- 
cinating fictions of attempts to 
make credits wealth. No statesman in the world's 
history has ever yet made an ajsproach to the 
accomplishment of such an impossibility, and still 
nearly all financial legislation is founded upon 
this basic idea. State and national banks have 
been the alluring will-o'-the-wisps in this per- 
sistent folly. All experience teaches that the 
government that becomes a money-changer soon 
becomes the pow(>rful robber, and the places of 
just rulers are filled with tax bandits — there the 



lordly rulers are banditti, and the people the most 
wretched of slaves. 

The State Bank was, as were all such institu- 
tions of that day in any of the States, demoraliz- 
ing in the financial affairs of the people, encourag- 
ing extravagance and debt, and deceiving men with 
the appearances of wealth to their ultimate ruin. 

The Real Estate Bank, as its name indicates, 
was for the purpose of loaning money on real 
estate security. Up to that time the American 
farmer had not learned to base his efforts upon any- 
thing except his labor. To produce something and 
sell it was the whole horizon of his financial educa- 
tion. If, while his crop was maturing, he needed 
subsistence he went to his merchant and bought 
the fewest possible necessities on credit. It was 
an evil hour when he was tempted to become a 
speculator. Yet there were some instances in 
which the loans on real estate resulted in enabling 
men to make finely improved cotton plantations. 
But the rule was to get people in debt and at the 
same time exhaust the cash in the bank. The 
bank could collect no money, and the real estate 
owner was struggling under mortgages he could 
not pay. Both lender and borrower were sufferers, 
and the doable infliction was upon them of a public 
and individual indebtedness. The Real Estate 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



83 



Bank made an assignment in 1842, and for years 
was the source of much litigation. It practically 
ceased to do business years before it had its doors 
closed and was wound up, and the titles to such 
lands as it had become the jiossessor of passed to 
the State. 

The old State Bank building, in front of the 
State house, is the only reminder of the institution 
which promised so much and did so little for the 
public. The old building is after the style of all 
such buildings — a low, two-story brick or stone, 
with huge Corinthian columns in front, having 
stone steps to ascend to the first floor. Similar 
structures can be found in Illinois, Missouri and 
all the Western and Southern States. The one in 
Little Rock is unsightly and gloomy and does little 
else but cumber the ground. It is in the way, ow- 
ing to a difficulty in the title, of such a modern 
and elegant building as would be in keeping with 
the rapidly advancing and beautiful "City of 
Roses." 

Roads and highways have always occupied pub- 
lic consideration. Being so crossed with rivers 
passing from the west toward the Mississippi 
River, the early settlers all over the confines of this 
State passed up the streams and for some time 
used these as the only needed highways. In the 
course of time they began to have bridle-paths 
crossing from settlement to settlement. 

The United States military road from Western 
Missouri passed through Arkansas and led on to 
Shreveport, La. This extended through East- 
ern Ai'kansas, and Arkansas Post was an import 
ant point on the route. It was sui-veyed and 
partially cut out early in the nineteenth century. 
A mimthly mail proceeded over the route on horse- 
back, the mail rider generally being able to carry 
the mail in his pocket. 

A trail at first was the road from the mouth of 
the White River to Arkansas Post. This portage 
soon became a highway, as much of the business 
and travel for the Post was landed at the mouth of 
M'hite River and transported across to the Red 
River. 

In 1821 Congress authorized the sur^'ey and 
opening of a public highway from Memphis, via 



Little Rock, to Fort Smith. The work was com- 
pleted in 1823. This was the first highway of 
any importaiice in the Territory. The other routes 
mentioned above were nothing more than trails, or 
bridle-paths. A weeldy mail between Little Rock 
and Memj)his was established in I82S). 

In 1832 a government road leading on a di 
rect line fi-om Little Rock to Batesville was cut 
out, and the Indians removed from Georgia were 
brought by water to the capital and taken over 
this road. At that time it was the best public 
course as well as the longest in the State, and be- 
came in time the main traveled road from the 
northern part of the State to its center. 

Arkansas was settled sparsely along the Missis- 
sippi River some years before Fulton invented the 
steamboat. The first steaml)oat ever upon western 
waters passed down that river in the latter part 
of 1811— the "Orleans," Capt. Roosevelt. 

The Indians had their light cedar bark canoes, 
and were remarka1)ly e.xpert in handling them. 
These were so light that the squaws could carry 
them on their backs, and in their expeditions in 
ascending the streams frequently saved much time 
by traveling across the great bends of the rivor 
and carrying their conveyances. Of course in going 
with the current, they kept the stream, skimming 
over the waters with great speed. At one time the 
migratory Indians at stated seasons followed the 
buffalo fi-om the Dakotas to the Gulf, the buffalo 
remaining near, and the Indians on the streams. 
The latter could thus out-travel the immense 
herds and at certain points make forays upon 
them and so keep an abundant supply of meat. * 
The buffalo had the curious habit of indulging 
in long stops when they came to a large river in 
their course, as if dreading to take to the water 
and swim across. They would gather on the bank 
of the river at the selected crossing- [)lace, and 
after having devoured everything near at hand 
and hunger began to pinch, would collect into a 
close circle and liegin to move, circling round 
and round, the inside ones ever crowding the out- 
side ones closer and closer to the water. This 
continued until some one, crowded into the deep 
water, had to make the plunge, when all followed. 



84 



HISTOEY OF AKKANSAS. 



These animals when attacked by other animals, 
or when danger threatened, formed in a compact 
circle, with the cows and calves on the inside and 
the bulls on the outer ring. In this battle array 
there was nothing in the lino of beasts that dared 
molest them. 

The white man came and to the canoe he added 
the skiff, the pirogue, the raft, the keel boat and 
the flat boat. The raft never made but one trip 
and that was down stream always, and when its 
destination was reached it was sold to be converted 
into lumber. Other water crafts could be hauled 
back by long tow lines, men walking on the banks 
and pulling them up stream. There are those now 
living who can remember when this was the only 
mode of river navigation. The younger people of 
this generation can form no adequate idea of the 
severity of the toil and the suffering necessarily in- 
volved in the long trij)s then made by these hardy 
pioneers. If the people of to-day were compelled 
to procure the simple commodities of life at such 
hard sacrifices, by such endurance, they would do 
without them, and go back to tig leaves and nuts 
and roots for subsistence. 

When Fulton and Livingston had successfully 
navigated their boat from Pittsburg to New Or- 
leans, they made the claim of a sort of royal patent 
to the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi River 
and its trilmtaries. This claim was put forth in 
perfect good faith and it was a new question as 
well as a serious one for the courts, when these 
claimants arrested Captain Shreve upon his arrival 
in New Orleans with his boat, and carried him be- 
fore the court to answer in damages for navi- 
gating by steam the river that belonged to them 
as the first steam navigators. This curious inci- 
dent indicates how little even the inventor of the 
steamboat appreciated of what vast imjioitance to 
civilization his noble invention really was. To 
him and his friend it was but a small personal 
right or perquisite — a licensed monopoly, out of 
which they could make a few dollars, and when 
they passed away probably the invention too would 
die and be forgotten. How infinitely greater had 
the noble, immortal originator builded than he 
knew! The revolving paddles of the steamboat 



were but the wheels now whirling so rapidly be- 
neath the flying railroad trains over the civilized 
world. From this strange, rude craft, the "Or- 
leans," have evolved the great steamships, iron-clad 
war vessels, and the palatial steamboats plying the 
inland waters wherever man's wants or luxuries 
are to be supplied. The genius and glory of such 
men as Fulton belong to no age, much less to 
themselves — they and theirs are a part of the world, 
for all time. 

In 1812 Jacob Barkman opened up a river 
trade between Arkadelphia and New Orleans, car- 
rying his first freights in a pirogue. It took six 
months to make a round trip. He conveyed to New 
Orleans bear skins and oil, pelts, and tallow se- 
cured from wild cattle, of which there were a great 
many; these animals had originally been brought 
to the country by the Spaniards and French, and 
had strayed away, and increased into great herds, 
being as wild and nearly as fleet as the deer. He 
brought back sugar, coffee, powder, lead, flints, 
copperas, camphor, cotton and wool cards, etc., 
and soon after embarking was able to' own his 
negro crews. He purchased the steamboat ' ' Dime ' ' 
and became one of the most extensive and enter- 
prising men in the State. With his boat he ascended 
rivers, and purchased the cotton, owning his cargo, 
for a return trip. 

In IS 11), James Miller, the first governor of the 
Territory, and a military suite of twenty persons, 
embarked at Pittsburg in the United States keel- 
boat, ' ■ Arkansas, ' ' for Arkansas Post. The trip 
occupied seventy days, reaching the point of desti- 
nation January 1, 1820. It was difficult to tell 
which excited the greatest curiosity among Ihe 
natives — the new governor or the keel-boat. 

The flood-tide of western river navigation 
reached its highest wave soon after the close of the 
late war. The Mississippi River and tributaries 
were crowded with craft, and the wharves of cities 
and towns along the Ijanks were lined with some 
of the finest boats ever built, all freighted to the 
water's edge and crowded with passengers. Build- 
ers vied with each other in tuining out the most 
magnificent floaters, fitted with every elegance and 
luxury money could procure. The main point after 



^1 



M^ — ^ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



85 



elegance, in which they rivaled most, was the speed 
of their respective craft. From the close of the 
war to 1870, steamboatinar was the overshadowing 
business on western waters. Of the boats of this 
era, some will go into history, noted for their 
fleetness. but unlike the fleet horses of history, 
they could not leave their strain in immortal de- 
scendants, rivaling their celebrated feats. Racing 
between boats that happened to come togetlier on 
the river was common, and sometimes reckless 
and dangerous, as well as exciting. Occasionally 
a couple of "tubs," as the boys called a slow 
boat, engaged in a race and away they would go, 
running for hours side by side, the stokers all 
the time piling in the most iutlammal)le material 
they could lay hands on, especially pine knots and 
fat bacon, until the eager flames poured out 
of the long chimney tops; and it was often told 
that the captain, rather than fall behind in the 
race, would seat a darkey on the end of the lever 
of the safety valve, and at the same time scream 
at the stokers to pile on the bacon, pine knots, oil, 
anything to make steam. Roustabouts, officers, 
crew and passengers were all afi wildly excited as 
the captain, and as utterly regardless of dangers. 
From such recklessness accidents of course did hap- 
pen, but it is wonderful there were so few. 

Not infrequently commanders would regularly 
engage beforehand for a race of their boats; fixing 
the day and time and as regularly preparing their 
vessels as a jockey trains and grooms his race-horse. 
The two most noted contests of this kind on the 
Mississippi River were, first, in the early times, 
between the ' ' Shotwell ' ' and ' ' Eclipse, ' ' from 
Louisville to New Orleans. The next and greatest 
of all was just at the time of the commencement of 
the decline in steamboating, between the steamers 
"Rol)ei-tE. Lee" and "Natchez," from New Or- 
leans to St. Louis. The speed, the handling of 
these boats, the record they made, have never been 
equaled and probably never will be, unless steam- 
lioating is revived by some new invention. The 
race last mentioned took place in 186S. 

Fearful steamboat calamities, from explosions 
and from tires, like the awful railroad accidents, 
have marked the era of steam navigation. 



The most disastrous in history occurred in 1805, 
in the loss of the " Sultana," on the Mississippi, a 
few miles above Memphis, a part of the navigable 
waters of Arkansas. The boat was on her way up 
stream from New Orleans laden principally with 
soldiers, some of them with their families, and 
several citizens as passengers. There were 2,350 
passengers and crew on the vessel. A little after 
midnight the sudden and awful explosion of the 
boilers came, literally tearing the boat to pieces, 
after which the wreck took fire. Over 2,000 peo- 
ple perished. 

The early decline of the steamboat industry 
kept even pace with the building of railroads over 
the country. Main lines of railroads were soon 
built, the streams being used as natural road beds 
through the rock hills and mountains. In passing 
over the country in trains one will now often see 
the flowing river close to the railroad track on one 
hand, when from the opposite window the higli 
rock mountain wall may almost be touched. Then, 
too, the large towns were along the navigable riv 
ers, lakes and ocean. The sage couclusiou of the 
philosopher when he went out to look at the world, 
and was impressed with the curious coincidence 
that the rivers ran so close by the big towns, is a 
trite one: A great convenience to those who used 
water. 

The first railroad built in Arkansas was the 
Memphis & Little Rock Railroad. ^Vork was com- 
menced with the intention of first constructing it 
from Little Rock to Devall's Bluff, on White 
River, whence passengers might |)roceed by boat 
to Memphis. It was started at both ends of the 
lino and finished in 1859. the next year being 
extended to St. Francis River, and then in ISflO 
completed to the river opposite Memphis. When 
the Federal army took possession of the Mississippi 
River, and their forces began to possess the north- 
eastern portion of the State, the Confederates as 
they retired toward Little Rock destroyed the road 
and burned the bridges. Indeed, when the war 
ended in 1865, Arkansas was without a mile of 
railroad. Soon after the war closed the road was 
rebuilt and put in operation, and for some time 
was the only one in the State. 



<s~ 



f 



8G 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



The next was the old Cairo & Fulton Railroad, 
now the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern 
Road. It was organized in IS'tS, and in 1854-55 
obtained a large Congressional land grant in aid 
of the enterprise, and built first from Fulton to 
Beebe, in 1872: it was comi)l(>ted to Texarkana 
in 1873, and soon came to be the most important 
line in the State. The Camden branch, fi-om Gur- 
dou to Camden, was comjileted in 1882. The Mem- 
phis branch, from Bald Knob to Memphis, ninety- 
three miles, was finished and the first passenger 
train passed over the line May 10, 1888. The 
branch from Newport to Cushman, a distance of 
forty-six miles, was built in 1882. The Helena 
branch, from Noble to Helena, 140 miles, was com- 
pleted in 1882. 

The main line of the St. Louis & Iron Moun- 
tain Railroad enters the State on the north, at 
Moark (combination for Missouri and Arkansas), 
and passes out at Texarkana (combination for 
Arkansas and Texas). The distance between these 
two points is 305 miles. 

The first section of the St. Louis, Arkansas & 
Texas Railroad, from Clarendon to Jonesboro, was 
built in 1882, and the next year completed to Tex- 
arkana. It was built as a narrow gauge and made 
a standard gauge in 1886. Its northern terminus 
for some time was Cairo, where it made its St. 
Louis connection over the St. Louis & Cairo Nar- 
row Gauge Road, now a standard, and a part of the 
Mobile & Ohio system. The Magnolia branch of 
this road runs from McNeal to Magnolia, about 
twenty miles, and was built in 1885. The Althei- 
mer branch, from Altheimer to Little Rock, was 
constructed and commenced operation in 1888. 
The main line of this road enters the State from 
the north in Clay County, on the St. Francis River, 
penetrating into Texas at Texarkana. 

The Little Rock, Mississippi River & Texas 
Railroad, now in course of construction, is a much 
needed road from Little Rock to Pine Bluff, on to 
Wai'ren and Mississippi, and will form an important 
outlet for Arkansas toward the Gulf. This was 
built from Arkansas City to Pine Bluff, and then 
completed to Little Rock in 1880. 

The Pine Bluff & Swan Lake Railroad was 



built in 1885. It is twenty-six miles long, and 
runs between the points indicated by its name. 

The Arkansas Midland Railroad, from Helena 
to Clarendon, was built as a narrow gauge and 
changed to a standard road in 1886. 

The Batesville & Brinkley Railroad is laid as 
far as Jacksonport. It was changed in 1888 to a 
standard gauge, and is now in course of construc- 
tion on to Batesville. 

The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Rail- 
road enters the State at Mammoth Spring, and 
runs to West Memphis. Its original name was 
Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis Railroad. It 
now is a main line from Kansas City to Birming- 
ham, Ala. 

Work was commenced on the Little Rock & 
Fort Smith Railroad in 1871 at Little Rock, and 
built to Ozark; later it was fini.shed to Van Buren, 
there using a transfer, and was completed to Fort 
Smith. 

The Hot Springs Railroad, from Malvern, on the 
main line of the Iron Mountain Railroad, to Hot 
Springs, was built and is owned by "Diamond 
Joe ' ' Reynolds. Operations were commenced in 
1874. 

The line of the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail- 
road passes near the west line of Arkansas adjacent 
to Fort Smith. There is a branch road of this 
line from Jensen to Mansfield, sixteen miles long. 

It looks a little as though the sponsor for the 
name of the Ultima Thule, Arkadelphia & Missis- 
sippi Railroad intended to use the name for a main 
track through the State. It was built in 1887 for 
the use of the Arkadelphia Lumber Company. 
Eureka Springs branch runs from Seligman to Eu- 
reka Springs. Another branch goes from Rogers 
to Bentonville. Still another, extending from Fay- 
etteville to St. Paul, is thirty-five miles in length. 
The branch from Fayetteville is now in course of 
building. 

The Russellville & Dardanelle Railroad is four 
miles long, extending from the .south hank of the 
Arkansas River to Russellville. 

The Southwestern, Arkansas & Indian Terri- 
tory Railroad indicates that there is nothing in a 
name, as this road is but twenty-seven miles long, 



■^ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



87 



running from Southland to Okolona on tbe west, 
and also extending east from tho main line. 

A line is being surveyed and steps actively 
taken to build a road from Kansas City to Little 
Rock, which is to cross the Boston Mountains near 
the head waters of White River. 

Several other important lines are at this time 



making preparations to l)nil(l in the near future. 
Charters for nearly 100 routes in the State have 
been secured siuce 1885. There is not only plenty 
of room, but a great necessity for yet hun«lred.s of 
miles of new roads here. They will greatly facili- 
tate the development of the immense resources of 
this favored locality. 



),^^_(^ 



llflliPR XI. 



— >*«^ 



The Counties of the State— Their Formation and Changes of Boundary Lines, etc— Their 

County Seats and other Items of Intere.st Concerning Them— Defunct Counties- New 

Counties— Population of all the Counties of the State at every General Census. 




Not chaos-like, together crush'd and bruised: 
But as tbe world, harmoniously confused: 
Where order in variety we see. 
And where, thouirb all tliitis-'' differ, they agree.- 



-Pope. 



'ERHAPS to many, no more 
interesting subject in the 
history of the State can be 
j)resented than that refer- 
ring to the name, organiza- 
tion, etc., of each county 
within its limits. Careful 
research has brought forth the fol- 
lowing facts presented in a concise, 
but accurate manner: 

Arkansas County was formed 
December 13, 1813. As the lirst 
municipal formation within the 
boundary of the State, in Lower Mis- 
souri Territory, it was first a parish 
under Spanish rule and then under 
French. October 23. 1821, a part 
of Phillips County was added to it; the line be- 
tween Pulaski and Arkansas was changed October 
30, 1823; Quapaw Purchase divided between Ar- 



kansas and Pulaski October 13, 1827; line between 
Arkansas and Phillips defined November 21, 1825); 
boundaries defined November 7, 1830. County 
seat, De Witt; first county seat, Arkansas — oppo- 
site Arkansas Post. 

Ashley, formed November 30. 1848, named for 
Hon. Chester Ashley, who died a Tnited States 
Senator; line between Chicot changed January 19, 
ISfil. County seat. Hamburg, 

Baxter, March 24, 1873; line between Izard and 
Fulton defined October 10, 1875; line between 
Marion changed March 9, 1881. County seat. 
Mountain Home, 

Benton, September 30, 183(5. named in honor 
of Hon. Thomas H. Benton. County seat, Ben- 
tonville. 

Boone, April 9, 1809 ; named for Daniel 
Boone; line between Marion defined December 9. 
1875. Harrison, county seat. 

Bradley, December 18, 1.S40; jjart of Calhoun 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



attached October 1 9, 1 862 ; part restored to Ashley 
County January 1, 1859. Warren, county seat. 

Calhoun, December 0, IS-iO: named for John 
C. Calhoun; part added to Union and Bradley 
November 19, 1862. County seat, Hampton. 

Carroll, Novemlier 1, 1833; named in honor of 
the signer of the declaration; boundary defined 
December 14, 1838; line between Madison defined 
January, 11, 1843, and again January 20, 1843; 
line between Marion defined December 18, 184G; 
line between Madison defined December 29, 1854, 
and again January 16, 1S57: part of Madison 
attached April 8, 1869. Berryville, county seat. 

Chicot, October 25, 1823; boundary defined 
November 2, 1835; part attached to Drew Decem- 
ber 21, 1846; line between Ashley changed 
January 19, 1861; line between Drew changed 
November 30, 1875; line changed between Desha 
February 10, 1879. Lake Village, county seat. 

Clark, December 15, 1818, while Lower Mis- 
souri Territory; named in honor of Gov. Clark, 
of Missouri; the line between Pulaski and Clark, 
changed October 30, 1823; divided November 2, 
1829; line between Hot Springs and Dallas changed 
April 3, 1868; line between Pike defined April 
22, 1873 ; line between Montgomery changed April 
24, 1873; line between Pike changed March 8. 
1887. Arkadelphia, county seat. 

Clay, March 24, 1873; named for Henry Clay. 
This county, formed as Clayton County, was changed 
to Clay on December 6, 1875. The act of March 
24, 1873, changed the boundaries of a large num- 
ber of counties. Boydsville and Corning, county 
seats. 

Cleburne, formed February 20, 1883; named 
in honor of Gen. Patrick A. Cleburne. Heber is 
the county seat. 

Cleveland, formed in 1885; named for President 
Cleveland ; was formed as Dorsey County. Toledo, 
county seat. 

Columbia, December 17, 1852; part of Union 
County added December 21, 1858; line between 
Nevada defined April 19, 1873. Magnolia, county 
seat. 

Conway. December 7, 1825; named after the 
noted Con ways; the northeast boundary defined 



October 27, 1827; line between Pulaski and Con- 
way defined October 20, 1828; part of Indian pur 
chase added October 22, 1828; line between Con- 
way, Pulaski and Independence defined November 
5, 1831; part added to Pope January 6, 1853; 
part added to White January 11. 1853; act of 
March, 1873; line between Pope defined May 28, 
1874. County seat, Morrillton. 

Craighead, formed February 19, 1850. Jones- 
boro, county seat. 

Crawford, October 18, 1820; boundary was 
changed October 30, 1823; divided and county 
of Lovely established October 13, 1827; part of 
the Cherokee Country attached to, October 22, 
1828; boundary defined December 18, 1837; line 
between Scott defined; line between Washington 
defined November 24, 1846; line between Frank- 
lin defined March 4, 1875; line changed between 
Washington March 9, 1881. Van Buren, county 
seat. 

Crittenden, October 22, 1825; named for Rob- 
ert Crittenden; St. Francis River declared to be 
the line between St. Francis and Crittenden Coun- 
ties November, 1831; portion attached to Missis 
sippi County January, 1861; act, March, 1S73. 
Marion, county seat. 

Cross, November 15, 1862, 1866, 1873. Witts- 
burg, the county seat. 

Dallas, January 1, 1845; line between Hot 
Springs and Clark changed April 3, 1869. Prince- 
ton the county seat. 

Desha, December 12, 1838; named for Hon. 
Ben Desha; portion attached to Drew January 21, 
1861; part of Chicot attached February 10, 1879; 
also of Lincoln, March 10, 1879. Arkansas City, 
county seat. 

Drew, November 26, 1846; part Chicot attached 
December 21, 1840; part of Desha attached Jan- 
uary 21, 1861; March, 1873; line between Chicot 
changed November 30, 1875. Monticello, county 
seat. 

Faulkner, April 12, 1873; line defined Decem- 
7, 1875. Conway, county seat. 

Franklin, December 19, 1837; line between 
Johnson defined December 14, 1833; line between 
Crawford defined March 4, 1875. Ozark, countv seat. 



K, 



HISTOR-i OF ARKANSAS. 



89 



Fulton, December 21, 1842; part attached to 
Marion County January 18, 1855; part of Law- 
rence attached January 18, 1855, March, 1873; 
line between Baxter and Izard defined February 
1(5, 1875. County seat, Salem. 

Garland, April 5, 1873; named after Gov. 
A. H. Garland. Hot Springs, county seat. 

Grant, February 4, 1869. Sheridan, county 
seat. 

Greene, November 5, 1833; act March, 1873. 
Paragould, county seat. 

Hempstead, December 15, 1818, when this 
was Lower Missouri Territory; Lafayette County 
carved out of this territory October 15, 1827; line 
between Pike defined December 14, 1838. Wash- 
ington, county seat. 

Hot Spring. November 2, 1829; certain lands 
attached to March 2, 1838; Montgomery taken out 
of December 9, 1842; line between Saline defined 
December 23, 1846; line between Montgomery 
changed December 27, 1848; line between Saline 
changed February 19, 1859, and changed again 
January 10, 1861 ; line between Clark and Dallas 
changed April 3, 1869; March, 1873. Malvern, 
county seat. 

Howard, April 17, 1873. County seat. Centre 
Point. 

Independence, October 20, 1820; part of east- 
ern boundary defined October 30, 1823; Izard 
County formed of October 27, 1825; part of Inde- 
pendence added October 22, 1828; line between 
Independence and Izard defined November 5, 1831 ; 
line between Independence and Conway, November 
5, 1831; between Independence and Jackson, No- 
veuiV)er 8, 1830; between Izard February 21, 1838; 
December 14, 1840; Lawrence changed December 
20, 1840; March. 1873; Sharp County defined Feb- 
ruary 11, 1875. Batesville, county seat. 

Izard, October 27, 1825; western boundary 
line extended October 13, 1827; part of the Indian 
piu-chase added October 22, 1828; between Inde- 
pendence and Izard defined November 5, 1831; 
between Conway and Izard, November 5, 1831; 
southern boundary established November 1 1, 1833; 
line between Independence defined I\?bruary 21. 
1838, and December 14, 1838, and December 21, 



1840; western boundary line defined December 24, 
1840, March, 1873; between Baxter and Fulton 
defined February 16, 1875; between Sharp changed 
March 9, 1877. Melbourne, county sent. 

Jackson, November 5, 1829; line between In- 
dependence defined November 8, 1836; part of 
St. Francis attached January 10, 1851. Jackson- 
port, county seat. 

Jefferson, November 2, 1829; boundaries de- 
fined November 3, 1831. and again October 29, 
1836; line changed between Lincoln and Desha 
March 20, 1879. Pine Bluff, county seat. 

John.son, November 16, 1833; southern line 
defined November 3, 1835; east line defined Octo- 
ber 5, 1836; line between Franklin defined Decem- 
ber 14, 1838, 1848; between Pope Fel^ruary 19, 
1859, again March 27. 1871; line between Pope 
re-established on March 6, 1875; between Pope 
changed March 9, 1877. Clarksville, county seat. 

Lafayette, October 15, 1827; the line between 
Union defined November 26, 1846. Lewisville, 
county seat. 

Lawrence, on January 15, 1815, while Lower 
Missouri Territory; east line defined October 30, 
1823; between Independence changed December 
20, 1840; part attached to Fulton January 18, 
1855; part attached to Randolph January 18, 
1861; nearly half the county cut off the west side 
to form Sharp County, 1868. Powhatan, county 
seat. 

Lee, April 17, 1873. Marianna. county seat. 

Lincoln. March 28, 1871; part transferred to 
Desha County, March 10, 1879. Star City, county 
seat. 

Little River, March 5, 1867. Richmond is the 
county seat. 

Logan, originally Sarber County, March 22, 
1871; amended, Fobrnary 27. 1873; changed to 
Logan, December 14, 1S75; line between Scott 
changed, March 21, 1881. Pari.s, county seat. 

Lonoke, April 16, 1873; named for the lone 
oak tree, by simply spelling phonetically — the 
suggestion of the chief engineer of the Cairo & 
Fulton Railroad. Line laetween Prairie defined 
November 30, 1N75, and again. December 7, 1875. 
Lonoke, county seat. 



V 



90 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



Lovely, October 13, 1827; abolished October 
17. 1828.' 

Madison. September 30, 1830; west bouudary 
changed on November 26, 1838; between Carroll 
defined January 11, 1843, and again January 20, 
1843, 1846; between Newton, December 21, 1848; 
between Carroll. April 8, 1869. Huntsville, county 
seat. 

Mai ion, September 25, 1836; originally Searcy 
County; changed to Marion, September 29, 1836 
(Searcy County created out of December 13, 1838); 
west hounihiry defined November 18,1837; between 
Carrol! defined December IS, 1840; part of Fulton 
attached January 18, 1855; between Van Buren 
and Searcy defined Jannary 20, 1855, and March, 
1873; line between Boone defined December 9, 
1875; line between Baxter changed March 9, 1881. 
Yellville, county seat. 

Miller, April 1, 1820; the greater portions fell 
within the limits of Texas; county abolished there- 
fore, 1836; re-established. December 22, 1874, and 
eastern boundary extended. Texarkana, county seat. 

Mississippi, November 1, 1833, 1859; portion 
of Crittenden attached, January 18, 1S61. Osceola, 
county seat. 

Monroe, November 2, 1829; boundaries defined 
December 25, 1840; line between Prairie changed 
December 7, 1850; line changed April 12, 1869, 
March, 1873, April, 1873, and May 27, 1874. 
Clarendon, county seat. 

Montgomery, December 9. 1842; line between 
Yell defined January 2. 1845; between Perry, 
December 23, 1846; between Perry re-established 
December 21, 1848; between Hot Spring changed 
December 27, 1848; between Polk changed Feb- 
ruary 7,1859. March, 1873; between Clark changed 
April 24, 1873; line between Pike defined Decem- 
ber 16, 1874. Mount Ida, county seat. 

Nevada, March 20, 1871; line between Colum 
bia defined April 10, 1873. Prescott, county seat. 

Newton, December 14, 1842; line between 
Madison defined December 21 , 1848; between Pope 
January 10, 1853. Jasper, county seat. 

Ouachita, November 29, 1842; line between 
Union changed January 6, 1853. Camden, county 
seat. 



Perry, December 18, 1840; line between Pul- 
aski, Saline and Montgomery defined December 
23, 1846; old line between Montgomery re-estab- 
lished December 21,1848. Perryville, county seat. 

Phillips. May 1, 1820; part attached to Arkan- 
sas County October 23, 1881; west boundary 
defined October 30, 1823; act to divide and create 
Crittenden County October 22, 1825; divided and 
St. Francis County created October 13, 1827; line 
between Arkansas County defined November 21, 
1828, 1840, March, 1873. Helena, county seat. 

Pike, November 1, 1833; line between Sevier 
defined November 15,1883; between Hempstead, 
December 14, 1838; between Clark, April 22, 
1873; between Montgomery, December 16, 1874; 
between Clark denned March 8, 1877. Murfi-ees- 
boro, county seat. 

Poinsett. February 28, 1838, 1859. Harris- 
burg, county seat. 

Polk, November 30, 1844; line between Mont- 
gomery changed February 7. 1859; part of Sebas- 
tian County added by ordinance of convention, 
June 1, 1861. Dallas, county seat. 

Pope, November 2, 1829; part added to Yell 
January 5, 1853; part of Conway attached Janu- 
ary 6, 1853; line between Newton, January 10, 
1853; part of Van Buren attached January 12, 
1853; between Van Buren defined February 17, 
1859; between Johnson, October 19, 1859, March, 
27, 1871; between Conway, May 28, 1874; between 
Johnson re-established March 6, 1875; between 
Johnson changed March 9, 1877. Dover, county 
seat. 

Prairie. October 25, 1846; between Pulaski 
changed December 30, 1848; between Monroe 
changed December 7, 1850: line changed April 12, 
1869; between White defined April 17, 1873; line 
changed April 26, 1873, May 27, 1874; between 
Lonoke changed November 30, 1875; separated 
into two districts, 1885. Devall's Bluff, county 
seat. 

Pulaski, December 15, 1818, while a part of 
Lower Missouri Territory; line between Arkansas 
and Pulaski October 30, 1823; between Clark 
changed October 30, 1823; divided October 20, 
1825; Quapaw Purchase divided — Arkansas and 



:rz 



4^^ 



k^ 



HISTORY OF .UtKANSAS. 



91 



Pulaski, October 13, 1827; uorthwost boundary 
defined October 23, 1827; between Pulaski and 
Conway, October 20, 1828; line between Saline 
defined February 25, 1888, December 1-1, 1838; 
between White changed February 3,1843; between 
Saline defined December 21, 1846; between Perry 
defined December 23, 1846; between Prairie 
changed December 30, 1848; between Saline de- 
fined April 12, 1873; again, December 7, 1875. 
Little Rock, county seat. 

Randolph, October 29, 1835; part of Lawrence 
uttacbed January 18, 1864, March, 1873. Poca- 
hontas, county seat. 

Saline, November 2, 1835; boundaries defined 
November 5, 1836; between Pulaski, February 25, 
1838, December 14, 1838, December 21, 1846; be- 
tween Hot Spring, December 23, 1846, February 
19, 1859, January 19,1861; between Pulaski, April 
12, 1873. December 17, 1875. Benton, county 
seat. 

Scott, November 5, 1833; boundaries defined 
October 24, 1835; between Crawford, December 
16, 1838; part of Sebastian attached by conven- 
tion June 1, 1861; line between Logan changed 
March 21, 1873. Waldron, county seat. 

Searcy, November 5, 1835; boundaries defined 
September 26, 1836; name changed to Marion 
September 29, 1830; county created out of Marion 
December 13, 1838; between Van Buren defined 
October 2. 1853; between Van Buren and Marion 
defined October 20, 1855, March, 1873. Marshall, 
county seat. 

Sebastian, January 6, 1851; part attached to 
Scott and Polk by the convention June 1, 1861. 
Fort Smith and Greenwood, county seats. 

Sevier, October 17, 1828; boundaries defined 
November 8, 1833; between Pike, November 15, 
1833; southeast boundary defined October 29, 
1836. Lockesburg, county seat. 

Sharp, July IS. 1868; act March 3, 1873; be- 
tween Independence defined February 11, 1875; 



line between Izard changed March 9, 1877, 1883. 
Evening Shade, county seat. 

St. Francis, Octolier 13, 1827; St. Francis 
River declared boundary lino between Crittenden 
Novembers, 1831; part attached to Jackson Jan- 
uary 1, 1851, March, 1873. Forrest City, county 
seat. 

Stone, April 21, 1873. Mountain View, county 
seat. 

Union, November 2, 1829; boundaries defined 
November 5, 1836; line between Lafayette, 
November 26,1846; line between Ouachita changed 
January 6. 1853; part added to Columliia, Decem- 
ber 21, 1851; part of Calhoun attached October 
19, 1862. El Dorado, county seat. 

Van Buren, November 11. 1833; boundaries 
defined November 4, 1836; part attached to Po])e 
January 12, 1853; between Searcy and Marion 
defined January 20, 1855; between Pope defined 
February 17, 1859. Clinton, county seat. 

Washington, October 17, 1828; certain lands 
declared to be in Washington County October 2'), 
1831; line between Crawford defined November 
24, 1846; line changed between Crawford March 
8, 1883. Fayetteville, county seat. 

White, October 23, 1835; line between Pulaski 
changed February 3, 1843; part of Conway at 
tachod January 11, 1853; line between Prairie 
defined April 17, 1873. Searcy, county seat. 

Woodruff, November 20, 1862; but vote, in 
pui-suance to ordinance of conventions 1861, 1806, 
1869; line changed April 26, 1873. Augusta, 
county seat. 

Yell, December 5, 1840; northern boundary, 
December 21, 1840; line between Montgomery, 
January 2. 1845; part Pope attached January 6, 
1853. Danville and Dardauelle, county seats. 

The following table will prove valuable for 
comparison in noting the growth in poimlation 
of the counties throughout the State in the various 
decades from their organization: 




AGGBEQ4TE 


POPULATION BY 


COUNTIES 






AGGREGATE POPULATION BY 


COUNTIES. 






Counties in 


1880 


1870 


1860 


1850 


1840 


1830 j 1820 
:.0,388 14,255 


1810 
1,062 


Counties in 
tbe SUte. 


1880 1 1870 1860 


1850 I 1340 

1 


1830 i 1820 

1 


1810 


the State. 


802,525 


484,471 


485,460 209,897 

1 


97,574 


802,525| 484,471 


435,450:209,897 97,574 


30,388; 14,255 


1,062 




8,038 

10,156 

6,004 

20,837 

1A146 

6,285 

.■i.U"! 

13,337 

10,117 

15,771 

7,213 

M.O'.IO 

l-.',7.'\5 

7,037 

;4,740 

9,415 

5,030 

6,5' >5 

8,873 

8,870 

12,231 

1J,7H6 

14.9.il 

6,720 

9,023 

6,185 

7,480 

19,015 

7,775 

9,917 

18,086 

10,857 

10,877 

22,386 

11,565 

5,730 

8,782 


8,238 
8,042 


8,884 
8,690 


3,245 
:i,058 


1,346 


1 426 t •3(^ 


1,062 


Lee 

Lincoln 

Lilile River 


13,288 
9,255 
6,405 
14,885 
12 146 














Ashley 


















Baxter 








3,246 
















13,831 
7,032 
8,646 

6,780 
7,214 
11,953 


9,306 


3,710 


2,228 




I i 














Booue 








Lonoke 

Madison 

Marion 
















Bradley ,... 


8,.388 
4,103 
9,383 
9,2.34 
9,785 


3,829 










11,4,55 
7,907 
9,919 
7,142 
9,574 
8,739 

12.959 
6,120 

11,758 
3,873 

21,262 
6,345 
2 192 


8,231 
3,979 


7,740 
6,192 


4,823 
2,308 


3,775 
1 ,325 
























1 4,617 

■ 5,115 

4,070 


2,814 

3,8U« 
2,300 








Miller 










1,165 
1,369 






Mississippi 

Monroe 

Montgomery 

Nevada 


3,6.33 
8,336 
2,984 


3,895 
5.657 
3,633 


2,368 
2,049 
1,958 


1,410 
936 








Clark 


1.040 




461 






Clay 










11,307 
8,112 
4,577 
8,9,57 
8,831 
3,915 
5,707 
6,125 


12,459 

6,697 
8,066 
7,8,50 
4,920 














' 






3,.583 


2,892 


982 




4,374 
12,975 

2,685 
15,372 

3,788 

1 790 


3..393 
12,9.36 
2,465 
14,877 
4,025 
3,621 
4,262 
7,883 
8,854 
11,699 
6,261 
8,672 
6,540 
5.142 
.5,271 


1,7.58 
9,591 
978 
6,9.35 
1,801 
2,308 
1,263 
4,710 
2,097 
6,657 
3,375 
4,457 
3,903 
3,083 
1,979 


























7,960 
2,648 


4,200 
1,561 


2,440 
1,273 


















Phillips 


3,547 

969 

1,.320 


1,1,52 


1.197 





Cross 




Pike 




Dallas 


8.283 
6,459 


6,877 
2,911 






1 


Poinsett . 










1,698 




■ 


Polk 














I 


Pope 


14,322 
8.435 
32,616 
11,724 
8.389 
8,953 
9.174 
7,278 


8,386 
5,604 
32,006 
7,466 
6.714 
3,911 
7,483 
5 613 


2,(!50 


1,483 








9,960 


9,087 


3,276 









Prairie 








Pulaski 


5.350 
2,196 
2,499 
2,061 
1,694 
9.3R 


2,395 
'i','56'5 


1.921 






9,027 
4,843 

3,943 
7,573 
13.768 

6,877 


7,898 
4,024 

"s.'si's 

13989 
5,636 


3,972 
1,819 

"2,.593 
7,672 
3,609 


2,065 














St. Francis 

Saline 




Garland 


'1,58(1 
4,921 
1,907 





:::::::::l::::::::: 






Grant 


gpott 










Searcy ~ 

Sebastian 

Sevier 

Shatp 








Hempstead 

Hot Spring 


2,512 

4.58 


2,?46 




19 560 1 12 940 












6,192 
9,047 
5,089 
13,419 


4.492 
5,400 


10,516 


4,240 


2,810 


634 






Independence... 
Izard 


14,666 
6,806 
7,268 

15,733 
9,1.52 
9.1.39 
5,981 


14,307 
7,215 
10,493 
14,971 
7,612 
8,464 
9,373 


7,767 
3,212 

3,086 
6,834 
5.227 
6.220 
6,274 


3,669 
2,340 
1,640 
2..';66 
3,4.33 
2,280 
2,835 


2.031 

1,266 

333 

772 

'748 

2,806 





Stone 
















10571 


12,288 
5,357 

14,673 
8,316 


10,298 
3,884 
9,97(1 
2,619 


2,889 

1 518 

7,148 

920 


640 










Van Buren 

Washington 

White 


9,565 ' 6,107 
23,884 ' 17,266 
17,794 1 10.347 

8.(146' 6,981 
13,853 8.048 










5,182 














Lafayptie 


Woodruff. 

YpII 








5,592 




6,333 


... 
3,341 
















' 










1 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



98 



®iiAiTit xn. 



o » < « 



Edtjcation-The Mental Type Considered-Tekritorial Schools, Laws and Funds-Constitutional 

Provisions for Education— Legislative Provisions— Progress since the War— The State 

Superintendents— Statistics-Arkansas Literature— The Arkansaw Traveler. 




Delightful task! to rear the tender thought. 
To teach the young idea how to shoot; 
To pour the fresh instructions o'er the mind, 
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix 
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.- 



Thormon. 



J^Titre^ each other 



ERE is oue subject 
at least in the economic 
institutions of our country 
where men do not divide 
on political lines. To the 
historian it is a restful 
and refreshing oasis in 
the arid desert. From 
the Canadas to the Gulf commun- 
ities and States earnestly vie with 



'«&j eacn otner in the establishment of 
the best public schools. The pres- 
ent generation has nearly supplant- 
ed the former great universities 
with the free public high schools 
A generation ago the South sent its 
boys to the North to school; the 
Nortli sent its boys to the old universities of Europe. 
Oxford and Heidelburg received the sons of ambi- 
tious, wealthy Americans of the North, while Yale, 
Harvard and Jefferson Colleges were each the alma 
mater of many of the youths of the South. The 
rivalry in the schools between the two sections at 
that time was not intense, but the educa'.ed young 
men of the South met in sharpest rivalry in the 
halls of Congress the typical Northern man. As 
the highest types of the North and the South in 



active political life may be placed Thomas Jeffer- 
son and Daniel Webster. In peace or in war the 
differences in the intellectual advancement of the 
two sections were more imaginary than real. The 
disadvantage the South met was tlie natural ten- 
dency to produce an aristocratic class in the com- 
munity. Cotton and the negro wore impediments 
in the Southern States that clogged the way to the 
advancement of the masses. They retarded the 
building of great institutions of learning as well as 
the erection of large manufactories. This applied 
far more to collegiate education than to the com- 
mon or public school system. The Southern man 
who was able to send his children away from his 
State to school realized that he gave them two ad- 
vantages over keeping them at home; he aided 
them in avoiding negro contact and association, 
and provided the advantage of a better knowledge 
of different peoples in different sections. 

Arkansas may have Ligged somewhat in the 
cause of education in the past, but to-day, though 
young as a State, it is far in advance of many older 
communities who are disposed to boast greatly of 
their achievements in this direction. 

When still a Territory the subject of education 
received wise and considerate attention. March 
2, 1827, Congress gave the State seventy-two 



^ 



w 

zrr^" — r * 
-n jfv 



94 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



sections of land for the purpose of establishing 
"a seminary of learning." A supplemental act 
was passed l)y Congress, June '23, 183(5, one week 
after it became a State, offering certain propo- 
sitions for acceptance or rejection: 1. The six- 
teenth section of every township for school pur- 
poses. 2. The seventy- two sections known as the 
saline lands. By article 9, section 4, State con- 
stitution of 1S()9, these lands were given to the free 
schools. 3. The seventy-two sections, known as 
the seminary lands, given to 'the Territory in 1827, 
were vested and conhrmed in the State of Arkansas 
for the use of said seminary. October 18, 1836, 
the State accepted the propositions entire; and the 
legislature passed the act known as " the ordinance 
of acceptance and compact." December 18, 1844, 
the general assembly asked Congress for a modi- 
fication of the seminary grant, so as to authorize 
the legislature to appropriate these seventy-two 
sections of land for common school purposes. 
Congress assented to this on July 29, 1840, and 
the lands were added to the free school fund. 
These congressional land grants formed the basis of 
the State's free school system. 

The first State constitution of 1836 recognized 
the importance of popular education, and made it 
the duty of the general assembly to provide by 
law for the improvement of such lands as are, or 
may be, granted by the United States for the use 
of schools, and to pass such laws as "shall be cal- 
culated to encourage intellectual, scientific and 
agricultural improvement." 

The general assembly of 1842 established a sys- 
tem of common schools in the State, which was ap- 
proved and became a law February 3, 1853, pro- 
viding for the sale of the sixteenth section, and 
election of school trustees in each township, to ex- 
pend the money from the sale of land in the cause 
of education. The act required schools to be main- 
tained in each township ' ' for at least four months 
in each year, and orthography, reading, writing, 
English grammar, arithmetic and good morals 
should be taught." The trustees were required 
to visit the schools once in each month, and the 
school age was fixed at from five to twenty-one 
years. The act also provided for the establishment 



of manual labor schools. It went to the extent of 
appropriating a sum of money for the purchase of 
text-books. This was a long step in advance of 
any other portion of the country at that time. To 
the fund arising from lands the act added "all 
tines for false impri.sonment, assault and battery, 
breach of the peace, etc." This act of the assem- 
bly placed the young State in the vanguard of 
States in the cause of free schools. It is an 
enduring monument to the men of that legis- 
lature. Under this law the reports of the county 
commissioners of education were ordered to be 
made to the State auditor, but if so made none can 
be found in the State archives. 

A State board of education was provided for 
by the act of 1843, and the board was required to 
make a complete report of educational matters, 
and also to recommend the passage of such laws 
as were deemed advisable for the advancement of 
the cause of education. By an act of January 1 1 , 
1853, the secretary of State was made ex- officio 
State commissioner of common schools, and re- 
quired to report to the governor the true condition 
of the schools in each county; which report the 
governor presented to the general assembly at 
each regular session. The provisions of an act of 
January, 1855, relate to the sale of the sixteenth 
section, and defined the duties of the school trus- 
tees and commissioners. Article 8, in the consti- 
tution of 1807, is substantially the same as the pro- 
visions of the law of 1836. 

From 1830 to 1807, as is shown by the above, 
the provisions of the law were most excellent and 
liberal toward the public schools; legislative enact- 
ments occur at frequent intervals, indicating that 
the State was well abreast of the most liberal school 
ideas of the time, and large funds were raised 
sacred to the cause. 

Investigation shows that from the date of the 
State's admission into the Union, until 1867, there 
were many and admnable stipulations and statutes, 
by which large revenues were collected from the 
sale of lands, but the records of the State depart- 
ment give no account of the progress of free 
schools during this period, leaving the inference 
that but little practical benefit accrued to the 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



95 



cause from these wise and libonil measures put 
forth by Congress and the State. 

By act approved May 18, 1807, the legislature 
made a marked forward movement in the cause of 
education. Considering the chaotic conditions of 
society, and the universal public and private bank- 
ruptcy, the movement is only the more surprising. 
The act stipulated that a tax of 20 cents on every 
$100 worth of taxable pro]ierty should be levied 
for the purpose of establishing and maintaining 
a system of public schools. The second section 
made this fund sacred — to be used for no other 
purpose whatever. The fourth section provided 
for a superintendent of public instruction and 
defined his duties. The eighth section provided 
for a school commissioner, to be chosen by the 
electors of each county, who should examine any 
one applying for a position as school teacher; 
granting to those qualified to teach a certificate, 
without which no one could be legally em- 
ployed to teach. Prior to this a license as teacher 
was not considered essential, and there was no one 
authorized to examine applicants or grant certifi- 
cates. The Congressional township was made the 
unit of the school district, the act also setting 
forth that in the event of the trustees failing to 
have a school taught in the distiict at least three 
months in the year, the same thereby forfeited 
its portion of the school revenue. These wise and 
liberal arrangements were made, it must be remem- 
bered, by a people bankrupt by war and suffering 
the hard trials of reconstruction. 

No regular reports were made — at least none 
can be found — prior to 1867, the date of the ap- 
pointment of a superintendent. Though reports 
were regularly received ^om the year mentioned, 
the most of them were unsatisfactory and not 
reliable. 

The constitution of 1868 created some wise 
amendments to the previous laws. It caused the 
schools to become free to every child in the State; 
school revenues were increased, districts could have 
no part of the school fund unless a free school had 
been taught for at least throe mouths. The leg- 
islature following this convention, July 23. ISfiS, 
amended the school laws to conform to this con- 



stitutional provision. In addition to State super- 
intendent, the office of circuit superiiitendi'iit was 
created, and also the State board of education. 

The constitutional convention of 1874 made 
changes in the school law and provided for the 
school system now in force in the State. The act 
of the legislature, December 7, 187^, was passed 
in conformity with the last preceding State con- 
vention. This law with amendments is the present 
school law of Arkansas. 

Hon. Thomas Smith was the first State super- 
intendent, in office from 1808 to 1873. The 
present incumbent of that position, Hon. Wood- 
ville E. Thoujpson, estimates that the commence- 
ment of public free schools in Arkansas may prop- 
erly date from the time Mr. Smith took possession 
of the office — schools free to all ; every child entitled 
to the same rights and privileges, none excluded: 
separate schools provided for white and black; 
a great number of schools organized, school houses 
built, and etKcient teachers secured. Previous to 
this time people looked upon free schools as largely 
pauper schools, and the wealthier classes regarded 
them unfavorably. 

Hon. J. C. Corbin, the successor of Mr. Smith, 
continued in office until December 13, 1875. 

Hon. B. W. Hill was appointed December 18, 
1875, and remained in office until 1878. It was 
during his term that there came the most marked 
change in public sentiment in favor of public 
schools. He was a zealous and able worker in the 
cause, and from his report for 1870 is learned the 
following: State apportionment. §213,000; dis- 
trict tax, $88,000; school population, ISU.OCO. 
Through the directors" failure to report the enroll- 
ment only shows 10,000. The total revenue of 
1877 was $270,000; of 1878, 8270,000. 

Mr. Hill was succeeded in 1878 by Hon. J. L. 
Denton, whose integrity, earne-itnesa and great 
ability resulted in completing the valuable work so 
well commenced by his predecessor— removing the 
Southern prejudices against public schools. He 
deserves a lasting place in the history of Arkansas 
as the advocate and chami)ion of free schools. 

The present able and efficient State superin- 
tendent of public instruction, as previou.sly men- 



-* 9 



Vt6 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tioned, is Hon. Woodville E. Thompson. To his 
eminent qualificationa and tireless energy the 
schools of Arkansas are largely indebted for the 
rapid advance now going on, and which has 
marked his past term of oflSce. From his bien- 
nial report are gleaned most of the facts and sta- 
tistics given below. 

The growth of the institution as a whole may 
be detined by the following statistics: In 1879 
the revenue raised by the State and county tax was 
$271,000; in 1880, $285,000; in 1881, $710,000; 
in 1882, $722,000; in 1883, .'{;740,000; iu 1884, 
$931,000; in 1885, $1,199,000; in 1886, $1,327,- 
000. The district tax in 1884 was $34(3,521; in 
1885, $343,850, and in 1886, $445,563. The dis- 
trict tax is that voted by the people. 

Arkansas to-day gives the most liberal sup- 
port to her free schools, all else considered, of any 
State in the Union. It provides a two mill tax, a 
poll tax, and authorizes the districts to vote a live 
mill tax. This is the rule or rate voted in nearly 
all the districts, thus making a total on all taxable 
property of seven mills, besides the poll tax. 

The persistent neglect of school officers to re- 
port accurate returns of their school attendance is 
to be regretted. The number of pupils of school 
age (six to twenty-one years) is given, but no ac- 
count of attendance or enrollment. This leaves 
counties in the unfavorable light of a large school 
population, with apparently the most meager at- 
tendance. The following summaries exhibit the 
progress of the public schools: Number of school 
children, 1869, 176,910; 1870, 180,274; 1871, 
196,237; 1872, 194,314; 1873, 148,128; 1874, 168,- 
929; 1875, 168,929; 1876, 189,130; 1877, 203,567; 
1878, 216,475: 1879, 236,600; 1880, 247,547; 1881, 
272,841; 1882, 289,617; 1883, white, 227,538; 
black, 76,429; total, 304,962; 1884. white, 247,- 
173; black, 76,770; total, 323,943; 1885, white, 
252,290; black, 86,213; total, 338,506; 1886, 
white, 266,188; black, 91,818; total, 358,006; 
1887, white, 279,224; black, 98,512; total, 377,- 
730; 1888, white, 288,381; black, 99,747; total, 
388,129. The number of juipils enrolled in 1869 
was 67,412; 1888, 202,754, divided as follows: 
White, 152,184; black, 50,570. Number of teach- 



ers employed 1869, 1,335; number employed 1888, 
males, 3,431, females, 1.233. Total number of 
school houses, 1884, 1,453; erected that year, 263. 
Total number school houses, 1888, 2,452; erected 
in that year, 269. Total value of school houses, 
1884, $384,827.73. Total value, 1888, $705,- 
276.92. Total amount of revenues received, 1868, 
$300,669.63. For the year, 1888: Amount on 
hand June 30, 1887, $370,942.25; received com- 
mon school fund, $315,403.28; district tax, $505,- 
069.92; poll tax, $146,604.22; other sources, 
$45,890.32; total, $1,083,909.32. 

While there were in early Territorial days great 
intellectual giants in Arkansas, the tendency was 
not toward the tamer and more gentle walks of lit- 
erature, but rather in the direction of the fiercer bat- 
tles of the political arena and the rostrum. Oratory 
was cultivated to the extreme, and often to the 
neglect apparently of all else of intellectual pur- 
suits. The ambitious youths had listened to the 
splendid eloquence of their elders — heard their 
praises on every lip, and were fired to struggle for 
such triumphs. Where there are great orators one 
expects to find poets and artists. The great states- 
man is mentally cast in molds of stalwart pro- 
portions. The poet, orator, painter, and eminent 
literary character are of a finer texture, but usually 
not so virile. 

Gen. Albert Pike gave a literary immortality to 
Arkansas when it was yet a Territorial wilderness. 
The most interesting incident in the history of 
literature would be a true picture of that Nestor of 
the press. Kit North, when he opened the mail 
package from that dim and unknown savage 
world of Arkansas, and turned his eyes on the 
pages of Pike's manuscript, which had been offered 
the great editor for publication, in his poem en- 
titled "Hymn to the Gods." This great but mer- 
ciless critic had written Byron to death, and one 
can readily believe that he must have turned pale 
when his eye ran over the lines — lines from an un- 
known world of untamed aborigines, penned in the 
wilderness by this unknown boy. North read the 
products of new poets to find, not merit, but weak 
points, where he could impale on his sharp and 
pitiless pen the daring singer. What a play must 



;^ 




:> 



\r> 




DsCE QLR . 

Mississippi Cdunty Arkansas . 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



i»7 



have swept over his features as his eye followed 
line after line, eager and more eager from the first 
word to the last. To him could this be possible — 
real — and not the day dream of a disturbed im- 
agination. This historical incident in the litera- 
ture of the wild west — the pioneer boy not only on 
the outer coufines of civilization, but to the aver- 
age Englishman, in the impenetrable depths of a 
dark continent, where dwelt only cannibals, select- 
ing the great and severe arbiter of English litera- 
ture to whom he would transmit direct his fate as 
a poet; the youth's unexpected triumph in not 
only securing a place in the columns of the leading 
review of the world, but extorting in the editorial 
columns the highest meed of praise, is unparalleled 
in the feats of tyros in literature. The supremacy 
of Pike's genius was dulled in its brilliancy be- 
cause of the versatility of his mental occupations. 
A poet, master of belles leitres, a lawyer and a poli- 
tician, as well as a soldier, and eminent in all the 
varied walks he trod, yet he was never a book- 
maker — had no ambition, it seems, to be an author. 
The books that he will leave, those especially by 
which he will be remembered, will be his gathered 
and bound writings thrown ofP at odd intervals and 
cast aside. His literary culture could produce only 
the very highest type of effort. Hence, it is prob- 
able that Lord North was the only editor living to 
whom Pike might have submitted his " Hymn to 
the Gods" with other than a chance whim to de- 
cide its fate. 

There was no Boswell among the early great 
men of Arkansas, otherwise there would exist biog- 
raphies laden with instruction and full of interest. 
There were men and women whose genius com- 
pelled them to talk and write, but they wrote dis- 
connected, uncertain sketches, and doubtless often 
published them in the columns of some local news- 
paper, where they sank into oblivion. 

The en-atic preacher- lawyer, A. W. Arrington, 
wrote many and widely published sketches of the 
bench and bar of Ai-kansas, but his imagination 



so out-ran the facts that they became mere fictions 
— very interesting and entertaining, it is said, 
but entirely useless to the historian. Arrington 
was a man of superior natural genius, but was so 
near a moral wreck as to cloud his memory. 

Years ago was published Nutall's History of 
Arkansas, but the most diligent inquiry among 
the olde.st inhabitants fails to find one who ever 
heard of the book, much less the author. 

Recently John Hallum pulilished his History 
of Arkansas. The design of the author was to 
make three volumes, the first to treat of the 
bench and bar, but the work was dropped after 
this volume was published. It contains a gi-eat 
amount of valuable matter, and the author has 
done the State an important service in making his 
collections and putting them in durable form. 

A people with so many men and women com- 
petent to write, and who have written so little of 
Arkansas, its people or its great historical events, 
presents a curious phase of society. 

A wide and inviting field has been neglected 
and opportunities have been lost; facts have now 
gone out of men's memories, and important histor- 
ical incidents passed into oblivion beyond recall. 

Opie P. Read, now of Chicago, will be known 
in the future as the young and ambitious literary 
worker of Arkansas. He came to Little Rock 
from his native State, Tennessee, and engaged in 
work on the papers at that city. He soon had 
a wide local reputation and again this soon grew 
to a national one. His fugitive pieces in the news 
papers gained extensive circulation, and in quiet 
humor and unaffected pathos were of a high order. . 
He has written several works of fiction and is now 
running through his paper. The Arkansaw Traveler, 
Chicago, a novel entitled ' ' The Kentucky Colonel," 
already pronounced by able critics one among 
the best of American works of fiction. Mr. Read 
is still a comparatively young man, and his pen 
gives most brilliant promise for the futui'e. His 
success as an editor is well remembered. 



^^ 



98 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



DO 



The Churches ok Arkansas— Appearance of the Missionaries— Church Missions Established in the 
Wilderness— The Leading Protestant Denominations— Ecclesiastical Statistics- 
General Outlook from a Heligious Standpoint. 



No silver saints bj' dying misers giv'n 

Here bribed the rage of ill-requited Heav'n; 

B\it such plain roofs as piety could raise. 

And onlj' vocal with the Maker's praise. — Pope. 



V<» 










N all bistories of the early 
settlers the pioneer preach- 
ers and missionaries of the 
Church are of first inter- 
est. True missionaries, re- 
gardless of all creeds, are 
a most interesting study, 
and, in the broad principles of Chris- 
tianity, they may well be considered 
^ ■«« as a class, with only incidental refer- 
■^Jfe^r enees to their different creeds. The 
^\.^ essence of their remarkable lives is 
^^( i the heroic work and suffering they so 
cheerfully undertook and carried on 
so patiently and bravely. Among the 
iirst of pioneers to the homes of the 
red savages were these earnest church- 
men, carrying the news of Mount Calvary to the 
benighted peoples. It is difficult for us of this 
age to understand the sacrifices they made, the 
privations they endured, the moral and physical 
courage required to sustain them in their vrork. 
The churches, through their missionaries, carried 
the cross of Christ, extending the spiritual empire 
in advance, nearly always, of the temporal empire. 
They bravely led the way for the hardy explorers, 
and ever and anon a martyr's body was given to 



the flames, or left in the trackless forests, food for 
ravenous wild beasts. 

The Iirst white men to make a lodgment in 
what is now Arkansas having been Marquette and 
Joliet, France and the Church thus came here 
hand in hand. The Spanish and French settlers 
at Arkansas Post were the representatives of Cath- 
olic nations, as were the French-Canadians who 
came down from the lakes and settled along the 
banks of the lower Mississippi River. 

After 1803 there was another class of pion- 
eers that came in — Protestant English by descent 
if not direct, and these soon dominated in the 
Arkansas country. The Methodists, Baptists and 
Cumberland Presbyterians, after the building of 
the latter by Rev. Finis Ewing, were the pre- 
vailing pioneer preachers. Beneath God's first 
temples these missionaries held meetings, traveled 
over the Territory, going wherever the little col- 
umn of blue smoke from the cabin directed them, 
as well as visiting the Indian tribes, proclaiming 
Christ and His cause. Disregarding the elements, 
swollen streams, the dim trails, and often no other 
guide on their dreary travels than the projecting 
ridges, hills and .streams, the sun or the polar star; 
facing hunger, heat and cold, the wild beast and the 
far fiercer savage, without hope of money compen 



3 J 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



IW 



sation, regardless of sickness and even death, these 
men took their lives in their hands and went forth. 
Could anything be more graphic or pathetic of the 
conditions of these men than the extract from a 
letter of one of them who had thus served his God 
and fellow-man more than fifty years: "Inmylong 
ministry I often suffered for food and I spent 
no money for clothing. * * The largest 
yearly salary I received was $100." Were ever 
men inspired with more zeal in the cause of their 
Master ? They had small polish and were as rugged 
as the gnarled old oaks beneath whose branches 
they so often bivouacked. They never tasted the 
refinements of polite life, no doubt despising them 
as heartily as they did sin itself. Rude of speech, 
what eloquence they possessed (and many in this 
respect were of no mean order) could only come 
of their deep sincerity. 

These Protestant missionaries trod closely upon 
the footsteps of the pure and gentle Marquette in 
the descent of the Mississippi, and the visits to 
the Indians amid the cane-brakes of the South. 
Marquette's followers had been the first to ascend 
the Arkansas River to its source iu the far distant 
land of the Dakotas in the Northwest. Holding 
aloft the cross, they boldly entered the camps of the 
tribes, and patiently won upon them until they laid 
down their drawn tomahawks and brought forth 
the calumet of peace. These wild children gath- 
ered around these strange beings — visitors, as they 
supposed, from another world, and wherever a 
ci'oss was erected they regarded it with fear and 
awe, believing it had supreme power over them 
and their tribes. 

He who would detract from the deserved im- 
mortality of any of these missiocaries on account of 
their respective creeds, could be little else than a 
cynic whose blood is acid. 

Marquette first explored the Mississippi River 
as the representative of the Catholic Church. 

The old church baptismal records of the mis- 
sion of Arkansas Post extend back to 1764, and the 
ministrations of Father Louis Meurin, who signatl 
the record as "missionary priest." This is the 
oldest record to be found of the church's recog- 
nition of Arkansas now extant. That Marquette 



held church service and erected the cross of Chriet 
nearly one hundred years anterior to the record 
date in Arkansas is given in the standard histories 
of the United States. Rev. Girard succeeded 
Meurin. It may be gleaned from these records 
that in 1788 De La Valliere was in command of 
Arkansas Post. la 1780 the attending priest was 
Rev. Louis Guignes. The record is next signed Ijy 
Rev. Gibault in 1792, and next by Rev. Janniii in 
1796. In 1820 is found the name of Rev. Chau- 
dorat. In 1834 Rev. Dupuy, and in 1838 Father 
Donnellj' was the priest in charge. These remained 
in custody of the first mission at Arkansas Post. 
The second mission established was St. Mary's, 
now Pine Bluff. The first priest at that point was 
Rev. Saulmier. Soon after, another mission, St. 
Peter's, was established in Jefferson County, and 
the third mission, also in Jefferson County, was 
next established at Plum Bayou. In order, the 
next mission was at Little Rock, Rev. Emil Saul- 
mier in charge; then at Fort Smith; then Helena, 
and next Napoleon and N(>w Gascony, respectively. 

The Catholic population of the State is esti- 
mated at 10,000, with a total number of churches 
and mi.ssions of forty. There are twenty-two 
church schools, convents and academies, the school 
attendance being 1,600. The first bishop in the 
Arkansas diocese was Andrew Byrne, 1844. He 
died at Helena in 1802, his successor being the 
present incumbent, Bishop Edward FitzGerald. 
who came in 1807. 

From a series of articles published in the -Vr 
kansas Methodist, of the current year, by the emi- 
nent and venerable Rev. Andrew Hunter, D. D. , • 
are gleaned the following important facts of this 
Church's history in Ai'kausas: Methodism came to 
Arkansas by way of Missouri about 1814, a com- 
pany of emigrants entering from Southeast Mis- 
souri overland, and who much of the way had to 
cut out a road for their wagons. They bad heard 
of the rich lauds in Mound Prairie, Hempstead 
County. In this company were John Herirey, a 
local preacher, Alexander and Jacob Shook, broth- 
ers, and Daniel Props. In their long slow travels 
they reached the Arkansas River at Little Rock, 
and waited on the opposite bank for the comple- 



100 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tion of a ferry-boat then building. When these 
people reached their destination they soon set iip 
a church, and erected the first Methodist "meet- 
ing-house" in Arkansas, called Henrey's Chapel. 
"Father Henrey," as he was soon known far and 
wide, reared sons, all preachers. This little col- 
ony were all sincere Methodists, and nearly all 
their first generation of sons became preachers, 
some of them eminent. Jacob Shook and three 
of his sons entered the ministry; Gilbert Alex- 
ander, his sons and grandsons, became ministers 
of God's word, as did two of Daniel Props' sons. 
The small colony was truly the seed of the church 
in Arkansas. 

In 1838 two young ministers were sent from 
Tennessee to the Arkansas work, and came all 
the way to Mound Prairie on horseback. 

The church records of Missouri show that the 
conference of 1817 sent two preachers to Arkan- 
sas — William Stevenson and John Harris. They 
were directed to locate at Hot Springs. It is 
conceded that these two missionaries "planted 
Methodism in Arkansas." 

In 1818 the Missouri Conference sent four 
laborers to Arkansas, with William Stevenson as 
the presiding elder of the Territory. The circuits 
then had: John Shader, on Spring River; Thomas 
Tennant, Arkansas circuit; W. Orr. Hot Springs; 
William Stevenson and James Lowrey, Mound 
Prairie. What was called the Arkansas circuit in- 
cluded the Arkansas River, from Pine Bluff to the 
mouth. After years of service als presiding elder, 
Stevenson was succeeded by John Scripps; the ap- 
pointments then were: Arkansas circuit, Dennis 
Willey; Hot Springs, Isaac Brookfield; Mound 
Prairie, John Harris; Pecan Point, William Town- 
send. The Missouri Conference, 1823, again made 
William Stevenson presiding elder, with three itin- 
erants for Arkansas. In 1825 Jesse Hale became 
presiding elder. He was in charge until 1829. He 
was an original and outspoken abolitionist, and 
taught and preached his faith unroservedl}' ; so 
much so that large numbers of the leading fam- 
ilies left the Methodist Episcopal Church and 
joined the Cumberland Presbyterians. This was 
the sudden building up of the Cumberland Pres- 



byterian Church, and nearly fatally weakened the 
Methodist Church. Some irreverent laymen desig- 
nated Elder Jesse Hale's ministrations as the 
"Hail storm" in Arkansas. Fortunately Hale 
was succeeded by Rev. Jesse Green, and he poured 
oil on the troubled waters, and saved Methodism 
in Arkansas. ' ' Green was our Moses. ' ' 

The Tennessee Conference, 1831, sent eight 
preachers to Arkansas, namely: Andrew D. Smyth, 
John Harrell, Henry G. Joplin, William A. Boyce. 
William G. Duke, John N. Hammill, Alvin Baird 
and Allen M. Scott. 

A custom of those old time preachers now 
passed away is worth preserving. When possi- 
ble to do so they went over the circuit together, 
two and two. One might preach the regular ser- 
mon, when the other would ' ' exhort. ' ' Under these 
conditions young Rev. Smyth was accompanying 
the regular circuit rider. He was at first difiS- 
dent, and ' ' exhorted ' ' simply by giving his hearers 
" Daniel in the lion's den." As the two started 
around the circuit the second time, on reaching a 
night appointment, before entering the house, and 
as they were returning from secret prayer in the 
brush, the preacher said: "Say, Andy, I'm going 
to preach, and when I'm done you give 'em 
Daniel and the lions again." Evidently Andy and 
his lions were a terror to the natives. But the 
young exborter soon went up head, and became a 
noted divine. 

The Missouri Conference, 1832, made two dis- 
tricts of Arkansas. Rev. A. D. Smyth had charge 
of Little Rock district, which extended over all the 
country west, including the Cherokee and Creek 
Nations. 

The formation of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, occurred in 1844. This is a well 
known part of the history of our country. In Ar- 
kansas the church amid all its trials and vicissi- 
tudes has grown and flourished. The State now 
has fifteen districts, with 200 pastoral charges, and, 
it is estimated, nearly 1,000 congregations. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church has a com- 
fortable church in Little Rock, and several good 
sized congregations in different portions of the 
State. This church and the Methodist Episcopal 



f 



^k 



i "•V ' 



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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



101 



Church, South, are separate and wholly distinct 
in their organization. 

The Baptists are naturally a pioneer and fron- 
tier church people. They are earnest and sincere 
proselyters to the faith, and reach very effectively 
people in general. The Baptist Church in Ben- 
ton -celebrated, July 4, 1889, its fifty-third anni- 
v(>rsary. Originally called Sjiring Church, it was 
built about two miles from the town. The organi- 
zation took place under the sheltering branches of 
an old oak tree. One of the first churches of this 
order was the Mount Bethel Church, about six 
miles west of Arkadelphia, in Clark County. This 
was one of the oldest settled points l>y English 
speaking people in the State. The church has 
grown with the increase of population. 

Rev. James M. Moore organized in Little Rock, 
in 1828, the first Presbyterian Church in Arkan- 
sas. He was from Pennsylvania, eminent for his 
ability, zeal and piety. For some time he was 
the representative of his church in a wide portion 
of the country south and west. He was succeeded 
by Rev. A. R. Banks, from the theological sem- 
inary of Columbia, S. C. , who settled in Hempstead 
County in 1835-3G and organized and built Spring 
Hill Church, besides another at Washington. The 
next minister in order of arrival was Rev. John 
M. Erwin. He located at Jackson, near the old 
town of Elizabeth, but his life was not spared long 
after coming. He assisted Revs Moore and Banks 
in organizing the first presbytery in Arkansas. 

In 1839 Rev. J. M. Moore, mentioned above, 
removed to what is now Lonoke County, and or 
ganized a congregation and built Sylvania Church. 
His successor at Little Rock was Rev. Henderson, 
in 1840. The death of Rev. Henderson left no 
quorum, and the Arkansas presbytery became /unc- 
tui> officio. 

Rev, Aaron Williams, from Bethel presbytery, 
South Carolina, came to Arkansas in 1842, and 
settled in Hempstead County, taking charge of a 
large new academy at that place, which had been 
built by the wealthy people of the locality. He at 
once re-organized the church at Washington, which 
had been some time vacant. Arkansas then be- 
longed to the synod of Mississippi. In 1842, in 



company with Rev. A. R. Banks, he traveled 
over the swamps and through the forests 400 miles 
to attend the Mississippi synod at Port Royal. 
Their mission was to ask the synod to allow Revs. 
Williams, Moore, Banks and Shaw to organize the 
Arkansas presbytery. They obtained the permis 
sion, and meeting in Little Rock the first Sunday 
in January, 1843, organized the Arkansas presby- 
tery. The Rev. Balch had settled in Dardanelle. 
and he joined the new presbytery. In the next 
few years Revs. Byington and Kingsbury, Con- 
gregational ministers, who had been missionaries to 
the Indians since 1818, also joined the Arkansas 
presbytery. The synod of Memphis was subse- 
quently formed, of which Arkansas was a part. 
There were now three presbyteries west of Mem- 
phis: Arkansas, Ouachita and Indian. In lS3ft 
Arkansas was composed of four prpsbytories — twu 
Arkansas and two Ouachita. 

Rev. Aaron Williams assumed charge at Little 
Rock in 1843, where he remained until January, 
1845. There was then a vacancy for some years 
in that church, when the Rev, Joshua F, Green 
ministered to the flock. He was succeeded iiy 
Rev. Thomas Fraser, who continued until 1859. 
All these had been supplies, and in 18r)9 Little 
Rock was made a pastorate, and Rev. Thomas R. 
Welch was installed as first pastor. Ho filled the 
position the next twenty five years, and in 1885 
resigned on account of ill health, and was sent 
as counsel to Canada, where he died. About the 
close of his pastorate, the Second Presbyterian 
Church of Little Rock was organized, and their 
house built, the Rev. A. R. Kennedy, pastor. He' 
resigned in September, 1888, being succeeded by 
James R. Howerton. After the resignation of Dr. 
Welch of the First Church. Dr. J. C. Barrett was 
given charge. 

Rev. Aaron Williams, after leaving the synod, 
became a synodical evangelist, and traveled over 
the State, preaching wherever he found small col- 
lections of people, and organizing churches. He 
formed the church at Fort Smith and the one in 
Jackson County. 

A synodical college is at Batesville, and is 
highly prosperous. 



T' 



-4^ 



HM 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



IfiCTlt XI¥. 



Names Illl-striol's in Arkansas History— Prominknt Mention of Noted Individuals— Ambrose 

H. Sevier— William K. Woodruff— John Wilson— John Hemphill— Jacob Barkman— Dr. 

Bowie— Sandy Faulkner— Samuel H. Hempstead— Trent, \Villiams, Shinn Families, 

AND Otheiis— The Conways— Robert Crittenden— Archibald Yell— Judge 

David Walker- Gen. G. D. Bovston— Judge James W. Bates. 



The gen'ial voice 
Sounds him, for courtesy, behaviour, language 
Aud ev'ry fair demeanor, an e.xamplc; 
Titles of honour add not to liis worth. 
Who is himself an honour to his lilli'. — Ford. 




O history of Arkansas, worthy 
of the name, could fail to 
refer to the lives of a num 
her of its distinguished 
citizens, whose relation to 
■^ great public events has 
,-?r%^ made them a part of the 
tine history of their State. 
The following sketches of repre- 
sentative men will be of no little 
interest to each and every reader 
of the present volume. 

Ambrose H. Sevier, was one of 
the foremost of the prominent men 
of his day, and deserves es|)i'cial 
mention. The recent removal of 
the remains of Gen. John Sevier from 
Alabama to Knoxville, Tenn. (June 19, 
1S89), has awakened a widespread inter- 
est in this historic family name. The re-interment 
of the illustrious ashes of the first governor, found- 
er and Congressman of Tennessee, by the State he 
had made, was bttt an act of long deferred justice 
to one of the most illustrious ;md j)icturesque char- 
acters in American history. He founded two States 





and was the lirst governor of each of them; one of 
these States, Tennessee, he had, in the spirit of dis- 
interested patriotism, erected on the romantic ruins 
of the other— the mountain State of "Franklin." 
A distinguished Revolutionary soldier, he was the 
hero of King's Mountain, where he and four broth- 
ers fought. He was first governor of the State 
of "Franklin," six times governor of Tennessee, 
three times a member of Congress, and in no in- 
stance did he ever have an opponent to contest 
for an office. He was in thirty- five hard fought 
battles; had faced in bitter contest the State of 
North Carolina, which secretly arrested and ab- 
ducted him from the new State he had carved out 
of North Carolina territory; was rescued in open 
court by two friends, and on his return to his ad- 
herents as easily defeated the schemes of North 
Carolina as he had defeated, in many battles, the 
Cherokee Indians. No man ever voted against 
" Nolichucky Jack," as he was familiarly called — 
no enemy ever successfully stood before him in 
battle. A great general, statesman, and patriot, 
he was the creator and builder of commonwealths 
west of the Alleghanies, and he guided as greatly 
and wisely as did Washington and Jefferson the 



' -^ i 



V 



a w. 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



103 



new States and Territories ho formed in the paths 
of democratic freedom; and now, after he has slept 
in an obscure grave for three quarters of a century, 
the fact is beginning to dawn upon the nation that 
Gov. John Sevier made Washington, and all that 
great name implies, a j)Ossibilit}'. 

The name, illustrious as it is ancient, numer- 
ous and wide spread, is from the French Pyrenees, 
Xavier, where it may be traced to remote times. 
St. Francis Xavier was of this family, and yet the 
American branch were exiles from the old world 
because of their revolt against papal tyranny. 
Sturdy and heroic as they were in the faith, their 
blood was far more virile, indeed stalwart, in de- 
fense of human rights and liberty, wherever or by 
whomsoever assailed. 

In France, England and in nearly every West- 
ern and Southern State of the Union are branches 
of the Xaviers, always prominent and often emi- 
nent in their day and time. But it was reserved 
to the founder of the American branch of the 
Seviers to be the supreme head of the illustrious 
line. He builded two commonwealths and was im- 
j)elled to this great work in defense of the people, 
and in resistance to the encroachments of the cen- 
tral powers of the paternal government. 

In Arkansas the Seviers, Conways and Rectors 
were united by ties of blood as well as by the ever 
stronger ties of the sons of liberty, independence 
and patriotism. Here were three of the most 
powerful families the State has ever had, and in 
Iiublic affairs they were as one. The political 
friend and worthy model of Gov. John Sevier was 
Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Gen. Sevier was the 
fitting and immortal companion piece to Jefferson 
in those days of the young and struggling repub- 
lic. The Seviers of Arkansas and Missouri were 
naturally the admirers of Andrew Jackson - cham- 
pions of the peo[>le's rights, watchdogs of liberty. 

Ambrose H. Sevier, was the son of John, who 
was the son of Valentine and Ann Conway Sevier, 
of Greene County, Tenn. Ann Conway was the 
daughter of Thomas and Ann Rector Conway. 
Thus this family furnished six of the governors of 
Arkansas. 

In 1S'21. soon after Mr. Sevier's coming to Ar- 



kansas, he was elected clerk of the Territorial 
house of representatives. In 182:^ he was elected 
from Pulaski County to the legislature, and con- 
tinued a member and was elected speaker in 1827. 
He was elected to Congress in August, 1828, to 
succeed his uncl(>, Henry W. Conway, who had 
been killed in a duel with Crittenden. Ho was 
three times elected to Congress. When the State 
came into the L'nion, Sevier and William S. Fulton 
were elected lirst senators in Congress. Sevier 
resigned his seat in the Senate in 18-18, to accept 
the mission of minister plenipoteutiaiy to Mexico, 
and, in connection with Judge Clifford, negotiated 
the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. This was the 
last as well as crowning act of his life. He died 
shortly after returning from bis mission. The 
State has erected a suitable monument to his mem- 
ory in Mount Holly Cemetery, Little Rock, where 
sleeps his immortal dust. 

How curiously fitting it was that the Sevier 
of Arkansas should follow so closely in the foot- 
steps of the great governor of Tennessee, his lineal 
ancestor, and be the instrument of adding so ira- 
- mensely to the territory out of which have grown 
such vast and rich commonwealths. As builders 
of commonwealths there is no name in American 
history which approaches th<it of Sevier. A 
part of the neglect — the ingratitude, possibly — of 
republics, is shown in the fact that none of the 
States of which they gave the Union so many besir 
their family name. 

William E. Woodruff was in more than one 
sense a pioneer to Arkansas He was among 
the distinguished men who first hastened here 
when the Territory was formed, and brought with 
him the pioneer newspaper press, and established 
the Arkansas Gazette. This is now a flourishing 
daily and weekly newspaper at the State capital, 
and one of the oldest papers in the country. Of 
himself alone there was that in the character and 
life of Mr. Woodruff which would have made him 
one of the historical pioneei-s to cross the Missis- 
sippi River, and cast his fortune and future in this 
now world. But he was a worthy disciple and 
follower of Ben. Franklin, who combined with the 
art preservative of arts, the genius that lays found- 



k. 



lOJ- 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ations for empires in government, and the j'et far 
greater empires in the fields of intellectual life. 

He was a native of Long Island, Suffolk Coun- 
ty, N. Y. Leaving his home in 1818, upon the 
completion of his apprenticeship as printer, with 
the sparse proceeds of his earnings as apprentice 
he turned liis face westward. Reaching Wheel- 
ing, Va. , he eml larked in a canoe for the falls of 
the Ohio, now Louisville, where he stopped and 
worked at his trade. Finding no sufficient open- 
ing to permanently locate in this place, he started 
on foot, by way of Russellville, to Nashville, Tenn., 
and for a time worked at his trade in that place 
and at Franklin. Still looking for a possible 
future home further west, he heard of the Act of 
Congress creating the Territory of Arkansas, to 
take effect July 4, 1819. He at once purchased 
a small outKt for a newspaper office and started to 
the newly formed Territory, determined if possible 
to be first on the ground. He shipped by keel-boat 
down the Cumberland river, the Ohio and the 
Mississippi Rivers to Montgomery's Point, at the 
mouth of White River; thence overland to Arkansas 
Post, the first Territorial capital. Montgomery 
Point was then, and for some years after, the main 
shipping point for the interior points of the 
Arkansas Territory. From this place to the capi- 
tal, he found nothing but a bridle-path. He 
therefore secured a pirogue, and with the services 
of two boatmen, passed through the cut off to 
Arkansas River and then up this to Arkansas Post, 
reaching his point of destination October 31, 1819. 
So insignificant was the Post that the only way he 
could get a house was to build one, which he did, 
and November 20, 1819, issued the first paper — 
the Arkansas Gazette. He was the entire force of 
the office — mechanical, clerical and editorial. To- 
day his own work is his fitting and perpetual 
monument — linking his name indissolubly with 
that of Arkansas and immortality. 

His genius was in the direct energy and the 
impelling forces which drove it with the sure cer- 
tainty of fate over every opposing obstacle. Broad, 
strong and great in all those qualities which 
characterize men pre eminent in the varied walks 
of life; a true nation founder and builder, his 



useful life was long spared to the State, which will 
shed luster to itself and its name by honoring the 
memory of one of its first and most illustrious 
pioneers — William E. WoodruU'. 

Reference having been made to John W^ilson 
in a previous chapter, in connection with his un- 
fortunate encounter with J. J. Anthony, on the 
floor of the hall of the legislature, it is but an act 
of justice that the circumstances be properly ex- 
plained, together with some account of the man- 
ner of man he really was. 

John Wilson came from Kentucky to Arkansas 
in the earl}' Territorial times, 1820. His wife was 
a Hardin, of the noted family of that State — a sis- 
ter of Joseph Hardin, of Lawrence County, Ark., 
who was speaker of the first house of representa- 
tives of the Territorial legislature. The W'ilsons 
and Hardins were prominent and highly respecta- 
ble peo[)le. 

When a very young man, John Wilson was 
elected to the Territorial legislature, where he was 
made speaker and for a number of terms filled that 
office. He was a member of the first State legis- 
lature and again was elected speaker. He was the 
first president of the Real Estate Bank of Arkan- 
sas. Physically he was about an average sized 
man, very quiet in his manner and retiring, of dark 
complexion, eyes and hair, lithe and sinewy in 
form, and in his daily walk as gentle as a woman. 
He was devoted to his friends, and except for 
politics, all who knew him loved him well. There 
was not the shadow of a shade of the bully or des- 
perado about him. He was a man of the highest 
sense of personal honor, with an iron will, and even 
when aroused or stung by injustice or an attack 
upon his integrity his whole nature inclined to 
peace and good will. He was a great admirer of 
General Jackson — there was everything in the 
natures of the two men where the ' ' fellow feeling 
makes us wondrous kind." 

The difficulty spoken of occurred in 1836. Wil- 
son was a leader in the Jackson party. Anthony 
aspired to the lead in the W^hig party. At that 
time politics among the active of each faction meant 
personality. It was but little else than open war, 
and the frontier men of those days generally went 



"ir^ 



armed, the favorite weapou being the bowie 
knife— a necessary part of a Imnter's ecjiiipment. 
Unfriendly feelings existed between Wilson and 
Anthony. 

Upon the morning of the homicide (in words 
the substance of the account given by the late 
Gen. G. D. Royston, who was an eye witness) 
Mr. Wilson came into the hall a little late, evi- 
dently disturbed in mind, and undoubtedly ruf- 
fled by reason of something he had been told that 
Mr. Anthony had previously said about him in dis- 
cussing a bill concerning wolf-scalps. A serio- 
comic amendment had been offered to the bill to 
make scalps a legal tender, and asking the presi- 
dent of the Real Estate Bank to certify to the 
genuineness of the same. Anthony had the floor. 
When Wilson took the speaker's chair he com- 
manded Anthony to take his seat. The latter 
brusquely declined to do so. Wilson left the chair 
and approached his opponent, who stood in the 
aisle. The manner of the parties indicated a per- 
sonal encounter. As Wilson walked down the aisle 
he was seen to put his hand in the bosom of his 
vest. Anthony drew his knife. Gen. Koyston said 
that when he saw this, hoping to check the two 
men he raised his chair and held it between them, 
and the men fought across or over the chair. They 
struck at each other inflicting great wounds, which 
were hacking blows. Wilson's left hand was nearly 
cut off in warding a blow from Anthony's knife. 
Wilson was physically a smaller man than Anthony. 
Royston held the chair with all his strength be- 
tween the two now desperate individuals. So far 
Anthony's longer arm had enabled him to give the 
greatest wounds, when Wilson with his shoulder 
raised the chair and jslunged liis knife into his 
antagonist, who sank to the floor and died immedi- 
ately. It was a duel with bowie-knives, without 
any of the preliminaries of such encounters. 

Wilson was carried to his bed, where for along 
time he was confined. The house expelled him 
the next day. The civilized world of course was 
shocked, so bloody and ferocious had been the 
engagement. 

Wilson removed to Texas about 1842, locating 
at Cedar Grove, near Dallas, where he died soon 



after the close of the late war. Mrs. A. J. Gentry, 
his daughter, now resides in Clark County, Ark. 
The Hardins, living in Clark County, are of the 
same family as was Mrs. Wilson. 

John Hemphill, a South Carolinian, was born 
a short distance above Augusta, Ga. He immi- 
grated west and reached (now) Clark County, Ark. . 
in 1811, bringing with him a large family and a 
mxmber of slaves, proceeding overland to Bayou 
Sara, La. , and from that point by barges to near 
where is Arkadelphia, then a settlement at a place 
called Blakeleytowu, which was a year old at the 
time of Mr. Hemphill's location. He found living 
there on his amval Adam Blakeley, Zack Davis, 
Samuel Parker, Abner Highnight and a few others. 

Mr. Hemphill was attracted by the salt waters 
of the vicinity, and after giving the subject intel- 
ligent investigation, in 1814 built his salt works. 
Going to New Orleans, he procured a barge and 
purchased a lot of sugar kettles, and with these 
completed his preparations for making salt. His 
experiment was a success from the start and he 
carried on his extensive manufactory until his 
death, about 1825. The works were continued by 
his descendants, with few intermissions, until 1S51. 
Jonathan O. Callaway, his sonin-law, was, until 
that year, manager and proprietor. 

There is a coincidence in the lives of the two 
men who were the founders of commerce and man- 
ufacturing in Arkansas, Hemphill and Barkman, 
in that by chance they became traveling compan- 
ions on their way to the new country. 

Two brothers, Jacob and John Barkman, came 
to Arkansas in 1811. They worked their passage 
in the barge of John Hemphill, from Bayou Sara, 
La., to Blakeleytown, near Ai'kadelphia. They 
were a couple of young Kentuckians. full of cour 
age, hope, and strong sense, seeking homes in the 
wilderness. Their coming antedated that of the 
first steamboat on western waters, and the history 
of the river commerce of this State with New Or- 
leans will properly credit Jacob Barkman with 
being its founder. • Considering the times and real- 
izing what such men as Jacol> Barkman did, one 
is constrained to the belief that among the first 
settlers of Arkansas were men of enterprise, fore- 



1(1(1 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



sight and ilaiiiig in commerce that have certainly 
not been surpassed by their successors. 

On a previous page the methods of this pioneer 
merchant in the conduct of his business have been 
noted. His miscellaneous cargo of bear oil, skins, 
pelts, tallow, etc., found a ready market in New 
Orleans, which place he reached by river, return- 
ing some six months later well laden with commod- 
ities best suited to the needs of the people. In- 
deed his "store" grew to be an important institu- 
tion. He really carried on trade from New Orleans 
to Arkadelphia. In 1820 he purchased of the gov- 
ernment aboiit 1,200 acres of land on the Caddo, 
four miles from Arkadelphia, and farmed exten- 
sively and had many cattle and horses, constantly 
adding to the number of his slaves. Having 
filled the field where he was he sought wider op- 
portunities, and in 1840, in company with J. G. 
Pratt, opened an extensive cotton commission busi- 
ness in New Orleans, building large warehouses 
and stores. Mr. Barkman next purchased the 
steamboat "Dime," a side- wheeler, finely built 
and carrying 400 bales of cotton. He ran this in 
the interest of the New Orleans commission house; 
owned his crews, and loaded the boat with cot- 
ton from his own plantation. In 1844 his l)oat 
proudly brought np at New Orleans, well laden with 
cotton. The owner was on board and full of hope 
and anticipated joy at his trip, and also to meet 
his newly married wife (the second), when the.se 
iiopes were rudely dashed by the appearance of an 
officer who .seized the boat, cargo and slaves, every - 
tiling — and arrested Mr. Barkman and placed him 
in jail undc^r an attachment for debts incurred by 
the commission house. His partner in his absence 
had wrecked the house. 

To so arrange matters that he might get out of 
jail and return to his old home on the Caddo, with 
little left of this world' s goods, was the best the poor 
man could do. He finally saved from the wreck- 
age his fine farm and a few negroes, and, nothing 
daunted, again went to work to rebuild his fortune. 
He erected a cotton factory on the Caddo River, 
and expended some $80,000 on the plant, having 
it about ready to commence operating when the 
water came dashing down the mountain streams in 



a sudden and unusual rise, and swept it all away. 
This brave pioneer spent no hour of his life in idle 
griefs at his extraordinary losses. Though unscru- 
pulous arts of business sharks and dire visitations 
of the elements coniViined to make worthless his 
superb foresight and business energy, he overcame 
all obstacles, and died about 1852, a wealthy man 
for that time. 

When Arkansas was yet a Territory, among its 
early pioneers was Dr. William Bowie, whose name 
has become familiar to the civilized world, though 
not in the way that most men are emulous of im- 
mortality. Dr. Bowie had located, or was a frequent 
visitor, in Helena, Ark., and was a typical man of 
his times —jolly, careless and .social, and very fond 
of hunting and fishing. 

Among the first settlers in Little Rock was a 
blacksmith, named Black. He possessed skill in 
working in iron and steel, and soon gained a wide 
reputation for the superior hunting knives he 
made. When nearly every man hunted more or 
less, and as a good knife was a necessity, it will 
be seen that Black was tilling a general want. 
The material he worked into knives consisted of 
old files. 

One day while he was just finishing a superior 
and somewhat new style of hunting knife. Dr. 
Bowie happened to enter the shop. The moment 
he saw the article he determined to possess it 
at any price. Black had not really made it to 
sell — simply to gratify a desire to see how fine a 
blade he could make, and keep it. But a bargain 
was finally arranged, the blacksmith to cpmplete it 
and ]iut Bowie's name on the handle. The inscrip- 
tion Ix'ing neatly done read: "Bowie's Knife.'" Its 
beauty and finish attracted wide attention, and all 
who could afford it ordered a similar one, the name 
of which was soon shortened into " Bowie Knife. " 
Bowie died, a patriot's death, fighting for the in- 
dependence of Texas, by the side of David Crockett. 

The one pre-eminent thing which entitles the 
Arkansas pioneer, Sandy Faulkner, to immortality 
is the fact that he is the real, original "Arkansaw 
Traveler. ' ' He was an early settler, a hunter, a wild, 
jolly, reckless spendthrift, and a splendid fiddler. 
He was of a wealthy Kentucky family, and settled 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



HIT 



first ill Chicot County iitid then on the river only a 
few miles below Little Rock. By inheritance he 
received two or three moderate fortunes, and spent 
them royally. Of a roving nature, a witty and rol- 
licking companioti. he would roam through the 
woods, hunting for days and weeks, and then en- 
liven the village resorts for a while. He was born 
to encounter just such a character as he did chance 
to dnd, playing on a three -stringed fiddle the first 
part of a particular tune. Now there was but one 
thing in this world that could touch his heart with 
a desire to possess, and that was to hear the re- 
mainder of the tune. 

After meeting this rare character in the woods 
what a world of enjoyment Sandy did carry to the 
village on his next return! "With just enough 
and not too much." with fiddle in his hand, the 
villagers gathered about him while he rejjeated the 
comedy. His zest in the ludicrous, his keen wit 
and his inimitable acting, especially his power of 
miniici'j' and his mastery of the violin, enabled him 
to offer his associates an entertainment never 
surpassed, either on or off the mimic stage. 

After the war Faullaier lived in Little Rock 
until his death in 1875, in straitened circumstan- 
ces, residing with a widowed daughter and one son. 
Another sou was killed in the war; the two daugh- 
ters married and are both dead, and the son and 
only remaining child left this portion of the coun- 
try some years ago. 

When Faulkner died — over eighty years of age 
— he held a subordinate office in the l(»gislature 
then in session, which body adjourned and respect- 
fully buried all that was mortal of the "Arkansaw 
Traveler," while the little morceau from his 
harmless and genial soul will continue to travel 
around the world and never stop, the thrice wel- 
come guest about every fireside. 

What a comment is here in this careless, aim- 
less life and that vaulting ambition that struggles, 
and wars and suffers and sows the world with 
woe that men's names may live after death. Poor 
Sandy had no thought of distinction; his life was a 
laugh, so unmixed with care for the morrow and 
so merry that it has filled a world with its cease 
less echoes. 



Though there may be in this country no titled 
aristocracy, there are nobles, whose remotest de- 
scendants may claim that distinction of race and 
blood which follows the memory of the great deeds 
of illustrious sires. It is the nobles whose lives 
and life's great work were given to the cause of their 
fellowmen in that noblest of all human efforts — 
liberty to mankind. There is something forever 
sacred lingering about the graves, nay, the very 
ground, where these men exposed their lives and 
struggled for each and all of us. All good men 
(and no man can really be called good who does not 
love liberty and independence above everything in 
the world) cannot but feel a profound interest in 
the lineal descendants of Revolutionary fathers. 
"My ancestor was a soldier in the war for inde- 
pendence!" is a far nobler claim to greatness than 
is that of the most royal blue blood in all heraldry. 

W. P. Huddleston, of Sharp's Cross Roads, 
Independence County, has the following family 
tree: Israel McBee was for seven years a soldier 
in a North Carolina regiment in the Revolutionary 
War. He died in (irainger County, Teiin.. aged 
110 years. He was the father of Samuel JIcBee, 
who was the father of Rachel McBee, who married 
John Huddleston. the'grand father of W. P. Hud- 
dleston, Jr. The McBees were originally from 
Scotland. 

Samuel S. \\'elborn. of Fort Douglas, Johnson 
County, was the youngest son of Elias. Samuel 
was born December 30, 1842. His grandfather. 
Isaac Welborn, was seven years a soldier in a 
Georgia regiment, and died at Hazel Green, Ala., 
in 1833, aged eighty-four years. 

Samuel H. Hempstead is a name illustrious in 
Arkansas outside of the fact that it is descended 
directly from a soldier in the war for independ- 
ence. The above-named was born in New London, 
Conn., iu 1814, and died in Little Rock in 18t')2. 
He was a son of Joseph Hempstead, born in New 
London in 1778, and died '\n St. Louis in 1N31. 
Joseph was a son of Stephen Hempstead, born in 
New London in 1742, and died in St. Louis iu 
1832. Stephen was a soldier in the American 
Revolution, serving under Col. Ledyard at the 
l>attle of Fort Griswold, near New London, when 



iy£ 



108 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



these towns were captured by the British under 
Benedict Arnold, September 6, 1781. Hempstead 
was wounded twice during the engagement — a 
severe gunshot wound in the left elbow disabling 
him in the arm for life. He wrote and published 
in the Missouri Republican in 1826, a detailed ac- 
count of the battle. 

Stephen Hempstead's father was also Stephen 
Hempstead, born in 1705 and died in 1774. The 
records of Connecticut, Vol. VII, show that he 
was made an ensign in a train band company, 
by the colonial council, in October, 1737, where he 
served with distinction through this war, known as 
King George's War. In May, 1740, he was made 
sui'veyor by the council. He was the son of 
Joshua Hempstead, born in 1(378, and died in 
1758. He was a representative in the Connecticut 
council in October, 1709; a member of the Royal 
council in October, 1712; ensign in train band com- 
pany in 1721 ; lieutenant in same company in May, 
1724; auditor of accounts in May, 1725. He was 
the son of Joshua Hempstead, Sr., born in 1649, 
and died in 1709; Joshua Hempstead, Sr., was a 
son of Robert Hempstead, born in 1600 and died 
in 1665. The last-named was the immigrant to 
America, one of the original nine settlers of New 
London, Conn., the founder of the town first called 
Hempstead, on Long Island. In 104() Robert 
Hempstead built a house at New London for a res- 
idence, which is still standing, an ancient relic of 
great interest. It is occupied by descendants of 
the builder, named Gaits, from the female branches. 
Though much modernized the old house still shows 
the port- holes used for defense against the Indians. 
A daughter of Robert Hempstead, Mary, was the 
first white child born in New London, March 26, 
1647. 

Fay and Roy Hempstead, Little Rock, are de- 
.scendants of this family. Other descendants live 
in St. Louis, Mo. 

Jesse Williams, of Prince William County, Va., 
enlisted under Dinwiddle's call in the French- 
Indian War on the English settlers in 1754, 
under then Lieut. -Col. Washington, of the First 
Virginia Regiment of 1 50 men. The command at- 
tempted to reach where is now Pittsburg to relieve 



Trent's command at that place. Two descendants 
of the Trents now live in Washington County. In 
this hard march to Fort Duquesne the men dragged 
their cannon, were without tents and scant of pro- 
visions, and deprived of material or means for 
bridging rivers. They fought at Fort Necessity. 
Washington cut a road twenty miles toward Du- 
quesne. On July 3 the fight took place, and July 
4 Washington capitulated on honorable terms. 

In 1755 Jesse Williams again entered the ser- 
vice under Washington and joined Braddock at 
Fort Cumberland. In 1758 he was once more with 
Washington when Forbes moved on Fort Duquesne, 
being present at the capture, and helped raise the 
flag and name the place Pittsburg. 

In the Revolutionary War he was one of the 
first to enlist from Virginia, and was commissioned 
captain, and was present in nearly all the battles 
of that long war. 

The maternal ancestor of the Williams family 
was Thomas Rowe, of Virginia, a colonel in the war 
for independence, who was at the surrender of 
Yorktown. 

David Williams, a son of Jesse, married Betsy 
Rowe. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and 
served with distinction, and also in the Seminole 
War. He settled in Kentucky, Franklin County. 
His children were Jacob, Urban V., Betty, Mil- 
lie, Hattie and Susan; the children of Urban V. 
Williams being John, Pattie and Minnie. Bettie 
married Jeptha Robinson, and had children, David, 
Owen, Austin, May, Hettie, Ruth, Sue, Jacob, 
Frank and Sallie. Hettie married Dr. Andrew 
Neat, and had children, Thomas, Estelle (Brink- 
ley), Ella (Ford), Addis and Ben. Sue married 
George Poor, and had children, George, Lizzie. 
Sue and Minnie. Jacob Williams, the father of 
Mrs. Minnie C. Shinn (wife of Prof. J. H. Shinn, 
of Little Rock), Otis Williams and Mattie Wil- 
liams, Little Rock; Josi>])h Desha Williams and 
Maggie Wells, Russell ville; Lucian and Virgil, 
Memphis, are all of this family. Jacob Williams 
was a private in the Fifth Kentucky, in the late 
war, under Humphrey Marshall. 

Among the pioneers of what is now the State 
of Arkansas, there was perhaps no one family that 



^^ 



.-"it 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



lOU 



furnished so many noted characters and citizens 
jis the Conway family. Their <:fenealogy is traced 
' ■ Itack to the reign of Edward I, of England, in the 
latter part of the thirteenth century, to the cele- 
brated Ca.stle of Conway, on Conway River, in 
the north of Wales, where the lords of Conway, 
in feudal times presided in royal style." Thomas 
Conway came to America about the year 1740, 
and settled in the Virginia colony. Henry Conway 
was his only sou. The latter was first a colonel 
and afterward a general in the Revolutionary War. 
His daughter, Nellie, after marriage, became the 
mother of President Madison, and his son, Mon- 
cure D., was brother-in-law to Gen. Washington. 

Thomas Conway, another son of Gen. Henry 
Conway, settled, during the Revolutionary period, 
near the present site of Greenville, Tenn. He 
married Ann Rector, a native of Virginia, and 
member of the celebrated Rector family. To this 
union seven sons and three daughters were V)orn, 
and all were well reared and well educated. 

In 1818, Gen. Thomas Conway mov(^d with 
his family from Tennessee to St. Louis, in the 
Territory of Missouri, and soon after to Boone 
County, where he remained until his death, in 
1835. Henry Wharton Conway, the eldest son, 
was born March IS, 1793, in Greene County. 
Tenn., and served as a lieutenant in the War of 
1812-15; subsequently, in 1817, he served in the 
treasury department at Washington, immigrated 
to Missouri with his father in 1818, and early in 
1820, after being appointed receiver of public 
moneys, he immigrated in company with his next 
younger brother, James Sevier Conway, who was 
born in 1798, to the county of Arkansas, in the 
then Territory of Missouri. These two brothers 
took and executed large contracts to survey the 
public lands, and later on James S. became 
surveyor-general of the TeiTitory. During the 
twenties Henry W. Conway served two terms as a 
delegate in Congress, and received the election 
in 1827 for the third term, but on the 29th of 
October of that year, he was mortally wounded in 
a duel with Robert Crittenden, from the effects of 
which he died on the 9th of November, following. 
[See account of the duel elsewhere in this work.] 



A marble shaft with an elaborate inscription, 
erected by his brother, James S. Conway, stands 
over his grave in the cemetery at Arkansas Post. 

James S. Conway became the first governor 
of the State of Arkansas, upon its admission into 
the Union, serving as such from 183(5 to 1840, 
after which he settled on his princely possessions 
on Red River in the southern part of the State. 
He was a large slave holder and cotton planter. 
He died on the 3d of March, 1855, at Walinit 
Hill, his country seat, in Lafayette County. 

Frederick Rector Conway, the third son of 
Gen. Thomas Conway, was a noted character in 
Missouri and Illinois. John Rector Conway, the 
fourth son, was an eminent physician, who died in 
San Francisco in 1868. William B. Conway was 
born at the old homestead in Tennessee, about 1806. 
He was thoroughly educated, read law under 
John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and commenced 
the practice at Elizabethtown in that State. He 
moved to Arkansas in 1840, and in 1844 was 
elected judge of the Third circuit. In December, 
1846, he was elected associate justice of the 
supreme court. He died December 29, 1852, and 
is buried by the side of his noble mother, in 
Mount Holly Cemetery, Little Rock. The sixth 
son, Thomas A., died in his twenty-second year in 
Missouri. 

The seventh and younge.st son, Gov. Elias N. 
Conway, was born May 17, 1812, at the old home 
stead in Tennessee, and in November, 1833, he 
!(>ft his parents' home in Missouri, and came to 
Little Rock, and entered into a contract to survey 
large tracts of the public lands in the northwest- 
ern part of the State. Having executed this con- 
tract, he was. in 1836, appointed auditor of State, 
a position which he held for thirteen years. In 
1852 and again in 1856. he was elected on the 
Democratic ticket as governor of the State, and 
served his full two terms, eight years, a longer 
period than any other governor has ever served. 
Much could be said, did space permit, of the emi 
nent services this mau has rendered to Arkansas. 
Of the seven brothers named he is the only one 
now living. He leads a retired and secluded life 
in Little Rock, in a small cottage in which he has 



[ 






k 



no 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



resided for over forty years. He has no family, 
having never been married. 

Robert Crittendon, yontif^cst son of John Crit- 
tenden, a major in tlid Revolutionary War, was born 
near VersailleH, Woodford County, Ky. , January 
1, 1797. Ho was educated by and read law with 
his brother, John J. Crittenden, in Russellville, 
that State. Being appointed first secretary of 
ArkaiiKas Territory, he removed to Arkansas Post, 
the temporary seat of government, where on the 
Sd day of March, 1819, he was inaugurated and 
HSKUmed the duties of his office. On the same 
day James Miller was inaugurated first gov(>rnor 
of the Territory. It seems, however, that Gov. 
Miller, though he held his office until succeeded by 
Gov. George Izard, in March, 1825, was seldom 
present and only occasionally performed official 
duties. This left Oittenden to assume charge of 
the position as governor a great portion of the 
time while Miller held the office. Crittenden con- 
tinued as secretary of the Ten'itory vintil succeeded 
by William L'ulton, in April, 1829, having served 
in that capacity a little over ten years. In 1827 
he fought a duel with Henry W. Conway, the ac- 
count of which is given clsf^whcre. According to 
Gen. Albert Pike, with whom ho was intimately 
associated, ' ' he was a man of fine presence and 
handsome faoe, with clear bright eyes, and unmis- 
takable intellect and genius, frank, genial, one to 
attach men warmly to himself, impulsive, generous, 
warm hearted. " " He was the first great leader of 
the Whig party in the Territory, and continued as 
such until his death, which occurred December 18, 
18154, at Vicksburg, Miss., whither he had gone 
on business. He died thus young, and before the 
Territory, which he had long and faithfully served, 
became a State. 

Archibald Yell, not unfamiliar to Arkansans, 
was born in North Carolina, in August, 1797, and 
while very young immigrated to Tennessee, and 
settled in Bedford County. He served in the Creek 
War as the boy (ra])tain of the Jackson Guards, 
under Gen. Ji^ckson, also under the same general 
in the War of 1812-13, participating in the battle 
of New Orleans, and also in the Seminole War. 
He was a man of moderate education, and when 



the War of 1812 closed, he read law and was ad- 
mitted to the bar in Tennessee. After the close of 
the Seminole War, he located at Fayetteville, Lin- 
coln County, Tenn. , and there practiced law until 
1832, when President Jackson gave him the choice 
to till one of two vacancies, governor of Florida 
or Territorial judge in the T(U'ritory of Arkansas. 
He chose the latter and in due time located at 
Fayetteville, in Washington County. Ho was a 
man of tine personal appearance, pleasant and 
humorous, and possessed the faculty of making 
friends wherever he went. He was elected and 
sei-ved us grand master of the Masonic fraternity 
in tlu! jurisdiction of Arkansas; was a Democrat 
in jwlitics, and the tirst member of Congress from 
the State of Arkansas; was governor of the State 
from 1840 to 1844; was elected again as a member 
of Congi-ess in 1844, and served until 1S46, when 
he resigned to accept the colonelcy of an Arkansas 
regiment of volunteers for the Mexican War. He 
was killed in the battle of Buena Vista, February 
22, 1847. 

In his race for Congress in 1844, he was op- 
posed by the Hon. David Walker, the leader of the 
Whig party, and they made a joint canvass of the 
State. Yell could adapt himself to circumstances 
— to the different crowds of people more freely than 
could his antagonist. In 1847 the Masonic fra- 
ternity erected a monument to his memory in the 
cemetery at Fayetteville. Gov. Yell was a man of 
great ability, and one of the great {)ionoer states- 
men of Arkansas. 

The eminent jurist. Judge David Walker, de- 
scended from a lin(> of English (Quakers, of whom 
the last trans-Atlantic ancestor in the male line 
was Jacob W' alker, whose son (ieorge emigrated to 
America prior to the war of the Revolution, and 
settled in Brunswick County, Ya. Here he mar- 
ried a lady, native to the manor born, and be- 
came" the tirst American jiucestor of a large and 
distinguished family. One of his sons, Jacob 
Wythe Walker, born in the decade that ushered 
in the Revolution, early in life removed to and 
settled in what is now Todd County, Ky. Here, 
on the 19th day of February, ISOfi, was born un- 
to him and his wife, Nancy (Hawkins) Walker, 









HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the subject of this sketcli — David Walker. Youug 
Wiillcei's oppoitunities for obtaining a school edu- 
cation in that then frontier country were limited, 
but, being the son of a good lawyer, ho inherited 
his father's energetic nature, became selfodueatod, 
read law and was admitted to the bar in Scotts- 
ville, Ky., early in 1829, and there practiced 
until the fall of 1830, when he moved to Little 
Kock, Ark., arriving on the 1 0th of October. 
Soon after this he located at Fayetteville, Wash- 
ington County, and remained there, except when 
temporarily absent, until his death. From ]833 
to 1835 he was prosecuting attorney in the Third 
circuit. He was one of the many able members of 
the constitutional convention of 1830. In 1840 he 
rode "the tidal wave of whiggery " into the State 
senate, in which he served four years. In 1844 he 
led the forlorn hope of his party in theever memor- 
able contest with Gov. Yell for Congress. In 
1848, while on a visit to Kentucky, and without 
his knowledge, a legislature, largely Democratic, 
elected him associate justice of the supreme court 
over strong D(>mocratic opposition, embracing such 
men as Judges English and William Conway, both 
of whom afterwards succeeded to the office. 

He had always been a lover of the Union, but 
when the Civil War came on, having been born 
and reared in the South, and having become 
attached to its institutions, he finally chose rather 
to cast his fortunes with the proposed Confederacy 
than with the Federal Union. In February 1861, 
he was elected a delegate to the State convention 
which convened on the 4th of March, and linally, 
at its adjourned session, passed the ordinance of 
secession. He and Judge B. C. Totten were can- 
didates for the chairmanship of this convention, 
the former re[>resenting the Union strength, and 
the latter the disunion element as it was then 
developed. Walker received forty out of the sev- 
enty-five votes cast, and thereupon took the chair; 
but owing to the rapid change of sentiment all ot 
the majority, save one, finally voted with the 
minority, and Arkatisas formally withdrew from the 
Union, with Judge Walker as a leader. In 18(5(5 
he was elected chief justice of the State, but in 
less than two years was removed from the office by 



military power. .\t the close of the reeonBtruction 
period he was again elected to the supreme bench 
and served thereon until September. 1878, when 
he resigned at the age of seventy-two, and retired 
to private life. He died September 30, 1879. He 
was a pious and conscientioiis man, an able jurist, 
a pioneer of Arkansas, highly res)>eefed liy its citi 
zens. 

(ien. Grandison D. Koyston, a ^ui\ of Joshua 
Itoyston and Elizabeths. (Watson) Royston, na- 
tives, respectively, of Maryland and Virginia, and 
both of j)ure English descent, was born on the 
9tli of December, 180it, in Carter County, Tenu. 
His father was an agriculturist and Indian trader 
of great en(*rgy and character, and his mother 
was a daughter of that eminent Methodist divine, 
Rev. Samuel Watson, one of the pioneers of 
the Holstein conference in East Tennessee. He 
was educated in the common neigliborhood schools 
and in a Presbyterian academy in Washington 
County, Tenn. In 1829 he entered the law office 
of Judge Emerson, at Jonesboro, in that State, 
and two years after was admitted to the bar. Sub- 
sequently he emigrated to Arkansas Territory, and 
in April, 1832, located in Fayetteville, Washing- 
ton County, wh(>re he renniined only (>ight months, 
teaching school five days in the week and practic- 
ing law iii justices' courts on Saturdays. He then 
moved to \\'ashington, in Hempstead County, 
where he continued to reside until his death. In 
the performance of his professional duties he trav- 
eled the circuits (jf the Tenitory and Sfafe in that 
cavalcade of legal lights composed of such men as 
Hemijstead. Fowler, Trajmall, Cummins, Pike, 
AValker, Yell, Ashley, Bates, Searcy and others. 

In 1833 he was elected |)rosecuting attorney 
for the Third circuit, and performed the duties of 
that office for two years. In January. 183(5. he 
served as a delegate from Hempsteail County in 
the convention at Little Rock, which framed the 
first constitution of the State: and in the fall of 
the same year he was elected to represent his 
county in the first legislature of the State. After 
the expulsion of .lohn Wilson, speaker of the house, 
who killed Representative John J. Anthony, Roy- 
ston was on joint ballot elected to till the vacant 



-* V 




speakership but declined the office. In 1841 
President Tyler appointed him United States dis- 
trict attorney for the district of Arkansas, which 
office he held a short time and then resigned it. 
In 1858 he represented the counties of Hempstead, 
Pike and Lafayette in the State legislature, and 
became the author of the levee system of the State. 
In 1861 he was elected to the Confederate Con- 
gress, serving two years. In 1874 he was a dele- 
gate from Hempstead County to the constitutional 
convention, and was elected president of that 
body. In 1876 he represented the State at large 
in the National Democratic convention at St. Louis, 
and voted for Tilden and Hendricks. He was al- 
ways a Democrat, a man of culture, refinement and 
winning manners, and enjoyed in a large degree 
the confidence of the people. He obtained his 
title as general by serving on the stafF of Gov. 
Drew with the rank of brigadier-general. He 
died August 14, ]S89, in his eightieth year. He, 
too, was one of the last prominent pioneers of Ar- 
kansas, and it is said he was the last surviving 
member of the constitutional convention of 1836. 
Judge James Woodson Bates was born in 
Groochland County, Va. . about the year 1 788. He 
was educated in the Yale and Princeton Col- 
leges, graduating from the latter about 1810. 
\A'hen quite youug he attended the trial of Aaron 
Burr, for treason, at Eichmond. Soon after grad- 
uating he read law. In the meantime his brother, 
Frederick Bates, was appointed first secretary of 
Missouri Territory, and was acting governor in 
the absence of Gov. Clark. About 1811) he fol- 
lowed his brother to the West, and settled in St. 
Louis. In 1820 he removed to the Post of Arkan- 
sas and there began the practice of his profession, 
but had scarcely opened his office when he was 
elected first delegate to Congress from Arkansas 
Territory. In 1823 he was a candidate for re- 



election, but was defeated by the celebrated Henry 
W. Conway, an able man, who commanded not 
only the influence of his own powerful family, but 
that of the Rectors, the Johnsons, Roanes and 
Ambrose H. Sevier, and all the political adherents 
of Gen. Jackson, then so popular in the South 
and West. The influence and strength of this 
combined opposition could not be overcome. 

After his short Congressional career closed, he 
moved to the newly settled town of Batesville, and 
resumed the practice of his profession. Batesville 
was named after him. In November, 1825, Presi- 
dent Adams appointed him one of the Territorial 
judges, in virtue of which he was one of the 
judges of the superior or appellate court organized 
on the plau of the old English court in banc. On 
the accession of Gen. Jackson to the presidency, 
his commission expired without renewal, and he 
soon after removed to Crawford County, married 
a wealthy widow, and became stationary on a rich 
farm near Van Buren. In the fall of 1835 he 
was elected to the constitutional convention, and 
contributed his ability and learning in the forma- 
tion of our first organic law as a State Soon 
after the accession of John Tyler to the presidency, 
he appointed Judge Bates register of the land 
office at Clarksville. in recognition of an old 
friend. He discharged every public trust, and 
all the duties devolved on him as a private citizen, 
with the utmost fidelity. Strange to say, whilst 
he possessed the most fascinating conversational 
powers, he was a failure as a public speaker. He 
was also a brother to Edward Bates, the attorney- 
general in President Lincoln's cabinet. He was 
well versed in the classics, and familiar with the 
best authors of English and American literature. 
He died at his home in Crawford County in 1846, 
universally esteemed. 




^i 



GKEENE COT'NTY. 



118 



Gkkkne County— Piiysioal Features— Streams— Forests— Kind of Soil— Agricultural Products 
—Stock Interests— Real and Personal Property— Population— Railways— Era of Settle- 
ment—A Noted Hunter- Acts of the County Board— County Seat and Buildinos- 
Officers— Political Outlook— Legal Matters— Military Affairs 
— MuNrciPALiTiES—SciiooLS— Churches— Biography. 




Be mindful 
With iron teeth of rakes and prongs to move 
The crusted eartli. —Dri/den. 



7'- 



•■.!^ 



KEENE COUNTY, Ark., 
lies in the northeastern part 
of the State, in latitude 3(5° 
37 ' North, and longitude 
91° west from Greenwich, 
England. It is bounded on 
the north by Clay County, 
east by the St. Francis 
River, which separates it from Dunk- 
lin (Jounty, Mo., south by Craig- 
head, and west by Lawrence and Ran- 
dolph Counties. It has an area of 
600 square miles, of which less tlian 
one tenth is improved. Its boundary 
lines are as follows: Commencing 
where the line between Sections 21 
and 28, Township 19, Range 9, intersects the mid- 
dle of the main channel of the St. Francis River; 
thence down the middle of the main channel of that 
river to the line between Townships 15 and 16; 
thence west on the township line to the Cache 
River; thence up said river, with its meanderings. 
to the line between Townships 17 and 18; thence 
west on the township line to the line between 
Ranges 2 and 3; thence north on the range line to 
the northwest corner of Section 30, Township 19, 
Range 3; thence east on the section lines, and on 
the county line, to the place of beginning. 



Crowley's Ridge, from its continuation in Clay 
County, extends in a rather southwesterly direction 
through Greene County, with a width varying from 
five to ten miles, and slopes gently on either side 
to the level of the bottom lands. This ridge in 
the southern part of the county is more rolling 
than elsewhere, and farms have been opened en- 
tirely across it, though generally speaking its sum- 
mit is not much cultivated. The early settlers, for 
the most part, selected their homes on the foot of 
the ridge and on ridges between the creeks. The 
farms now extend from both slopes of the ridge 
far out into the rich level lands. 

From Crowley's Ridge the waters flow through 
several small streams in a southeasterly direction 
and empty into St. Francis River; and west of the 
ridge the waters course through small streams in 
a southwesterly direction, emptying into Cache 
River; thus all that portion of the county lying 
between these rivers is drained. That part north 
west of Cache River is drained through the streams 
tributary to Cache and Black Rivers. 

"The entire county with the exception of 
places where the forest has been cleared and farms 
opened — is finely timbered with unequaled quality 
of white oak, red oak, hickory, sweet gum. ash, 
po])hir, pine, and walnut timber. The Crowley's 
Ridge summit is timbered its entire length through 



,J^ 



114 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the county with pitch or red pine of the finest 
qualit}', and the slopes with other timber named. 

"The soil is varied. One discovers ])oor, thin 
and rocky points on the summit and almost any 
grade between sandy soil of the bottom lands. It 
produces good crops of corn, wheat, rye, barley, 
oats, sorghum cane, broom corn, cotton, potatoes, 
turnips, tame grasses, clover and millet, while the 
range for cattle from eight to ten months of the 
year, and for hog.s through the fall, is almost in- 
inexhaustible." * 

At present lumbering is, and until the timber 
supply becomes exhausted will continue to be, 
one of the leading if not the principal industry of 
the county, and a great source of income. In 
April of the current year there were thirty-four 
steam power saw-mills, six stave factories, one shin- 
gle-mill, and two planing-mills, within the county 
— all engaged in cutting the timber into lumber, 
etc. One of these mills — that of the J. M. Reed 
Lumber Company — has capacity for cutting 100,- 
000 feet of lumber per day. The most profitable 
source of revenue to the farmers consists in the 
raising of cotton and corn, which yield probably a 
nearly eqiial income. Most of the saw-mills have 
cotton gins, and some grist-mills attached. 

In 1880 there were, according to the United 
States census, 1,181 farms, with 80,596 acres of 
improved lands in the county, and from these the 
vegetable productions were as follows: Indian 
corn, 347,926 bushels; oats, 29, 110 bushels; wheat, 
10,475 bushels; hay, 124 tons; cotton, 3,711 bales; 
Irish potatoes, 5,181 bushels ; sweet potatoes, 18,989 
bushels; tobacco, 5,785 pounds. A large acreage 
has since been cleared, and the vegetable produc- 
tions correspondingly increased. 

The numbers of head of live stock within the 
county, as indicated by the same census, were as 
follows: Horses, 7,694; mules and asses, 760; 
neat cattle, 8,975; sheep, 1,727; hogs, 16,984. 
The following show the number of head of live 
stock in the county as declared by the assessment 
rolls for 1888: Horses, 2,826; mules and asses, 
991; neat cattle, 10.125; sheep, 1,685; 'hogs, 
16,481. The comparison of these figures is inter 

* Quotations from Greene County Record. 



esting. The decrease in the number of sheep is 
probably due to the reduction in the price of wool, 
while the decrease in the number of hogs is appar- 
ent but not real. The census of 1880 gives the 
number raised, sold and slaughtered during the 
year, while the assessment rolls show only the 
number on hand when listed for taxation; hence 
the increase must have been large. As previously 
stated, all parts of the county are well supplied 
with streams, and an abundance of good well 
water can be obtained at a depth of from thirty to 
forty feet, without blasting through any rock, and 
as the lands are well adapted to the raising of 
grains, tame grasses and clover, this country must 
eventually — after the lumber industry ceases — 
become excellent for diversified farming, and 
especially for the raising of live stock, the climate 
being mild, and the shipping facilities to the great 
commercial centers unusually superior. 

The country is also well adapted to the growing 
of all manner of fruits common to this latitude. 

The assessed value of the real estate of Greene 
County for the year 1880 was $426,685, and of the 
personal property $254,361, making a total of 
$681,046, and the total amount of taxes charged 
thereon was $16,099. The assessed value of the 
real estate of the county for 1888, including the 
railroad j)roperty, was $1,313,392.72, and of the 
personal property, $562,719, making a total of 
$1,876,111.72. upon which the total amount of 
taxes charged was $29,103.63. This demonstrates 
that the taxable wealth of the county has about 
doubled since 1880, but that the taxes have not 
increased in the same ratio. The railroads, which 
now constitute a considerable portion of the tax- 
able wealth of the county, and pay a large percent- 
age of the taxes, were assessed for the year 1888 
as follows: St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, 
$330,750; St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas, $200,677: 
Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis, $4,560; total, 
$585,987. 

The county has excellent public buildings, and 
a floating debt of only about $7,000, which will be 
canceled after another year's taxes are collected. 
This covers the whole indebtedness — there being 
no bonded del)t at all. Such favorable facts prove 



-4-2L,- 




that Greene County haB many attractions for home : 
seekers. Lands are yet cheap, and immigrants from ! 
the over-crowded Eastern and Northern States can 
certainly do much V^etter by coming to this country 
than by going west to points beyond the improve- 
ments of civilization. Capital is beiug rapidly 
invested here, thus insuring employment to the 
laborer. Here an industrious man with but small 
capital may soon possess and own a home, where 
society is good and the climate unexcelled; here he 
may gain, by application and energy, just recogni- 
tion, and here, too, may he avoid the tinancial 
burdens which characterize other less- favored com- 
munities. 

The population of Greene County in 1860, in- 
cluding what is now the Eastern district of Clay 
County, was 5,654 — 189 of whom were colored. 
The population of 1870, comprising the same terri- 
tory, was 7,417 — 156 of whom were colored. The 
population in 1880, embracing only the present 
area of the county, was 7,405, of whom only 75 
' were colored. Considering the recent rapid in- 
crease by way of immigration, together with the 
natural accession, it is safe to estimate the popula- 
tion of the county at the present vwiting, at more 
than double that of 1880. 

The main line of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain 
& Southern Railroad — completed about 1872 — 
runs in a southwesterly direction across the north- 
western portion of the county, a distance of nine 
and three-fourth miles. The Helena branch of 
the same road, finished in 1882, runs through in a 
southeasterly and southerly course across the 
entire county, by way of Gainesville, Paragould 
and minor points, a distance of twenty-three miles. 
The St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad, com- 
pleted in 1882, passes through the entire county 
in a southwesterly direction along the eastern side 
of Crowley's Ridge, by way of Paragould and 
other points, a distance of twenty- four miles and 
2,904 feet. The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Mem- 
phis Railroad, constructed in 1883, runs in a south- 
easterly direction across the extreme southwestern 
corner of the county, a distance of only 2,400 feet. 
The Paragould & Buffalo Island Narrow Gauge 
Railroad runs eastward from Paragould to the St. 



Francis River, a distance of ten miles. It was 
built in 1888, by a local company, for the purpose 
of shipping out timber and lumlier. The combined 
length of the llirough lines of railroad is fifty -seven 
miles and 3,984 feet, which added to the ten miles 
of narrow gauge road, makes over seventy-seven 
miles of railway in the county. 

The settlement of the territory now composing 
Greene County began almut the year 1820. Ben- 
jamin Crowley, grandfather of Hon. Benjamin H. 
Crowley, and his family were the first settlers, and 
their nearest neighbors were then at Pocahontas, 
now the county seat of Randolph County. Crow- 
ley's Ridge was named in honor of this pioneer 
settler. The Pevehouse family, Wiley Hutchins, 
Jerry Gage, Samuel Willcockson, the Robertsons 
and J. W. Gage, were among the first settlers of 
the Crowley neighborhood, which is some twelve 
miles west of Paragould. William Pevehouse 
was the first child born in the county, and his 
brother, Wiley, and Hon. Ben. H. Crowley were 
first among the next children born. James McDan- 
iol and Jesse Payne were early settlers on Village 
Creek. Isaiah Hampton and Lewis Bramlet set- 
tled in 1848, four miles east of Gainesville. John 
Mitchell, an early settler near Gainesville, put u)) 
the first cotton gin in the county, and Samuel 
Wilcockson erected the first steam grist mill on 
Crowley's Ridge, it being on Pojilar Creek in the 
Crowley settlement. Parson William Nutt located 
near Gainesville; and Aaron Bagwell, from whom 
Bagwell Lake in the eastern part of the county 
took its name, and C. G. Jones, after whom Jones 
Ridge on the western border of the county is called, 
were also early settlers. 

The Bradshaws — noted hunters — settled on the 
upper end of the ridge, iu what is now Clay 
County, and A. J. Smith, "the great Arkansas 
bear hunter." settled near the Bradshaws and mar- 
ried into their family. He subsecpiently located 
and cleared up a farm a few miles east of the pres 
ent town of Paragould, where he lived until his 
death. He was known far and near, and was the 
most noted eccentric character in all of Northeast 
em Arkansas, possessing many of the traits of the 
famous Col Butv Crockett. He was a veritable 



'Xl 



116 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



backwoodsman, not accustomed to the finer com- 
forts of advanced civilization. He owned slaves, 
raised large numbers of cattle, and undoubtedly 
killed more wild animals than any other man in 
the State. He usually went bareheaded and bare 
footed, with his collar opened and sleeves rolled 
up, and nearly always carried with him his rifle, 
shot pouch and large hunting knife. Upon his ap- 
pearance in this plight he was much feared, espec- 
ially by those not acquainted with him. He was, 
however, kind and benevolent, brave and generous, 
and had but few enemies, being a firm friend to 
those he respected, but a dangerous man in a 
quarrel. 

On one occasion after having sold a herd of cat- 
tle to Gov. "Jack" Drew, he went, equipped as 
usual, to the governor's residence to collect his 
pay. The governor happened to be absent. He 
was met at the door by Mrs. Drew, who though 
much frightened invited him to step in and take a 
seat at the fire. He looked down and said he did 
not like ' ' to step on that quilt. ' ' The carpet be- 
ing loose he took it by the edge, folded it over and 
then sprang across and took a chair near the fire. 
Mrs. Drew felt convinced that her unwelcome 
guest was a horse thief, and thereupon had his 
horse put into the stable and locked, knowing that 
her husband would return soon. On seeing the 
latter she went out to meet him, and related the 
appearance of the mysterious stranger, whereupon 
the governor, with a hearty laugh, replied, "O! 
that is Jack Smith, it's just like him." 

Angeline, his wife, was an excellent shot with 
the rifle, and often accompanied him on his hunt- 
ing excursions. Once while returning home upon 
a trail, desiring to " prowl around a little longer," 
he requested his companion not to wait for him. 
Accordingly she rode on, but had not gone far un- 
til the dogs — remaining with Jack — chased up a 
huge bear, pursuing it so closely that it stopped 
and turned its back against the roots of a fallen 
tree, and began to cuff the dogs right and left. 
Jack ran to their assistance, whereupon the bear, 
having cowed the dogs, sprang forward and rushed 
upon him. Jack in retreating, stumbled and fell. 
Just at this critical moment, Angeline, who had 



heard the confusion, wheeled her steed about, took 
deliberate aim and shot and killed the monster 
beast, thus saving her husband's life. Ever there- 
after upon relating this incident, he never failed 
to declare that Angeline was the best woman ever 
created. 

This gi-eat hunter generally wore ' ' buckskin 
breeches." He was of a humorous disposition, 
and on one occasion was visited by a party of well 
dressed gentlemen from Memphis, who, upon seeing 
the large quantity of peltry he had on hand, asked 
how he came to be so successful in hunting. His 
reply was that formerly when dressed in his buck- 
skin trousers and other outfit, the animals, espec- 
ially the deer, had become so well acquainted with 
him that they knew him by sight, and were always 
on the outlook for him, in consequence of which 
he could not get near enough to shoot them. It 
then occurred to him that he must change his 
garb, and thus deceive the animals. So now, he 
said, that upon approaching a herd of deer, the 
sentinel buck seeing him would inform the rest 
that there was no danger — that it was only some 
finely dressed gentleman from Memphis, who was 
harmless. In this way he claimed to delude the 
deer, succeeding in killing a great many. The 
numerous eccentricities, bear and deer hunts and 
the like, of this famous hunter, if compiled would 
make an interesting book on frontier life. 

Wiley Clarkson was an early settler and hunt- 
ing companion of Smith. The county settled very 
slowly prior to 1855, but after that more rapidly 
until the war period, during which time it received 
no new comers. Soon after the war the growth in 
population was renewed and continued gradual 
until four years ago, since which time it has been 
and still is very rapid. For additional mention 
of settlers, with more specific dates, the reader is 
referred to the biographical pages of this volume. 

Greene County was organized in accordance 
with an act of the legislature of Arkansas Terri- 
tory, approved November 5. 1833, and was made 
to embrace the territory it now comprises, except- 
ing that portion lying west of Cache River, to- 
gether with the whole of what is now the Eastern 
district of Clay County, and a j)ortion of Craig- 



5j^ 



head County, all formerly lielonging to Lawrence 
County. When Clay County was formed in 1873, 
that portion of Greene now lying west of the 
Cache River was attached from Randolph County. 

The original seat of justice was located about 
1835, at a point five miles northeast of Gaines- 
ville, and was named Paris. Here a log court- 
house was erected and one or two stores opened. 
Afterward the question of re-locating the county 
seat was agitated, and of the different points com- 
peting for it, the one where Gainesville is situated 
gained the location, henco the name Gainesville. 
To this place the seat of justice was moved about 
the year 1840. A log court-house and subsequent- 
ly a log jail were erected. The former was soon 
abandoned and in its stead a three-story frame 
court house, about thirty feet square, was con- 
structed. The first floor of this building was 
occupied with the county ofl[ices, the second with 
the court-room, and the third with a Masonic hall. 
The building, with a portion of the records, was 
burned in 1874. A store room was then rented 
for a court- house, and soon thereafter, in the 
same year, it was, with all the balance of the 
records, also burned. These buildings were sup- 
posed to have been set on fire by certain parties, 
that the records, noting their rather questionable 
conduct, might be destroyed. This led to the 
shooting and killing of Sheriff Wright, by a citizen 
whom the people justified by not prosecuting. 
Two other persons, supposed to bo implicated in 
the crime of burning the buildings, were arrested 
and placed in jail, from which they escaped and 
were not afterward apprehended. One of them, 
it is said, confessed his guilt. 

The next court-house was another store room, 
which, with all accumulated records, was burned 
in 1876, presumably by an incendiary resting un- 
der indictments for crime. A one-story frame 
court-house was then erected, and continued to 
be used until 1884, when the county seat was 
removed from Gainesville to its present site, at 
Paragould. In 1884 the one story frame build- 
ing now standing east of the court-house square 
was erected for a temporary court-house. In 1888 
the present beautiful and well-proportioned two- 



story brick building, with the halls and oUices on 
the first floor and the court-room on the second, 
was erected by Contractors Boone and Mcfxinnis, 
at a cost of $14,700. The clock in the tower cost 
$700 more. In 1877 the same contractors l)uilt 
the present two-story jail, containing four iron 
cells or rooms, and the jailer's residence, at a cost 
of $7,000. 

Following is a list of the names of the county 
officers of Greene County from its organization to 
the present, together with the term of service of 
each: 

Judges: I. Brooktield, 1833-35; W. Hanes, 
1835-36; George Daniel, 1836-1838; L. Thomp 
son, 1838-40; J. M. Cooper, 1840-42; H. Powell, 
1842-44; N. Mmphree, 1844-46; J. M. Coopei. 
1846^8; C. G. Steele, 1848-50; H. T. Allen, 
1850-52; J. Bellinger, 1852-54; H. T. Allen, 
1854-60; T. Clark, 1860-64; J. J. Wood, 1864- 
66; H. T. Allen, 1866-68; A. Seagroves, 1868- 
72; David Thorn. 1874-76; J. P. Culver. 1876-78; 
J. McDauiel, 1878-80; M. C. Gramling, 1880-82; 
J. O'Steen, 1882-88; W. C. Jones, present in 
cumbent, elected 1888. 

Clerks: L. Thompson, 1833-36; G. L. Mar- 
tin, 1836-38; H. L. Holt, to November. 1838: J. 
L. Atchison, 1838-44; H. L. Evans, 1844-46; H. 
Powell, 1846-50; M. T. C. Lumpkins, 1850-54; 
J. W. McFarlaud, 1854-56; L. B. McNeil. 1S56- 
I 58; H. W. Glasscock, 1858-64; R. H. Gardner. 
I 1864-68; E. R. Seeley, 1868-72; D. B. Warren, 
j 1872-82; R. H. Gardner, 1882-88; T. B. Kitch- 
ens, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Sheritt's: James Brown. 1833-34; Charles Rob- 
ertson, 1834-36; J. Stotts, 1836-38; J. Clark, 
1838-44; J. R, Ragsdale, 1844-46; A. F. Puryer. 
1846-48: J. Clark. 1S4S-50: William Pevehouse, 
1850-52; W. M. Peebles, IS52-58; F. S. White, 
1858-62; A. Eubanks. 1862-64: F. S. White. 
1864-68; M. Wright, 1868-72; M. C. Gramling. 
1872-74: J. P. WiUcocU.son. 1S74-76: J. A. Owen. 
1876-77; F. S. White. 1877-80; T. R, WiUcock 
son, 1880-84; J. M. Hightield, 1884-86; T. H. 
Willcockson, present incumbent, first elected in 
1886. 

Treasurers: James Katchford 1S36-38: H. X. 



' > 



118 



HLSTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Reynolds, 1840-42; G. W . Hurley. 1842-44: M. 
Carter, 1844-46; J. W. Poole, 1846-52; C. G. 
Jones, 1852-54; W. Meredith, 1854-56: J. Payne, 
1856-58: T. H. Wyse. 1858-62; C. Wall, 1862- 
64; M. C. Gramling, 1864-66; Alex. Wood, 1866- 
68; Sam Newberiy, 1868-72: R. Jackson. 1S72- 
76; H. C. Swindle, 1876-78; G. W. Stevenson, 
1878-80;* R. Jackson, 1880-84: J. N. Johnson, 
1884-86; H. S. Trice, jiresent incumbent, first 
elected in 1886. 

Coroners: J. Sutfin, 1833-35; J. Fowler, 1835 
-36; John Anderson, 1838-42: P. K. Lester, 
1842-44; J. Lawrence, 1844-46; J. Hunt, 1846- 
48; W. H. Mack, 1848-50; R. W. Dorsey, 1850- 
54; J. S. Hibbs, 1854-56; M. McDaniel, 1856-58; 
A. P. Bobo, 1858-60; H. B. Wright, 1860-64: J. 
R. Gentry, 1864-66; H. Jackson, 1866-68: L. 
Steadman, 1868-72; J. H. Dudley, 1872-74: E. 
Daniels, 1874-76; J. A. Little, 1876-78: W. M. 
McKay, 1878-80; J. W. Hardy, 1880-82: J. R. 
Gross, 1882-84; V. Looney, 1884-86; J. M. Ham- 
mond, 1886-88; B. Terrell, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Surveyors; G. Hall, 1833-36; William Hatch, 
1838-40; J. J. Johusou; 1840-42; J. B. B. Moore, 
1842-44: James Mitchell, 1844-56; E. M. Allen, 
1856-58; W. C. Reyburn, 1858-60; R. G. Mc- 
Leskey, 1860-62; J. P. Harris, 1862-64: R. C. 
Mack, 1864-66; L. M. Wilson, 1866-68: J. See- 
ley, 1870-72; R. H. Gardner, IS72-82: O. S. 
Newsom, 1882-88; Len Merriweather, present in- 
cumbent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: R. H. Gardner, 1859-62: T. C. 
Murphy, 1862-64; H. W. Glasscock, 1864-66; 
M. C. Gramling, 1866-68; D. J. Edwards, 1868- 
70; P. G. Straughn, 1870-72; W. F. Clements, 
1872-74; W. S. Ledbotter, 1874-76; J. Huckabay, 
1876-78; J. F. Lytle, 1878-80; P. G. Light, 
1880-84: J. R. Thompson, 1884-88; E. L. Bab- 
bett, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Representatives of Greene County in constitu- 
tional conventions: G. L. Martin, January 4 to 
13, 1836; J. W. Bush, March 4 to 21, and'May 6 
to June 3, 1861; Benjamin H. Crowley, July 14, 
to Oct ober 31, 1874. " 

*R. Jackson on resignation of Stevenson. 



Representatives in general assembly; Alex. 
Tucker was the first representative of the county 
in the State legislature, and Hon. A. P. Cos is the 
present one. The Senatorial district, composed of 
Greene. Clay and Craighead Counties, is repre- 
sented in the State Senate by Hon. Ben. H. 
Crowley. 

To show the political aspect of the county the 
vote cast therein for the candidates for governor at 
the September election in 1888 is here given, it 
being as follows: J.P.Eagle, Democrat, 1,378 votes; 
C. M. Norwood, combined opposition, 841 votes. 

Upon the organization of Greene County and 
prior to the location of the original county seat, 
courts were held at the house of Mr. Crowley the 
first settler, as before mentioned, on Crowley's 
Ridge. A portion of the time the sessions were 
held in the house and. also, under the adjacent 
trees. It is said that the judge of the circuit court, 
after charging the grand jury, usually sent them in 
charge of the sheriff or bailiff under a certain white 
oak tree to make their deliberations. Since those 
days the courts have been held in the various court 
houses elsewhere described. The regular terms 
of the county court commence on the first Monday 
in January, April, July and October, and of the 
probate court on the third Monday of the same 
months in each year. The regular terms of the 
circuit court have heretofore commenced on the 
first Monday of February and August of each year, 
but probably the last legislature has slightly 
changed the time. This court has not been over- 
biu'dened with murder trials, as but few murders 
have been committed within the county. No one 
has ever been executed in Greene County for a 
capital offense except one person who killed an 
individual in another county, and was brought 
here and tried on a change of venue. 

The following are the resident members of the 
legal bar of Greene County: Hon. L. L. Mack, 
Judge J. E. Reddick. now on the bench; Hon. 
Ben. H. Crowley, J. B. Boykin, A. P. Mack, W. 
S. Luna, Eugene Parrish, W. W. Bandy, S. R. 
Simpson, A. Knox and J. F. Lytle. Mention of 
many prominent citizens of the county is also 
made in subsequent pages. 




At the outbreak of the Civil War of 1801-65, 
the citizens of Greene County, being mostly immi- 
gi'ants or descendants of immigrants from the 
former slave-holding States, were found to be 
almost to a man, in full sympathy with the South- 
ern cause, and consequently lent their energies to 
sustain it. As might be expected great excitement 
then prevailed, and in the spring of 1861 Capt. 
W. G. Bohaning raised a full company of soldiers 
mostly in the territory now composing Cireenc 
County, for the First Regiment of Arkansas Con- 
federate Infantry. Soon thereafter Capt. J. L. 
Kuykendall formed another company in the same 
territoiy for the same regiment, and later Capt. 
D. G. Byers recruited a company for the Twenty 
Fifth Regiment of Arkansas Confederate Infantry. 
In 1864 Capts. Park Willcockson, John McHenry 
and H. W. Glasscock, each raised a company of 
cavalry in Greene County for Maj. J. F. Davies' 
liattalion of Col. Kitchens' regiment. The pop- 
ulation being then small, these were the only or- 
ganized bodies of soldiers raised in that part of the 
county as it is now composed. Other troops were 
obtained in that portion since set off to Clay. No 
skirmishes or l)attles took place in the county dur- 
ing the war, and it was but little over-run with 
soldiers, consequently not suffering the devasta- 
tions incident to many other counties in the State. 

Only two Federal commands, together with a 
few small scouting parties, passed through the 
county, and as a result the people fortunately es- 
caped the raids of foragers; owing also to their 
unanimity of sentiment, there was but very little 
l)ushwhacking done. In addition to the com- 
panies above mentioned some individuals went out 
of the county and enlisted in other commands. 
Notwithstanding the natural preferences of the 
people here in the war period, they are now vieing 
with the immigrants from both North and South, 
in developing the resources of this section. Uni- 
versal peace and harmony prevail, and all just and 
upright newcomers are received with a hearty wel- 
come. The survivors of both armies have organ- 
ized an association in Paragould known as the 
"Blue and Gray" — there being many ex-Federal 
soldiers among the recent arrivals in the countv. 



and together they meet and rejoice that the con- 
flict is forever settled, and that while they were 
enemies in war they are friends in peace. 

(ireene is well supplied with villages, towns, 
postotlices. etc.. as the following facts indicate: 

Bethel is a postoffice and flag station on the 
railroad, five miles south of Paragould. 

Crowley is a postoffice twelve miles northwest 
of Paragould. 

Finch is a postoffice ten miles southwest of 
Paragould. 

Gainesville, on the Helena branch of the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad, eight 
miles north of Paragould, formerly the seat of 
justice for Greene County, was established about 
the year 1840. In 184t) it contained a log court- 
house, two store buildings and five dwelling houses 
— all log except one dwelling house, which was a 
frame, sided up with clapboards. The town has ever 
been of slow growth, but situated as it is in a good 
community far from other villages, it is a point of 
considerable trade, containing four general stores, 
one drug store, four family groceries, two black- 
smith shops, one steam grist mill and cotton-gin 
combined, two hotels, one printing office, from 
which is published the Greene County Event, by 
F. M. Dalton, one livery stable, two church edi- 
fices — Cumberland Presbyterian and Methodist- 
one public school-house, three physicians, and one 
lawyer, the latter being the Hon. J. E. Reddiek, 
present judge of the circuit court of this judicial 
circuit. 

Halliday, a postoffice and flag station on tlie 
"Cotton Belt" Railroad, is six miles north of 
Paragould. 

Herndon is a postoffice in the so\ithwost part of 
the county. 

Lorado, also but a postoffice, is in the south- 
west part of the county. 

Marmaduke, a town of about 200 inhabitants on 
the " Cotton Belt" Railroad, twelve miles north- 
east of Paragould, contains four stores, a black 
smith shop, cotton gin and press, church, school 
house, a saw-mill and boarding house. From lierc 
a tramway is run a mile out on the St. Franci.-^ 
River, where other mills are located. The village 



\ 



2iJ« 



120 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was first laid out in 1882 by the Railroad Company. 
Paragould, the county seat of Greene County, 
situated at the connection and crcssiug of the St. 
Louis, Arkansas & Texas and the St. Louis, 
Iron Mountain & Southern Railroads, was laid 
out in April, 1882, by the Southwestern Improve- 
ment Company, Willis Pruet and wife and J. A. 
Laml)ert and wife. It was named after President 
Paramore of the former and President Gould of 
the latter of these routes, the name Gould being 
substituted for the last syllable of Paramore, mak- 
ing it Paragould. The town has grown rapidly, and 
in the seven years of its existence has attained a 
population of about 2,000. It contains the Greene 
County Bank, nine general stores, five family 
groceries, four drug stores, one hardware, saddlery 
and farm implement store, six saloons, two baker- 
ies, two millinery stores, four hotels and many 
boarding houses, two livery stables, two butcher 
shops, one shoe, four blacksmith and one foundry 
shop, five stave factories, three saw-mills, one 
cotton gin, a feed store, photograph galleries, bar- 
ber shops, laundry and many other industries, four 
church edifices --Methodist, Baptist, Cumberland 
Presbyterian and Christian, a public school-house, 
seven physicians, three dentists, a lodge each of 
Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Honor, Knights 
of Pythias and a Post of the G. A. R. ; also these 
newspapers — the Paragould Evening Times, pub- 
lished daily, by W. A. H. McDaniel, editor and pro- 
prietor; the Record, published weekly, by Messrs. 
Taylor & Carter, the Press recently being consoli 
dated with this journal. In politics the entire 
press of the county is Democratic, but the papers 
are published in the interest of the people, and are 
doing their best to promote and increase the pros- 
perity of the county. Near Paragould on the west 
side are situated the grounds and buildings of the 
"Greene County Fair Association," which held 
its second annual exhibition in October, 1888. 
Paragould is incorporated as a city, and has a mayor, 
recorder, marshal, and a board of five aldermen. 
The present officers ai'e H. W. Glasscock, mayor: 
T. P. Cole, recorder; John M. Winder, marshal. 
A vast amount of capital is here invested. The 
town is beautifully located, and its growth is rapid 



and permanent. It is surroimded by a good agri- 
cultural and stock-raising country, which insures its 
future pi'osperity. The Bank of Paragould which 
was organized on March 19, 1889, is deserving of 
mention. It was incorporated with C. Wall, 
president, E. S. Bray, cashier, and A. A. Knox as 
secretary of the board of directors. The directors 
are as follows: Dr. C. Wall, A. Berteg, A. P. 
Mack, W. H. Jones, J. W. Crawford, D. D. 
Hodges and A. A. Knox. They have a capital 
stock of $30,000. The new bank building, which 
is a neat two-story structure located on the corner 
of Pruet and Emerson streets, was completed and 
occupied on the 1st of July, 1889. 

Stonewall, a post village on the Iron Mountain 
Railroad, fourteen miles north of Paragould, con- 
tains a store, saw-mill and shingle factory. 

Tilmanville is a postoffice fifteen miles north 
of Paragould. 

Walcott is a postoffice twelve miles west of 
Paragould. 

As was common throughout Arkansas in early 
days, the pioneer schools of Greene County were 
"few and far between," and of the most inferior 
nature. A few of the pioneer settlers employed 
such teachers as could be obtained for what might 
be considered ordinary laborers' wages, and thus 
afforded some meager facilities for the educa- 
tion of their childi'en. Though the State had a 
school system, there were practically no free schools 
prior to the inauguration of the present school sys- 
tem, which has taken place since the Civil War. 
Owing to the inadequate facilities for education, 
many of the citizens of the county reached their 
manhood without ever attending school. The 
children of this generation have great advantages 
over those of their parents. Seven years ago, as 
shown by reports of the State superintendent of 
public instruction, there were thirty-nine school 
districts organized in Greene County, with only 
seven* wood school-houses, to accommodate a 
scholastic population of 2,191. The following 
statistics, taken fi'om the superintendent's report 
for the year ending June 30, 1888, will show the 
improvements since made within the temtory: 

*Tbere were perhaps others not reported. 



^. 




The white schoolchildren number 4,387; col- 
ored, 14; total, 4,401. The minil)er taught in 
the public schools is: White, 2,219; colorc'd, none; 
number of school districts, 59; number of teachers 
employed, males, 37; females, 14; total, 51; 
average monthly wages paid teachers of the first 
grade, males, $42.50; females, $37.50; second 
grade, males, |40; females. $85; third grade, males, 
$32.50; females, $30; frame and log school-houses 
reported, 28, valued at $4,338. 75; revenue rai.sed 
for the support of common schools, $18,957.09; 
amount expended, $9,690.58; amount unexpended, 
$9,260.51. These figures show a great increase 
over those of seven years ago. The schools are 
increasing in number and quality — the wages paid 
being sufficient to secure teachers of good ability. 
The figures show also that of the scholastic pop 
ulation of the county only a little over one-half 
were taught in the public schools, which is con 
elusive that the people do not as yet fully sustain 
and patronize the free school system. However, 
the outlook for popular education is encouraging. 
A. Knox is the present county examiner. 

Religious meetings were held, and preaching 
was had in Greene County soon after it was or- 
ganized, and from the best information obtainable 
societies of the Methodist and Baptist denomina- 
tions were probably formed during the 40' s. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church. South, has now at 
least seventeen organizations within the county. 
The Paragould circuit consists of the following: 
Mount Carmel, Pleasant Grove, New Bethel, 
Wood's Chapel, a congregation four miles west 
of Paragould, and Greensboro and Pine Log, in 
Craighead County, with Itev. W. W. Anderson, 
pastor in charge. Lorado circuit consists of Pleas- 
ant Hill, Shady Grove, Warren's and Owen's 
Chapels, Old Bethel and Salem, with Rev. T. B. 
Williamson, pastor in charge. Gainesville circuit 
includes Friendship, Hurricane, Harvey's Chapel, 
Starne's (Jhapol. Scatter Creek, Beech Grove and 
Strong's Chapel, with Rev. N. W. Farrar. pastor 
in charge. Another congregation in the eastern 
part of the county, belongs to an outside circuit. 
Rev. W. W. Watson is pastor of the charge com- 
posed of Gainesville and Oak Grove, and Rev. 



J. C. Ritter is pastor of the charge at Paragouhl. 

The Bai>tist(*hurch has at least fourteen organ- 
izations within th(> county, one of which is the 
colored church at Paragould. Tin- others are 
named New Providence, Friendship. Liberty. 
Epsaby, Fairview, Unity, New Hop(>, Rock Hill, 
Pleasant Grove, Cedar Hill, Mount Zion, Para 
gould, and another, name not learned. New 
Providence, Friendship, Fairview, New Hope, and 
perhaps others, were organized long before the 
Civil War. All of these organizations have an 
average membership of about fifty, and the Meth- 
odist denomination is about equal in strength. 
Elders David Thorn, Lively, W. C. Jackson, 
Faulkner, J. T. Edmonds, and Halcomb are the 
ministers now officiating at these several churches, 
all of which are designated as Missionary Baptists. 

The several organizations of the Christian 
Church within the county are known as Paragould, 
Pine Knot, Sugar Creek, Gainesville and Liberty, 
with a combined membership of nearly 400. Pine 
Knot was organized in a very early day — long 
before the Civil War. and has had a very large 
membership. Liberty, which was organized in 
1879, was composed mostly from the membership 
of Pine Knot. The Christian Church in Para 
gould was organized in 1885. 

The organizations of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church within Greene County are known as 
Gainesville, Friendship and Paragould, the latter 
having been organized in 1884. The one at or 
near Gainesville was organized early in the 80' s. 
In point of numbers this is probably the weakest 
denomination in the county. There are no Roman 
Catholic organizations here, but this sect is pre- 
paring to build a church edifice in Paragould. 

Nearly all of the church organizations named 
have houses of their own in which to worship, and 
all, except a few not supplied with pastors, have 
regular preaching, and are doing good work. In 
the summer season Sunday-schools are connected 
with them, but only a few in the more populous 
districts continue throughout the year. 

The people of (ireene County are almost with- 
out exception moral, law abiding, kind, generous 
and hospitable, and welcome anil protect all de- 



122 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



serving immigrants that come among them. Here 
the opportunities for securing a home in a com 
paratively new country, where the climate is mild, 
the railroad facilities good, churches and schools 
numerous, all without the inconveniences of front- 
ier lite, are unexcelled. 



W. T. Allison was born on the 25th of Decem- 
ber, 1850, in Gibson County, Tenn., being the 
eldest of six children, two now living, born to 
John W. and Elizabeth (Harrington) Allison, who 
were born in the ' ' Old North State ' ' and emigrated 
to Gibson County, Tenn., in 1828, where the 
father engaged in cabinet making and farming, 
and made his home until 1867, when he moved to 
Weakley County, Tenn. , where he now resides. In 
1802 he enlisted in the army and served imder 
Gen. Forrest until nearly the close of the war. 
He is a Democrat. His wife died in 1801. W. 
T. Allison attended the schools of Gib.son County, 
and in his youth also followed the plow, which 
occupation has been his chief calling ever since. 
In January, 1876, he removed to Stoddard County, 
Mo., and for a number of years was engaged in 
teaching school in Dexter and other places. While 
there he was married on the 8th of May, 1879, to 
Miss Minnie A. Walker, a native of Carroll County, 
Tenn. , and a daughter of John and Sarah (Gib- 
bons) Walker, also Tennesseeans and farmers by 
occupation; after residing in Stoddard County, 
Mo., for five years, the father died in 1877. The 
mother is still a resident of that county. Remain- 
ing in Stoddard County until the 5th of Sep- 
tember, 1882, Mr. Allison and wife then moved 
to Craighead County of this State, and after work- 
ing as salesman in that county until March, 1888, 
he came to Greene County, Ark., and i)urchased 
two years later eighty acres of improved land, 
to which he has since added 122 acres, making 
202 acres in all, of which forty are under culti- 
vation. He has taken an active part in politics, 
and votes the Democratic ticket, being the present 
justice of the peace and is filling his second term. 
Socially, ho is a member of the Agricultural Wheel 
at Halliday, and he and wife belong to the Baptist 



Church. Three of the four children born to their 
union are living: Clyde Eugenia, Dero Dean, and 
Vernie Pearl. Adolphus Burdette died in 1881 at 
the age of six months and three weeks. Mr. Alli- 
son is still engaged in teaching, having followed 
that occupation a part of four years in Greene 
County, and is considered one of the successful 
educators of his district. 

T. J. Archer. Among the many sturdy "sons 
of the soil ' ' of Greene County, Ark. who have 
attained wealth and prominence in their calling by 
the sweat of their brow, and who command an en- 
viable social position, is Mr. Archer, the subject of 
this biograpliy. He was born in Alabama in 1S47 
and is the youngest in a family of nine children 
born to the marriage of Eev. Philip Archer and 
Artemisa Maxwell. The father, in connection with 
his ministerial duties, was engaged in farming, 
and followed these two occupations until his death 
which occurred on the 10th of August, 1808, his 
death being preceded by that of his wife by 
twenty-one years. The paternal grandfather left 
Alabama and settled in Arkansas during the early 
history of that State, being an extensive farmer for 
many years. His death occurred very suddenly. 
T. J. Archer was reared to farm labor, and at the 
age of twenty-one years married Miss Lenora 
Amorine, of Alabama, and two years later came to 
Arkansas, settling first in Polk County, remaining 
one year, and then went to Monroe County, where 
he stopped five years. Since 1875 he has resided 
in Greene County, and the first few years was 
engaged in tilling rented land, and since 18S5 has 
been the owner of 160 acres of land near the 
Cache bottoms, which was at first wild land but is 
now well improved, with seventy-five aci-es under 
fence and cultivation. His land is among the best 
in this section and is devoted principally to raising 
corn and cotton. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. 
Archer have been born the following children: 
Philip William Thomas, who is married and resides 
on his father's place; Benjamin O. , Adolphus, 
Osceola, Thome and Moses Ray, living; and Jolin, 
Ida, Eldora and Daniel, deceased. 

H. L. Ayers, a wealthy farmer of Greene 
County, Ark., was born in Bedford County, Tenn., 



^^ 



V 






U^r. 




Craibhcao Couhty, Arkansas. 



GREENE COUNTY. 



123 



in 1858, jitul is the second in a family of four chil- 
li ion born to the miirriage of Frank and Loddie 
(^\'illiams) Ayers, tho former a native of Pennsyl- 
vania and the latter of Tennessee. At the early 
age of eight years H. L. Ayers loft home and 
began depending on his own resources for obtain- 
ing a livelihood, and up to the age of seventeen 
years worked on farms and did teaming. In 187U 
he was married in Gibson County, Tenn., to Miss 
Addie Rosson, who was born, reared and educated 
in that State, being a daughter of Joiin Rosson, 
who was known as one of the best farmers in West 
Tennessee, his farm of 300 acres being valued at 
|i),000. After his marriage, Mr. Ayers worked 
with his father-in-law until 1883, when he made a 
trip to Arkansas and traveled over the greater ]X)r- 
tion of that State, as well as Missouri, the Indian 
Territory, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and 
Mississippi. After one year he returned to M'est 
Tennessee, and at the end of one year went to 
Fulton County, Ky., where he resided two years. 
In August, 1886, he moved his family to Greene 
County, Ark. , where he engaged in the teaming 
business, which he followed for two years, and then 
acted as stave inspector for J. F. Hasty & Son for 
one year. He next began farming on a tract of 
IfiO acres of land in Greene County in December, 
1S88, and on this he immediately began to make 
improvements, and has introduced many new 
methods of farming. He has thirty-five acres in 
corn, fifteen in oats, thirty-five in rye and oats for 
pastiu'e, and two in |)otatoes. On this farm is a 
tine orchard of 540 trees, mostly peach, beside a 
tine assortment of other fruit. He is doing well 
in his calling and promises to become in time a 
wealthy man. He and wife are the jjarents of one 
daughter, Lizzie May. 

Josej>h Bleier, proprietor of the Vienna Bakery, 
at Paragould, was born in Bohemia, Austria, 
December 17, JS4f5, and is the son of Ignatz and 
Anna (Freitle) Bleier, also natives of Austria. 
The parents are still living in their native country, 
and the father follows the occupation of a farmer. 
In their family were eight children: Joseph, 
Frank, Robert, Ignatz. John and Otto (twins), 
Barbara and Anna. Joseph Bleier received his 



education in Austria, and remained on the farm 
with his father until fourteen years of age, when 
he began learning the baker's trade. In 1807, 
when in his twc'ntieth year, he took i)a8sage from 
Bremen to America on the steamer ' ' Ocean, ' ' 
which was stranded one year later, and lauded at 
New York City. He came on to Cincinnati, where 
he worked for about eight years itj and around the 
city. He then went to Chicago, remained there 
about three years and then engaged in business 
for himself at Joliet, 111. In 1880 he came to 
Paragould and immediately engaged in his present 
business, at which he has been very successful. 
He is an excellent Ijaker and keej)8 a good stock of 
everything carried in his line. He was married in 
October, 1873, to Miss Mary Gaker, a native of 
Hamilton County, O. , and a daughter of John and 
Rosa (Schleer) Gaker, who were natives of Ger- 
many and early settlers of Ohio. To Mr. and Mrs. 
Bleier have been born five children, three now liv- 
ing: John K. , Frank and Joseph E. The two 
deceased were Robert and Mathew. Mr. and Mrs. 
Bleier are members of the Catholic Church. 

E. M. Bobo. Among Greene County's self- 
made, enterprising and successful citizens, none 
deserve more favorable mention than the subject 
of this sketch, E. M. Bobo, who was born in South 
Carolina in 1840. His father, A. P. Bobo, came 
from the Palmetto State to Arkansas in 1857, and 
entered 160 acres of land, upon which he lived 
engaged in farming and stock raising until his 
death in 1S86. He was held in favor by his fel- 
low farmers, and was for two years coroner of^ 
Greene County. Of his family of seven children, 
two sons and five daughters, four are still living, 
one in North Carolina, two in Texas, and one in 
Arkansas. They are Mary (Bobo) Prince, E. M. 
Bobo, Virginia (Bobo) Swindle, and Spotana 
(Bobo) Love. E. M. Bobo was seventeen years of 
age when he came with his father to this State, 
where he has since made his home. He has about 
154 acres of laud, with eighty under cultivation, 
forty of which he has cleared himself, and his farm 
is well stocked with horses, cattle, hogs and fine 
sheep. October 2. 1861, Mr. Bobo enlisted in 
the Fifth Arkansas Infantrv, and though twice 



124 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



wounded, continued in service during the entire 
war. He and wife have reared a family of nine 
children: M. A., horn in 1862: Matilda, horn in 
186(3; G. M., born in 1867; Olive, horn in l«6y, 
Victoria, born in 1871; Arthur E., born in 1872; 
J. E.. born in 1874; Alice, horn in 1875, and Ada, 
in 1878. Mr. Boho belongs to the Agricultural 
Wheel, and he and wife and family are active 
members of the Methodist Church. 

M. W. Boyd (deceased) was an enterprising 
and industrious farmer of Greene County, Ark. 
He was born in Tennessee on the l'2th of October, 
1846, and came to Arkansas with his father when 
a child, where the latter died shortly after. In 
1868 M. W. Boyd was united in the bonds of 
matrimony to Miss M. J. McMillin. who was born 
in the "Palmetto State" and came to Arkansas 
with her parents, W. P. and Adaline (Cooley) Mc- 
Millin in 1853, settling on what is known as the 
old Willcockson estate, consisting of 500 acres. 
Here Mr. McMillin greatly improved his farm, 
became a well-known citizen of the county, and 
died on the 19th of May, 1862. After his marriage 
Mr. Boyd began improving his farm on an exten- 
sive scale by erecting good buildings, setting out 
orchards, etc., and did considerable in the way of 
stock raising. He was interested in all things that 
promised to promote the welfare of his section, and 
was a liberal contributor to churches and schools. 
He died on the 27th of May, 1885, leaving his 
wife and children one of the beat farms in the 
county, on which is a roomy and substantial 
dwelling-house, surrounded by ornamental trees 
and shrubbery. Mrs. Boyd is ably managing the 
farm, and besides the usual crops is engaged in 
raising cotton. She and Mr. Boyd became the 
parents of the following childi-en; Onie, Alice, 
Clara and Selma. 

E. S. Bray, postmaster at Paragould, and cash- 
ier of the Bank of Paragould, is classed among 
the prominent and successful business men of that 
town. He was born in Chatham County, N. C, 
and is the son of Solomon and Sarah (Brooks) 
Bray, natives of North Carolina, where they passed 
their entire lives. They were the parents of nine 
children, seven now living, three in North Carolina, 



two in Tennessee, and two in Arkansas. E. S. 
Bray was but a lad when his parents died, and he 
went to live with an elder brother in Tennessee, 
where he remained until grown. He received his 
education in that State and remained engaged in 
assisting on the farm until 1878, when he came to 
Arkansas. Previous to this, in 186U, he married 
Miss Margaret E. Cox, a native of Tennessee, and 
after coming to Arkansas he located three miles 
from Paragould and followed agricultural pursuits 
until July 14, 1885, when he was appointed post- 
master. He is the owner of 440 acres of good 
land with about fifty acres under cultivation, and 
has made many improvements since purchasing 
the farm. He has been magistrate for a number 
of years, and was one of the enumerators of the 
census of Greene County in 1880. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic Fraternity, and represented 
his lodge at the Grand Lodge. He is also a 
member of the K. of P. He and wife belong to 
the Baptist Church. 

William B. Breckenridge. Few men in the 
county have made agricultural pursuits such a de- 
cided success, or have kept more thoroughly apace 
with the times, than has the above mentioned 
gentleman, Mr. Breckenridge, who was lioru in 
Missouri, on Castor River, March 13, 1843, and 
who is the son of James Harvey and Susan (Huff- 
stettler) Breckenridge, the parents of European 
descent. In 1844 Mr. and Mrs. Breckenridge left 
Missouri and located in Arkansas near the farm 
where their son, William B. , is now residing. 
Here the father tilled the soil until his death, 
which occurred in 1888, the day he was sixty-sis 
years old. He enlisted in the Confederate service 
in 1864, and was with Gen. Price on his raid 
through Missouri. He was a member of the Metho 
dist Episcopal Church, South. He had been mar- 
ried three times, his second marriage being to Miss 
Maggie Light, a native of Missouri, who died one 
year later. He then married Miss Mary Ann Batto, 
and the result was a large family of children. One 
child was born to the second union, l)ut it died in 
infancy. William B. Breckenridge was but ten years 
of age when his mother died, and he was the eldest of 
five children: William B., A. (t., Eli Greene, James 



^ 



Jd- 



l^ 



GREENE COUNTY. 



125 



Franklin, and Jane (deceased). The mother of these 
children was a worthy member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. The eldest of the above 
mentioned family reached manhood on the farm, 
and at the age of nineteen years began tilling 
the soil for himself, which occupation he has 
carried on ever since. At the beginning of the 
war he enlisted in the Confederate army, was at 
the battles of Corinth, luka and Port Hudson, and 
was soon after paroled and returned home. In 
1S63 he married Miss Sarah E. Mielar, a native of 
Tennessee, born in 1S43, and who came to Arkan- 
sas with her parents, John and Ann Mielar, in 
1 851 , when a child. Both her parents are deceased. 
To Mr. and Mrs. Breckenridge were born twelve 
children, four of whom are deceased. The chil- 
dren are named as follows: James Henry, William 
Lee. Mary Jane (wife of Ezekiel Williams), Sarah A. 
(wife of James Branch), Minnie A., Edward Jef- 
ferson, Eli Blanton, Arra Frances, and Charles 
McCarsy. Those deceased were named James Hen- 
ry, Samantha, Vira and Joseph R. The family are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Mr. Breckenridge is an active worker in 
school matters, and a liberal contributor to all public 
enterprises reflecting credit on the community in 
which he has made his home. His father had live 
brothers and three sisters : John I. , Thomas 
W.. James H., Mary (Chrits), a widow, Sarah, 
David I., Andrew J. (who moved to Wright 
County, Mo., in 1879, and died in 1880), Anne, 
(Taylor), a widow, and Jackson. Those not liv- 
ing were active, enterprising farmers of Northeast 
Arkansas, and m\ich esteemed. They left a 
large number of cousins, among whom is W. B. 
Breckenridge, our subject. His wife's brothers 
and sisters are: Nicholas M. Mielar, Sarah E. , 
Milliam H. , Neuben R., James R.. Louisa A.. 
Lucy A., Nancy C, Arra S., and Mary E. 

Daniel W. Breckenridge. who is one of the 
sturdy sons of toil of Crowley Township, and the 
son of David and Caroline (Yoekum) Breckenridge. 
was born in Greene County, Ark., in 1856, and 
grew to manhood in that county. His parents 
were natives of North Carolina, where they re- 
mained until about 1838, and then moved to Mis- 



souri, coining from there to Arkansas, where the 
father died in 1877 at the age of fifty-five years. 
He was a soldier in the late war, on the Confed- 
erate side, and served until cessation of hostilities. 
He took an active part in church and school affairs. 
He was married four times; first to Miss Kinder, 
who bore him four children, all deceased, and after 
her death he married Miss Caroline Yoekum, and 
by her became the father of six children, three 
now living: James D., Daniel W. and Sarah C, 
now Mrs. Taylor. Those deceased were named 
Malinda Ann, Nancy J. and Julia Aim. After his 
second wife's death Mr. Breckenridge married 
again, and five children were the result of this 
union: One deceased, Parthenia, Amelia J., Elihu 
and Parris. The one deceased was named George 
W. Daniel W. Breckenridge, the fourth child by 
the second marriage, attained his majority in his 
native county, and commenced working for himself 
at the age of twenty-one. He followed tilling the 
soil on the farm given him by his father at the 
time of his death, and there he has remained ever 
since. He was man'ied in 1878 to Mrs. Maria 
Spain, a native of Tennessee, born in 1848, and 
who came to Arkansas when twenty-two years of 
age. She is the daughter of Hugh Spain, now de- 
ceased, but her mother is still living and is a 
resident of the ' 'Lone Star" State. To Mr. and 
Mrs. Breckenridge were born six children: Rufus 
W., Victoria A., Ezra E. and Willie P. Two are 
deceased (unnamed). Mr. Breckenridge is active 
in school matters, having been school director for 
ten or twelve years, and is a Democrat in politics. 
He is the owner of a tine farm, well under cultiva- * 
tion. 

M. D. Bridges. In giving a brief sketch of 
the life of Mr. Bridges it can with truth be said 
that he is one of the foremost men of his county, 
and has become one of the wealthy planters of his 
region by honest toil and good management and 
by the aid and advice of his admirable wife. He 
was born in Dunklin County, Mo., in 1804, and 
was the sixth in a family of ten children born to 
Amherst D. and Charlotte (Russell) Bridges, who 
were also born in Kentucky and at an early day 
emigrated to Dunklin County, Mo., where they 



-^-^ 






126 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



are now residing. Here M. D. Bridges was born, 

reared and educated, and as his father was a mer- 
chant and farmer by occupation, he first worked 
on the farm and then clerked in his store. Later 
he engaged in the saloon business at St. Francis, 
Mo., and after following that calling for about 
eighteen months sold out, and on the 15th of 
March, 1887, came to Greene County, Ark. The 
same year he was married, in Clay County of 
this State, to Mrs. Theodocia Nolen, widow of 
David Nolen, and soon after moved to his present 
farm, which consists of 280 acres of arable land, 
with about 160 under cultivation. In addition to 
this he has forty acres under cultivation in Clay 
County, the most of which he devotes to the rais- 
ing of cotton. This year (1889) he had seventy- 
five acres in cotton, and also raises considerable 
stock. He has never been very active in politics 
but usually votes the Democratic ticket; he is ever 
deeply interested in the proper education of the 
youth of this country, and has always been a 
patron of education, being now a member of the 
school board. Socially he is a member of Four 
Mile Lodge No. 412, A. F. & A. M., and also be- 
longs to Pittsburg Lodge No. 273, I. O. O. F., at 
Campbell, Mo. Mr. and Mrs. Bridges are the par- 
ents of one son, Andy Lee. 

C. J. Brinkman, a member of the firm of John 
F. Brinkman A Son, manufacturers of tight bar- 
rel staves, Paragould, is a native of Batesville, 
Ripley Co. , Ind. , and the son of John F. Brink- 
man, who is also of Indiana nativity. The mother, 
Catharine (Kipper) Brinkman, was born in Ba- 
varia, Germany, and was married to Mr. Brink- 
man April 28, 1863. The fruits of this union 
were eleven children, seven of whom yet survive. 
John F. Brinkman engaged in the lumber busi- 
ness in his youth, and bought walnut lumlier for a 
large furniture factory. In the fall of 18()8, he 
embarked in the manufacture of staves at James- 
town, Ind., and there remained until 187"), when 
he removed to Indianapolis to educate his children, 
at the same time running his factory at Jamestown. 
He made his home in Indianapolis until 1879, and 
in April of that year, moved to Terre Haute, Ind., 
where he put up a stave factory and ran it until 



1889, when he sold out and is now living a retired 
life. His wife died in May. 1889. C. J. Brink- 
man was but four years of age when he moved with 
his parents to Jamestown. He received a good 
education in the schools of Indianapolis and Terre 
Haute, and graduated at the Notre Dame Univer- 
sity in 1881. He then started in the stave busi- 
ness with his father, and has since been a member 
of the firm of John F. Brinkman & Son. In Feb- 
ruary, 1888, they began the erection of their pres- 
ent factory, and commenced working in the same 
May 2, since which time they have continued the 
business successfully. The foreman is W. W. 
AMlson, who has been with this firm for eighteen 
years. Mr. Brinkman was married in September, 
1888, to Miss Marie C. Vesque, a native of Frank- 
lin County, Ind., and both he and wife are mem- 
bers of the Catholic Church. 

Charles Brock, another prominent and success- 
ful agriculturist of Cache Township, and one 
whose name is synonymous with the farming inter- 
ests of the county, was born in Georgia in 1825, 
and is the son of Thomas and Jemima (Kinzie) 
Brock, both natives of South Carolina. The father 
grew to manhood in his native state, and was there 
married to his first wife, who bore him four chil- 
dren. He then removed to Alabama and there 
married Miss Kinzie, with whom he returned to 
Georgia in 1834. He died in that State three 
years later. The mother then married again and 
died in Georgia, in 1855, at the age of fifty years. 
She was a member of the Methodist Episoojial 
Church, South. Charles Brock, the eldest of the 
three brothers and sisters, attained his majority in 
the State of Georgia, receiving very little education 
aside from home study, and at the age of fourteen 
began working for himself. After a few years he 
learned the blacksmith trade, and in 1851 immi- 
grated to Morgan County, 111., where he remained 
three years. From there he went to Polk County, 
Mo., resided there several years and was then in 
New Madrid County for two years. In 1 866 he came 
to Greene County, settled in Cache Township, im- 
proved a large tract, and moved to several places 
where he made many improvements. He was first 
married in Georgia to Miss Cynthia Walker, a 



_il- 



GREENE COUNTY. 



127 



iiiit.ivc of Kentucky, who died in Vernon County, 
Mo., in 185"), and the result of this union was 
three children, two now livin<^: John R., and 
Martlia, who is now the wife of Frank (irauil)linu', 
and who resides in Boone County, Ark. The one 
deceased was named James. Mr. Brock was mar- 
ried the sec^ond time to Miss Elizabeth AValker, a 
native of Alabama. She died in 1870. The fol- 
lowing; children were born to this union: William, 
at home; Margaret, now Mrs. Jones; Nancy, now 
Mrs. Johnson; Catherine, now Mrs. Beaty; Re- 
becca. Mrs. Belk; Triphena and Tri{)hocia (twins, 
and the latter deceased); Charles (deceased); 
Lizzie, at home; Lee (deceased), and Jesse (de- 
ceased). For his third wife Mr. Brock took Mrs. 
Luemma Israel, nee Cooper, in 1879. Three 
children wore born to this marriage, Mary, and 
two deceased. The family are memlsers of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Brock is 
steward and trustee in the same at tiie present 
time. He has held the office of school director 
for many years, and is liberal and generous in 
his contributions to all meritorious enterprises. 
He is a Democrat in politics but is not an active 
partisan. He has a tine farm of thirty acres in 
cultivation, owning 160 acres of laud. 

L. H. Case, real estate and loan agent, also 
attorney, of Paragould, is a native of Licking 
County, Ohio, born August 7, 1833, being the son 
of Ra])hael and Rosetta (Hayes) Case, the father 
a native of Ohio and the mother of New York, and 
both families of old Puritan stock. The mother 
was a tirst cousin of Rutherford B. Hayes. The 
paternal grandfather, Frederick Case, was from 
Simsbury, Conn. , and the maternal grandfather 
was a native of the Green Mountain State. The 
latter was a captain in the War of 1812 and was in 
command of Vermont troops. Grandfather Case 
was also a captain in the War of 1812, and was at 
Hull's surrender, but escaped. They both died in 
Ohio, whither they had emigrated at ijuite an early 
date. Raphael Case was born in Licking County, 
Ohio, and was a farmer by occupation. He was 
county treasurer one term and tilled that position 
with credit and honor. He died in 18*50, in his 
fiftieth year. The mother died previously to this. 



In their family were si.\ children, four now living: 
Leonus H., Frederick, in Missouri; Sylvester, also 
in Alissonri; Jason, in Ohio; Wilbur, killed at 
the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, and 
Fannie (deceasert). wife of Rev. W. M. Mullin. 
L. H. Case attained his growth and received his 
education in Licking County, Ohio, attending the 
Ohio Wesleyan University. At the age of twenty- 
one he began the study of law and was admitted to 
the bar in 1858. He then commenced jiracticing at 
Bloomfield, Ind., remained there a short time, and 
on the breaking out of the late war he went home 
and enlisted in Company D, First Ohio Cavalry, 
and served three years. He was at the battles of 
Pittsburg Landing, Perryviile, Stone River, Chick- 
amauga. Missionary Ridge, and particijmted in 
many minor engagements. He was discharged at 
Washington, D. C, and afterward went to St. 
Joseph, Mo., raising a company of his own, after 
which ho went to Cape Girardeau where he had 
command as captain of six companies. He re- 
mained there about seven months, when they were 
mustered out and he went to Maysville, Mo., where 
Cajit. Case practiced his profession until 1885. 
Locating at Norfolk, Neb., where he had a good 
farm, he remained there for about two years, and 
then settled in Little Rock. Ark., forming a jiart- 
nership with an old planter, William Field, in the 
real estate and loan business. This they carried 
on imtil October, 1888, when Mr. Case came to 
Paragould, bought property and located here. He 
has since been engaged in the practice of his pro- 
fession, and has also lieen occupied in the real es- 
tate and loan business. He is agent for about 
200,000 acres of wihl land and some good pine 
land. He also owns considerable land and prop- 
erty in Greene County. He is ]>roj)ared to loan 
money in almost any amount from $250 u|>ward. 
Mr. Case was married, first, in 1857, to Miss Mary 
\\'arner, by whom he had one child, Willard. He 
was married the second time, in 180l'>. to Miss 
Amanda Terhune, of Missouri, and two children 
were the result: Cora and Harry. Mr. Case's third 
marriage was to Miss Mattie McDowell, of Mis- 
souri, in 187<i. He is a member of the I'.piscopal 
Church. 



:\>^ 




Dr. R. C. Cavitt. Oue of the most familiar 
and welcomed faces in the home of the sick ami 
afflicted of Greene County, is that of Dr. Cavitt, 
who administers to the physical wants of his fellow- 
man, in a highly satisfactory and successful man- 
ner, as his many patients, now living, can testify. 
The Doctor was born in Henry County. Tenn. , 
but was reared in Obion County, of the same 
State, where he lived with his father on a farm. 
At a very early age he commenced learning the 
blacksmith trade which he completed, and, al- 
though he has not worked at his trade for over 
nineteen years, still thinks that his hand has 
not lost its cunning, and that he can do as good a 
piece of work in that line as he ever could. At 
the age of twenty-seven he commenced the study 
of medicine with his brother, B. H. Cavitt, then 
of Obion County, Tenn., and graduated at the ex- 
piration of two and a half years' study at the 
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. He then 
moved to Greene (bounty, Ark., locating near Til- 
man ville, two' miles west of Marmaduke (then not 
in existence), and here the Doctor, after twelve 
years of -iabor, has built up an enviable practice. 
After coming to this State he was married to Miss 
N. E. Jones, a native of Clay County, Ark., and 
the daughter of John Jones, who came from Ten- 
nessee about 1830. To this marital relation 
were born two children: Vera Ethel and Her 
Myrtle. Dr. Cavitt has about 120 acres of land 
in cultivation where he lives, and which he has 
had improved to such an extent that it is one of 
the finest farms in the county. The Doctor says 
he' intends it to be the best in the county within 
a year or two at the most. He has always, since 
living here, been dealing in cotton, and by care, 
and by closely watching the market, has man- 
aged to benefit himself very much in that line. 
He is a member of the I. O. O. F. lodge at Til- 
manville, is also a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, and in each has tilled many of the chairs, 
holding one position at the present time. He and 
Mrs. Cavitt are members of the Methodist Epis 
copal Church, South, near Tilmanville. 

A. T. Chaffin is one of the energetic and pro- 
gressive farmers and stockmen of Cache Township, 



Greene County, Ark., and was born in Georgia in 
1832. being the eldest of a family of ten children 
belonging to Elias and Sarah (Yearwood) Chaffin, 
who were born in North Carolina and Georgia, re- 
spectively; the former, besides his association with 
farming, is a Missionary Baptist minister, and is 
actively engaged in preaching the gospel at the 
present time, although eighty-three years of age. 
His wife died in 1872 at the age of sixty- four 
years. Both grandfathers were soldiers in the War 
of 1812. A. T. Chaffin was reared on a farm in 
Georgia, and in his youth received very limited 
educational advantages, but managed to attend the 
common schools to some extent. When but nine- 
teen years of age he bought a farm and began till- 
ing the soil, the same year marrying Miss Nancy 
E. Gosa, who was born in Alabama. They lived 
on this farm for ten years, then sold out and came 
to Arkansas, and soon located in Greene County, 
where he bought forty acres of slightly improved 
land, and in time cleared thirty acres and erected 
buildings. He continued to purchase other tracts 
of land from time to time, on which he also made 
improvements, and at one time owned 800 acres 
of land. He sold off a portion of this, however, 
and on the remainder has erected six dwellings, 
with out-buildings, and on all these places has set 
out good orchards of well assorted fruits. His home 
farm is a fine tract at the foot of Crowley's Ridge, 
of which sixty acres are under cultivation. In 
1861 Mr. Chaffin enlisted in the Confederate army, 
and was mustered into the service at Little Rock, 
being assigned to Bragg' s division; and was in the 
battles of Oak Hill, Corinth, Murfreesboro, Chat- 
tanooga, Chickamauga, Cross Roads, Shiloh, where 
he was wounded, and was mustered out of service 
at Columbus, Miss. He then returned home and 
resumed farming, which occupation has since re- 
ceived his attention. He is a Democrat politically, 
and takes considerable interest in the political 
affairs of the county. In 187S Mrs. Chaffin died, 
leaving these children: Calvin, who is married 
and resides in Mississippi; Benjamin (deceased); 
Catherine and Roxana, residents of Mississippi; 
and John Walter, who lives at home. In 1881 
Mr. Chaffin wedded Mrs. Susan (Croft) Shoe- 



maker, who was bora in Kentucky, being the 
daughter of Logan Croft, an early immigrant to 
Arkansas. By her first husband Mrs. Chafiin was 
the mother of three sons; Peter, Thomas and 
John. Mr. ChafSn is active in j)romoting the 
welfare of schools and churches, as well as the 
county in which he resides. 

^^■illiam H. Cothren. No matter in what busi- 
ness a man may engage, if he is industrious and 
fair in his dealings with his fellow men, he is sure 
sooner or later to win their confidence, respect and 
liking, and to become in time well -to do in worldly 
goods. Mr. Cothren possesses these qualities, and 
as a conse(juence stands remarkalily high in the 
estimation of all who know him. He was born in 
South Carolina in the month of February, 1842, 
and at an early day began to tight his own way in 
the world. When the Rebellion broke out he left 
his labors to enlist in the Southern army, joining, 
June 10, 18()1, the Fifth Arkansas Regiment, and 
was sent east of the Mississippi, taking part in the 
battles of Farmington, Shiloh, Perryville, Mur- 
freesboro (where his shoulder was broken by a 
minie ball), Chickamauga, and other engagements 
of that campaign. He was also at Atlanta, Jones- 
boro, Franklin, Nashville, Tupelo, and Smithville, 
N. C , after which engagement the army surren- 
dered and Mr. Cothren soon I'eturned home. He 
was married a short time afterward to Miss Mary 
Gregory, a native of South Carolina, a daughter of 
William Gregory, who came from South Carolina 
in IHOH and engaged in farming. In 18()V* Mr. 
Cotliren bought a farm of eighty acres, slightly 
im])roved, and on this land he began an extensive 
scale of improvement, continuing to add to his 
original purchase until he became the owner of 
240 acres, with about ninety acres cleared. He 
has excellent buildings and orchards, and has taken 
great pride in b(>autifying his home besides putting 
his land in good tillable condition. He is engaged 
in general farming and gives his attention to rais- 
ing cotton, corn, wheat, oats, grasses, etc He is 
a Democrat in politics, a patron of education, and 
has served as school director for eight years. He 
and family attend the Methodist Church, of which 
himself and wife are members. They are the , 



parents of the following children: Nancy E. , wife 

of Harve Spain; Reuben M., Richard V., and 

James W. Mr. Cothren is the eldest of seven 

I children born to the man-iage of Jackson Cothren 

and Sarah Gnimling, who were born in South 

, Carolina, and were engaged in farming in that 

j State until the father's death in 18r>7. after which 

the mother came to Arkansas and resided with her 

father, Reuben Gramling, who, with his sons, was 

among the earliest settlers of the west side of 

Crowley's Ridge. 

Alfred T. Craig, farmer and stock raiser, was 
born in Tennessee, in 1847, being the second of 
five children liorn to Andrew and Jane (Lambeth) 
Craig, the former a native of Tennessee, and the 
latter of North Carolina. The maternal grand- 
father was born in the "Old North State," and 
came to Tennessee at a very early day, settling in 
the western part of the State, where he was en- 
gaged e.vtensively ni farming, and died in 1888, at 
the age of eighty-three years. His father was a 
soldier in the Revolution, and served throughout the 
entire war. The paternal grandparents were Vir- 
ginians. Andrew Craig was also an extensive 
farmer, and died in 1863. His widow still sui'vives 
him and lives on the old homestead in Tennes.see. 
Alfred T. Craig worked on the home farm in his 
youth and received but little schooling. At the age 
of seventeen he left home and went to North and 
Middle Tennessee, where he resided for over a 
year, then went to Texas and was engaged in the 
distilling Imsiness for one year, after which he re 
turned to Tennessee, and soon after married Miss 
Martha Brown, a native of Tennessee, and a 
daughter of Hiram Brown, of the same State, a 
well known farmer in his section. In 18(58 Mr. 
Craig purchased a farm on which he lived for three 
years, and on the ^M of December. ISTl, came to 
Arkansas and settled in Greene County, where he 
bought 120 acres of wild land. On this he imme- 
diately began making improveu)ents. and up to the 
present time lias opened up some seventy -five acres, 
aliont all of which is under fence and in a high 
state of cultivation. He has two acres in orchard. 
His stock is of a good grade, his hogs being Jersey 
Reds and Berkshires, and his cattle |iart Jersey. 



^^f. 



, 4^ — ^ 



,(^ 



130 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Mr. Craig is a Democrat, and has held the office 
of school director for eight years. To him and 
wife were born fourteen children, twelve of whom 
are living: Andrew, who died in infancy; Fannie 
Ella, wife of John Jones; William Charles, James 
Alfred, Mary Elizabeth, Lucy, John, who died at 
the age of nine months; Rosa Lee. Eli, Van, 
Winston, Francis Clyne and Frances (twins), and 
James Adaline. In 1886 Mr. Craig bought eighty 
acres of land on Eight Mile Creek, which is a choice 
piece of bottom laud, and is improved with two 
good houses. Forty acres are under cultivation. 
His son William resides on and tills this farm. 

J. W. Craven, a successful planter residing 
near Paragoukl, was born in Randolph County, of 
the "Old North State," February 22, 1834, being 
the fourth of eleven children born to Andrew R. 
and Elizabeth W. (Garner) Craven, who were also 
born in that State. In 1840 the father emigrated 
to Georgia, and two years later to Mississippi, 
where he ojDened up a large plantation on which he 
resided thirteen years, moving then to Tennessee. 
In January, 1855, he came to Greene County, 
Ark., and settled near where his son now resides, 
on 640 acres of land, 1 00 acres of which he cleared 
and improved, and here lived until his death, 
March 30, 1807, at the age of sixty-tive years. 
His wife died in Mississippi in the fall of 1845. 
J. W. Craven received a common education in the 
schools of Mississippi, and besides becoming famil- 
iar with the details of farm work, learned the 
blacksmith's trade, which occupation he followed 
for some years. He assisted in clearing the home 
farm, and was married in Hardeman County, Tenn. , 
in 1853, to Miss L. M. Daniel, a native of that 
State, and a daughter of Ephraim and Penelope 
(Mundou) Daniel, who were born in North Caro- 
lina, and emigrated to Tennessee in 1840, and in 
1855 to Greene County, Ark. Here the father 
died on his farm, in 1876, his wife's death having 
occurred four years earlier. After his marriage, 
Mr. Craven settled down to farming in Tennessee, 
but in 1855 bought an eighty-acre timber tract in 
Greene Couiitj', Ark. . on which he enacted a cabin, 
and commenced clearing and improving. He now 
has 120 acres, with eighty-five under cultivation, 



which he devotes principally to raising corn. In 
1863 ho enlisted in the Home (inards under Capt. 
Kirkeudall, and in September of the same year, 
joined the infantry under Capt. Anderson, holding 
the rank of second lieutenant. In December, 1863, 
he was honorably discharged, but in 1864 joined 
the cavalry, and was in the fight at Little Rock, 
and several other engagements. Since the war he 
has been engaged in farming. He votes with the 
Democratic party, biit is not active in politics. He 
has held the office of justice of tlie peace for about 
seven years, and being an active supporter of the 
cause of education, is now a member of the school 
board. He also assisted in re-organizing the coun- 
ty. Socially he is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and also a memljer of Paragould Lodge 
No. 368. F. & A. M. He and wife are members of 
the Baptist Church, and are active workers for the 
cause of Christianity. Seven of their nine chil- 
\ dren are living: Andrew Nelson (died in 1863, 
at the age of ten years). Mary Jane (died in 
1858, aged two years and six months), Julia Ann 
(Mrs. Morgan), Martha T. (Mrs. Gwyn), John 
, W., Lillie C, Eliza C. Sarah Elizabeth and Will- 
{ iam L., all members of the Baptist Church. Mr. 
Craven can remember wlien there was only one 
public road in the county, and when Capo (jirar- 
deau was their nearest market. 

J. W. Crawford. Prominent among the many 
esteemed and respected citizens of Paragould 
stands the name of the above mentioned gentleman, 
who was l)orn in Orange County, N. C, June 4, 
1854, and who is the son of William and Elizabeth 
(Howard) Crawford, both natives of North Caro- 
lina. They are still residents of that State, and 
the father is a farmer by occupation. Their fam- 
ily consists of ten living children, five sons and 
five daughters. J. W. Crawford was reared on 
the farm, in Orange County, N. C. , receiving his 
education in the common schools, and in 1868 
went to Tennessee, locating in Fayette County. 
He was but a boy at this time, and engaged as 
clerk in a store, which business he followed most 
of his time while in Tennessee. In 1877 he came 
to Arkansas, locating at Gainesville, Greene Coun- 
ty, and sold liquors for two years. He then em- 



GREENE COUNTY. 



131 



hcarked iu mercantile pui-suits, which he carried on 
until his removal to Paragould, in 1885, and was 
one of the first business men of the town. Previ- 
ous to this, in 1880, he married Miss Sadie Ghiss- 
eock, daughter of Capt. H. W. Glasscock, and the 
result of this union is two children: Guy E. and 
Henry V. Mr. Crawford continued his mercantile 
l)usiness at Paragoiild until 18SS, when he sold 
out, and has since been practically retired, al- 
though he turns his attention somewhat to real 
estate speculations. He owns a half-interest in 
the Gager Hotel, which is a fine brick building, 
and a credit to Paragould; and he is also the 
owner of a good farm adjoining the cor]ioration of 
Paragould. No man has been more active in im 
[)roving this place than has Mr. Crawford. He is 
a m(>mber of the Masonic fraternity. 

Hon. Benjamin H. Crowley is a wealthy farmer 
and an eminent lawyer of Greene County, Ark., 
and is State Senator from the First Senatorial 
District of Arkansas. His birth occurred in 1836, 
and he is the only child born to the marriage of 
Samuel Crowley and Sallie Hutchins, who were 
born respectively in Kentucky and Tennessee. The 
})aternal grandfather was a Georgian, who re- 
moved to Kentucky at an early day, where he met 
and married Miss Annie Wylie, a supposed na- 
tive of that State, and there made his home, being 
engaged in farming and stock-raising and dealing 
on a very extensive scale until IS'21, when became 
with his family, which consisted of his wife and 
eight children, five boys and three girls, to what is 
now Greene County (then Lawrence). At that 
time the country was very sparsely settled, he be- 
ing the only settler within a radius of many miles. 
He located on a tract of land consisting of 240 
acres, and gave his name to a ridge of land run- 
ning for more than 200 miles through Arkansas 
and 100 miles in Missouri. Here he erected a 
dwelling house, opened about fifty acres of land 
for cultivation, set out orchards, and became one 
of th(^ thriftiest farmers and best-known men in 
Northeastern Arkansas. All his children settled 
near him, where their descendants are still resid- 
ing. He died about 1842 at the age of eighty- 
four years, and his wife's death occiuTed in 1850, 



she never having married again after his death. 
Samuel Crowley, the father of our subject, was 
married in 1832 to Miss Sallie Hutchins, whoso par- 
ents came from Tennessee to Arkansas and settled 
where Paragould is now situated, where the father 
died in 1!S37, having been an extensive farmer and 
stockman. She subsequently married a man by 
the name of Robert H. Halley. In his youth Ben- 
jamin H. Crowley attended the common schools 
and at the age of nineteen years he entered the 
Wallace Institute, which he attended one year. 
After spending several years in Greene County he 
removed to Scott County, where he had previously 
lived with his mother. On the 10th of May, 18oS, 
he was married to Miss Elizabeth J. Crowley, a 
cousin, and a daughter of W. Crowley, and when 
the war broke out he left home and friends and 
the peaceful pursuit of farming to enlist in the 
Confederate service. He was in nearly all the bat- 
tles of importance that were fought in the South- 
west, and was soon promoted to the rank of lieu 
tenant, and later was made captain of Company 
H, Nineteenth Infantry, and at the close of 
the war was commanding a company of cavali^y. 
He was captured in Scott County after the fall of 
Little Rock, and was in confinement at various 
places for fifteen months. During this time, while 
at Johnson's Island, Lake Erie, he and a number 
of other officers formed a class and began the study 
of Black.stone, and after his return home he contin- 
ued his legal studies until 1871, when ,he was ad- 
mitted to the bar and, in 1874, was admitted to 
practice in the Federal courts, and in 1888 in the 
Supreme Courts of Arkansas. Immediately after 
the war he traveled for some time in Texas, and 
then returned to Arkansas and settled down to 
farming in Cache Township. Greene County. In 
1HC)X, when Clayton's militia were over running the 
State, and when they had stationed themselves at 
Jonesboro and arrested a number of the l)est citi- 
zens of the town, Capt. Crowley raised 100 jiicked 
men in his county and went to their rescue. There 
was a fight at Willis' Mills and his company lost 
one man and had several wounded, while the mili 
tia lost several men and were driven back to Jone^ 
boro. Afterward Capt. Crowley succeeded in ef- 



L£: 



132 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fecting a compromise whereby all prisoners taken 
by the militia were released, and peace and order 
were once more restored in that section of the 
State. To this day Capt. Crowley's efforts in pre- 
venting strife and restoring order are remembered 
with pleasure and gratitude by those whose lives 
and property were endangered. In 1869 he bought 
the old homestead settled by his grandfather, 
which had been oiit of possession of the family 
for several yeai's, and with this his lands amount 
to about 4,000 acres in Greene County. 500 of 
which are in a highly cultivated condition. He is 
the most extensive farmer in the county and is also 
largely interested in stock-raising and dealing. He 
has cleared over '200 acres of land, has erected 
many buildings, and in 1880 built his present com- 
modious and substantial residence, it being situated 
on a natural building site. In 1880 his wife died, 
leaving a family of six children: Victoria, wife of 
Dr. J. D. Sibert, of this county; Cynthia H. , 
Nannie P., wife of E. R. Page, residing in Crow- 
ley Township; Lueian G., Bell and Ben. H. On 
the 26th of June, 1881, he married his present 
wife, whose maiden name was Miss R. L. Fielder, 
a native of Tennessee. They have two children, 
Thomas Garland, who is deceased, and Sallie Al- 
ice. Mr. Crowley is an eminent lawyer and has 
won an enviable reputation among his legal breth- 
ren in Arkansas. He has always been an active 
])olitician, and in 1872 was elected representa- 
tive to the State legislature. The poll-books 
were at that time destroyed, but the Captain se- 
cured his seat and secured a new election for the 
county officers, who were all elected on the Demo- 
cratic ticket. He was in the stormy session of 
1884, and during this time declined a commission 
as colonel from Gov. Baxter. In 1876 he was 
elected to the State Senate from the First District 
of Arkansas and in 1888 was re-elected by a very 
large majority. He is one of the most useful 
members of that body, and is a fluent and forci- 
l)le speaker, sound in his views. In the space al- 
lotted in this volume it would be impossible to give 
a detailed account of his public and private career, 
or to speak at length of his many sterling social and 
business qualities; suffice it to say that in every 



walk in life his career has been above reproach. 
He was the author of the bill for the organization 
of Clay County, and was also the author of sev- 
eral other important measures. 

Henry Cupp, one of Greene County's leading 
farmers, is a native of Georgia, where he was 
born January 10, 1839. In the same year his 
father emigrated from that State to Craighead 
Coimty, Ark., where he remained but one year, 
when he again moved, this time selecting Greene 
County. There he was very successful at farming 
until his death, February 17, 1871. His wife 
hardly survived him a year, but died January 18, 
1872. Mr. and Mrs. Cupp, reared a family of 
nine children, five of whom are yet living. Henry 
Cupp was but a child when his parents came to 
this State, and he was reared to farm life. He had 
very limited school opportunities, but has all his 
life been an industrious farmer; and through his 
practical knowledge of farming, has been suc- 
cessful. He owns a large well-stocked farm, much 
of it under cultivation. He has been married 
four times, and is the father of seven children, 
two of whom, Sarah Ann (born October 18, 1S67) 
and Emeline (born February 2, 1871) are the 
only survivors. His first wife was Margaret 
Dennis, and after her death, he chose Lucy 
Stevens, who was born December 2, 1841. His 
third marriage was with Nancy Smith, who died 
in 1884. Mrs. Cupp, whose maiden name was 
Emeline Lane, was born November 21, 1862, and 
is a true wife and benevolent woman. Mr. Cupp 
is one of the prominent farmers and stock raisers 
of the county, has decided political views, and is 
interested in progress and development. 

F. M. Daulton, editor and proprietor of the 
Greene County Events, is a resident of Gaines- 
ville, Ark., but was boiu in Ralls County, Mo., in 
1832, and after acquiring a common school edu- 
catioQ and attaining a suitable age he commenced 
working on the Quincy Herald, at Quincy, 111. 
After serving a five-years' apprenticeship, he re- 
turned to Shelby ville. Mo., and established the 
Spectator in 1853, which he conducted until the 
breaking out of the war, when he gave up this 
work to enlist as major in the Twenty-first Mis- 




Koiiri. He served about two years, and was shot 
through the neck at the battle of luka, in Mis- 
sissippi. After receiving his discharge he went to 
Ohio, where he spent two or three years, and next 
located in Indiana, being engaged in pul)li8hini>- 
papers in both these States. After coming to 
Greene County, Ark., in 1878, he established the 
Press, and in 1882 his present pajjer, which has a 
circulation of over 500; this is a i)ap(>r pure in 
tone and fearless in its attacks upon the popular 
shortcomings of the day. He was first married to 
Miss M. M. Connor, who died, having Iwrne the 
following children: Emma (Hindman), living, and 
Jennie and Frank, deceased, the latter being 
killed in 1807, while braking on the Iron Moun- 
tain Kailroad. Mr. Daulton took for his second 
wife Miss Lizzie Lanker, by whom he has five 
children: William, Charles, Daniel, Delia and 
Benjamin. 

K. T. Daniel, a merchant and farmer of Clark 
Township, Greene County, was born in 1837 in 
Tennessee, and is the fifth of a family of nine 
children born to Ephraim and Pennie (Mundson) 
Daniel, who were Teunesseeans. The father was 
a sturdy son of the soil, and when our subject was 
a child removed to Mississippi, where he was 
engaged in farming until 1855. At that date he 
came to Greene County, Ark. , and settled on the 
farm on which R. T. Daniel is now residing, which 
consisted of 200 acres. He improved this farm 
very much and soon had quite an extensive tract 
under cultivation and furnished with good build- 
ings. R. T. Daniel remained with his parents 
until twenty-five years of age, then marrying Miss 
Elizabeth Pilmore, who was born in Mississippi 
and came with her parents to Arkansas at an early 
day. Soon after he erected a cottage on his father's 
farm, and began tilling the soil for himself on 
forty acres of land purchased from his father. 
Later he bought eighty acre.s more, and at his 
father's death, in 1870. inherited the remainder. 
When the war broke out he enlisted in Cai)t. 
Anderson's company, and was with Gen. Shelby 
on bis raid through Missouri, and was in the battle 
of Cape Girardeau, where he was wounded. He 
was also at Helena, Devall's Bluff. Little Rock. 



Camden and Saline River. While with Price on 
his raid through Missouri he was in the engage- 
ments at Iron Mountain, Independence, Blue Lick, 
Boonville and Kansas City. He then retreated to 
Texas and surrendered at Pine Bluff. After his 
return home he resumed farming successfully, con- 
tinuing until 1887, when he received a stroke of 
paralysis, and has not been alile to do hard labor 
since. He is now conducting a general mercantile 
store on his farm, which is netting him a fair in 
come. Sixty acres of his place are under cultivn 
tion, and he devotes it to raising corn, cotton, etc. 
He and wife are the parents of the following chil- 
dren: James, who is married to Miss Nancy 
Fielder; Eliza Jane, wife of Jeff Adams; Henry. 
Thomas, Pollie, and Sarah Elizabeth. The family 
worship in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
Mr. Daniel has served as school director and has 
always taken a deep interest in educational matters, 
as well as all other worthy enterprises. 

Dr. John M. Davis, druggist, of Paragould, and 
son of Dr. James S. and Nancy E. (Farmer) Davis. 
was born in Limestone County. Ala. , December 31 . 
1840. His parents were both natives of Alabama, 
and removed to Marshall County, Miss., in 1844, 
going in 1850 to Salem, that State, and thence to 
luka, where the father died. Dr. James S. Davis 
was a graduate of Jefferson Medical College of Phil- 
adelphia, and was also a graduate of the Louisville 
Medical College. He was a very prominent physi- 
cian and noted surgeon, and people came from a 
great distance for his treatment. He practiced from 
1844 to 1N7U, a period of about thirty-five years. 
He was one of the members of the secession con- 
vention of Mississippi, and signed the declaration 
of independence for that purpose. He was a sur-, 
geon in the late war and in command of a company 
a portion of the time. His wife is still living, and 
is a resident of luka. Miss. They were the par- 
ents of ten children, five now living, of whom Dr. 
John M. Davis is the eldest. He was principally 
reared and educated in Mississip]ii, and at the age 
of sixteen began the study of medicine with the in- 
tention of later following tiiat profession, but about 
this time the war broke out which jjrevented him 
from further pursuing his studies. He shoul- 



i;{4 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



dercd his musket, marched to the front and eu 
listed in the Tenth Ahibama Cavalry Regiment, 
serving over three years. He was ensign of his 
regiment, with the rank of first lieutenant, and was 
in all tlie principal engagements — Shiloh. Atlanta, 
Days Gap, etc. His whole service was in the cav- 
alry. At Pulaski, during Hood's advance on 
Franklin, Mr. Davis received a severe gun-shot 
wound, the ball passing through his body at the side 
of the abdomen. He had the honor of carrying 
home the captured Federal flag and also his own 
flag. At the close of the war he returned to Missis- 
sippi, and engaged in merchandising, which he con- 
ducted for four years. After this he went to the 
Lone Star State, resuming the mercantile business 
at Tyler and Fort Worth, where he remained until 
1880, then returning to Mississippi. One year 
later, he came to Paragould where he embarked in 
the drug business, which he still continues. He was 
one of the first business men of Paragould, and is 
the oldest druggist in point of residence in Greene 
County. He carries a general line of drugs, etc. 
He was married, April 8, 1861, to Miss Altie E. 
Robbins, a native of Alabama, and the fruits of this 
union were nine children, seven now living: Nan- 
nie A. , wife of P. W. Mass, editor of the Thayer 
(Mo.) Tribune; \\illiam S. , Maggie, Russell J., 
Hattie A. , Thomas B. and Sallie B. Dr. and Mrs. 
Davis are members of the jNIethodist Episcopal 
Church, and he is superintendent of the Sunday- 
school. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, the 
I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the K. of H. , 
being treasurer of that organization. He is city 
treasurer, and treasurer of the Building and Loan 
Association 

L. T. Dennis, a successful farmer and justice 
of the peace of Cache Township, Greene County, 
Ark., is a native of the county, born in 1843, be- 
ing the second of ten children born to Robert and 
Ellen (Tompkins) Dennis, natives of Tennessee 
and Kentucky, respectively, who came to Arkansas 
with their parents during the early history of this 
State. On his arrival in Arkansas, in 1837, Robert 
Dennis entered and piu'chased land in what is 
known as St. Francis Township, and on this he 
lived and made improvements until about 1848, 



when lie sold out and entered a tract of forty acres 
on the west side of Crowley's Ridge, on which he 
lived ten years. This he sold and bought eighty 
acres in the same locality, clearing nearly the en- 
tire tract, and making many other improvements, 
and here resided until his death on the 20th of 
December, 1867, followed by his widow, February 
14, 1881. The maternal grandfather, Lawrence 
Tompkins, came from Kentucky to Arkansas about 
1833, and settled on the east side of Crowley's 
Ridge, and was one of some six families that were 
among the first settlers. Here he resided until his 
death, being an active participant in the develop- 
ment of the county. L. T. Dennis, whose name heads 
this sketch, was reared to farm labor, and in his 
youth received quite meager educational advanta- 
ges, but by applying him.self to his books at home, 
secured a fair education. He remained with his 
father until twenty-two years of age, then married 
Miss Nancy Ann Newsom, a daughter of Sterling 
Newsom, who was a Tennesseean, and came to 
Arkansas at an early day. After his marriage Mr. 
Dennis bought a slightly improved farm of seventy- 
five acres, and on this tract he located and began 
making improvements in the way of clearing and 
building. After about ten years his house caught 
fire and was consumed, but the same year he pur- 
chased 325 acres of land, erected a new dwelling and 
began a fresh start in life. He has opened about 
seventy-five acres, set out orchards, and otherwise 
greatly improved his property. In 1885 he erected 
a new residence on a natural building site, and 
his surroundings are now most pleasant. On 
the 16th of December, 1874, Mr. Denni.s lost his 
estimable wife and the following year he married 
Miss Martha Jane Gramlin, a daughter of Rawlins 
Gramlin, who came from North Carolina to Arkan- 
sas in 1857, and settled on the west side of Crow- 
ley's Ridge. To his first union were born the 
following childi-en: William Pleasant and Mary 
Jane living, and Henry Albert, Robert Sterling 
and an infant deceased. His second union has 
resulted in the birth of seven children: Lawrence 
M. , who died at the age of four years; James 
Edward, Walter Anderson, Leopold Leaton and 
Gopel Wiley, twins; Lucy Ellen, and Thomas 



Jefifersou. In 18(52 Mr. Deunis enlisted in Jeffer- 
son Thompson's artillery compiiny and was sent to 
the division of the Missonri, and was on the Arkan- 
sas Ram when she ran the blockade past Mem- 
[)his; he was also on the same vessel when she ran 
the blockade at the mouth of the Yazoo liiver. 
He was then transferred to the infantry, and in 
the fall was in the battle of Corinth, and was also 
at Grand Gulf, Port Gibson, Bakers Creek, and 
in Vicksburg during the siege of forty-nine days, 
after which he was paroled and returned home, 
but again enlisted in July, 1804, joining a cav- 
alry company, and during the remainder of that 
year was in and around Little Rock. While there 
he met with an accident and was compelled to re- 
turn home, and took no further part in the war. 
He is now engaged in general farm work and de- 
votes about seventy- five acres of his farm to the 
culture of corn, forty acres to cotton and ten acres 
each to wheat, oats and clover. He is quite an 
active politician, votes with the Democratic party, 
and has served as justice of the j)eace ten years, 
and as school director six years. He belongs to 
the Baptist Church and his wife to the Methodist. 
ly/' L. G. Dillman, manufacturer of plain lumber 
and building material at Paragould, was born in 
Stark County, Ohio, April 15, 1830, and is the son 
of Jacob Dillman, a native of Pennsylvania, and 
Maria (Crocker) Dillman, of Vermont nativity. 
The parents were married in Ohio, and here the 
father followed the cabinet-maker's trade, al- 
though his principal occupation was farming. He 
was one of the pioneers of Williams County, Ohio, 
and when first settling there his nearest neighbor 
was fifteen miles distant. He died in Ohio in 18'5'J. 
The mother died in 1842. They were the parents 
of six children, only two now living: Lemuel G. , 
and Susan, wife of Dwight Stoddard. A brother, 
Sylvester Dillman, was killed at the battle of Win- 
cliester, Va. , and his widow has been postmistress 
at Toledo. Iowa, for several years. L. G. Dili- 
man remained on the farm in Ohio until twenty- 
one years of age, and in 18r>l went to St. Jo 
seph County, Ind., where he was engaged in the 
lumber business for several years. In I8fi4 he en- 
listed in Company B, One Hundred and Fifty fifth 



Indiana Volunteers, and served until cessation of 
hostilities. He remained in St. Joseph County, 
Ind., being engaged principally in the lumber bus- 
iness, until coming to Arkansas. In 1876 he went 
to Nashville, Tenn., and put up a machinery plant 
for the Indiana Lumbering Company. In I. SSI he 
came to Arkansas, located at Bradford, on the Iron 
Mountain Railroad and |)ut up a saw-mill, but soM 
out in a short time and put up a foundry and ma- 
chine shop at Newport, which he ran for about one 
year. He then sold out and <;am(> to Greene Conn- ' 
ty, and has since made Paragould his headcpiarters. 
He has had several .saw-mills in this and Craighead 
Counties. He was married in 1858 to Miss Mar 
garet Vanderhoof, a native of Rochester, N. Y. , 
by whom he has two children, Frank, and Arl. 
who is at school at Cape Girardeau. Mr. and Mrs. 
Dillman are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. He is a member of the G. A. R. 

A. L. Dover, proprietor of a saw and gristmill 
and cotton-gin, situated near the Fair Ground in 
Clark Township, was born in Blount County, Ala., 
in 1848, and was the third in a faiuily of nine chil 
dren born to B. A. and Patsy (Fielding) Dover, 
the former a native of North Carolina and the lat 
ter of Georgia. They settled in Alabama in 1847, 
where the father opened uj) a farm and resided 
several years, and in 1868 moved to Poinsett Coun- 
ty, Ark., where he settled and improved another 
farm. Since 1874 he has lived in Greene County. 
His wife died in 1884. A. L. Dover received his 
early education in Alabama, and after coming to 
Poinsett Countv began farming for himself, and 
like his father has resided in Greene County ^ 
since 1874. The year following his location here 
he purchased a tract of land containing I'JS acres, 
which was heavily covered with timber, and com- 
menced immediately to clear it. He now has sixty 
acres under cultivation, which are well improved 
with good buildings and orchard. In 1876 he wa> 
married to Miss Tennessee V. Yates, a daughter of 
Henderson and Martha Yates, who were born in 
Tennessei> and Virginia, respectively: the father 
came to Greene County, Ark., in lS7r'">,his wife having 
died in Tennessee the year before. Mr. Yates is ' 
now residing in Paragould. Mr. Dover votes with I 



136 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the Democratic party, and was elected on that ticket 
to the office of magistrate, which position he held 
four years. He has always taken an interest in 
school matters and is now a member of the school 
board. Socially he belongs to the Masonic fra- 
ternity and the I. O. O. F., Paragould Lodge. 
He and wife became the parents of live children, 
three of whom are living: William Wallace, Le- 
ander Byrd and Henderson Franklin. Arthur 
Bruce died at the age of one year, and Major Oscar 
died when two years of age. 

J. C. Field. Among the many wealthy farm- 
ers of Greene County, Ark. , well worthy an honor- 
able place in these columns may be mentioned Mr. 
Field, who was born in Cross County, Ark., in 
1849, and is the fourth in a family of six children 
bom to John and Catherine (Curtis) Field, who 
were born, reared and married in Maury County, 
Tenn. , where the father was engaged in tilling the 
soil. In 1848 he removed with his family to Ar- 
kansas, purchased a tract of 160 acres, which he 
improved, and then sold out and moved to Poin- 
sett County, in 1875, where he boiight a farm, on 
which he died, in 1880. His wife died while they 
were residing in Cross County. J. C. Field re- 
ceived the education and rearing that usually fall 
to the farmer's boy, and at the age of twenty- 
four years began farming for himself, making his 
iirst crop on Buffalo Island. The next year he 
came to Greene County, and from time to time 
purchased land until he became the owner of 560 
acres of some of the best land in the county. He 
cleared about 175 acres of timber land, and now 
has at least 200 acres under cultivation. He has 
erected good buildings on his property, set out 
orchards, and has done general farming, raising 
cotton and the cereals, and this year has devoted 
about sixty acres to corn and 140 to cotton. He 
has some good stock, and his first labors are meet- 
ing with deserved success. In 1874 he was united 
in marriage to Miss Mary Gulches, by whom he 
has two children: Jefferson and James. 

B. C. Gallup, proprietor of the City Bakery 
and Confectionery Store. Paragould. In this city 
are found quite a number of prosperous estab- 
lishments, and of none can mention be made with 



more pleasure than of the bakery of B. C. GaUup. 
Mr. Gallup was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 
12th of August, 1840, and is the son of Henry and 
Elizabeth Gallup, the father a native of Massa- 
chusetts, of French descent, and a Huent speaker 
of three different languages. He was a carpenter 
by trade, and after his removal to Quincy, 111. , in 
1841. he built the first Methodist Fipiscopal Church 
on Vermont Street. He died in that city, as did 
also his wife, leaving B. C. Gallup, who was then 
but an infant. A guardian was appointed for the 
little orphan, but. after growing up, his relations 
with his guardian were not of the most pleas- 
ant nature, and consequently he took French leave 
of him, and engaged as cook on a Mississipjii 
steamer, serving in that capacity for about five 
years. During this time he learned the turner's 
trade, but did not put it to immediate use, for in 
1857 he engaged in the bakery business in Quincy, 
111. , where he remained until the breaking out of 
the Civil War. He then left the bakery to shoul- 
der a musket, and in 1861 enlisted in the Tenth 
Illinois Infantry, and served three years. He was 
at the battles of Belmont, Tiptonville, Shiloh, 
Farmington, Corinth, luka, Nashville, Chatta- 
nooga, and at Atlanta, being under fire for three 
months. He was at Missionary Kidge, Resaca, 
Dalton, etc., but never received anything but a 
flesh wound. He was mustered out in 1865, and 
returned to Quincy, 111. , where he continued until 
1868. From there he went to Kansas City, re- 
mained there a few years, and then went to Mis- 
souri, but only tarried in that State a short time, 
and then went to Kansas, Colorado, and thence to 
Texas, where he was engaged on journey-work. 
After residing in that State for six or seven years, 
he came to Greene County, Ark., in 1884, and 
located in Paragould, when there were but few 
business men in town. He bought a little prop- 
erty, and immediately embarked in business for 
himself. He has built i\\> a good trade, and by 
his upright and honest dealings has won the con- 
fidence of his patrons. He has bought consider- 
able town property, and is doing well. While in 
Kansas City he married Miss Katie Lightman, 
who bore him four children, all deceased. Mr. 



GREENE COTTNTY. 



137 



Gallup' s second niiirriage was at Jacksonport.Ark., 
in December. 1881, to Miss Hannah E. Bickel, a 
native of Ohio. One child, now deceased, was 
born to this union. Mr. Gallup is a m(»mber of 
the G. A. R., and also belongs to the I. O. O. F. 

Richard H. Gardner, ex-county clerk and sur- 
veyor of Greene County, Ark., is a gentleman of 
wide experience, who has been actively interested 
in politics from his youth up. He was born in 
Weakley County, Tenn., in 1831, and is a son of 
Richard W. and Eliza (Thomas) Gardner, who 
were of English and German descent, having been 
born in Virginia and South Carolina in 1808 and 
1811, and died in Tennessee in 1852 and 1842, 
respectively. The former was taken to Kentucky 
when a boy, by his father, John A. Gardner, and 
there resided until 1825 or 1826, when he moved 
to Tennessee, and there spent the remainder of his 
days. He was a soldier in the Mexican AVar 
under Gen. Cheatham, of Tennessee, serving as 
surgeon, having graduated from the Louisville 
Medical College in 1845. He practiced in the 
State of Mississippi for a short time after the war, 
when he returned to Tennessee and resumed i)rac- 
tice. He was always a strong advocate of tem[)er- 
auce. Four of the eight children born to himself 
and wife lived to be grown, and two are living at 
the present time : Jerome A. and Richard H. The 
latter lived in Weakley County, Tenn., until eleven 
years of age, and was then sent to Franklin College, 
near Nashville, where he remained until he was 
twenty-one years of age.. He engaged in civil 
engineering in Tennessee, Kentucky and Missis- 
sippi, continuing from 1852 to 1855, and then 
clerked in a steam flouring- mill for two years, 
after which he came west, and in 1857 located at 
Oak Bluff, Greene County, Ark., where he was oc- 
cupied in merchandising for a short time, and was 
then elected assessor and deputy clerk, serving 
until 1801. When the war broke out he enlisted 
in the Confederate army and commanded a com- 
pany as captain in the battles of Pleasant Grove, 
Helena and Pleasant Hill. After the war he 
returned home and was appointed to the office of 
county clerk for six months, being re-elected in 
lSf)<') for two years. In 1870 he was elected county 



surveyor, holding the position ten years, and in 
1882 was again elected county clerk, which he 
held for four years. In Januai-y, 1 887, after 
retiring from office, he came to his present place of 
abode. He is a strong advocate of churches 
and schools, and has been a liberal contributor to 
both. He was married in 1850 to Miss .Sarah 
Towles, of Nashville, Tenn.. who died in 1880. 
leaving a family of nine children, sis of whom are 
now living: Arthur C, Flora G., Oliver \V., 
Albert D., Ada B. and Nerly R. Stapleton .li.'d 
at the age of twenty-one; Elmore at the age of 
twelve years, and Algernon, when three yearn of 
age. Mr. Gardner took for hia second wife. 
Lucretia C. Harris, who died in 1881, having 
borne one child, wliich died in infancy. In 1882 
he married his present wife, Mrs. Ann E. Thomp 
son, who was born in the State of Mississipjii. in 
1844, and when fourteen years of age came to 
Arkansas, where she grew to maturity. She and 
Mr. Gardner are the parents of two children: 
Bei-ah B. and Kathleen. One son was liorn to her 
first marriage named James Thompson. Mr. 
Gardner belongs to the Christian Church, and his 
wife to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
She was the widow of Isaac Thompson, and the 
daughter of James and Jane Johnston, who came 
to Arkansas in 18r8. Here the father died in 
1872 at the age of sixty-nine years, and the mother 
in 1880, aged seventy-six years. The former was a 
merchant in Mississippi until his failure in busi- 
ness, then selling clocks until he was able to re 
sume mercantile ])ursuits, which he did in Gaines- 
ville. Ark. He and wife became the parents of 
eight children. Mrs. Gardner being one of four 
now living. 

G. L. Gentry, a successful planter residing 
near Paragould, Ark., was born in 1841 in Weak- 
ley County, Tenn., being the eighth of twelve 
children born to the marriage of J. K. Gentry and 
Sarah Nance, the former a native of Tennessee and 
the latter of Virginia. In 1858 they locatt^d near 
Gainesville, Ark., in which the father died in 
1884, having been a prominent resident of the 
county. The mother is still living, and resides at 
Paragould. G. L. Gentry was reared to manhood 



i:iS 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ou a farm in Tennessee, and in 1858 came to 
Greene County, Ark. , enlisting fi'om this count}', 
in 18(51, in Company K, Fifth Arkansas Vol- 
unteers, under Col. Cross, and went into service at 
Columbus, Ky. He was a member of a scouting 
party along the Red River, and in 186"J was hon- 
orably discharged at Bowling Green. Ky. After 
his return home he joined Gen. Marmaduke. and 
was with him for some time. In 1869 he was 
married to Miss Angeline McWhirter, of Tennes- 
see, a daughter of John and Matilda (Yarber) Mc- 
Whirter. who were also born in that State, coming 
to Arkansas at a very early day, in which State 
they both died. After his marriage Mr. Gentry 
settled near Gainesville, and in 1873 bought a 
partly improved farm of 200 acres, but sold it 
some time later and went to Paragould, where he 
engaged in the saw-mill business (in 1881). Three 
years later he embarked in grist-milling, and also 
operated a cotton-gin, which he sold in 1887, and 
returned to the farm. Sixty acres of his 100-acre 
farm are under cultivation, and on it he raises cotton 
and cereals. By his wife, who died in 1883, he be- 
came the father of the following children: Joseph 
W., Laurettie, Oney, Gilbert M'., Albert and Wil 
lis. all of whom are at home. In 1884 Mr. Gentry 
married his present wife, whose maiden name was 
Frances Drollender, of Tennessee, a daughter of 
\Villiam and Elizabeth (Bond) Drollender, of Ten- 
nessee, l)oth of whom are deceased, the latter dying 
in Paragould in 1887. Mr. Gentry has seen a vast 
change in the country since his boyhood days, as 
it was then in a very wild and unsettled condition. 
He is a member of the A. F. & A. M., and was 
Worshipful Master of Gainesville Lodge for a 
number of years, and in 1887 filled the same posi- 
tion in Paragould Lodge No. 3RS. He is a mem- 
ber of the Agricultural Wheel, and although a 
Democrat, is not very active in polities. A station 
on the Iron Mountain Railroad, midway l)etween 
Paragould :ind Gainesville, is called Geatry in 
honor of our subject. 

H. W. Glasscock, mayor of Paragould and real 
estate dealer, was born in Randolph County. Ai'k.. 
February 19, 1834, and is the son of George W. 
and Catherine (Gray) Glasscock, natives of Ten- 



nessee. The parents were married in their native 
State, and in about 1830 they emigrated to Arkan- 
sas, locating in Randolph County, and were among 
its very first settlers. Here the father died in 
1834 and the mother three days later. They were 
the [)arents of seven children, three now living: 
William, Henry AV., and George F. When the 
parents tirst made their home in Arkansas, the 
country was a wilderness, and wild animals were 
plentiful, the red man's face frequently being seen 
at the door of the log c-al^in. H. W. Glasscock 
was reared in Randolph County, Ark., until twelve 
years of age, when he moved to (iaiuesville, 
Greene County. He was educated principally at 
Gainesville and in Mississippi. In 18o8 he was 
elected county clerk of Greene County, and 
served until after the war. In 1861 he enlisted in 
the first regiment that was organized in Greene 
County, and left a deputy to attend to his business. 
He served in the eastern army and was discharged 
in 1S62 on account of his health. He then came 
home and re-enlisted in Kitchens" regiment in the 
cavalry, and was in command of Company E, 
serving until the surrender: he was on the raid 
through Missouri. After returning to his home 
he took charge of the clerk's office, and in 1868 
engaged in mercantile business at Gainesville, 
which he continued until 1883, when he sold out 
and came to Paragould. Since that time he has 
been occupied in the real estate business. He 
owns about 12,000 acres of land, with some 600 
under cultivation. His lands are among the best in 
the country, as he has been investing and buying 
since 1857. Mr. Glasscock was elected mayor of 
Paragould in April, 1888, which position he is now 
tilling. He was married first in 1858 to Miss 
Amanda Conduff, by whom he had four children, 
two now living: H. F. and Sudie. His second 
marriage was to INIrs. Emily J. Williauison. liy 
whom he has six children, four ntjw living: John, 
Jennie, Etta and Albert (twins). Mr. and Mrs. 
Glasscock and family are memliers of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Glasscock is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity and Knights of 
Pythias. He is one of the prominent and leading 
citizens of his vicinity. 



^^ 



GREENE COUNTY. 



r 



139 



M. C. Gramling, who is one of the first and most 
successful farmers and stock raisers of Greene 
Connty, Ark., was born in Spartanburg (Jounty. 
S. C, November 2i), 1839, and is the eldest in a 
family of twelve children born to the marriage of 
Benjamin M. "and Mary (Wilson) Gramling, also 
natives of the 'Palmetto State,'' who were there 
engaged in farming until 1858, when they came to 
.-Vrkansas and settled in Greene Connty. Here 
they entered a tract of 160 acres, and began imme- 
diately to make improvements, opening aliout 
seventy-tive acres of land, erecting good buildings 
and setting out orchards. After living on this tract 
for about sixteen years the father sold out and pur- 
chased 100 acres in Cache Township, which he also 
greatly improved. He is here living at the pres- 
ent time, and is in his seventy-first year. M. C 
Gramling. our subject, has always been familiar 
with farm labor, and assisted his father until twen- 
ty-one years of age, when he became an employ^ 
of the Government in di'aining this section of the 
State. At the lireaking out of the Rebellion he 
enlisted in Company D, Fifth Arkansas Infantry, 
and was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, 
and was with Gen. Joe Johnston, participating in 
the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, Corinth, 
whei'e he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, 
and Chickamauga. In this engagement, while his 
company was making a charge, and he was crying 
to his comrades " Come on, boys," he was wounded 
by a bullet striking him in the cheek. He was also 
at Ringgold, Resaca, where he was wounded in the 
thigli. and Jonesboro, Ga. , where he lost his left 
arm l)y the explosion of a shell on the 1st of Sep- 
tember, 1864. He remained in the field until the 
close of the war, then returned to Arkansas, and 
in 18(56 was married to Miss Mary Smith, a native 
of South Carolina, and a daughter of William and 
Elizabeth (Otts) Smith, who were also from South 
Carolina, and emigrated to Arkansas in I8r)l>, set- 
tling on 160 acres of land in Greene County. 
They were very successful, and in time became the 
owners of 1, 100 acres of laud. The father died in 
September, 1878, but the mother is still living. 
In 1866 Mr. Gramling located at Gainesville, where 
ht- started a general store, and in the f:dl of the 



name _\eai' lie was ehfcted assessor of (ireene Coiin 
ty, for one term of two years. In the spring of 
this year he was appointed treasurer of the county 
till the election of a successor, but continued also 
to manage his store for three years, then moving to 
St. Francis Township, where he rented land, and 
made one crop. In 1870 he bought 240 acres of 
land, and since that time has continued to add 
to his acreage until he now possesses 560 acres of 
fertile land. He has made many improvements on 
his property, and in 1877 erected a handsome res 
idence, and has also built good barns. Two hun- 
dred acres of his land are under cultivation, and two 
acres are in orchard. He gives considerable atten- 
tion to stock raising, and has a full-blooded Hol- 
stein bull imported from Northern Missouri. In 
1872 he was elected to the office of county sheriff, 
and subsequently was elected county judge, which 
he held two terms. He has always been active in 
political and school matters, and is always inter 
ested in every enterprise for the welfare of the 
county. He aud wife are the parents of the follow- 
ing children : William M. , who died on the 6th of 
August, 1870, aged eleven years, six months: 
James M., Alice, Jennie, Joseph F. , Earl V., 
Jesse M. . Elbert S., Van W., and Mary, who died 
in infancy. 

George A. (iramling is classed among the sue 
cessful tillers of the soil and stockmen of Cache 
Township. Greene Conntv. Ark., of which he is a 
native, having been born in the year 1850. He is 
the ninth of eleven children born to Richard and 
Cynthia (Brannon) Grainliug. whose birthplace 
was in South Carolina. They were married in that 
State, and in 1856 came to Greene County. Ark., 
settling on the east side of Crowley's Ridge, where 
they acquired a large tract of land, 20(1 acres of 
which were under cultivation. Here he erected a 
building, set out orchards, and made many other 
improvements, his attention being also largely 
given to the propagation of stock. He had a 
blacksmith's shop on his farm and made the most 
of the farming tools for this section. During his 
Ions residence iu the county be became well known 
and highly respected. He died at the age of sixty 
three years, in I.SS2. His widow is still living. 



e »^ 



140 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



The paternal grandfather also came to Greene 
County, Ark., and l)ecame the owner of 200 acres 
of wild land, which he improved and on which he 
resided until bis death. George Gramling was 
reared to farm labor, and at the age of twenty-two 
years began farming for himself, buying, at the 
time of his father's death, the interest in the home 
property of all the heirs except two, and is now 
the owner of the old homestead, which consists of 
640 acres. He has opened about thirty acres, and 
in partnership with his brother John, in 1888, 
erected a saw and grist-mill, and a cotton-gin, doing 
that year an excellent business, which promises to 
increase as time goes on. He carries on a general 
farming, and has about seventy acres in cotton, and 
too acres in corn. In 1882 he was married to Miss 
Lucy Pevehouse, a native of Arkansas, by whom 
he has three children: Thomas, Bertie and John. 
The family attend the Methodist Church. 

C. W. Green. To omit the name of Mr. Green 
from this volume would be to leave out one of the 
most prominent and successful farmers of the 
county, who has not only made himself thoroughly 
identitied with the farming interests of this section 
but by his pleasant, genial manner has won a host 
of friends. He was born in Forsyth County, Ga. , 
in 1857, and is the .son of William J. and M. E. 
(Garrett) (-ireen, natives of Georgia. The father 
was born in the year 1826, and died February 17, 
1889, but the mother is still living, and is in her 
sixtieth year. They were reared in their native 
State, were married there, and here the father 
carried on farming until 1848 or 1849, when he 
made a trip to California by water, remaining there 
eighteen months, and being snccessful, returned 
home by the Isthmus. In I860 be and family 
moved to Arkansas, and located near Gainesville, 
on the west side of Crowley's Ridge, where they 
resided eight years, and then settled on Jones' 
Ridge, Greene County, where the mother is .still 
living. He served as a soldier in the Confederate 
army ten months, and was taken prisoner on the 
Osage River, in Kansas, in October, 1864, during 
Price's raid, being carried thence to Alton, 111., 
and later to Rock Island, where he was contined 
seven months. He was released in March, 1865, 



and taken to Richmond. Va. . on exchange. Sub- 
sequently he returned to the home place, and there 
passed the remainder of his life. He held the 
office of justice of the peace in Union Township 
several years, and after he came to Jones Town- 
ship he again held that office. He was a Democrat 
in politics, a leading man of the coiinty. and a 
strong advocate of schools. To his marriage were 
born the following childi-en: Serena N.. aged 
thirty-five years, wife of William A. J. Compton, 
who is living in Jones Township; Isaiah N., who 
died October 17, 1885, aged twenty- nine years, 
leaving no children: C. AV., and Georgian, wife of 
Franklin J. Igert. She died June 19, 1888, aged 
twenty-nine years, leaving no children. C.W.Green 
attained his majority in Greene County, where he 
has resided ever since. In 1879, he, with his fa- 
ther and brothers and sisters, made a trip to Cali- 
fornia by railroad, and landing in Stockton, of that 
State, remained there three months, after which, 
the father made a trip to Oregon, to look at the 
country, but soon returned to Stockton, and with 
his family made his way back to old Arkansas, in 
August of the same year. C. W. Green had but 
poor educational advantages, but attended to some 
extent the s'i)).scription and free schools of the 
county, and in 1880 commenced for himself on the 
home place. Two years later he married Gertrude 
Gardner, who was born in 1865. and who is the 
daughter of R. H. Gardner [see sketch]. To this 
marriage were born two children: Barnie O. and 
Maude B. Mrs. Green is a member of the Chris- 
tian Church. 

John W. Halley was born in Scott County, Ark. , 
in the year 18()0, and is the youngest in a family 
of eight children born to the marriage of Robert 
Halley and Sarah Crowley, who died when he vv;is 
an infant. The mother when married to Mr. Halley 
was a widow with one child : Capt. Benjamin 
H. Crowley, whose sketch appears in this volume. 
John Halley spent his childhood in the western 
part of Arkansas, but since eight years of age he 
has made his liome. the greater portion of the 
time, with his halt brother, Capt. Crowley. Dur- 
ing his youth he received no educational advantages 
and up to the age of twenty • four years his education 



GllEENE COUNTY. 



141 



was acquired by self- application, since which time 
he has received only the advantages of the com- 
mon schools. At the age of eighteen years he 
rented land and began farming for himself, and 
has continued this in connection with teaching 
school during winter and summer since 1885. At 
this date he purchased 280 acres of land in the 
Cache bottoms, and in 1884 exchanged a portion 
of this farm for forty acres near Walcott, on which 
property there were but eight acres cleared. He 
opened up the remainder and now has the entire 
tract under cultivation and fence. This laud is 
very fertile and last year (1888) averaged one bale 
of cotton to the acre. Mr. Halley is a young man 
whose energy, enterf>rise and good business abilities 
will one day place him among the wealthy residents 
of the county. He possesses excellent principles, 
is ])ublic spirited, and takes a deep interest in 
worthy enterprises. 

JVIanoah B. Hampton. This name is synony- 
mous in (ireene County, Ark., with successful 
agriculture, for Mr. Hampton has been one of its 
enterprising tillers of the soil since 1878. He was 
born in Lincoln County, Tenn., in 1841, and is a 
son of James M. and Melissa (Owen) Hampton, 
who were also born in that State, the former's 
birth occurring in 1812 and the latter's in 1823. 
The father was reared to maturity in Lincoln 
County, Tenn., and there continued to make his 
home until 1871, then moving to West Tennessee, 
where he died in 187ti, having been an active 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
a stanch supporter of Christianity and education. 
His wife died in Shelby County, Tenn., in 1883; 
she was a daughter of William Owen, a prom- 
inent farmer of the middle portion of that State, 
where he died in 1861, being eighty years old. 
The paternal grandfather. James M. Hampton, 
was l)orn, reared and married in North Carolina, 
and after becoming the father of a number of 
children, moved to Tennessee and located OQ a 
plantation in Lincoln County, where he became a 
wealthy planter and slaveholder. He died in 
1858 or 1S59 at the age of eighty years, he, as well 
as the maternal grandfather, having been an 
earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 



The immediate subject of this sketch is one of the 
following children: Martin F.. Pinkney P.. 
Pleasant K. (deceased), Manoah Ji., James \\., 
Martha J., Mary (deceased), John T., Franklin H. 
(deceased), Narcissa A., Maggie (deceased), and 
Nancy S. Manoah Hampton attained his majority 
in Lincoln County, Tenn., and received his early 
education in the old log school house. He remained 
with his parents until the lireaking out of the Civil 
\\ ar, when he enlisted in 1861 in the Confederate 
army, in Company K, First Tennessee Regiment, 
under Col. Turner, and was at first and second 
Manassas, Cedar Mountain, under Stonewall Jack- 
son, Sharpsburg, Fredericksl)urg, Chancellorsville, 
\\'ildern<'ss. S])ottsylvania Court House, (iettys- 
burg, Richmond and Petersburg, besides numerous 
other engagements. At Hanover Junction he was 
wounded by a spent cannon ball striking him in 
the left side. He was taken prisoner at Shepherds- 
town, Md., and taken to Baltimore jail, where he 
and 800 others were condemned to be hung. 
They were afterward taken to Point Lookout. Md. , 
where they were kept in prison for eight months, 
then being exchauged. He, however, remained 
there until the final surrender, when he returned 
home and continued his farm work until 1867. 
Later he moved to Shelby County, Tenn., and in 
1878 to Arkansas, as above stated. He has an 
excellent farm here, with 100 acres of it under 
cultivation, and is doing well financially. He was 
married in 18(56 to Miss Mollie Stevenson, who was 
horn iu Giles County, Tenn.. in 1848; she became 
the mother of three children: JohuB. . who died at 
the age of eleven months: MattieM., wife of James 
It. ililler, deputy clerk of Greene County: and 
Sally N., who lives at home. Mr. Hampton is 
now rearing a little girl by the name of Anna 
Davis. Ho is a member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, a stanch supporter of churches and 
schools, and iu his political views is a Democrat. 

W. C. Hasty is of the firm of J. F. Hasty iSi 
Sons, Paragould. Throughout the county and 
especially over this portion of it, the name of 
Mr. Hasty is well known, not only as one of its 
solid, substantial citizens, but as a thorough 
and reliable business man. His birth occurreil 



'A 



ll£ 



142 



HISTORY or ARKANSAS. 



in Portland, Me., on September 15, 1862, and 
there he spent his boyhood days and received 
a good, practical education. His parents, Joseph 
F. and Annie N. (Phillips) Hasty, were both natives 
of Portland, Me., and were of Scotch and French 
descent, respectively. Joseph F. Hasty has been 
a lumberman all his life, and is now residing in 
Detroit, Mich., engaged in the stave business. 
W. C. Hasty removed with his parents to Detroit, 
where he served as accountant in the lumber 
business, becoming well posted on this topic. In 
January, 1888, he removed to Paragould, Ark., 
and purchased the mill he is now running. He 
enjoys large sales and employs, on an average, 
about fifty men. He is a bright, intelligent young 
man and is thoroughly acquainted with bis busi- 
ness. The stave factory firm consists of the fol- 
lowing members: J. F., E. F. and W. C. Hasty, 
the last named having the entire management ol 
the factory at Paragould. Mr. Hasty is a Royal 
Arch Mason, and is a director in the Greene 
County Bank. 

Mrs. Isabella Highlill. widow of Hezekiah 
Highfill, and daughter of Samuel and Rebecca J. 
(Ellis) Medlock, was born in Henry County, Tenn. , 
October 25, 1831, and as the country was very 
sparsely settled in her youth, and schools were 
few and far between, she received only a common 
school education. While growing to womanhood, 
all the clothing the family wore was home made, 
and she became very skillful in the use of the loom 
and all kinds of women's work. At the early age 
of seventeen years she was married to John A. 
Hargrove, a native of Southern Alabama, and a i 
farmer by occupation, V)y whom she bore a family 
of three sons and five daughters, all of whom are 
deceased except Ann M. and Francis V. , who live 
with their mother. On the 15th of December. 
1870, Mr. Hargrove died, leaving his wife with a 
farm to be improved, and four small children to 
care for. She entered bravely upon her work, 
succeeded in paying for her home, and bought 
another farm, which she also improved. In 1854 
she moved with her husband to Poinsett County. 
Ark. , made three crops, and was raising the third, 
when the memorable overflow of 1858 inundated 



that section to such an extent that all had to seek 
for higher land. They removed to Buffalo Island, 
Craighead County, where they homesteaded and 
improved 160 acres of land, but after Mr. Har- 
grove's death his widow traded her farm for land 
in Greene County, which she also disposed of 
shortly after her marriage with Mr. Highfill, in 
1876, and purchased the farm upon which she is now 
living, which consists of eighty acres, forty of the 
same being in a high state of cultivation, furnished 
with good bitildings and an excellent orchard. The 
land is a fine, sandy loam, and is devoted equally 
to cotton and corn. Mr. Hargrove was a leading 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of 
which Mrs. Highfill is now a member, and was a 
man of exemplary habits and character, and for 
many years held the office of the justice of the 

j peace. He was allowed to remain at home unmo- 
lested during the Rebellion. He was a Democrat, 
and was in sympathy with the Union. Hezekiah 
Highfill was an elder in the Methodist Ej)iscopal 
Church, and was not a participant in the late war, 
but sent out two sons, who enlisted in the Con- 
federate army, Isaac being killed by a cannon ball 
in the battle of Shiloh, and Hezekiah, the other 
son, was wounded in the same engagement by a 
minie ball, in the left shoulder, from the effects of 
which he died in March. 1880, having suffered 
from the same for seventeen years. Another son, 
J. M. Highfill, has a sketch in another part of 
this work. His three daughters are as follows: 
Sarah A. (Woods), widow of William Woods; 
Fanny (Lloyd), and Mary, wife of Rev. Isaac Ver- 

i ner, a Methodist minister of Lake County, Fla. 
Mrs. Highfill is a very interesting and intelligent 
lady, and having lived in this section for thirty- 
five years, can recount many interesting incidents in 
the early settlement of this section. She says that 
during the first years of her residence here the men 
would devote the summer to raising crops, and 
would hunt and trap during the winter months, 
their game consisting of deer, bear, wild cats, 
wolves and turkeys for food, and otter, beaver, 
mink and raccoon for their furs. These were 
taken by ox team to \\'ittsburgh or Memphis, and 
often realized .f 100 on one load. Prices ranged as 



^ & 
"^* 



IS 

©Jv" 



GREENE COUNTY. 



143 



follows; hfar meat, 25 cents per |iouii(l; deer. 10 
eents; turkeys. SI eacli: wild cat, 10 cents and 
wolf 10 cents. Otter hides brought $5 each: bea- 
ver, $7.50; mink, $3, and raccoon 50 cents, thus 
making the hunting season much more profitable 
than the farming season, hence there was very 
little done toward developing the country prior to 
the war. Everything was plentiful in the way of 
wild game and fruits, and the range was so good 
that stock could live the year round without being 
fed. In those days the women made all their own 
clothing, and raised their own cotton and sheep. 
Mrs. Highfill is now residing about one-half mile 
from two large mounds, containing the skeletons 
and relics of the pre-historic Mound Builders. l)ut 
the Indians who were here when she first settled 
could tell her nothing about them. Mrs. Highfill' 8 
falher and mother were born in South Carolina: the 
former was a farmer and mechanic by trade, and 
owned a tine farm of 320 acres in his native State, 
on which he resided until his death in April, 1879. 
The mother died in ISfiS. They were members of 
the Baptist and Methodist Churches, resjjectively, 
and in his political views he was a Democrat. 

John M. Highfill. a prosperous farmer and 
stock raiser of the county, is the tenth of eleven 
children, and was born in Hardeman County, Tenn. . 
in 1850, being a son of Hezekiah and Temperance 
B. (Rook) Highfill, who were also Tennesseeans, 
and were married in their native State. The father 
was a farmer and miller by occupation, and was 
also a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. In 1858 he removed with his family to 
Greene County, Ark., and settled on 160 acres of 
land, about eight acres of which were cleared, and 
on which was erected a little log cabin. He began 
immediately to clear his land from timber, erect 
l)etter buildings and otherwise improve his prop- 
erty, and became in time one of the well-to do 
citizens of the county. During this time he con- 
tinued his ministerial labors, and was instrumental 
in saving many souls. His death occurred in 
issn. and his wife's in 1872. John M. Highfill 
was reared to farm labor, but never attended the 
public schools, the most of his education being 
ac(iuired at home. When about twentv-one years 



of age he liegan farming for himself, purchased 
his father's old home, and was married to Miss 
Sarah L. Norton, a native of Alabama. He was 
engaged in general farming for :'!ome time after 
his marriage and did considerable speculating and 
trading, and in 1880 erected a good frame resi- 
dence and made other valuable improvements. He 
has cleared aljout forty acres, and has some ninety 
under cultivation and fence, nearly all of which 
is excellent bottom land. In 1887 he bought 
eighty acres of tine bottom land, and now, taking 
his property all together, it is one of the tinest 
bodies of land in the county. He has a good 
young orchard of about 200 trees. In 1880, in 
partnership with J. H. Thomas, he bought an 
interest in a general mercantile store at Bethel, 
and continued this business until the spring of 
1888. At the present time he is dealing <|uite ex- 
tensively in horses, but also gives his attention to 
the propagation of other stock. In April, 1888, 
he went to Florida, where he purchased land suit- 
able for orange orchards, and has twelve acres im- 
ju-oved. and has also |)urchased a house and lot 
in the town of Umatilla. Lake County, Fla. In 
1881 ho had a contract to clear the right of way 
and fixrnish the ties for five miles of the Knobel 
Branch of the Iron Mountain Railroad. He has 
always taken an active interest in polities, being a 
Democrat in his party affiliations, and in 1874 
was elected justice of the peace, and after serving 
four years was elected sheriff of Greene County, 
in September. 1885. serving a term of two years, 
but was defeated for re-election by a small major 
ity. On the 30th of October. 188(1, in his official 
capacity as sheriff, he was com])elled to execute 
William H. Hopper, the only man ever hanged by 
law in Greene County. He is Past Master in 
Paragould Lodge No. 308, of the A. F. & A. M., 
and he and wife are the parents of the following 
children : Henry N. . Lovy A. (who died at the age 
of five years). Hezekiah, .Joseph B. (whcxlied when 
five years old), Eliza L. . Benjamin Franklin and 
Delia Frances. Mr. Highfill had two lirothers in 
the Confederate army: Isaac E., who was killed at 
the battle of Shiloh, on the 7th of A])ril, 1SI)2, 
while serving under Joe Johnston: and Hezekiah. 



\u 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



wlio was with Hood ia all his campaigns, aud was 
wounded at the battle of Murfreesboro ; he died 
March 22, 1880. 

D. D. Hodges, of the mercantile tirm of D. D. 
Hodges & Co., Paragould. A review of the Imsi- 
iiess of Paragould discloses the existence of a num 
ber of houses which compare favorably with those 
of any city, and enjoying a foremost position as 
one of such is the establishment of D. D. Hodges 
& Co. Mr. Hodges was born in East Tennessee, 
his parents, B. Marshall and Mary (Adams) Hodges, 
also being natives of that section. D. D. Hodges 
was but six years of age when he moved with his 
parents to Metropolis, 111., aud there the father 
died in 1869 and the mother in 1879. They had 
a family of six children, four now living, viz. : 
William T. , Charles F., Lizzie, wife of Jo-seph 
Wyess, and David D., who is the youngest of the 
family living. The latter was principally reared 
iu Illinois and received his education in the com- 
mon schools. At the age of twelve years he en- 
tered a store at Metropolis, 111. , as clerk, and there 
remained until sixteen years of age, when he took 
charge of a branch house at Woodville, Ky. , and 
remained with this firm all together ten years, thus 
forcibly demonstrating the fact that he was reared 
iu the mercantile business. In 1877 he was em- 
ployed as traveling salesman for Fisher & Farley, 
of Paducah, Ky., with whom he remained two 
years. He then engaged in business for himself 
at Woodville, Ky., and in 1 881 he came to Arkan- 
sas, where he sold on commission for Col. Beal on 
the "Cotton Belt"' Railroad until the spring of 
1882. Later he served as clerk for C D. Pruet 
and in 1886 bought an interest in the store, after 
which a partnership was formed as C. D. Pruet & 
Co., which continued until January, 1888. Mr. 
Pi-uet'a death occurred in August, 1887, and in 
January, 1888, the tirm was changed to D. D. 
Hodges & Co. The firm members are: D. D. 
Hodges, W. F. Pruet and E. C. Deakin. A large 
stock of goods of general merchandise is carried, 
occupying two large store rooms in a brick build- 
ing. Mr. Hodges was married in 1875, to Miss 
Ella V. Settle, a native of Kentucky. Two chil- 
dren were born to this union, Walter D. and Mary 



O. Mrs. Hodges is a member of the Christian 
Church. Mr. Hodges is a member of the K. of P. 
and also belongs to the K. of H. He is well re- 
spected and is one of the enterprising citizens of 
Paragould. 

E. P. Holt, one of the leading and successful 
merchants of Marmaduke. Ark., was born in Mid- 
dle Tennessee, where his father. Garrison Holt, 
now lives, and in 1865 was united in marriage to 
Miss Elizabeth Parker, daughter of C. C. Parker, 
of Wayne County, Tenn. In 1874 he emigrated 
to Pemiscot County, Mo. , where he followed 
farming along the Mississippi River until 1884, 
when he moved to Arkansas and settled in Greene 
County. His wife died in Paragould January 10, 
1885, and in the fall of the following year Mr. 
Holt commenced farming, and also engaged iu the 
tie business, which he continued for several years. 
In February. 1888, he bought out Mr. J. L. Spen- 
cer, who carried on business at Holliday, and Mr. 
Holt moved the stock to Marmaduke, first renting 
a building, and then erecting a store room during 
the summer of 1888. His second marriage was 
to Miss Mary J. (Freeman) Barton, of West Ten- 
nessee. Mr. Holt has been identified with the 
improvement and growth of the town since coming 
here. At that time there was neither church nor 
school, and it is mainly by his efforts that school 
is now in session live months in the year, held in 
a very good building, 24x40 feet, which edifice 
is also used as a Baptist Church, and to which 
Mr. Holt and family belong. He is the father of 
one son by his first wife, and this young man is 
now attending school. During vacation he assists 
his fathei' in the store. Mr. Holt has a well se- 
lected stock of goods, valued at about $2,000, and 
endeavors to furnish his patrons with the best to be 
obtained. 

John W. Hooker. A gratifying example of 
success and ably conducted home industries is af- 
forded by the large lumbering-mill owned by Mr. 
Hooker, which is situated on the Iron Mountain 
Railroad, about eight miles below Knobel. The 
works are quite extensive, and have a capacity of 
10,000 feet per day, and Mr. Hooker utilizes in a 
great measure the timber of his own land, his acre- 



GREENE COUNTY. 



1 ir. 



age comprising 540, with about 100 acres under cul- 
tivation, all of which is the result of his own labor. 
He was born in Scott County, lud. , in 1834, and 
is a son of Emsley and Eliza (Hubanks) Hooker, 
who were born in North Carolina and Virginia, 
respectively. The father was taken by his parents 
to Clark County, Ind. , when one year old, the 
country at that time being a wilderness, and here he 
attained his majority, being reared on his father's 
farm. The grandfather died in that county in 
ISyS, at the age of seventy-six years. Emsley 
Hooker was fifty- four years old at the time of his 
death, in 1862, in Scott County, Ind. Through- 
out life he had followed the occupation of farming. 
He was a Democrat politically, and was a liberal 
contributor to and a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. His wife died in 1839, having 
borne a family of four children, two of whom are 
now living: Lorenzo D. , a resident of Indiana, and 
John W. The latter is the elder of the two, and 
was reared to mature years on a farm in Scott 
County, and in 1854 commenced working for him- 
self on a farm, at $13 per mouth. Three years 
later he was married, but continued his farm labors 
until the latter part of the Civil War. when he 
enlisted in the Thirty-first Indiana Volunteers, 
Company I, under Charles Adamson, of Rockport, 
Ind., and served twelve months (the last year), 
participating in the battles of Franklin, Nashville, 
and a number of minor engagements. He was 
dischai'ged at New Orleans, and mustered out at 
Victoria. Tex. He then returned to Indiana, 
where he was engased in farming until 1880, com- 
ing thence to Greene County, Ark., where he 
embarked in lumber-milling and farming, which 
occupations have received hi.s attention up to the 
present time. Mr. Hooker's first marriage was to 
Miss Hannah J. Reynolds, a native of Indiana, 
born in 1840, who died in 18(i2 by drowning. She 
and another lady were in a canoe on White River, 
when they struck a snag, upsetting their boat. 
Her companion chuig to the snag and was saved. 
Three children were born to this union: Alvin A., 
at home; Oldridge, married and residing at his 
father's mill, and John W., who died at the age 
of six weeks. Mr. Hooker took for his second wife 



Mrs. Jeanette (Weddell) Heart, who was born in 
Jackson County, Ind., and died in 1886, at the age 
of forty-four years. To thorn were born six cliil 
dren: Ross, Nathan. Charles, Austin. Eliza J. and 
Georgia (who died in 1879, at the age of two 
years). To the mother's first union three children 
were born: America. Mary A. and liriller Heart. 
The last two are deceased. Both wives were mem 
bers of the church. He belongs to the G. A. R. 

George R. Hopkins, a well known and success- 
ful educator of the county, and a farmer by occu- 
pation, was born in Gwinnett County, (ia. , in 
1860, being a son of Melmoth D. and Elizabeth 
(Martin) Hopkins, who were also born in Georgia. 
The grandfather, George H. Hopkins, was a verj' 
prominent educator in his day, and taught one 
school for over thirty years. He also represented 
his county in the State legislature several terms, 
always taking an active part in politics. He wa.s 
of English descent and died in Gwinnett County, 
in 18S9, at the age of eighty years, esteemed by 
all. Melmoth D. was one of his twelve children, 
and was reared in that county, where he received 
a good education in his youth, afterwards being 
engaged in farming and teachiug school. He was 
a member of the A. F. & A. M., and belonged 
to the Baptist Church. During the late Rebellion 
he served four years in the Confederate army, and 
during his term of service was in prison seven or 
eight months. Since 1866 he has resided in Ar- 
kansas, and is now living in Sebastian County, be- 
low Fort Smith, on a farm, his wife also surviv- 
ing. The following are the children l)orii to their 
union: Aldorah, George, Julian, Mary. Warner 
(deceased), Thomas and Pearlie. (ieorge R. Hoj) 
kins attained his growth principally in Jonesboro, 
Ark., also receiving tlie moat of his education 
there, but attended one year in (Jeorgia. Shortly 
after he began teaching school, continuing one 
year, when he was elected surveyor of Craighead 
County, which positioti he held two years. Since 
1884 he has resided in Cireene County, and the 
tirst year taught school in Paragould: he has con- 
tinued to be one of the successful educators of 
Gainesville, being now engaged on his fourth term 
of ten months in that town. He was married in 



146 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1S85 to Anna Newberry, who was born in Carroll 
County, Tenn. , and by her has two children: Buna 
and Irene. Mr. Hopkins is a member of the K. 
of H., is a Democrat in his political views, and is 
a thorough, competent, and extensive educator of 
the young. During the foiu- years he has taught 
in Gainesville, he has fitted about twenty of his 
pupils for the profession of teaching. His wife 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
South. 

Pressley Huckabay, one of the pioneers of 
Greene County, Ark., and one who has witnessed 
the rapid development of that county in the last 
thirty years, was born in Campbell County, Tenn., 
where he grew to manhood and was married. In 
1857 he and family moved to Greene County, Ark., 
settling about a mile and a half from his present 
residence, where he cleared a farm of seventy-two 
acres and erected houses, etc. This laud belonged 
to the railroad company, and having a chance to sell 
the improvements made on the same, Mr. Hucka- 
bay did so, and then moved to his present farm, 
which consists of 120 acres, with 100 under culti- 
vation. He married Miss Mary Bullock of Ten- 
nessee, and twelve children were born to this union, 
eight now living. The following grew to matur- 
ity: Elizabeth married Jackson Purcell, a farmer 
of Greene Count}', and became the mother of one 
child; Nancy married Obadiah Purcell, a farmer 
of Greene Covinty, and became the mother of 
two childi'en; Sarah married John Van Guilder, 
a farmer of Greene County, and became the mother 
of six children; John A. died, leaving two chil- 
dren, and his wife also died; William T. married 
and lives on a farm a short distance from his father, 
and has a family of six children; Commodore 
Perry married and resides at Marmaduke, where 
he runs a saw-mill — he has five children: Rhietta 
was married to M. B. Harvey, a farmer of Greene 
County, and is the mother of eight children; Almar- 
ine married, lives near his father, and has three 
children; Alfi-ed remains on the farm with his 
father, is married and has four children: Francis 
Marion died and left a wife and one child. Mr. 
Huckabay has a niece. Miss Nancy E. Huckabay, 
who makes her home with lu-r uncle. Tlie latter 



takes a deep interest in the political issues of the 
day, and affiliates with the Democratic party. He 
is a member of the Missionary Ba])tist Church. 
During the late unpleasantness between the North 
and South he was in Col. McNeill's regiment and 
participated in the battles of Little Rock, Forrest 
City, was in the Red River Expedition, and in a 
number of sharp skirmishes. When Mr. Hucka- 
bay first moved. to Greene County, Ark., settlers 
were few, provisions scarce, and all depended, to 
a great extent, upon the gun for a means of living. 
When he wanted fresh meat he frequently sent his 
children around a thicket within HOO yards of the 
house, and would pick out a good one from the 
drove of deer thus started up. His method for 
catching turkeys was very ingenious. Building 
a square pen of logs near where he fed his stock, 
he covered it with poles, and then digged a slant- 
ing passageway leading under the logs. This 
passage-way would end abruptly after entering 
the pen. Corn was then scattered along the pass- 
age or outside slant; the turkey would have to stoop 
a little to go under the pen, but as soon as inside 
would fly up to the level ground above, and instead 
of looking down to get out would always look up. 
Mr. Huckabay often caught as high as eight or ten 
at a time in this manner. Coons were so thick 
that a man could take his rifle and kill as many as 
fifteen or twenty a day. John Wooten, a neigh- 
bor, killed twenty-five on one occasion, and Mr. 
Huckabay has killed as many as fifteen himself. 
Bears were so plentiful that their meat was used 
instead of bacon, and was put down for the season 
in much the same way as pork. A good bear skin 
was worth about $5 at Cape Girardeau, Mo. 
Mr. Huckabay has killed a number of panthers, 
and can relate numerous thrilling exploits with 
these animals. He was attacked by one at one 
time, and after having fired three bullets against 
its head, which failed to penetrate the sknll, he 
realized that he was getting in very close quarters. 
Just at this critical moment his faithful dogs re- 
newed their attacks on the panther, thus giving 
their owner a chance to send a bullet just back of 
the fore legs of the animal, which stretched him 
lifeless on the ground. 




-Ji^ftWfe 






DaCEDLA 

Mississippi CounTT,ARKAnsAS . 



C. p. Huckabay, the leading mill man of this 
section, was born in Campbell County, Tenn., and 
came to Greene County, Ark.. al)out thirty two 
years ago. He is a self made man, was reared ou 
the farm, and picked up his education as best he 
coukl after reaching his majority. The schools 
were all elo.sed during the war in that [)ortion of 
the country, and as Mi-. Huckalmy was a school 
boy at that time, his educational advantages were 
not of the best. He was industrious, full of (>nergy 
and perseverance, and is now the owner of 1,000 
acres of land, with seventy-five acres under cultiva 
tion. This he rents, and his time is fully occupied 
in the lumber and stave business, being the owner 
of two large saw mills, one located in Marmaduke 
and the other in the vicinity. The one at Marma- 
duke has a capacity of 1,500 feet per day, and 
the one in the country will run about S.OOO feet. 
Mr. Huckabay is now building a tram road three 
and a half miles into the woods, which will be con- 
nected with the road of Mr. Rosengrant, ex- 
tending two and a half miles further into a fine 
timbered country, and will supply them timber for 
about five years. Mr. Huckabay has been in the 
railroad supply business, getting out ties and other 
timbers, and at one time ran about 300 men, fur 
nishing them with provisions from his su])ply store 
then located at Marmaduke. He is now securing 
all kinds of building and bridge timber. Mr. 
Huckabay chose for his companion in life Miss 
Nancy A. llamsey, a native of Tennessee, and the 
daughter of M. Ramsey (deceased), of Greene 
County. To this union were born five children: 
Virginia E., Nathan P., William B. , Carrie A. 
and Mary. Mr. Huckabay is conservative, both in 
politics and religion, not but that he believes in 
both, but he considers every one possesses the right 
to his own views on the subject. He is a member 
of the I. O. O. F., belonging to Evergreen Lodge, 
located at Tilmanville. 

H, C. Hunter is a representative man of Greene 
County, Ark., who has attained his pro])erty by 
industry and good business ability, and has won an 
enviable position in .society circles. He was born 
in Middle Tennessee, in 1S4'2, and up to the age of 
eighteen years was reared on his father's jilanta 



tion, thus becoming familiar with the details of 
farm life. When eighteen he eniigrat«Hl to Greene 
County, Ark., I)ut when the Relx-llion broke out, 
in 1S61, he enlisted from Tennessee for twelve 
months, in Company G, Ninth Tennessee Infantry, 
Confederate States Army, and participated in tiie 
battles of Belmont. Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Perry 
ville, and at Chickamauga was wounded by a gun 
shot, and was confined in the hospital at Mont- 
gomery, Ala. After recovering he was detailed to 
the engineers' department, and was engaged in con- 
structing bridges until the final surrender, when 
he returned to Greene Coixnty, Ark., and resumed 
farming. He has now an excellent farm of over 
2(10 acres, with about 1 HO acres under cultivation, 
on which he raises cotton and corn. He also gives 
considerable attention to the propagation of stock, 
and has an excellent range on which his animals 
pasture. Having been a resident of this State for 
many years, he has seen the gradual but sure 
development of the country from a wilderness to 
finely cultivated farms, for where churches, schools 
and substantial homes now are, then Indians and 
wild animals in profusion roamed the woods. He 
has done a full share in securing this desirable 
change, and by industry and shrewd management 
has made his farm one of the best in the county. 
Where he was previously obliged to go 125 miles 
to market he now only goes eight miles, to Para- 
gould. He was married in Greene County, in 
1873, to Miss Georgiauua King, a native of 
Tennessee, and a daughter of John M. and Sarah 
Jane (Freelandi King, who were also Tennesseeans. 
emigrating to Gr(>ene County. Ark., in \H~i2. and 
opening up a farm: later they moved to Pemiscot 
County, Mo., where they are living at the present 
time. The father was a volunteer in the Mexican 
War. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter are members of the 
Methodist Episco]>al Church, and are the parents 
of the fi)lk>wing children: Betty, Alva, Minnie, 
Charles, James and Eufus M. Mr. Hunter is a 
Democrat. He was the youngest of eight children 
born to Lay ton and Elizabeth (Hobison) Hunter, 
the former a native of Tennessee and the latter of 
Kentucky. They were married in the former 
State, and here the father became ijuite a wealthy 



^^ r- 



148 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



planter, but in 1859 removed to Greene County, 
Ark., and settled on the farm now owned by our 
subject, H. C. Hunter. He figured quite promi- 
nently in politics while in Tennessee, but after 
coming to Arkansas he remained more at home. 
His health was always good and he died in 1875, 
at the age of seventy -live year.s, his wife's death 
occurring within a few days of his own. The 
paternal grandfather was a Virginian, and a sol- 
dier in the War of 1812, as was also the maternal 
grandfather, the latter being a native of Kentucky 
soil. 

Richard Jackson is well known by reason of his 
association with the general mercantile firm of 
Jackson Dry Goods Company. His career in 
Greene County has been markedly rapid and suc- 
cessful, and his name stands to-day among the 
leading business men of the county. The business 
was established in 1867, he and his l)rother. J. R., 
purchasing the stock of gooils formerly owned by 
Taylor & Miller, which consists of a full line of 
general merchandise, and he and his present part- 
ners are now doing the leading business in Gaines - 
\ille. He was born in Stoddard County, Mo., in 
1843, and was the son of John J. and Emily 
(Montgomery) Jactson, who were Tennesseeans, 
and came to Missouri at an early period, being 
among the first settlers of Stoddard County. He 
was engaged in farming until the late war, then 
coming to Greene County, Ark. , and locating near 
Gainesville, where he died in 1877, after having led 
a very active life. He was quite an active politi- 
cian, and held the office of deputy sheriff of Stod- 
dard County for four years, and sheriff four j'ears 
after coming to Greene County. He was active in 
advocating schools, chui'ches, etc. His wife died 
in 1885, at the age of seventy-three years. Their 
children all lived to be grown; one son, two daugh- 
ters and the father died within two months of each 
other. Those living are Isaiah, Richard and 
I'ranklin, the latter being in partnership with his 
brother, Richard. Richard Jackson attained his 
eighteenth year in Stoddard County, and remained 
at home until the breaking out of the Civil War in 
1861, when he enlisted in the Confederate army, 
under Jeff Thompson, and served until the final 



siurender, taking part in a numlier of important 
engagements, and was wounded at Pilot Knob, 
having his leg broken. He was captured while 
there, and sent to the hospital at Ironton, and was 
soon after exchanged. He returned home and there 
remained until able to get about, when he rejoined 
his regiment, and continued in service until the 
close. Again coming home he resumed farming, 
then clerked in a general store, and in 1867 estab- 
lished his present business, and in addition to this 
gives much of his attention to real estate, having 
charge of all the Iron Mountain Railroad lands in 
the county. He also manages several large stock 
farms, and deals and trades extensively in stock. 
He is a Democrat in his political views, and when 
the county seat was at Gainesville he held the 
office of treasurer of the county. He has always 
been a liberal contributor to churches, schools, 
and all worthy enterprises, and now occupies a 
high position both in mercantile and social circles. 
His wife, whose maiden name was Jennie Stead 
man. was born in North Carolina, and their union 
was blessed in the birth of six children: Clara. 
Frannie, Arthur, Emma, Maggie, and an infant 
daughter unnamed. 

A. D. Jackson, of the firm of Jackson & 
Byers, proprietors of a livery stable, has one of 
the best equipped enterprises of the kind in the 
county. This stable, from the large business it 
does, not only exemplifies the importance of the 
town, but reflects credit upon its management. 
Mr. Jackson was born in Greene County, Ark. . 
January 20, 1865, and is one of three children 
born to James R. and Nancy (Davis) Jackson, na- 
tives of Tennessee. The parents were early settlers 
of this part of Arkansas, but duiing the war the 
family moved to Missouri, and there the father 

, served as captain of a company. During the ser- 
vice he was wounded in the hip by a gunshot. He 
died in 1881, but the mother is still living and re- 
sides in Paragould. Their children are named as 
follows: Jennie, wife of John Perry; Albert D. . 
and Lela, wife of Oscar Huff. A. D. Jackson 
grew to manhood in Gainesville, receiving his edu- 
cation there, and afterward clerked in a store for 

, about four years. He then engaged in merchan- 



GREENE COUNTY. 



MU 



I- 

r 



dising with an uncle, Kichard Jackson, at (iaiues- 
ville, remained with him three years and then ran 
the business alone for a short time. After this he 
went to Hot Springs, thence back to Gainesville, 
where he was occiipied in farming and teaming for 
about three years. In November, 1888, he came 
to Paragould and embarked in the livery business 
with his present partner. He keeps about fifteen 
good horses and can furnish, day or night, as neat 
a turnout as one could desire and at the lowest 
figure. Mr. Jackson chose for his life's companion 
Miss Joe Collins, who became his wife on Decem- 
ber 25, 1884. Two children are the result of this 
union: James A. and Pearl. Mr. Jackson is a 
member of the I. O. O. F. lodge. 

I. C. Jeffers. Greene County, Ark. , ranks 
among the first in the State in regard to its man- 
ufacturing intere.sts. and Mr. Jeffers is one of its 
foremost lumber maniifacturers. He engaged in 
liusiness for himself in 1888, his mill being at 
South Miser; it was previously known as Miser's 
Mill, and has a capacity of 10,000 feet per day. 
Mr. Jeffers was born in Clark County, 111., in 
1851, and was the third in a family of seven chil- 
dren born to Thomas and Julia Ann (Lafferty) 
Jeffers, natives, respectively, of Kentucky and Illi- 
nois. The father was a tiller of the soil and 
opened up several large farms, and is now residing 
in Edinburgh, 111. In 18f?l he enlisted from 
Moultrie County, of that State, in Company C, 
One Hundred and Twenty-sixth Illinois Infantry, 
and was wounded at Devall's Bluff, Ark., receiving 
a gunshot wound by the bushwhackers, and was 
confined in the hospital for some time, obtaining 
his discharge in May. 1865. His wife died in 
Shelbj' County, 111. . at the age of fifty-six years, 
February lU, 1878. I. C. Jeffers spent his early 
life on his father's farms and attended the common 
schools, supplementing this by one year's attend- 
ance at St. Mary"s, Indiana. When about seven- 
teen years of age he began learning the miller's 
trade in Moultrie County, 111. , and has followed 
that occupation with success ever since. He was 
married there, in 1877, to Miss Frances Anna 
Jones, a native of Illinois, and a daughter of Amos 
and Mary Ann (Steele) Jones, the former having 



been born in South Carolina and the latter in Illi- 
nois, both of whom are still living. After his mar- 
riage Mr. Jeffers remained in Illinois until 1881, 
when he came to Corning and embarked in the tim- 
ber business, moving thence to Rector, where he 
was foreman four years for W. G. Hutchings' saw- 
mill; since 1888 he has been engaged in operating 
his mill at Rector, and now ships from four to five 
carloads per week. He has always supported the 
Democratic, party, and although having resided 
in Greene County only a few years has b(!come 
well and favorably known. His children are 
Marietta, Charles Albert, Clara Ethel and Julia 
Cora. 

William C. Johnson has been identified with 
the farming and stock dealing interests of Friend- 
ship Township, Greene County, Ark., since 1850, 
and in that time he has proven himself to be a man 
of intelligence and enterprise. He was born in 
Knox County, Tenn., in October, 1821, and is the 
eldest of five children born to Pleasant M. and Ellen 
(Thompson) Johnson, who were born in Virginia, 
and at an early day emigrated to Tennessee, where 
they were married. Thej' were engaged in farm- 
ing in West Tennessee imtil 1858, when they moved 
to Dunklin County, Mo., where the father died in 
1861, aged sixty-four years, his wife's death hav- 
ing occurred in Tennessee, in 1854. He was a 
soldier in the War of 1812. His mother was Mary 
Hancock, a niece of John Hancock, a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence. William C. Johnson 
was educated in the district schools near his home 
in Tennessee, and was married in Madison County, 
.of that State, in 1842. to Amanda C. Sanders, a 
native of Lincoln County, Tenn., a daughter cf 
Samuel and Linnie (Looney) Sanders, who were 
Tennesseeans. and prosperous farmers of that 
State. They moved to Ozark County, Mo., in 
1854, where they were engaged in farming until 
their respective deaths in 1857 and 18S7. Mr. 
Johnson and family emigrated to Lawrence Conn 
ty, Ark., in 1854, where they entered a tract of 
120 acres and remained two years, moving thence 
to his present farm in (ireeue County. He first 
entered 156 acres, which he proved up in ISCil, 
and has added to this land imtil he now owns 107 



^ 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



acres, with nearly 100 acres under cultivation. 
Besides this he owns forty acres of land in Clark 
Township (twenty-two acres in cultivation), the 
most of his tillable property being devoted to cot- 
ton and corn. He has aided in the organization 
of Friendship Township, and assisted in building 
the county road. He has always atRliated with the 
Democratic party, and has helped largely in in- 
creasing the number of Democratic voters in his 
section. He has been one of the foremost men in 
developing the resources of the county, and has al- 
ways been an active supporter of schools and 
churches, being ordained in 1874, by Thomas D. 
Lloyd and David Thorn, a minister of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church. He has ex])ounded the 
gospel since that time and has been instrumental 
in converting some people to Christianity. He 
and wife are the parents of threi> daughters and 
ten sons: Permelia Lane and Emerentha Virginia 
(deceased); Linna Blender, wife of A.M. Shearer, 
living near Halliday; W. S. C, married and resid- 
ing in Greene County; John H. . married and resi- 
dent of Halliday; David Pleasant and James Mon- 
roe (deceased); Ben. Franklin, also deceased; Al- 
fred Jefferson, single; Christopher A, also married; 
J. N., P. G. and L. L. 

B. A. Johnson, a wealthy farmer and stock- 
man, of Greene County, Ark., was born in Hick- 
man County, Tenn., in 1834, and is the iifth in a 
family of ten children born to Granville M. and 
Nereusa (Gardner) Johnson, who were Tennessee- 
ans, the father being a farmer by occupation, and 
a wealthy citizen. He was justice of the peace in 
Tennessee for many years, and died in that State 
in 1S84, followed by his wife some two years later. 
The paternal and maternal graudfatliers were Vir- 
ginians, who removed to Tennessee at an early 
day. the former reaching this State in 1812. Here 
they both died. B. A. Johnson was reared to farm 
labor, and had very poor educational advantages 
in his youth. He remained at home until attain- 
ing his majority, and then for .several years was 
engaged in brick-laying. At the age of twenty-one 
he was wedded to Miss Sarah E. Fielder, a native 
of Tennessee. In 1855 he located in Wayne Coun- 
ty. Mo., where, in 180(1, he bought a farm, and 



embarked in agricultiu'e, continuing until the war 
broke out, when he raised a company of Missouri 
State Guards, of which he was elected first lieuten- 
ant. He soon resigned this position, and enlisted 
as a private in the Confederate army, being 
elected first lieutenant of Reeves' cavalry company 
of inde])endent scouts. He was soon sent east of 
the Mississippi, and was in the battles of Mem- 
phis, Corinth, luka, Jacinto, Richmond, Ky., 
Perryville, after which he was transferred to the 
western department of Arkansas, where he was 
detailed to raise a regiment, of which he was made 
lieutenant-colonel. In this capacity he partici- 
jmted in the battles of Little Rock, Pine Bluff and 
Saline River, and was then with Price on his Mis- 
souri raid, taking part in every battle fought on 
this trip. During the war his family removed from 
Missouri south to Clay County, Ark., and here Mr. 
Johnson went after the cessation of hostilities, 
where he remained three years, and then came 
to Cache Township, Greene County, Ark, where 
they are still residing. He purchased a partially 
improved farm of 160 acres, opened about sixty 
acres, and in 1871 purchased 160 acres three miles 
south of his first place, to which he has added 170 
acres, and has cleared 100 acres, having about 200 
under cultivation. In addition to these tracts he 
has about 500 acres in another locality. He does 
genera] farming, but gives the most of his atten- 
tion to the raising of corn and cotton. He is an ac- 
tive politician, a substantial supporter of churches 
and schools, and he and family attend the Baptist 
Church, of which he and his wife are members. 
His family consists of the following children: 
John W., born February 17, 1856, who is married 
and resides on his father's land; William G., born 
February 9, 1858, also married and living in the 
township: Barbara Etta Bell, born October 5. 18()0, 
wife of E. R. C. Biggs, a resident of Woodruff 
County; Robert E. Lee, born October 21, 1863, 
died in 1864; Adelaide, born September 24, 1865, 
wife of P. Eubanks, of Greene County; Samantha 
C, born August 4, 1867; Victoria R., wife of 
James Light, born July 19. 1869; Sarah N., born 
October 10, 1871; Benjamin O, born June 10, 
1S74: and Lizzie B. . born August 11, 1877. 



GREENE COUNTY. 



IM 



R. B. Joues. No matter how disagreeable tlie 
outlook in life, or how little encouragement is re- 
ceived, there are some who will succeed in what 
ever they undertake, while others, placed in the 
same circumstances, will give uj) in despair. 
Among those who have won universal respect by 
push and energy, and who are classed among the 
first in whatever they undertake, is the above 
mentioned gentleman. Mr. Jones was born in 
that part of Greene County, Ark., which is at this 
time known as Clay County, September (j, 1848, 
and remained in that county, engaged in farming, 
until about twelve years ago, when he moved to 
what is known as Tilmanville and opened a black- 
smith shop. This he has curried on in a successful 
manner ever since. In addition to this Mr. Jones 
manages his farm of 180 acres, which his sons are 
now working, and he has opened aboiit five or six 
acres on the home place, consisting of eighty acres. 
He was married to Miss Martha J. Bradsher, 
daughter of Jefferson Bradsher, of Greene Coun- 
ty, Ark., and three interesting childi'en were the 
result of this union: J. M. , J. C. and W. A., all 
at home. Mr. Jones is also rearing two of his 
sister-in-law's children, they being the orphan 
children of J. H. and Mary C. Huckabay, and are 
named Almon E. and Hiram C. John Jones, the 
father of the subject of this sketch, came to 
Greene County, Ark., in 1830, and died here in 
1871. His wife died in 18(51. They were the 
parents of eight children, two surviving. By his 
second wife John Jones became the father of five 
children. R. B. Jones is a member of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, Danley Lodge No. 300, and he 
also belongs to Evergreen Lodge No. 66, of the 
I. O. O. F. He and wife are members of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. 

S. L. Joseph, one of the leading merchants of 
I'aragonld, was l)orn in Germany, on the Rhine, in 
October, 1854, receiving his education in his native 
country, and at an early age engaged in mercantile 
])ursaits, which he has followed ever since, thus 
securing a thorough knowledge of the busini^ss. 
In 1871 he sailed for America, taking passage iit 
Bremen, and landing at New York City, where he 
remained about three years. He then went to 



Pennsylvania, and for a period of some three ynars 
was engaged in the ottice of the Buffalo & Philadel- 
])hia Railroad Company, going thence to St. Louis, 
where he remained one year. In 1878 he went to 
Walnut Ridge, Ark., followed clerking until 1880, 
and then came to Gainesville, of the same State, 
and there opened a store in partnership with Isaac 
Less. He continued the business at Gainesville 
and Jonesboro for three years, after which he sold 
his interest and took a trip to Europe, traveling 
over the continent, and was absent about ten 
months. After his return he went to Wichita, 
Kan., resided at that place one year, and in the 
fall of 1885 came to Paragould, where he em- 
barked in merchandising under the firm name of 
Harris & Joseph. In the spring of 1889 Mr. 
Joseph bought out his partner and is now con- 
tinuing the business alone. He carries a large 
stock of merchandise, averaging about $25,000, 
and is one of the enterprising business men i/f 
Paragould. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, the I. O. O. F. , and also belongs to the 
K. of H. He was married May 1, 1889, to Miss 
Setta Goldman, a native of Europe, and sister of 
J. D. Goldman, of the large firm of Goldman <& 
Co., of St. Louis. Mr. Joseph's parents, Maurice 
F. and Babbet (Steinheimer) Joseph, were natives 
of Europe. The father is deceased, but the mother 
is still living in Germany. 

Jesse Kenemure, a successful farmer and stock 
raiser of Jones Township, was born in Georgia, 
in 1819, and is the sixth in a family of eiglif 
children born to David and Lucy (Price) Kene- 
mure, luitives of South Carolina. The parents 
remained in their native State until after theii- 
marriage, and then moved to Georgia, where the 
mother died a few years later. The father again 
married and lived in that State until his death. 
Jesse Kenemure assisted his father in the arduous 
duties on the farm until nineteen years of age, 
after which he began farming for himself, and 
this occuj)ation has continued all his life. He was 
married when twenty -one years of age to Miss 
Rebecca Rock, a native of Georgia: and eight 
children were the result of this union, four now 
living. They are nar 1 as follows: Luciuda 



1 r.2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



I 



Margaret (deceaHed), Jiimes Franklin, married and 
lives on his father's place: N. W., married and 
lives on Crowley's Ridge; Charles D. , married 
and lives in this township; Missouri Jane, died in 
Georgia; William Ross, died in Georgia; L. 
W., married and resides in Greene County, and 
Margaret. Jesse Kenemure followed farming in 
Georgia, until 1856, when he moved directly to 
Greene County, Ark. , and settled on the west side 
of CJrowley's Ridge, where he bought forty acres 
of wild land. He immediately began improving, 
by erecting buildings and clearing land, etc., and 
after having cleared about thirty acres and remain- 
ing there for some twelve years, he sold out and 
moved to Jones' Ridge, being one of four families 
in that section. He bought 180 acres of land, 
cleared 100 acres, erected buildings, set out an 
extensive orchard of all kinds of fruits, and has 
surrounded himself with everything to make a 
pleasant, comfortable home. During the late war 
he was with Price on his Missouri raid, and was 
in the battles of Iron Mountain, Blue Lick, In- 
dependence and Boonville. He is a member of the 
Wheel, and is an active worker in the cause of 
education. 

T. B. Kitchens, circuit court clerk, exrofficio 
clerk of the county and probate courts, and recorder 
of Greene County, Ark., is one of the prominent 
and leading citizens of that county. He was born 
in Craighead County, Ark., August 21, 1854, and 
is the son of James H. and Arminda J. (Davis) 
Kitchens, natives of Forsyth County, Ga. The 
parents were married in their native State, but af- 
terward removed to Cherokee County, Ala., where 
they remained i;ntil the winter of 1851, and then 
located in what is now Craighead County, Ark. 
In the early part of the following year the father 
removed to the farm he now occupies, and there 
he has since resided. He was one of the first 
settlers of Craighead County, having located there 
when the country was wild and unbroken. T. B. 
Kitchens was reared and received his primary 
education in his native county. Later he attended 
school at Gainesville, and completed his educa- 
tion at the Arkansas Industrial University, at 
Fayetteville, from which institution he graduated 



with honor, being valedictorian of his class in 
1880. He was also awarded the gold medal of 
$25, oflFered by B. B. Stone, of Fayetteville, for the 
best set of literary essays of the season of 1880, as 
well as the gold medal otfered by the publishing 
house of D. Appleton & Co., to the member of 
the senior class of 1880, who had the highest 
standing in mathematics in the four years' course. 
Following his graduation, Mr. Kitchens taught 
school until the spring of 1882, and in the fall of 
the same year he entered the county clerk's office 
as deputy, and served for four years, discharging 
his duties faithfully and honorably, and in such 
an efficient and capable manner that he won many 
friends, and at their solicitation he became a candi- 
date for his present office. He was elected in Sep- 
tember, 1886, without opposition, and reelected to 
the office in 1888, which position he is now holding. 
He was county examiner from 1882 to 1886, and 
discharged these duties, as he does all others, with 
honor and credit. He owns town property and a 
half interest in the Gager House, which is a large 
three-story brick building, and a first-class hotel. 
Mr. Kitchens was maiTied January 1, 1884, to Miss 
Alice B. Burton, a native of Tennessee, whose 
parents came to this county when she was a child 
four years of age. Mr. and Mrs Kitchens are the 
parents of one child, William M. Mr. Kitchens is 
a member of the K. of P., and a charter member 
of the lodge at Paragould. 

John J. Lambert (deceased) was born in Harde- 
man County, Tenn., in 1822, and his father being 
a farmer he was reared to that occupation, remain 
ing on the old homestead until he attained his 
majority. He was married July 14, 1858, to Miss 
Jennie Cox, a native of Tennessee, whose fathei 
was a farmer. When the war broke out Mr. Lam 
bert espoused the cause of the Confederacy and 
served one year in the Confederate army, then re 
turning home and resuming farming. In 1867 he 
emigrated, with his family, to Arkansas, locating 
in Greene County, where he bought 100 acres 
of land, a portion of which was improved. On 
this tract ht erected barns and stables, and opened 
about fifty acres, but later bought other large 
tracts, part of it joining this, from which he cleared 



Jf- 



^k 



GREENE COUNTY. 



153 



the timber. To his union with Miss Cox onu child, 
James Abner. was born, and his second resulted iu 
the birth of three children: Mary W., wife of 
Allen Howell; John J. and Thomas L. Th(> last 
two are young men, who are managing the home 
farm, being engaged in general farm work. They 
have about seventy-tive acres under cultivation. 
At the time of Mr. Lambert's death, November 
28, 1SS7. the farm was divided and sold, with the 
exception of several tracts of land in Tennessee, 
Thomas L. buying eighty acres of the old home- 
stead and 240 acres of another tract, forty acres 
of another and some town property. Mr. Lambert 
was one of Greene County's most substantial and 
j)rominent citizens, and was a generous and public- 
spirited man. ever ready to aid enterpriser for the 
public good, and is remembered with gratitude 
and affection by all his neighbors. He was a 
member of the Masonic fraternity. 

E. D. Landi'um. Owing to the fertility of the 
soil in Greene County, Ark., and by energy, indus- 
try and economy, Mr. Landrum has become one of 
the wealthy farmers and stock raisers of this sec- 
tion. He was born in Weakley County, Tenn. , in 
1848, was reared on his father's farm, and there 
received his education in the common schools. In 
1868 he enlisted from Weakley County in Com- 
pany B, Faulkner's Regiment cavalry service, and 
was in the fights at Paducah, Union City and Co- 
lumbus, receiving his discharge in the fall of 1864 
aud returning home. In the fall of 1865 he came 
to Greene County, Ark., and began farming for 
himself on eighty acres of land which he purchased, 
aud in 1867 purchased eighty acres more, eight of 
which were cleared and under cultivation. In 1869 
he located on this property and erected a log 
house, and iu ISSu built an excellent frame resi- 
dence. He now owns 320 acres of splendid land 
with 150 under cultivation, 125 of which he has 
cleared himself since ISO'J. His principal crops 
are corn and hay. He raises some stock, his cattle 
being of the Durham breed, his horses Morgan, 
and his hogs Berkshire. He is not very active in 
politics, but votes with the Democratic party. He 
was married in Greene County, in 1867, to Mary 
A. Burnett, a native of North Carolina, aud a 



daughter of John and Sarah (Howell) Burnett, 
who were also born in that State, and emigi-ated 
to Greene County, Ark., at a very early day, set- 
tling on a farm in Clark Township, on which the 
father died. The mother is still living. To Mr. 
and Mrs. Landrum have been born the following 
children: James Edward and John Clinton. Mr. 
Landrum is the fourth of ten children born to 
James and Emeline (Anderson) Landrum, the 
former a native of Virginia and the latter of Middle 
Tennessee. The father was a wealthy planter of 
Tennessee, and died there in 1862, followed by his 
wife several years later. 

John V. Landrum, of the mercantile firm of 
Stallcup & Landrum, Paragould. There are a 
number of men prominently identified with the 
mercantile interests of Greene County, but none 
among them are more deserving of mention than 
John V. Landrum, who, although not old iu 
years, is a substantial business man. He was born 
in Weakhn' County, Tenn., August 18, 1853, 
and is the sou of James and Emeline (Anderson) 
Landrum, the father a native of Halifax County, 
Va. , and the mother of Dickson County, Tenn. 
The parents were married in the last mentioned 
State, and reared ten children, .six of whom are liv- 
ing at the present time: Lucy A., widow of Mr. 
Turner; James M., Edward D. , Samuel H., 
Fannie E. , wife of J. N. Wright; and John V. 
Nancy E. died May 11. 188'J. The parents 
moved from Middle Tennessee to West Tennessee 
and died in Weakley County, the father in 1862 and 
the mother in 1874. The former followed agri- 
cultural pursuits all his life. John Y. Landrum, 
the youngest member of the family now living, 
was reared and received the principal [lart of his 
education in \\'eakley County, Tenu. He re- 
mained on the farm until twenty-one years of age, 
after which he completed his education as best he 
could and then taught .school for three years in 
Gibson County. After this he engaged in the mill 
business for one year. In 1 888 he came to Greene 
County, Ark., from Carroll County, Tenn., 
located in Paragould, and immediately embarked 
in the mercantile business in partnershi]) with his 
brother, James M., who was the first man to sell 



IfZ 



ir.4 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



<j;oods in Paragoulcl. lu November, 1884, he 
married Miss Ella M. Stale-up, and the fruits of 
this union are two children : Horace M. and Char- 
les V. Mr. Landrum continued in lousiness with 
his brother for aliout two years, after which he 
sold out to him and formed a partnership with 
his father- in law, C. T. Stalcup, with whom 
he is carrying on business at the present time. 
They keep a large stock of goods and have built 
up a good trade. Asid(> from this Mr. Land- 
rum is the owner of a good farm of 1*10 acres, also 
some valuable town property, and has one of the 
finest residences in Paragoidd, in fact, one of the 
best in the county. Mr. and Mrs. Landrum are 
both faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. South. He served four years' as treas- 
urer of Paragould, and is an enterprising and pub 
lie-spirited citizen. They are members of the 
Triple Alliance Life Association. His maternal 
grandfather. Benjamin C. Aadersou, was reared 
and married in the blue grass region of Kentucky. 
He moved to Dickson County, Tenn. , while a young 
man, where he lived to the ripe old age of eighty- 
five, and died at his daughter's, Mrs. Emeline 
Landrum, in Weakley County, Tenn., at the age 
of eighty-seven. 

John M. Lloyd. In every condition of life 
and in every locality where the struggle for a live- 
lihood is going on, where can independence be 
found more faithfully portrayed, or more clearly 
demonstrated, than in the life of the honest, in 
(histrious farmer? Among those who have made a 
success of farming is the gentleman whose name 
heads this sketch, who, although a young man, is 
now the owner of one of th(> best improved farms 
in the county. He was born in Madison County 
(now Crockett Coimty), Tenn., August 26, 1856, 
and is the son of John \V. and Elizabeth (Raines) 
Lloyd, natives of North Carolina and Alabama, re- 
spectively. The father was born in 182(), and 
died February 11, 1869, and the mother was born 
in 1833, and died November 6, 1882. John W, 
Lloyd, when a lad of sixteen, went with his 
l)arents to Madison County, Tenn., where his 
father died at about the age of seventy-two years. 
He had been a soldier in the War of 1812. John 



W. was an agriculturist, a house carpenter and 
also followed the occupation of digging wells for 
many years. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confed- 
erate army. Gen. Forrest's regiment, of which he 
was wagon master for two years; he was in ser- 
vice in South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana, 
and was in a number of prominent battles, re- 
ceiving a slight flesh wound on the knee. He sur- 

; rendered with his regiment at Paris, Tenn. , after 
which he returned to his home and followed his 
trade. He was a member of the A. F. & A. M. , 
and was an advocate of churches and schools. Of 
the nine children born to his marriage, seven lived 
to be grown, and live still survive. These are 

I named as follows: Thomas H. , Jefferson, M. , J. M. 
and Mrs. S. E. Jones. Those deceased are: Jas- 
per W., Mollie, Mattie and an infant. Mrs. Lloyd, 
with the above mentioned family, came to Arkan- 
sas in 1871, and part of the family located in 
Jackson Coimty, while the mother, M. J., J. M. 
and Mattie, came to Greene County in 1872. 
Here the mother and Mattie died. John M. Lloyd 
attained his majority in the county, spending the 
early part of his life on a farm, and afterward 
engaged in clerking in a general store. He 
worked at stave manufacturing for about seven 
years, being foreman for J. F, Hasty & Sons, for 
about six months, at Paragould. He located on 
his present property in 1888, and now has 110 acres 
under a good state of cultivation, and almost 
wholly free from stumps. Mr Lloyd chose for his 
wife, Mrs. S. J. Gramling nee Halley, who was 
born and reared in Scott County, Ark. Her par- 
ents, Robert H. and Sarah (Hutchins) Halley, were 
natives of Virginia and Tennessee, respectively. 
Robert H. , on leaving his native State, went to 
Tennessee, and thence to Arkansas, in 1838, where 
he was married to Mrs. Sarah Crowley, March 10, 
of the following year. In 1848 they moved to 
Scott County, Ark., where Mrs. Halley died, Octo- 
ber 29, 1861. She was born in September, 1819, 
and was first married to Harrison Crowle}', who 
died at the age of thirty-tive years, leaving one 
son, Benjamin (See sketch of B. H. Crowley). 
Robert H. Halley was born October 25, 1819, and 
died in the Confederate army, in December, 1868. 



^' 



GREENE COUNTY. 



1 ")<") 



Mr. and Mrs. Halloy are the parentH of uiiif chil- 
dren, two of whom are still living : S. J. and J. 
M. , the latter living in this county. Mrs. Lloyd 
was first married to Henry C. Gramliug, who diod 
in 1882. To Mr. and Mrs. Gramling were born 
two children: Victoria and Richard C. Mr. and 
Mrs. Lloyd are members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church of Paragould. 

William F. Lovejoy is foreman of the Leonard 
plantation in Greene County, Ark., which is one 
of the finest in the State, containing 2,000 acres 
under wire fence, with 600 acres in cultivation. 
On this farm is a good general store, belonging to 
Mr. Lovejoy, and a saw and grist-mill and a cot- 
ton-gin belonging to Mr. Leonard. They are large- 
ly interested in raising blooded stock, the planta- 
tion being admirably adapted to this industry, and 
a specialty is made of raising Poland China and 
Berkshire hogs. Nineteen dwelling houses are on 
the place, and the barn, which is 100x85 feet, is 
one of the best in the State. From 250 to 300 
acres of land are annually devoted to the culture of 
cotton, which receives the most of Mr. Lovejoy' s 
attention. He was born in DeKalb County, Ga. , 
in 1848, and was the second in a family of five chil- 
dren born to Samuel and Paulina (Scaife) Lovejoy, 
who were also Georgians, the father a planter and 
merchant by occupation. In 184S they moved to 
Alal)ama and resided on a plantation in that State, 
and here the mother died, in 1850. The father re- 
mained there until 1870, when he moved to Phillips 
County. Ark., in which State he resided until his 
(loath, in 1883. William F. Lovejoy was reared 
on a plantation and received his education in the 
schools of Alabama. While living in that State 
he was married, in 1864, to Frances Carrington, 
and at the time of his father's removal to Arkan- 
sas he and wife came also and engaged in farming 
and merchandising. He owns a good farm in St. 
Francis County, but since 1883 he has resided in 
Greene County, and since 1886 has had charge 
of Mr. Leonard's farm, which he is conducting in 
a highly satisfactory manner. Besides his pro|)- 
erty in St. Francis County he has 160 acres, with 
forty under cultivation, near Mr. Leonard's farm. 
He has never been very active in politics, but voti'.s 



the Democratic ticket. In 181)2, while in Alabama, 
he joined M, M, Slaughter's Company, Bell's Bat 
talion. Tenth Regiment, Confederate States Army, 
but became afflictiul with chronic diarrhoea and 
was honorably discharged. He is a member of 
the A, F, & A, M,, Brinkley Lodge No. 295. He 
has seen a great change for the better in Greene 
County since locating here, and has witnessed 
the full growth of Rector, and has been the means 
of opening up more land than any man in Blue 
Cane Township. He has also done much to in- 
crease the wealth of the same, and has expended 
over $10,000 in clearing the large plantation of 
which he is manager, and which is now one of the 
most valuable pieces of property in the State. He 
and wife became the parents of two children, one 
of whom died in infancy, and the other, Mary 
Paulina, is the wife of Mr. Bradford, mer- 
chant and express agent at Brinkley, Ark, ; she 
is the mother of one child, William Monroe, 

Dr. Robert Lovelady, of Greene County, Ai-k, , 
and an eminent physician of the community, was 
born in Hamilton County, Teun, , in 1846, being 
the second of six children born to Joseph and De- 
borah (Harris) Lovelady, both of whom are Ten- 
nesseeans, who emigrated to Northeast Arkansas 
in 1852, where they entered 200 acres of wild 
land, which was given Mr, Lovelady as a comjjen- 
sation for services rendered in the Florida War, 
Here they made many valuable improvements, and 
resided until their respe(!tive deaths, the father 
dying on the 12th of April, 1861, Dr. Robert 
Lovelady remained with his parents until twenty- 
one years of age, attending the common .schools: 
later he began farming for himself, and taught 
school for a few terms. In 1872 he took up the 
study of medicine, under the instruction of Dr, C, 
Wall, continuing with him three years, and then 
entered the LouisvUle University of ^Medicine, at 
Louisville, Ky, , which he attended for some little 
time. After practicing his profession in Greene 
County for about three years he returned to the col- 
lege, and was graduated at the end of five months, 
being the second resident of Crowley's Ridge to 
graduate in any profession. In 1879 he returned 
from college and settled in Cache Township, 



Tv" 



-IL. 



156 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



where he entered upou the practice of his profes- 
sion. During this time his patronage has been 
constantly growing, and he is counted among the 
most successful professional men of the county. He 
is well fixed financially, and deserves much credit 
for the way in which he has succeeded, for on 
leaving college he had no capital whatever, save a 
good knowledge of his calling. He is an active 
worker for the cause of education, aiul has done 
all he could to raise the standard of the public 
schools. In 187!) he was married to Miss Maggie 
A. Morgan, a native of Alabama, who came to 
Arkansas in 1871, with her mother and stepfather. 
By her he has three little children: Ethel, Aden B. 
and Clifford. The Doctor is the owner of a small 
tract of land near Walcott, on which he has erected 
a neat cottage and out-buildings, and has set out a 
considerable number of fruit trees. He and wife 
are members ot the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Calvin E. McAuley, M. D. The most import- 
ant science bearing upon man' s happiness, comfort 
and welfare, is that of medicine, and Dr. McAuley 
is a credit to the profession. His birth occurred 
in Carroll County, Tenn. , in April, 1857, and he 
is the only surviving member of a family of three 
children, bom to Dr. Enos and Martha (Duke) 
McAuley, who were born in North Carolina and 
Tennessee, in 1821 and 1883, respectively. The 
father was taken by his parents to ('arroll County, 
Tenn. , when ten years of age, and was reared to 
manhood in that State on a farm. He gradu- 
ated from a medical college of Kentucky and in 
February, 1878, came to Greene Coxinty, Ark., 
where he died in 1881, having been an active 
medical practitioner for about thirty-seven years, 
or since twenty-one years of age. He also taught 
school in his youth, and socially was a Royal 
Arch Mason: he was an active member of the 
Baptist ChiU'ch, to which his wife also belonged. 
Dr. Calvin E. McAuley attended the common 
schools of Carroll County, and in 1872 or 1873 
commenced the study of medicine under his father, 
and at the age of nineteen began practicing. He 
entered the Louisville Medical College in 1885, 
and since July, 1878, has been a very successful 
practitioner of Greene County, Ark. In 1877 he 



was married to Miss Mary U. Butler, a native of 
Tennessee, who was born in 1868, and died Decem- 
ber 17, 1878, having been an earnest member of 
the Baptist Church. She left one child, Lelah U. 
The Doctor took for his second wife Miss Mary F. 
Ledbetter, who was born in Arkansas in 1859, and 
by her he has three children: Maud L. , Irvin E. 
and Florence P. Mrs. McAuley is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The 
Doctor belongs to the I. O. O. F. , is an advocate 
of schools, and a Republican in his political views, 
and in 1886 was tendered the nomination as repre 
sentative to the State legislature, but would not 
accept. After coming to Arkansas he was in part- 
nership with his father until the latter' s death. 

William J. McBride, one of the independent 
sons of toil and a successful horticulturist of Hur- 
ricane Township, Greene County, Ark., was born in 
Tennessee and came with his parents, Daniel and 
S. M. (Jones) McBride, to Greene County, Ark., 
about 1870. He was one of ten children, two 
of whom were born after their arrival in Greene 
County. William J. McBride remained on his 
father's farm until he was nineteen years of age, 
when he was united in marriage to Miss Mary Jane 
Edmondson, daughter of Archibald Edmondson, 
of Greene County. After marriage he and his 
wife settled on forty acres, to which he has since 
added forty more, all improved, this forming one 
of the be.st farms in the neighborhood. He has by 
far the finest peach and apple orchard to be found 
in his section of the neighborhood, last year hav- 
ing from it 300 to -100 l>ushels, all of which was 
fed to the hogs with the exception of that used 
by the family, there being no market for the 
fruit. To Mr. and Mrs. McBride have been born 
five children: Matilda E., Daniel S., Malinda .).. 
Julia C. and William H. Mr. McBride is a mem 
ber of Evergreen Lodge No. 66. I. O. O. F. , and 
also of the Agricultural Wheel. He and wife bi> 
long to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

John McHaney, {)lauter and stockman, of 
Friendship Township, Greene County, Ark. , is a 
native of Wilson County, Tenn., born on the 22d of 
June, 1811), being the third in a family of twelve 
children in the family of William and Sarah (Word) 



GREENE COUNTY. 



loT 



JIcHaney, who were Virginians, and among the 
early pioneers of Tennessee. In the latter State 
the father was engaged in farming and school- 
teaching for some time, and in 1840 emigrated 
to Marion County, 111., where his death occurred 
ten years later, his excellent wife surviving him 
nntil 1875, when she too died, at the age of eighty- 
four years. John McHaney was reared to a farm 
life, and educated in the common schools of Ten- 
nessee, and began his independent career as a 
farmer in Illinois, remaining thus engaged in that 
State for seven years, when he emigrated to Gib- 
son County, Tenn., in 1845. After living there 
until January 1, 1861, he moved to Greene County, 
Ark. , and settled on the farm where he is now re- 
siding, purchasing 100 acres of almost totally un- 
improved land. He has since added to this pur- 
chase, until he now owns 200 acres of land, with 
ninety under cultivation, the greater part of which 
he devotes to raising corn. He has a line orchard, 
and takes great interest in fruit culture. In 1863 
he returned to Tennessee, and was there married 
to Miss Sarah Sims, who was born in Middle 
Tennessee, being a daughter of Chesley and Mar}' 
Sims, also Tennesseeans by birth, the original 
stock coming from North Carolina. He lost his 
wife in 1870, and the same year was married in 
Greene County, Ark., to Mrs. Amanda (Allisson) 
Shearer, who had two children by her former hus- 
band, both of whom are married. Of seven chil- 
divn born to Mr. McHaney' s first union only one 
is now living, Sarah, wife of Mr. Mc(Tlumphy, of 
Marion County, 111. By his last wife he is the 
father of four children: John Lafayette, James 
Thomas, Almeda Alice and Minnie Estelle. The 
first named died at the age of five years. Mr. 
McHaney has seen many changes take place in 
Greene County, and has done his share in devel- 
oping the same. He was a member of and assisted 
in organizing the first church in the township, 
which is now in a nourishing condition. He has 
been a patron of education, and donated the land 
for his home school building, and was one of a 
committee to re-district Greene County, and name 
the townships, giving the name of Friendship 
to the township in which he is now living. He 



has been a justice of the peace here for over 
twenty years. Socially he has been a member of 
Gainesville Lodge No. 168, in the town of Gaines- 
ville, and is also a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel. Mr. McHaney enlisted in the .army in the 
latter part of 1864, and was captain of Company 
C, DeVee's Battalion, Kitchens' Division, and 
oj)erated in Missouri and Arkansas, and was with 
Price on his raid through Missouri, Indian Terri- 
tory, Kansas and Arkansas. He left the company 
at Fort Smith, Ark., and with a number of others 
returned home and resumed farming. 

LaFayette McHaney is one of the sturdy sons 
of the soil of Greene County, Ark., who has won 
his property by the sweat of his brow and by good 
management. He and his parents, William and 
Sarah (Word) McHaney, were born in Tennessee, 
his birth occurring in Wilson County in 1837. 
When the latter was three years old he was taken 
by his parents to Marion County, 111., where the 
father died in 1851 at the age of sixty-six years, 
and the mother in 1880. aged seventy- nine years. 
The father was a Democrat and he and wife were 
members of the Baptist Church. They had a 
family of thirteen children, ten of whom lived to 
be grown and seven are yet living. LaFayette was 
the eleventh child, and attained his majority in 
Marion County, 111. His youthful days were spent 
on a farm and in attending the common schools, 
and after attaining his twenty-second year he 
taught one term of school of nine months, later 
o-oinor to Tennessee, whore he was maiTied. In 
January, 1861, he came to Arkansas and joined 
the Confederate army, serving as first lieutenant, 
and was captured on the 4th of July, 1S63. at 
Helena, Ark., and was taken to Johnson's 
Island, Ohio, where he was kept a prisoner from 
August of that year to January, ISC),"), when he 
was exchanged and returned home. In February, 
1865, he began teaching school, continuing twenty 
months, and the rest of his timi> has been devoted 
to his farm. He first located southeast of (xaines- 
ville, but in 1881 came to his present farm, of 
which he has about 200 acres under cultivation. 
He raises considerable stock. His wife, whose 
name was Nancv C. Thorne, was l)orn in Tennes- 



:?; 



^ 
'T 



see. and when a child moved to Gibson County, of 
the same State, where she was married. The fol- 
lowing are their children: William W., John T.. 
Avey Ann (wife of William Russell). John H., 
Robert L.. Samuel P.. Onia A., Susan A. A., Mel- 
vin M. . Maude and Claude (twins), and Edward 
E. Henry L. died from the effects of a fall, at 
the age of seven years. Mr. McHaney is a Demo- 
crat, has been a Master Mason for two years, and 
he and wife are members of the Baptist Church, 
in which he has been a deacon for twelve years. 

James K. P. McKelvey. whose success in life 
is mainly diie to his industry and perseverance, 
coupled with a pleasant, genial disposition, is a na- 
tive of Franklin County, Tenn., born in 1844, being 
the son of John and Mary Ann (McKelvey) Mc- 
Kelvey, natives of South Carolina. The parents 
came to Franklin County, Tenn.. in their youth- 
ful days, were reared in that county, and were 
married there about 1842. In 1850 they moved 
to Benton County, Tenn., and there remained un- 
til 1863, when they located in Union County, 111. 
In the fall of 1865, they came to Lawrence 
County, Ark., settling on a farm where they re- 
mained about one year, and afterward moved to 
Carroll County, thence to Sebastian County, where 
the father died in 1874, at the age of fifty-five 
years. He practiced medicine the later part of 
his life; was a self-made man, and a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which 
he was a minister for twenty-two years before his 
death. He was very successful in administering 
to the physical as well as the spiritual wants of 
his fellow-men. and his face was welcomed in the 
homes of all, and especially in the homes of the 
sick and aiflicted. He was a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, a Democrat in politics, and a 
strong advocate of free schools. He was a very 
popular man, but never aspired to office. The 
mother is still living in Sebastian County, Ark., 
on the home place. She was born in 1825, and 
has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, for many years. To their union 
were born thirteen children, twelve of whom grew 
to maturity; Loxiisa E., James K. P., Mary J., 
Martha F., who died at the age of thirty eight 



years; George N., died at the age of thirtj' years: 
Elizabeth Ann, William H., Millie H.. John G., 
died at the age of thirteen years; fsaac N., Joseph 
T. , Aaron A. and Luther W. Aaron A. is now 
attending the St. Louis Medical College. James 
K. P. McKelvey was reared in his native county, 
and received limited educational advantages. In 
1864 he commenced farming for himself in Illinois, 
but one year later returned to Tennessee, to the 
old home place, where he I'emained until 1873, 
and then moved to Greene County, Ark. He 
located west of Gainesville, and soon after went 
to Sebastian County, to settle the estate of his 
father, where he remained until the fall of 1876, 
then returning and settling on his present prop- 
erty. He has 100 acres under cultivation, and is 
a thriving, industrious farmer. He was married, 
in the fall of 1863, to Miss Ferlissa A. Swindle, a 
native of Tennessee, bom in 1848, and the fruits 
of this union were ten children, all living: Will- 
iam T. , a student at the State University of Fay 
etteville, Ark. ; Italy, John, Alonzo, Horace and 
Hervey (twins), Adolphus L. , Anna L. , Clara M. 
and James R. Italy is the wife of L. C. Rudesial. 
Mr. and Mrs. McKelvey are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which he 
is local deacon; he was ordained in 1879, and com- 
menced preaching in 1874. He is a Royal Arch 
and Master Mason, belonging to the Blue Lodge 
at Gainesville, and has served as Worshipful Mas- 
ter for several years. He has a dimit from Duval 
Chapter, No. 65. He is a Democrat in politics. 
His father was a Union man during the war, and 
was opposed to secession. Mr. McKelvey is a 
strong advocate of the free school system, but has 
never sought political prominence. 

Dr. J. G. McKenzie. Among the many suc- 
cessful farmers and practitioners of the ' ' healing 
art" in Greene County, Ark., de.serving of spec- 
ial mention, is Dr. McKenzie, who was born in 
Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1851, and is the third in a 
family of seven children born to Alexander and 
Jeanette (Patterson) McKenzie, the former of 
whom was engaged in commercial pursuits, and 
conducted a boot and shoe factory. The Doctor 
attended school in his native land until nineteen 



^' 



GREENE COUNTY. 



159 



years of age, then entered tlie Alton Medical 
Collefje for a course of two years, after wbicli 
he took a finishing course of six months at the 
Itush Medical College, in 1878. Subseijuently he 
emigrated to the United States, and after remain- 
ing in New York City for some time, made a tour 
of the great lakes, and settled in Canada for 
about one year. He then went to the State of 
Illinois, and engaged in practicing the medical 
]irofessiou at Dresdon, in partnership with Dr. 
Rhodes, making his next move to Cotton Plant, 
in Southeast Missouri, and about one year later 
went to Kennett, and was associated with Dr. Har- 
vey for another year. After following his profes- 
sion in Northeastern Arkansas for some time he 
came to his present location about lS7f), purchased 
one acre of land, erected a residence, and here has 
since made his home. He has added eight and 
one half acres to his home lot, and has bought 
eighty acres of good farming land in one tract, be- 
sides eighty acres in the Cache River bottoms, 
making the last purchase in 1887. Fifty acres of 
land are cleared and under cultivation, and the rest 
is devoted to stock raising, in which he is quite ex- 
tensively engaged, making a specialty of horses 
and mules. The Doctor's practice is very large, 
and although he has lived in Greene County a 
comparatively short time, he is well and fav- 
orably known. He is also doing a commercial 
l)usiness among his friends and neighbors, and is a 
stockholder in the First National Bank of Greene 
County. He votes with the Democratic party, and 
in 1885 was postmaster of Crowley. In 188G the 
Doctor mfide a trip to Europe and visited his old 
home and the Edinburgh Exposition, which was 
being held at that time. He returned to the 
United States after al)Out a month fully convinced 
that this country was the easiest and best in which 
to acfjuire a competence. He was manied in 
November. 1878, to Miss Cynthia Ann Pevehouse, 
a native of Arkansas, and by her is the father of 
five cliildreu: Willie Alexander, Jessie Odel, who 
died at the age of six years: James, Maggie and 
Hoger Q. Dr. McKenzie's father is deceased, but 
his mother, two sisters and two brothers are living 
in retirement at Aberdeen. A brother, John G. . 



is chief engineer on a line of steamships sailing 
between Shanghai and Hong Kong. He also has 
an uncle who is captain on the ocean, and sails be- 
tween Liverpool and New Orleans. 

Judge L. L. Mack, attorney at law. The firm 
of Mack & Son is one of the leading and most 
influential at the bar in the city of Paragould. and 
gives strength to the fi'aternity. The gentlemen 
composing it are admirably adapted to the honor 
able prosecution of this most exalted of profes- 
sions, and possess that easy and interested grace of 
manner not easily acquired by the majority. Judge 
L. L. Mack was born in Maury County, Tenn., on 
the 18th of December, 1817, and is the son of Lem- 
uel D. and Mary (Taylor) Mack, natives of Rock- 
ingham County, N. C, and of Wake County, N. C, 
respectively. The parents emigrated to Teimessee 
when single, were there married and located in 
Maury County, of that State, where they remained 
for several years, and then removed to Wayne 
County, also in that State. In 1851 they removed 
to (Jreene County, Ark., locating near Gainesville, 
where they passed the remainder of their days. 
They lie buried in the cemetery at Gainesville. 
They were the parents of eleven children, of whom 
our subject Ls the eldest. He was Iwrii a cripple, 
and on that account it was thought that he would 
never amount to anything. He was reared and 
educated in Maury C!ounty, Tenn.. receiving an 
ordinary education, ami after his school day's work 
was over he l)egan the study of law, a part of the 
time with a preceptor and a portion without any. 
When in his twenty-first year he was admitted 
to the bar in Maury County, although living in 
Wayne County, and practiced in the last named 
county for about twelve years. In the year 1844 
he was elected county clerk, and filled this position 
with credit for four years. He became very 
prominently identified with the whole section of 
country for many miles. He was a candidate for 
the legislature from Wayne County, but was de- 
feated by forty -four votes. In December. 1850, 
he landed in Greene County, Ark., with his family, 
and in October of the following year settled at 
Gainesville, then the county seat. Here he began 
the struggle for life and reputation. Previous t« 



'f' 



•t 



1C)(I 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



this, in 1844, \w niarried Miss Felicia Cypert, a 
a sister of Judge Cypert, and became the father of 
eleven children, nine now living. They are named 
as follows: Rol)ert P., an attorney; Allen P.. also 
an attorney; William N. , aj>hysician; Messilla B., 
wife of P. H. Cren.shaw: EmmaW., wife of Judge 
James E. Riddiek; McCall, Thomas C. Idella A. ; 
and Sarah J. After locating in Greene County, 
Ark., he found his money scarce though a good 
sized family depended upon him for support. He 
had a little library and set to work in earnest in the 
practice of his profession, notwithstanding there 
was very little to be done in those days. How- 
ever he held on to what little there was, and in 
1855 he was elected prosecuting attorney from the 
First district, and on next election was defeated. 
In November, 1860, he was elected to the legisla- 
ture and served during that session, but later i 
resigned and was a candidate for prosecuting 
attorney fi-om the Third district. He was elected 
and served one term. In the year 1865 he was 
elected circuit judge of the same circuit and 
went off under reconstruction in 1868. In 1874 
he was elected circuit judge of the Second circuit 
without opposition, and held one term of four 
years. He was re-elected in 1878 and served until 
1882. Since that time he has turned his attention 
to his practice. The most of his life has been 
spent in serving tiie public, and in that capacity 
he has given entire satisfaction, meriting the 
respect and admiration of all by his firmness and 
advancement. As a lawyer he is a ready and 
fluent speaker, and has l>ut few superiors. A sin- 
gular, circumstance of the family is that there were 
eleven children in his father's family, of whom 
the subject of this sketch is the eldest, and eleven 
children in the wife's family, she being the young- 
est. The Judge is also the father of eleven chil- 
dren. Theie were twenty-three grandchildren 
born, and twenty-two are living at the present 
time. Judge Mack is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity and also the I. O. O. F. He and wife 
belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Kuf us A. Markham, M. D. , an energetic prac- 
titioner, is recognized throughout this State as a 
friend of and laborer in the cause and advance- 



ment of the medical profession, and has acquired 
a flattering reputation as a physician. He was 
born in Orange County, N. C. (now Durham 
County), in 1848, and is a son of Benjamin and 
Rhoda (Pritchard) Markham, who were born in 
North Carolina. The father was the eldest of nine 
children and grew to matiirity in his native State, 
after which he emigrated we.stward to Tennessee, 
where he was engaged in teaching school for some 
time. He returned to the old home place, and at 
the age of forty years located within three miles 
of the old home, where he lived until his death, in 
1866, at the age of sixty-three years, rearing there 
a family of five children, all of whom are living. 
His wife was born in 1807 and died in 1861, and 
she, as well as her husband, was a member of the 
Baptist Church, the latter being a deacon in the 
same for twenty years. The grandfather was bom 
and reared in the Carolinas, and the great grand- 
father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War: he 
reared a large family of children. He lived to be 
over ninety years of age, and had several sons who 
also lived to extreme old age, one lacking seven 
days of b(>ing ninety-nine years old at the time of 
his death. Dr. Rufus A. Markham' s brothers and 
sisters are as follows: Eliza Ann, Felix G., James 
D. and Martha J. Dr. Markham remained at 
home until the death of his parents and acquired a 
fair education in the district schools and at Dur- 
ham, N. C. In 1870 he came to West Tennessee 
and the following year removed to Greene County, 
Ark. In 1874 he went to Texas, where he en- 
gaged in teaching school. After returning to Ar- 
kansas he was appointed, in 1876, to the office of 
deputy clerk of Greene County. In 1878 he began 
the study of medicine under Dr. M. V. Cam)), 
now of Walnut Ridge, Ark., and soon after entered 
the Missouri Medical College, of St. Louis, from 
which institution he graduated in 1885, though 
previous to graduating he bf.d practiced in Greens- 
boro from 1880 until 1884. After graduating he 
came to Gainesville, where he has since been en- 
gaged in the active practice of his profession, and 
is ranked among the leading ph3'sicians of the 
county. He was married in the fall of 1880 to 
Miss Maggie Steadman, who was born in Chatham 



.JL S> 



l^ 



GREENE COUNTY. 



Kil 



("onnty, N. C. in 1845, and died in October, 1888, 
having become tl>e mother of three children : Ed- 
ward L. , James C. and Rufus P. The last child 
died in infancy, soon after the mother's death. 
She was an active worker and member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. The Doctor is a 
member of the Baptist Church. He belongs to 
the A. F. & A. M. , and is in every respect a self- 
made man. 

W. H. Martin, a fanner of Blue Cane Town- 
ship, was born in Caldwell County, N. C, in 1832, 
and is the son of William R. and Anna (Hood) 
Martin, who were of English and Scotch ancestry 
respectively, and were natives and farmers of the 
••Old North State." W. H. Martin resided in his 
native State until sixteen years of age, when he left 
home and went to Union County, 111., where he 
engaged in the sawmill business as a hand sawyer. 
He was married there in 1856 to Mary Jane Hart- 
line, a daughter of John and Margaret (Kendel- 
mau) Hartline. who were among the pioneer set- 
tlers of that county and State, from North Caro- 
lina. The father was a farmer by occupation and 
died some years ago. The mother is still living. 
Mr. Martin remained in Illinois until INGti, when 
he went to Texas, where he purchased an im- 
proved farm and remained until the fall of IS'iU. 
Selling his property, he came to Greene County, 
purchasing an improved farm on Crowley's Ridge. 
Here his wife died in 1880, having borne a family 
of six children, three of whom survive: Willis 
A., Walter L., and Eliza Jane. The latter is the 
wife of C. L. Sides, and resides on Crowley's 
Ridge. In the fall of 1880 Mr. Martin married 
Mrs. J. F. Lewis, a widow of Jacob Lewis, of 
Stodihud County. Mo.: he was reared in Illinois, 
where he resided on a farm until 1809, when he 
came to Greene County, Ark., and l)ought eighty 
acres of land, which he improved and added to. 
He was conservative in politics. He died in 1871) 
and left his widow with two children to care for: 
William Franklin and Myrtle May. Mr. Martin 
owns lands to the amoiuit of 480 acres, 200 being 
under cultivation, and has taken an interest in 
fruit culture, having on his home farm a tine or- 
chard. He raises and buys considerable stock. 



and is one of the successful farmers of the county. 
He votes with the Democratic party, and has been 
a member of the school board ever since his resi 
dence in Arkansas. Socially, he is a member of 
the A. F. & .\. M., Danley Lodge No. 8, and is 
a member of the Kniglits of Honor, at Rector. He 
and wife are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and are the jjarents of one chihl: Edgar 
C. Mr. Martin has seen many changes in the 
growth and ])rosperity of the county since coming 
here; he often wont to Cape Girardeau, a distance 
of 125 miles, to do his marketing, when now it is 
only necessary to go a very few miles to obtain all 
the articles one desires. 

J. R. Miller, deputy circuit and county clerk, 
and a prominent educator of the county for a num- 
ber of years, was born in Gordon County, Ga., 
April 8, 1856, and came to Greene County, Ark., 
in 1879. His father. W. W. Miller, was a native 
of South Carolina, where he followed agricultural 
pursuits for some time, and, when a young man. 
moved to Georgia. Here he was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Amelia Erwiii, a native of the last 
mentioned State and the daughter of James Erwin. 
The grandparents, Archibald and Hannah Miller, 
were of English stock. After coming to Greene 
County, Ark., J. R. Miller engaged in agricultural 
pursuits, which had been his principal occupation 
while in Georgia, and h(? has also been occupied in 
the teacher's profession for several years. He set- 
tled oh a farm near Gainesville, cultivating sixty 
acres or more, and has a fine residence. He was 
married December 26, 1883, to Miss Mattie Hamp- 
ton, daughter of M. B. and M. C. (Stevenson) 
Hampton, of Greene County, formerly of Shell)y 
County, Tenn. One child is the result of this un- 
ion, a daughter, named Minnie May. The mother 
of Mr. Miller makes her home with him. In his 
political views he atHIiates with the Democratic 
party, and in January. 1889, he was appointed to 
the position of deputy circuit clerk l>y Mr. T. B. 
Kitchens. Mr. and Mrs. Miller are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. South. 

James F. Newberry, apromiiuMit and highly re- 
spected farmer of Greene County, was born in Ala 
bama in 1844, and is the son of John Newberry, 



who came to this State in 1854. Here he engaged 
in farming and was for two years justice of the 
peace. At the breaking out of the Civil War he 
entered the Confederate service under Gen. Joseph 
E. Johnston, and was killed in 1862. He reared a 
family of six children, five sons and one daughter. 
James F. Newberry was in the Confederate service 
during the entire war, and was wounded in the left 
leg. In 1864 he returned to his farm in Greene 
County, and devoted himself to its improvement. 
He then owned 100 acres, which he has since in- 
creased to 425. A part of his farm is under 
cultivation, and he is also interested in raising 
cattle and tine mules. He married Marj' Mor- 
gan, who bore him six children and died in 1880, 
aged thirty years. He chose as his second wife 
Mrs. Charity (Dennis) Ross, and to their union 
have been given four childi-en. The nine chil- 
dren are: Robert E., born in 1865; Martha C, 
born in 1867, died in 1880; Sarah F., born in 
1870; John E., born in 1872; Isabella, born in 
1874: Laura E. , born in 1881; James J., born 
in 1883, died in 1884: Jennie B., born in 1885, 
and Myrtle G., born in 1887, died in 1889. Mr. 
Newberry is a stanch Democrat in politics, and 
he and his wife are popular in the community 
in which they live. 

W. C. Newberry is in every way worthy of 
being classed among the prosperous planters of 
Greene County, Ark. He was born in Weakley 
County, West Tenn., in 1852, and was the sixth 
of eleven children born to Samuel and Nancy 
(Trantham) Newberry, the former a native of 
North Carolina, and the latter of Tennessee. In 
1854 they moved to Greene County, Ark., and 
settled near the farm on which W. C. Newberry 
is now residing, where they entered land and re 
sided until their respective deaths, the father's 
demise occurring in February, 1874, and the 
mother's in 1883. They took quite an important 
part in the early history of the country, and the 
father assisted in organizing the county. W. C. 
Newberry received his early education in the dis- 
trict schools of Greene County, and aided at home 
in opening up his father's farm. He was married 
in Greene County, in 1872, to Miss Martha Jane 



McHaney, who was born in Arkansas, and is a 
daughter of John and Sally (Sims) McHaney. 
Tennesseeans. Mr. Newberry soon located on his 
present farm of 120 acres, about tifty five acres of 
which he has cleared and put under cultivation. 
He has added to his original purchase until he now 
has 200 acres of as good land as there is in the 
county, with 110 under the plow, the principal 
products of which are corn and cotton. Mr. New- 
berry is inde])endent in jiolitics, and is not an office- 
seeker. In 1874 he lost his wife, and four years 
later he was married to Mary H. Hartso, of Arkan- 
sas. His first union was blessed by one sou, 
Samuel; and his last by four children: Luther, 
Clifton, Charley and Tuler. His wife is a daugh- 
ter of William and Sarah (McFarland) Hartso, 
who came to Arkansas at an early day. The 
father is still living, but the mother is deceased. 
Mr. Newberry has been active in aiding <ill laud- 
able enterprises, and is one of the self made men 
of the county. 

John Nntt, fanner and stock raiser, of Greene 
County, Ark., is one of its foremost men in the 
support of all measures for its progress and devel- 
opment. He was born in Shelby County, Tenn. , 
and grew to manhood on his father's farm, there 
receiving his education in the county schools. 
His father. William Nutt, was a native of Alabama, 
and moved from that State to Tennessee in 1827. 
There he engaged very successfully in farming, 
and, being a minister of the gospel, devoted much 
time to his Master's cause. He reared a family 
of eleven children, four of whom are yet living. 
All his life he was faithful to his ideas of right 
and duty, and died in 1844. John Nutt has dur- 
ing his life engaged in farming, and now owns 520 
acres of splendid land in this county, and 600 acres 
in Lawrence County. He has given some attention 
to stock-raising, and now has many good horses and 
mules. To him and wife have been born six chil 
dren, and five of them have grown to manhood 
and womanhood. They are three sons and two 
daughters: William C. , George W., Sampson M. , 
Lavina E. and Nancy Ann. Mr. Nutt is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic order, and he and wife are 
worthy members of the Baptist Church. 



^^ 



GREENE COUNTY. 



H)8 



John M. Nutt. The fine quality of the soil in 
(Ireene County, Ark. , added to energy and good 
management, ha.s placed Mr. Nutt among the pros- 
perous farmers of the community. He was boru 
on the old homestead near his own farm on the 
14th of January, 1863, being the eleventh of four- 
teen children born to W. G. and Sarah (Ellis) 
Nutt, the former a native of Alabama, and the 
latter of Maryland. The father came with his 
parents to what is now Greene County in 1839, 
and settled with them on a farm near Gainesville, 
where the parents died. He was married in 
Greene County and became a very wealthy farmer, 
being the owner of 2, 500 acres of land, with 600 
acres under cultivation. He always votes with 
the Democratic party, and socially is a member of 
Gainesville Lodge No. 168. He is a member of 
the Baptist Church, and his wife is a Methodist. 
The maternal grandfather was a very early resi- 
dent of Arkansas, and was a soldier in the Mexican 
war. John M. Nutt has always resided in Greene 
County, and in liis youth attended the common 
schools; this with a few years spent at Howell, Mo., 
has enabled him to successfully cope with tickle 
fortune. When first starting out in life for him- 
self he began tilling the soil on the farm where he 
now lives, his acreage amounting to 167 J, eighty 
acres being under the plow. The most of this he 
cleared himself, and nOw has one of the best farms 
in the county. He was married in Greene County 
in 1887 to Miss Lulu, a daughter of W. G. But- 
ternut aud wife, nee Skiles, all being natives of 
Tennessee, who came to Greene County in 1871. 
The parents are living in the county. Mr. Nutt 
always votes the Republican ticket, but is not a 
seeker after office, and has ever been deeply inter- 
ested in educational matters. His wife is a mem- 
ber of the Baptist Church. Their union has been 
blessed in the birth of one child : Ivery. 

John Odam is of the mercantile firm of McCon- 
nell & Odam, Parat;ould. In scannine the sketches 
of Greene County, Ark., one fact must strike the 
reader with peculiar force: the high standing at- 
tained by its business men. It is known to have 
a thoroughly (pialified business population, and 
Mr. Odam is a leading light among the number. 



He was born in Hardin County, 111.. August Ti, 
1832, and received such educational advantages as 
the schools of those days afforded. Until thirty- 
three years of age he assisted his father on the 

; farm, and then went to Crittenden County, Ky., 

i where he was engaged in the hotel and lumber 
business for about ten years. After this he went 
to Dyer County, Tenn., there following saw- 
milling, having a mill built on a steamboat, and 

I taking the timber from the river. He was also 
occupied in merchandising for about four years. 
In January, 1888, he came to Paragould, Ai-k. , 
where he bought his present property and immedi- 
ately embarked in the mercantile business under 
the present firm name. He carries a good stock 
of general merchandise and has a thriving trade. 
He was married in 1S62, but lost his wife the fol- 

I lowing year. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, having joined that order in 1862. Mr. 
Odam's parents, Cleyburn and Mary (McConnell) 
Odam, were natives of Middle Tennessee and 
Maysville, Ky. , respectively. The mother emi- 
grated from Kentucky to Illinois in 1816, when 
the last named State was a Territory, and the 
father came to the same State about 1 820. They 
were mai-ried there and located in Hardin County, 
where the father successfully cultivated the soil. 
He died August 5, 1834, of Asiatic cholera. In 
their family were two children: John and Sarah, 
wife of Thomas McConnell. After the death of her 
husband Mrs. Odam married Mr. Commodore P. 
Tadlock, by whom she had five children, three 
now living: Edward J., Jonathan L., and Nancy J. 
The mother died in 1858. 

John O'Steen, ex-county and probate judge, 
and merchant, Paragould. In these days of 
money-making, when life is a constant struggle 
between right and wrong, it is a pleasure to lay 
before an intelligent reader the unsullied record 
of an honorable man. To the youthful it will be 
a useful lesson— an incentive to honest industry. 
John O' Steen was born in Panola County. Miss., 
on Ajn-il 27, 1845, and is the son of Harvey and 
Elizabeth (True) O'Steen, both of Scotch origin. 
The parents were married in Alaliania, and in 
1834 removed to Panola County, Miss., wher- tli.' 



® fc^ 



KU 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



mothor died in 1S52. Tlip father passed his last 
days in Craighead County, Ark., dying there in 
1865. Of the seven children born to this mar- 
riage, three are now living: Mary, wife of W. G. 
Starling; John, and Samuel. The father was a 
blacksmith, and also a gunsmith, which occupation 
he followed up to the time of his death. John 
O'Steen was partly reared and educated in Panola 
County, Miss., but moved with his father to Craig- 
head County, Ark., in 18511. He went to work in 
the shop, learning the gunsmith trade of his father, 
and now has the reputation of being the finest 
gunsmith in Northeast Arkansas. In 1862, during 
the late war, he was very anxious to become a sol- 
dier, but could not obtain the consent of his par- 
ents. His mind was so wrapi)ed up in it that, 
notwithstanding all obstacles, he ran away from 
home, and enlisted in Capt. Adair's company, 
serving about three years. He was in several hard 
skirmishes, but, on account of being a cripple, he 
could not keep up with his command, and in con- 
sequence was captured by scouts, who kept him in 
custody about two weeks. In 1870 he chose for 
his partner in life Miss Bethany A. Jones, a native 
of Alabama, and the fruits of this union were two 
children: Mary A. and Nora Inez. The same year 
of his marriage Judge O'Steen came to Greene 
County. Ark., and carried on his trade until 1888. 
when he sold out. and engaged in the mercantile 
business, which he still continues. He was elected 
probate and county judge in 1882, and re-elected 
in 1884 and 1886. thus serving six successive 
years. Prior to his election he served four years 
as justice of the peace, and served one term as 
constable. Judge O'Steen is one of the prominent 
men of Greene County, and may be counted among 
the pioneers, having been a resident here for thirty 
years. He is the owner of 16(1 acres of land, with 
about forty acres under cultivation. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, and also of the I. 
O. O. F. 

Eugene Parrish. of the law firm of Crowley & 
Parrish. was born in Dover, Stewart (Jonnty, Tenn., 
and is the son of Abraham P. and Mary M. (In- 
gram) Parrish, natives respectively of Virginia and 
Tennessee. Abraham P. Parrish emigrated to 



Tennessee when quite small, grew to manhood in 
that State, and there received a liberal education. 
For many years before the war he ran a fvu'nace at 
Dover, Tenn., but during that eventful period he 
was financially crippled and retired to a farm in 
Humphreys County, on the banks of the Tennessee 
River, where he is residing at the present time. 
He is now in his seventy second year. The mother 
died when Eugene Parrish was quite young. Of 
the children born to this marriage, two are now 
living: Charles and Eugene. After the death of 
his first wife Mr. Parrish, was married again and 
became the father of three children: Lamar, 
Walter L. and Daisy. Grandfather Parrish was 
a soldier in the Revolutionary War. and died in 
Virginia. Eugene Parrish was princijiall)' i^eared 
in Tennessee, and received his education at West 
Kentucky College and at the University of Ohio, ob- 
taining the means to prosecute his studies by teach- 
ing school between terms until he completed his 
education. He was admitted to the bar at Jonesboro 
in 18S4, located at Wittsburg, Cross County, and 
there remained until June, 1885, when ho settled 
at Paragoiild, Ark. He was associated with J. D. 
Block, present prosecuting attorney at Wittsburg, 
and, on coming to Paragould, he formed a partner- 
ship with B. H. Crowley, the present senator of 
the First district, and a very noted and prominent 
man. This law firm has one of the finest libraries 
in Northeast Arkansas, and both members are men 
of ability. Mr. Parrish is a self made, self-edu- 
cated man. and is well fitted for the profession he 
has chosen. 

Seth W. Peebles, one of the many successful 
agriculturists and stock raisers of Greene County, 
Ark., and one who has attained wealth by the 
sweat of his brow, is classed among the prosper- 
ous men of the county. He was born in North 
Carolina in 1825, and is the eldest one of the 
family of six children born to the marriage of 
Wyatt and Nancy (Biggs) Peebles, who were born 
in North Carolina and emigrated to Virginia, where 
they were engaged in husbandry. The mother 
died in that State, and subsequently the father 
emigrated to Greene County, Ark., and in 1842 
settled near Greensboro, where he became well and 




favorably known, and served as sheriff of the 
county six years. He died in December, 1876. 
Seth W. Peebles has been familiar with farm life 
from earliest youth, and received his education in 
the schools of Virginia. He began his independent 
career as a farmer in 1846, in Tennessee, and was 
married there in December of the following year 
to Miss Catherine Mingle, a native of Virginia, and 
a daughter of William and Rebecca (Kagley) Min- 
gle, who were also Virginians and early emigrants 
to Tennessee, in which State the father died. His 
wife's death occurred in Arkansas in 1864. Mr. 
Peebles became a resident of Greene County, Ark., 
in 1855, and in 1859 bought a partially improved 
farm in Union Township, consisting of 160 acres, of 
which he improved and cleared forty acres. Besides 
this property he owns the old homestead of 117 
acres, sixty of which are under cultivation. He has 
always been interested in [wlitics and has aflMiated 
with the Democratic party, but is not an office- 
seeker. He has been a member of the school 
board several times and assisted in the re- organiza- 
tion of the townships. In 1872 his wife died, 
having borne a family of six children: Nancy Jane, 
Rebecca E., who died in February, 1S77, the wife 
of Joel Dollins; George W., who died in 1886; ! 
John M., who died in October, 1878; Sarah Ann. 
wife of J. P. Walls, who died in 1880; and James 
L.. who also died in 1880. In 1863 Mr. Peebles 
enlisted in Company K. Seventh Missouri Con- 
federate cavalry, and was with Price on his raid 
through Missouri, Kansas, etc. He was wounded I 
in the Mine Creek light in Kansas, receiving a gun- 
shot through the right lung. Since the war he 
has been engaged in farming. He is a consistent 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
Wiley Pevehouse. In giving a sketch of this 
gentleman it is but fair to say that he is one of the 
prominent farmers of Greene County, Ark., and 
that h(> is a man of sound judgment and unim- 
j)eachable honesty. He was born on Crowley's 
Ridge, in Greene County, on the '2d of July, 1828, 
being the second child born there, his brother 
William, whose birth occurred April 7, 1826, hav- 
ing been tirst. He was the fourth child of Abraham 
and Polly (Crowley) Pevehouse, who came to 



Arkansas at an early day. [For a history of the 
Crowley family see sketch of Hon. B. H. Crowley. ] 
After spending a year on Black River they came 
to Crowley's Ridge, and made the first settlement 
in Northeast Arkansas. The paternal grandjiar 
ents were of Virginia stock, and moved from that 
State to South Carolina, and thence to Kentucky, 
of which section they were pioneers, about 1822 
coming to Arkansas. The parents of our subject 
died about 1835, and from that time up to man- 
hood he made his homo with his grandfather, Ben- 
jamin Crowley. The latter was a very extensive 
farmer and stock raiser, and Mr. Pevehouse drove 
stock all the way to St. Louis, and later to Mem- 
phis and Helena. During his childhood he de- 
pended on his own resources for a livelihood and 
hunted and sold his furs and hides, and later 
farmed in a small way. When about twenty years 
of age he entered land, subsequently buying small 
tracts from time to time, and in the spring of 18()1 
sold out aiid went to Scott County, where he re- 
mained about eighteen months, then returning to 
the Cache bottoms. When some twenty-five years 
of age he w;w married to Miss Margaret Ca])ps. a 
native of Arkansas, whose family were early set 
tiers in this section. She died in 1858, leaving 
two children: Sarah, who married a Mr. Harris, 
and died soon after, and Cynthia Ann, wife of Dr. 
McKinzie, now living at Crowley. Mr. Pevehouse 
took for his second wife Miss Frances Bowman, 
whom he married in 1860. Her death occurred on 
the 13th of October, 1870. She and Mr. Peve- 
house were the parents of the following children; 
William, who is married and resides in Lawrence 
County; Lucy Jane, the wife of George Gramling; 
John P., who died on the 81.st of March. 1SS8. at 
the age of twenty-two years: and Mary Elizabeth. 
February 16, 1873, Mr. Pevehouse married Mrs. 
Sarah Ann (Cooper) Allen, a native of Mississi])pi, 
who was reared in Tennessee, and came to Arkansas 
with her fiist husband, settling in Lawrence 
{'ouiity. In 1876 he purchased his ])resent pro]i 
erty of 160 acres, of which al>out five acres wen' 
cleared, and now has ninety-five acres in a tiIlHl>ii' 
condition and well imju'oved with good buildings, 
orchard, etc. His principal crops are corn and 



16() 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



cotton, and he gives much attention to stock 
raising of a good grade, and also to the culture of 
bees. He is public spirited, and has held the 
offices of de[)uty sheriff and county clerk. In 
1864 he enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
was with Price on his raid through Missouri, but 
being in poor health was left at Boonville. where 
he received good attention, and was soon after 
paroled and retm-ned home. The close of the war 
left him destitute, and since that time he has made 
his present property. 

I. H. Pillow, deputy sheriff, farmer and stock 
raiser of Greene County, Ark. , is a native of Giles 
County, Tenn., where he was born in 1851, being 
a son of Levi and Elizabeth (Willcockson) Pillow, 
also natives of that State. They came to Greene 
County, Ark., in 1851, settling on the farm 
on which the subject of this sketch is now living. 
The father made some valuable improvements on 
his place of 320 acres, and at the time of his death, 
in 1862, had cleared thirty acres from timber. In 
1862 he enlisted in Capt. Clemens" company. Gen. 
Pillow's brigade, and at the tight at Fort Pillow 
became overheated, from the effects of which he 
died seven days latei-. He was a Democrat polit- 
ically, a Methodist in religious belief, and was a 
man always noted for his public spirit and benevo- 
lence. He left a widow and three children to 
mourn his loss, the names of the latter being: I. 
H., Sina M., wife of F. F. Martin, a farmer of 
Greene County, and Sarah A. , wife of N. A. 
Danley, also u farmer of Greene County. Mrs. 
Pillow was left to care for her cliildren with but 
little means, but with the aid of her son, she suc- 
ceeded in doing well for them. I. H. Pillow re- 
ceived only a limited education in his youth, but, 
assisted by his mother, witli subsequent api)lica- 
tiou he has become a practical and intelligent 
business man. December 28, 1872, he was mar- 
ried to Miss Martha, a daughter of Absalom and 
Mary (Cobal) Arn(^I, Teunesseeans, and by hor be- 
came the father of two chUdi-en; Mary E. and 
Annie Elnora. Mrs. Pillow died on the 29th of 
September, 1875, and November 26, 1876, he 
wedded Mrs. Martha (Newsom) Wood, a daughter 
of Henry and Grace A. Newsom, natives of Mis- 



sissippi. To this last marriage four children have 
been born: Ida Lee, Joseph Henry, Thomas A. 
and Charley. Ninety acres of his 160-acre farm are 
under cultivation, and well improved and culti- 
vated. His orchard is large and well selected and 
his crop is usually extensive. He is interested in 
stock-breeding, and has a fine Norman and Morgan 
stallion. His cattle are of the Durham breed, and 
his hogs are Berkshire and Jersey. During the 
fall, for the past fifteen years, he has oi)erated a 
threshing machine. Mr. Pillow, his wife, and two 
daughters are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, in which he is a class leader, and in his 
political views he is a stanch Democrat, having 
been elected on that ticket, in 1887, to the office of 
deputy sheriff, which position he has very accept 
ably filled up to the present time. 

Robert \V. Pruet, a well known and successful 
farmer of the county, was born in East Tennessee 
in 1825, and is the third in a family of fifteen 
children born to Willis and Mary (Williams) Pruet, 
who were also Tennesseeans, the paternal and 
maternal grandparents being from North Carolina 
and Virginia, respectively. Grandfather Pruet 
was a participant in the Creek war, and was at the 
battle of Horseshoe Bend. The maternal grand- 
parents lived to be very old, reaching the age of 
ninety and one hundred years. Willis Pruet was an 
extensive land holder in Tennessee, and dealt in 
stock, being a prominent and influential citizen of 
his time. He died in August, 1850. Robert A\'. 
Pruet was reared to farm labor, attended the com- 
mon schools, and after attaining his majority en- 
gaged in stock dealing, and also kept a country store 
for some time. In 1851 be was married to a Miss 
Stuart, a native of Illinois, and in 1853, in com 
pany with three brothers, came to Northeast Ar- 
kansas and settled in Greene County, where he 
entered 120 acres, on which he at once located 
and began improving. In 1858 he sold his pro[)- 
erty with the intention of going to Texas, but in- 
stead purchased 160 acres of wild land in St. 
Francis Township, 100 acres of which he now has 
under excellent cultivation, furnished with good 
buildings and orchards. He devotes the most of 
his land to general farming, and raises cotton, corn, 



-IL. 



GREENE COUNTY. 



IftT 



and the smaller grains, the land yielding a good 
average. He is trying to improve his stock and is 
going to cross his cattle with Jersey. In 1872, in 
jsartnership with his brother, C D. Pruet, he 
opened a general store on his brother's fcarm, ami 
they carried on an extensive business for many 
years. In 1862 he and two brothers, with several 
brothers in-law, enlisted in the Twenty-fifth Ar- 
kansas Infantry, but he served only seven months, 
when he was discharged on account of illness, at 
Georgetown, Ky. In 1870 Mrs. Pruet died, and 
for several years Mr. Pruet resided with his 
brother. In 1877 he married Frances Owens, who 
was born in West Tennessee, though reared in Ar- 
kansas, to which State she was brought by her 
father. Dr. Owens, who practiced in this vicinity 
for a number of years, and died from an accidental 
fall from his horse. Mr. Pruet is an active 
worker in church and school matters, and is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
the building in which he worships being on ground 
donated by himself; this was erected by means 
contributed mostly by the Pruet brothers. Mr. 
Pruet is one of the original members of the first 
church organized in this section in 1858. 

W. S. Pruet. Prominent among the much es- 
teemed and respected citizens of Paragould stands 
the name of Mr. Pniet, who was born in Koane 
County, Tenn. , September 27, 1829, and who is 
the son of Willis and Polly E. (Williams) Pruet, 
natives also of Roane County, Tenn. Willis Pruet 
was a very successful man, both as a farmer and 
speculator. He died in Memphis in 1851, while 
there on business. The mother died in ISdO. in 
Greene County, Ark. Their family consisted of 
fifteen children, nine of whom lived to be grown, 
but only two now living: Robert and Willis S. 
The paternal and maternal grandparents were na 
tives of Virginia and North Carolina, respectively, 
and were early settlers of Tennessee. The pater- 
nal great-grandfather was in the Indian wars. 
M'illis S. Pruet. the subject of this sketch, was 
reared on a farm in Roane Count}'. Tenn., and in 
that county received his education. In 1857 he 
came to Greene County, Ark. . when there were 
very few settlers, and when the city of Gainesville 



was represented by one business house and a clap- 
board hotel. He located about four miles south 
of what is now Paragould, on a farm in the forest, 
put up a little house, built of poles with clapboard 
roof, and lived in this style for about eighteen 
months, when his cabin burned down. He then 
put up a good log house, and lived there until 
1869, when he moved to his present location, join- 
ing the town of Paragould. He bought 27 1 acres 
of laud along the railroad, and the principal part 
of the town lies on his land. When he first came 
to the county he had but $ 1 . 50, and neither a cow 
nor horse; but ho was determined to make a start, 
and by his industry and perseverance has accom 
plished his pur|)ose, and is now one of the sub- 
stantial men of the locality. He has about 600 
acres of good land, and is also the owner of con 
siderable town proi)erty in Paragould. He con- 
tributes liberally to all worthy enterprises, and has 
been active in his endeavors to build up the town. 
In 1851 he married Miss Elizabeth Tucker, a na- 
tive of Alabama, by whom he has three children 
living: Julia, Sarah and Theresa. In 1862 Mr. 
Pruet enlisted in Capt. Pruet' s company, and 
served for three years. He was at the battles of 
Farmington, Murfreesboro, Richmond, Shiloh arid 
Jackson, Miss., and carried his brother, who was 
severely wounded, twice from the battle-field. He 
is a member of the lirm of D. D. Hodges & Co.. 
merchants of Paragould; is also dealing consider- 
ably in stock, and it may be noted that Mr. Pruet 
has been, and is. a leading spirit of the place. 
He and wife are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

(Japt. Charles D. Pruet (deceased) was one of 
four brothers who came from Tennessee to Arkan- 
sas in 1857. and engaged in farming and stock 
raising, and various other enterprises. He was 
born in Roane County, Tenn., in 1827, and was 
married on the 28d of January, 1847, to Miss 
Caroline M. Nelson. After coming to Greene 
County, Ark., he entered a tract of laud on which 
he located and began improving. In 1S62 he 
joined the Confederate forces, being lieutenant <>f 
his company, and was soon after advanced to the 
rank of captain, and was in the army twenty two 




mouths, participating in the most of the battles in 
which the Army of the Cuuil)erland was enj^ageil. 
He was wounded in the engagement at Chicka- 
manga, and also at Mnrfreesboro, so severely in 
the latter battle that he was compelled to re- 
turn home. In 1870 he embarked in mercantile 
])ursuits on his farm, in partnership with his 
brother Robert, and did a thriving business there 
for ten years. In the fall of 1882 he started a 
general store in the then new town of Paragould. 
being one of the first merchants of the place, and 
was alone in business until 1886, when he formed 
a partnership with D. D. Hodges, and the firm 
name was changed to C. D. Pruet & Co.. remain- 
ing as such until Mr. Pruet' s death on the 20th 
of August. 1887. He was a prominent Mason, 
and was buried \>y that order. He operated a 
cotton gin on his farm for many years, and was 
engaged in stock raising and dealing. He left a 
fine farm of over 500 acres, the most of which was 
in a high state of cultivation, and also left behind 
him a name that will long be remembered, for he 
was honest, industrious and enterprising, and 
known to be a stanch supporter of church and 
educational institutions. He was well-known 
throughout the country as a man of unimpeachable 
honesty, and was possessed of exceptionally fine 
business qualifications, and natural characteristics 
which won the respect of all. He contributed 
the most of the means for the erection of a church 
near his home, and ilid much to build up the town 
of Paragould. being one of the best business men 
of the place. He was followed to his long home 
by numerous friends and neighbors who had 
known and loved him in life, and is now sleeping 
in the cemetery near the scene of his greatest 
usefulness. He was married in 1875 to Miss Irene 
McElwee. a native of Tennessee, who came to 
Arkansas with her mother in 1878. Her father, 
Samuel McElwee. was an extensive farmer and 
died in 18B5. Mrs. Pruet" s mother resides with 
her on the homestead in Arkansas. 

George M. Rosengrant, manufacturer of lum- 
ber and cooperage, Paragould. Ark. The business 
interests of this portion of the country are well 
represented by the subject of this sketch, George 



M. Rosengrant, who bas been located long enough 
at this i)lace to become firmly established. He 
was born in Wyandot County. Ohio, in October, 
1855, and is the son of James and Lenora (Con- 
nor) Rosengrant, both natives of the Buckeye 
State. The father was a large stock dealer, and 
is now deceased. George M. Rosengrant grew to 
manhood in Guernsey County, of his native State, 
received his education in the common schools, and 
subsequently attended the college at Antrim, Ohio. 
At the age of sixteen he began to learn telegraphy, 
which he continued for five years for the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company. He then engaged in 
the lumber business in Wyandot County, Ohio, 
where he caiTied on a good trade until 1884, when 
he came to Greene County, Ark., and located at 
Paragould. Here he established his present busi- 
ness and has been occupied in the manufacture of 
lumber ever since. He added the cooperage de- 
partment in the winter of 1888. He runs a large 
mill and employs on an average fifty men. In the 
year 1883 he chose Miss Kitty Jurenall, a native 
of Wyandot County, Ohio, for his companion in 
life. Mr. Rosengrant averages about $75,000 
annually from his mill business, and aside from 
this he is the owner of 5,000 acres of land, all of 
which has valuable timber thereon. He is a sub- 
stantial, representative business man, is a member 
of the Knights of Pythias, and a progressive, en- 
terprising citizen of the county. 

T. T. Ross. Few men have attained greater 
prominence in Greene County, in a social as well as 
business point of view, than has Mr. Ross, who by 
his pleasant and courteous manner has made many 
friends and built up a successful trade. He was 
born in Kentucky, in 1826, and is the son of Caleb 
and Alifal (Hutchison) Ross, and the grandson of 
William Ross, who was born in Maryland, and 
came to Kentucky at an early day. Caleb Ross was 
also a native of Maryland, and was there married 
to Miss Hutchison. T. T. Ross left his native 
State in 1873, emigrating to Greene Coimty. Ark., 
and locating on a farm two miles north of where 
Marmaduke is now standing. This land he opened 
up and improved eighty acres, erected buildings and 
remained on the same for about five years, when he 




sold out and moved to the village of Marmadvike. 
Here he has since been engaged in merchandising, 
and has built up a good trade. Ho has a conven- 
ient, substantial building for that purpose, two 
stories high, the upper portion of which is used for 
a dwelling. He was married, in Kentucky, to Miss 
Martha Coles Otey, who died, leaving two chil- 
dren: C. H. , who resides in Greene County, mar- 
ried, and the father of two children; and Susan, 
who married L. C. Harvey, a farmer of Greene 
County, and has two children. Mr. Ross was 
married to the sister of his lirst wife. Miss Eliza- 
beth Otey, and they are the parents of three chil- 
dren: Frances Orlena, wife of James Stone, re- 
sides one and a half miles from Marmaduke and 
has four childj-en; Margaret A., wife of A. B. Har- 
vey, is living in Marmaduke and keeps the hotel, 
also being engaged in farming, and has live chil- 
dren; and W. A., a merchant of Marmaduke. Mr. 
Ross is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
Evergreen Lodge of the I. O. O. ¥. He has been a 
member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church 
since eighteen years of age. 

Dr. Jefferson Davis Sibert, an eminent physician 
of Walcott, Greene County, Ark., was born in Ala- 
bama in 1858 and is the youngest of a family of six 
childien, born to the marriage of Henry Sibert and 
Dorcas Edwards, who were also born in Alabama, 
the former being an extensive farmer and mer- 
chant. The paternal grandfather, David Sibert, 
was engaged in farming in South Carolina and was 
a soldier in the Indian wars. He removed to Ala- 
bama in 1834 and bought extensive tracts of land 
in the northeast part of that State, on which he 
died in 1874 at the extreme old age of 100 
years. The maternal grandfather, Jesse Edwards, 
came to Alabama and also settled in the northeast 
part of the State. He purchased his lauds from 
the Indians, and was one of the most extensive real 
estate holders of the State. His death occurred 
in 1868. Henry Sibert, the father of our subject, 
was reared on a farm and did much to improve 
the large tracts of land bought by his father. At 
the breaking out of the late Civil War ho enlisted 
in the Third Alabama and .served throughout the 
struggle, thirteen months of this time being spent 
I I 



in prison. His uncle, Jeptha Edwards, was a col- 
onel in the Mexican War, also in the late war, and 
has represented his county in the State legisla- 
ture, being a well known citizen of Alabama. After 
the war Mr. Sibert engaged in farming and mer- 
cantile pursuits, and he and wife are now residing 
on the old homestead in Northeast Alabama. At 
the age of fourteen years. Dr. Jefferson Davis Si- 
bert entered Andrews' Institute and finished a 
course of five years, after which h<^ immediately 
began the study of medicine, entering the medical 
department of the Vanderbilt I'niversity, at Nash 
ville, Tenn., in 1880, and graduating as an M. D. 
in 1882. In the spring of that year he commenced 
practicing his profession near his old home, but 
came to Greene County, Ark. , at the end of one 
year. After residing here a year, he returned 
to his native State and practiced three years. Since 
that time he has j)ermanently located at Walcott, 
Ark., where he enjoys a large practice, and is be- 
coming well known in this, as well as other counties. 
He has a pleasant home in the town and is highly 
esteemed by his neighbors. In 1 887 he was united 
in marriage to Miss Victorine Crowley, a daughter 
of Capt. Crowley, whose sketch appears in this 
work. By her he has one child, a bright little 
daughter named Eleanor. The Doctor has two 
brothers who are practicing physicians of Alabama, 
and another brother who is an extensive farmer 
and stock raiser of that State. 

Joseph P. Smelser is classed among the worthy 
and leading tillers of the soil of Greene County, 
of which he is a native, having been born in 1858. 
He was a son of John W. and Nancy (Clark) Smelser, 
who were born on Kentucky soil and in Tennessee, 
respectivelj-. They came to Greene County, Ark. . 
on the 6th of May, 1836, and located in Cache 
Township, where the paternal grandfather, Abra- 
ham Smelser, settled on a tract of wild land and 
opened up 100 acres. He and wife reared a large 
family of children, and both died of smallpox in 
1863. John W. Smelser was their oldest child, 
and attained his majority in this section of the 
country. In 1864 he joined Price in his raid 
through Missouri, but since the war has given his 
attention to farming and merchandising at Crow- 



170 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ley, he aud wife being memljers of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church at that place. To them were 
born seven children, three of whom are deceased. 
Joseph P. Smelser is their fifth chihl and grew to 
manhood in Cache Township, receiving a very 
limited education in his youth. At the age of 
twent}- years he began earning his own living, and 
was married to Miss Margaret Adams, residing on 
the old home place for eight years. He then came 
to his present location, which was then a tract of 
wild land, aud now has fifty acres under cultiva 
tion, improved with good buildings, etc. Although 
not active in politics, he votes the Democratic 
ticket, and he and wife are members of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, South. They are the 
parents of two children: John William and Nancy 
Ann Delvada, who died at the age of seven years, 
after a brief illness of five days. 

David A. Smith. In the space allotted in this 
volume it would be impossible to give a detailed 
account of the career of this gentleman, but it is 
only just to say that in his walk through life his 
course has been marked by honesty, industry, and 
a manly, independent spirit. His birth occurred 
in Middle Tennessee on the Sth of July. 182<), and 
he was the eldest in a family of twelve children 
born to Stantford and jMargaret (Tassey) Smith, 
who were natives of North Carolina and Alabama, 
respectively, and with their parents removed to 
Tennessee at an early day. where they met and 
married. In the fall of l-^'i.") they came to 
Greene County, Ark., and bought a tract of K3O 
acres of land which was in a wild stat(^ and on this 
they located, improved it. and resided here until 
187fi, when the father died. His wife's death 
occurred on April Sth, 1 874. David A. Smith was 
reared to manhood on this farm and, besides be- 
coming familiar with the details of farm work, 
learned the car])enter's trade of his father, fol- 
lowing this occupation in Tennessee and also after 
coming to Arkansas. He came to the latter vState 
at the same time of his parents' removal and bought 
UiO acres of wild land on Sugar Creek, on which 
he erected buildings, set out orchards, and cleared 
forty acres. After making this his home for about 
fifteen vears. he sold out and purchased liis present 



property on Crowley's Ridge, which consists of 
225 acres of land, !<•() of which are under cultiva- 
tion. He has cleared forty acres himself and has 
made other improvements, which goes to make his 
home one of the most valuable in the country. 
He does general farming, raising corn, the smaller 
cereals, and cotton. He also has a good apple 
and peach orchard. During the intervals between 
the farming seasons he has worked at the carpen- 
ter's trade, and has built most of the better class 
of houses in the township, among which are the 
residences of Capt. Crowley and Mrs. Boyd. Mr. 
Smith was married on the 6th of January. 1858. 
to Miss Margaret Pevehouse, a native of Arkansas, 
l)y whom he became the father of six children, 
four of whom are living: William W. C, Sarah 
Ann, who died at the age of twenty years: Mary 
Elizabeth, who died when one year old; Logan 
L. R., Susan Causada, wife of G. B. Harris, a 
resident of the count}-; and James A. Smith. In 
1879 Mr. Smith lost his worthy wife, and in 1879 
he wedded Mrs. Cothren. He is quite an active 
politician and has served as bailiff of Greene 
County. He is a patron of ediTcation and is at 
present a director of his school district. 

Simpson Smith. In former years the life of 
the farmer was considered a laborious one. Vmt in 
this progi'essive age. with such improvements in 
machinery, he can do his work with half the dis- 
patch or labor as in the time of his father, and in 
fact works but little if any harder than the aver- 
age man who strives to make a living. Besides 
all this he is independent, which is one of the 
much .sought-for conditions of life. Mr. Smith 
is one of the successful farmers who have kept 
thoroughly apace with the times, and has reached 
the condition of life mentioned above. He was 
born in Benton County, Tenn. , in 1833, and is the 
son of William and Elizabeth (Lewis) Smith, na- 
tives respectively of South Carolina and North 
Carolina. William Smith came with his parents 
to Tennessee when a small boy. settling in Maury 
County for some time, and then moved to Benton 
County, where he passed the remainder of his 
days. He was a farmer and trader by occupation. 
He volunteered in the war under Gen. Jackson. 



\ 






Jacksdn County, Arkansas 



GREENE COUNTY. 



171 



Mrs. Smith was horn in 1798, and died May 13, 
188U, on the old home place in Tennessee. She 
was a worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. Their family consisted of eight 
children, six now living: Angoline, Ellen, Eliza- 
beth, Simpson, Mary and Thomas J. Those de- 
ceased died in infancy. Simpson Smith grew to 
manhood on the home place in Tennessee, and at 
the age of fourteen years began working for him- 
self as a day laborer. After this he worked on 
the railroad for two or three years, then farmed 
for some time, and when the war broke out he en- 
listed in the Confederate army, Company I. 
Forty-ninth Volunteer Infantry, and served three 
j years. He was in the battles of Fort Donelson, 
j Port Hudson and Jackson, Miss. He was taken 
; prisoner twice, first at Fort Donelson, and was 
carried to Chicago, where he was retained seven 
months and three days, and was then exchanged. 
He then returned to the South, entering the 
Southern army in the same company, re-organized 
and consolidated with the Forty-eighth Tennessee 
Volunteer Infantry, and was captured at Port 
Hudson, but was soon afterward paroled, when he 
returned home and resumed his farm work. He 
I remained in Tennessee until 1881, when he came 
to Arkansas and settled on his present farm in 
I Greene County. He had first moved to Arkansas 
in 1854, but later returned to the home-place, 
where he was married, in 185(), to Miss Ellen Erp, 
a native of Benton County, Tenn. The result of 
J this union was the birth of nine children, seven 
now living: William, Mary, Belle, Caldonia, John, 
Augustus, Scott, Doy, Daniel Lee and Vency. 
Those deceased were Porter and an infant un- 
named. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are members of the 
Methodi.st E])iscopal Cliurch, South, in which he 
is a deacon. He is a member of the A. F. & A. 
M. , is a Democrat in politics, and tak(>s an active 
y)art in all public enterprises. He has a tine farm. 
with 170 acres under cultivation, and is one of the 
leading farmers of the county. 

Irvin G. Smith, whose career as a farmer has 
been one of success and prosperity, was born in 
Benton County, Tenn., in 184(>, and is the sou of 
John and Fannie (Krj)) Smith, both natives of 



North Carolina, who came to Benton County, 
Tenn., with their pwents when children. They 
were married in that State after growing u)i, and 
there the father followed farming until his death, 
which occurred in 1877 at the age of fifty-six years. 
The mother died in 1802 at the age of forty years. 
In their family were seven children, six of whom are 
still living: Irvin G. . Disa (now Mrs. Smith), 
Harvey, Jonathan. Berry H., Thomas \\'. and 
Simpson. Harvey died at the age of eighteen 
years. Irvin G. Smith attained his majority on a 
farm in Tennessee, and when of age commenced 
for himself on the home place, where he remained 
until 18()1. when he enlisted in the Confederate 
army, Fortj'-ninth Tennessee; the regiment was 
captured at Fort Donelson and taken to Chi- 
cago. Mr. Smith was sick at this time and was 
at home. As soon as able he went back to the 
army, joined the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, and 
served until the close of the war. He was captured 
at or near Johnsonville, Tenn., and was put on a 
parole of honor. He participated in the Okolona, 
Miss. , battle, was also in the battle of Yazoo City, 
Bolivar, Tenn., Johnsonville, Tenn., and in a 
numljer of other engagements. After the cessation 
of hostilities Mr. Smith returned to Tennessee, re- 
sumed his farming interests, and thus continued un- 
til 187;^ when he came west to Arkansas and located 
in Greene County, three miles southwest of where 
he now lives. In 1870 he moved to his present 
property, where he has remained ever since. He 
was married in 1808 to Miss Louisa Swindle, a 
native of Benton County. Toun. , born in 1 84-t, and # 
the daughter of Thomas and Mariam Swindle, na- 
tives respectively of South Carolina and Kentucky. 
Thomas Swindle went from South Carolina to Illi- 
nois, thence to Tennessee, where he was married in 
1832, and is still living in Benton County, Tenn. 
He was born in the year 1814, as was also his wife. 
She died March 10. 1872. Both were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. After the death 
of his wife Mr. Swindle married Mrs. Nancy Har 
ris, who still survives. Mrs. Smith is one of 
twelve children, eight of whom are living, born to 
her parents. She was reared in Tennessee, and by 
her marriatre to Mr. Smith became the mother of 



A. 



172 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



three childi-eu, all living: Martha A., wife of 
William Swindle, now residing in Greene Coun- 
ty, Ark. ; Walter D. and Cordal C, at home. Mr. 
Smith resides three and a half miles southwest of 
Gainesville, where he has improved a good farm 
and has 155 acres under cultivation. He is an 
active worker in school affairs, and is director in his 
district. He served as deputy sheriff in 1881-82- 
83 and 1884 under Mr. Willcocksou, and served as 
constable of his district to till a vacancy. In 1883 
he was elected to that position, which he held one 
term. Mrs. Smith is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. 

E. T. Smith is the junior member of the firm 
of Smith & Son, proprietors of a lumber mill on 
Bark Camp Island, Greene County, Ark. The busi- 
ness was established in August, 1878, and is man- 
aged by a force of thirty-five men, the capacity 
being 25,000 feet per day. Mr. Smith was bom 
on Blue Grass soil, in 1851 (Hopkins County, 
Ky. ), and was the youngest of a family of five chil- 
dren of W. E. and Sarah (Hicklin) Smith, who 
were also Kentuckians. The father removed to 
Greene County, Ark., in 1885, and now resides in 
Paragould, being senior member of the lumber 
milling firm. E. T. Smith's early days were spent 
in following the plow and in attending the common 
schools of Kentucky. He was married in Hick- 
man County, of that State, in 1880, to Ella Leet, 
a native of Kentucky, and by her has an interest- 
ing little family of three children: Dora, Kenner 
and Charley M. Socially he is a member of the 
Knights of Honor, and in his political views affili- 
ates with the Democratic party. He is enterpris- 
ing and industrious, and promises to become in 
time one of the wealthy citizens of the county. 

S. J. Smith was born about two miles north- 
west of Paragould, Greene County, Ark. , December 
20, 1852, and is one of three surviving members 
of a family of eleven children, born to Charles C. 
and Millie J. Smith, who were Tennesseeans, and 
came to Arkansas by ox team when the country 
was almost a wilderness, inhabited by Indians and 
wild animals, the latter being very plentiful. A 
brother of our subject killed sixteen bear the first 
year. The father cleared the land upon which 



Paragould is now situated, afterward moving to 
Buffalo Island, and still later (in 1861) to the 
farm of 160 acres, on which his sons, John and 
Joseph, are now living. He died in April, 1865, 
still survived by his widow, who is living in Craig- 
head County. When S. J. Smith first came to 
Arkansas his time was about equally divided be- 
tween farming in the summer, and hunting and 
trapping during the cold weather, the latter occu- 
jjation being the more profitable. By industry 
and good management he has become the owner 
of 120 acres of land, the most of which is covered 
with timber, but has forty-five acres under cultiva- 
tion, and sixty-five under fence, improved with 
substantial buildings and good orchard. He well 
remembers the time when there were only two 
farms in a radius of ten miles, and can point out 
hundreds of acres of land then covered with tim- 
ber and water, which is now in dry and well cultivat- 
ed farms. He raises cotton and corn, also horses, 
cattle and hogs. He was married, in 1870, to Miss 
Mary F. Sypes, a daughter of Eli and Christina 
Sypes, natives of North Carolina, who came to 
Perry County, Mo. , at a very early day, where the 
father followed the occupation of farming and 
blacksmithing until his death. Five of their eight 
children are living: Eli J., Calvin L. , George \\',, 
Martha and Charles Andrew. 

W. H. Sollis, a member of the firm of W. H. 
Sollis & Co., merchants, is one among the first 
business men of Paragould, having established his 
business here in July, 1882, when the town was in 
its infancy. The firm was changed to its present 
name in March, 1883. Mr. Sollis was born in 
Duplin County, N. C. , July 31, 1837, and is a sou 
of Luke and Martha (Taylor) Sollis, natives of 
North Carolina, but of French descent. The 
paternal grandfather, Abraham Sollis, was born 
in France, and emigrated to North Carolina at an 
early day. There he passed his last days. Luke 
Sollis was married in North Carolina, and emi- 
grated to Tennessee about 1840, where he fol- 
lowed farming until his death. The mother also 
died in that State. They were the parents of nine 
children, only one now living, W. H. Sollis, who 
is the subject of this sketch. He was reared and 



cr^ 



lil. 



GREENE COUNTY. 



173 



educated in Gibson County, Tenn., and was 
attending school when the Civil War broke out. He 
left the school room to defend his country, en- 
listing in Companj' D. Seventh Tennessee Cavalry, 
in 1861, and served until the close of the war. He 
was at the battles of Belmont, Mo. , Britton's Lane, 
last battle of Corinth, and at West Point, Miss. , 
where he was captured and carried to Memphis, 
thence to Alton, and from there to Camp Douglas. 
He was kept a prisoner for sixteen months, and 
experienced many hardships during that time. He 
had two horses shot from under him while in ser- 
vice, but never received the least wound himself. 
At the close of the war he was paroled, after which 
he returned to Tennessee and began speculating in 
cotton. He was turned loose without a dollar and re- 
mained in that condition for one year, when he went 
to Cincinnati and obtained a position in a whole- 
sale clothing house as traveling salesman. He was 
engaged in this for about one year, after which he 
returned home and embarked in merchandising, 
which he continued until January, 1870, when he 
went to Memj)his, Tenn. , and was here interested in 
the commission business. This he carried on until 
September, 1871, when he was driven out by the 
yellow fever, and again his fiuancial condition was 
in a very low state. He did not despair, luit with 
renewed energy started out and was soon on a 
sound footing. He then decided to go to Greene 
County, Ark., and arrived here September 17, 1871. 
He located on a farm he had previously liought, 
and which was all that he had left, engaged in 
farming and this c6ntinued until 1882, when he 
resumed merchandising. He was agent for the 
Pomona Nursery of Tennessee for two years, and 
has planted more fruit trees in Greene County 
than any two men in it. He is the owner of 610 
acres of land, with about 100 acres under culti- 
vation, which he improved himself. He was mar- 
ried in March, 1868, to Miss Louisa C. Ferrell, a 
native of Tennessee, and the result of this union is 
one child: A\'illie. wife of John Reeves. Mrs. 
Sollis is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. 
Sollis has erected several houses in Paragould, 
and completed his brick store in February, 1889. 
He is a member of the I. O. O. F. 



John R. Starnes. The growth and jirosperity 
of Greene County, Ark., has been upon a scale 
commensurate with the immigration to this region 
in past years, and this prosperity is largely 
due to the members of the agricuUiiral profession, 
prominent among which stands the name of Mr. 
Starnes. He was born in Lauderdale County, 
Tonn. , in 1829, and there reimiined until 1871, 
having been engaged in farming for himself since 
1861. Since the year 1871 he has resided in 
Greene County, Ark. , and since 1876 has been a 
resident of his present farm, where he is doing a 
prosperous business, and besides being engaged in 
tilling the soil, gives considerable attention to stock 
raising. He was married in 1861 to Miss Eliza- 
beth Lacey, who was born in Henderson County, 
Tenn., in 1838, and is the mother of three chil- 
dren: Josephus, Marshall and Parlee. Mr. and 
Mrs. Starnes are members of the Baptist Church, 
of which he is an active sujiporter, and in his po- 
litical views he is a stanch Republican. His par 
ents. Marshall and Sarah (Golden) Starnes, were 
born in Tennessee and North Carolina, respectively, 
in 1818, and were married on the 6th of Decem- 
ber. 1838. The father was reared in Tipton 
County, Tenn., but when a young man located in 
West Tennessee, on a farm, and there continued to 
make his home until 1871, when he came to Ar- 
kansas, and is now residing in Greene County on 
the farm on which he first settled. He is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Ejiiscopal Church, as was his 
wife, who died March 21, 184U. They were the 
parents of four children, John R. being the only 
one living. The father took for his second wife 
Parlee Johnson, on the 28th of May, 1851, and 
by her had twelve children, six now living: Mary 
J., Militia E. , Martha F. , Moses. Nancy P. and 
James. The paternal grandfather, Moses Starnes, 
was a Virginian, who became a resident of Tennes- 
see at an early day and died at middle age. having 
reared a large family of children. 

G. AN'. Stevenson has attained wealth as a 
planter and stock raiser by honest labor, and is a 
gentleman who commands the respect and esteem 
of all who know him. He was born in the year 
1831, in Giles County. Tenn.. and is the youngest 



174 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



in a family of ten children born to Elem and Lydia 
(Payne) Stevenson, both natives of the "Old 
North State." They were married there and at an 
early day moved to Tennessee, locating in Giles 
County, where the father opened up quite an ex- 
tensive farm and was a large slaveholder. He died 
in 1876 at the age of ninety-one years, having 
been a minister of the gospel for sixty-seven years, 
being the oldest one in Middle Tennessee at the 
time of his death. His wife died in 1874 at the 
age of eighty-nine years. The paternal grand- 
father was born in Ireland, and was one of the 
early settlers of North Carolina, and a soldier in 
the Revolutionary War. The maternal grand- 
father, also born in the Emerald Isle, was an early 
resident of North Carolina, and was a soldier in 
the Revolutionary War. G. W. Stevenson was 
reared to manhood in Middle Tennessee, and re- 
ceived his education in Forest Hill Acadejuy, and 
Giles College, at Pulaski. At the age of twenty- 
one years he began teaching school, and has fol- 
lowed this occupation very successfully up to the 
present time, being also engaged in tilling the 
soil and raising stock. He was married in Lincoln 
County, Tenn., May 2U, 1855, to Miss M. J. 
Thorp, who was born in that county, and is a 
daughter of Joel and Elizabeth (Osborne) Thorp, 
who were also Tennesseeans. The father was a 
wealthy planter and died in 1847, still survived 
by the mother. In 1861 Mr. Stevenson enlisted 
in Company A, Eleventh Tennessee Cavalry, and 
was mustered into service at Nashville, afterward 
participating in the battles of Corinth, luka, 
Chickamauga, and oth(>rs of minor importance. 
He served as a scout for some time, and after the 
war returned to Tennessee, emigrating in 1884 to 
Greene County, Ark. . where he is now residing on 
a farm of '200 acres, 123 of which are under culti- 
vation. He is interested in buying, selling and 
raising stock. He is a stanch Democrat in politics, 
and was electeil l)y that party to the office of county 
treasurer, and also to the office of justice of the 
peace. Socially he belongs to the I. O. O. F., 
Paragould Lodge No. 13, of which order he has 
been a member for over forty years, having passed 
all the chairs, and was grand lecturer of ^^'est 



Tennessee. He is chaplain in the A. F. & A. M., 
and also belongs to the Center Hill Wheel. He 
and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and are the parents of eight chil- 
dren, five of whom are living: Margaret Alice 
(Mrs. Huckabay), Louisa A. (Mrs. Dover), Will- 
iam Ernest, Ulpian Baker and Mollie Ann Baxter. 
Mr. Stevenson has been identifi<>d with the county's 
interests for many years, and has always been an 
advocate of churches, schools and temperance. 
He was the first examiner of (ireene County. 

J. R. Taylor, ex-editor of the Paragould Press, 
was born in Williamson County, Tenn.. in 1854, 
and was left an orphan at two years of age. He 
spent his boyhood days in Humphreys County, 
Tenn., receiving an ordinary common-school edu- 
cation, and having no means by inheritance, was 
obliged to start out at an early age to support 
himself. He worked for wages on a farm six 
years, and in 1874 went to West Tennessee, 
where he spent five years teaching in the common 
schools of Obion, Gibson and Madison Counties. 
He was elected to the Academic Chair in Odd 
vFellow's College, at Humboldt, Imt failed to receive 
notice of such election in time to accept the position. 
He commenced the newsjiaper Inisiness at Bell's 
Depot in 1880, and published a paper at Dyers- 
burg one year. He was married in January,- 
1882, to Miss Lucy White, of Jackson, Tenn., 
and in March, 1883, he moved to Jonesboro, Ark., 
where he established the Jonesboro Democrat. He 
was elected mayor of that city in 188f), and re- 
signed the editorship of the Democrat. Before 
the term of mayor had expired he bought the 
Paragould Press, and moved to Paragould. In De- 
cember, 1888, he sold the Press to W. A. H. Mc- 
Daniel, and established the Greene County Record 
in May, 1889. He was a candidate for State 
senator in 1888. but withdrew from the race in 
favor of Hon. B. H. Crowley, an old citizen and 
politician, it appearing that his age. long resi- 
dence and prominence with the people during the 
war, and just afterward, made him a probably 
stronger leader of the Democratic party. Mr. 
Taylor served as clerk of the senate judiciary 
committee of the last legislature, and reported 



GREENE COUNTY. 



J 75 



spuatc |)roce('dings for the Daily Ciazette. Hi' is 
a ])iact.ical printer and journalist, and a stanch 
Democrat, but the nnHinching foe of monopoly. 
He read law but has never entered the i)ractice. 
Having consolidated the Record with the Press, 
he is now exclusively in the line of book and jol) 
printing, liaving the only exclusive job printing 
establishment in Northeast Arkansas. 

James S. Tenisson, a prominent citizen and 
farmer of Greene County, Ark., was born in 
A\"arreu County, Tenn., in 1826, and is the son of 
Abraham Tenisson, a native of Rowan County, 
N. C. His grandfather was a seaman from 1780 
to 1800, when he returned to his home in Missis- 
sippi, where he died in 1847. His father was a 
highly respected farmer and stock raiser, and 
dealt extensively in mules. He died in 1858. 
James S. was educated in Tennessee, receiving all 
the advantages the county afforded. He came to 
this Slate in 1S50, and now owns I'iO acres of 
good land and fine stock. He is the father of ten 
children, seven of whom are living, and six of 
these are married and have families. Five of them 
live in this township, and one is a leading merchant 
of Coquille City, Cove County, Ore. Thomas F. 
was born August 10, 1S5J; John H. , May 12, 
1859; Elizabeth, April 26. 1862; George M., 
March 12, 1865: Martha, August 21, 1867; Julia 
A., January 2, 1870, and Albert N., February 18, 
1875. Albert is still at home and assists his father 
in cultivating the farm. Mr. Tenisson has been 
for six years justice of the peace of Salem Town- 
ship. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
having held all of the oilices from worshipful 
master to warden. Both he and his wife are 
members of the Methodist Church, and are liberal 
in their support of all praiseworth}' enterprises. 

\V. F. Thoraj)son. Greene County, Ark., is one 
of the most fertile counties in the State, and in 
this higldy productive region Mr. Thom])son has 
resided since 185'J. becoming well and favorably 
known, for he commenced life a poor boy and is 
now one of the well-to-do citizens of the county. 
He was born in Giles County. Tenn.. in 18;{2, and 
was the second of six children born to John and 
Lucy (Meeler) Thompson, who were natives respect- 



ively of Tennessee and Virginia. They were 
married in the former State, and there the father 
was engaged in wagon making and blacksmithing 
until his death, which occurred in 1841. His wife 
survived him many years and died in 1875. Her 
father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and 
entered the service at the early age of thirteen 
years. W . F. Thompson has been familiar with 
farming from boyhood, and received his education 
in the district schools of Tennessee. After the 
death of his father the most of the farm work 
devolved upon him, and at the age of nineteen 
years he began tilling the soil for himself. When 
twenty years old he went to Pope County, 111., 
where he was engaged in farming for about seven 
years, moving in 185S to Arkansas, and the follow- 
ing year to Greene County, where he enti'red a 
tract of' 160 acres, and opened up and cleared 
about eighty acres of land. He erected thereon a 
small log cabin, but built twice afterward, and in 
1882 put up a large frame house and set out an 
orchard. He has divided his land, and now owns 
eighty acres, all of which, however, is under cul- 
tivation. He was married in Greene County, Ai-k.. 
in December, 1858, to IMiss Millie T. Hollerman, 
of North Carolina, and a daughter of John and 
Millie (Hartso) Hollerman, who moved from their 
native State to Greene County. Ark., in 1855, both 
of them now being deceased. Mr. Thomp.son has 
resided on his ])resent farm ever since his marriage. 
He assisted in organizing Clay County, Ark. He 
is a member of the Union I^abor i)arty, but is not 
a seeker after office. In„1862 he enlisted in Com- 
pany D, First Arkansas Battery, and went into 
service at Pocahontas, being second lieutenant of 
his company. He was at Fort Farmington, Miss. , 
and received his discharge at Tu)ieloin 1863. after 
which he returned to Greene County, Ark. In 
1865 he went into a cavalry company and served 
until the close of the war. later on returning 
to the farm. He is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and he and wife are members of the Baptist 
Church. Six of their nine children are living: 
William Oriu. who died in 187:?, at the age of 
fourteen years; Sidney Thomas, who is married 
and resides in Greene County: Eliza Jane, wife of 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Elijah Goff, died on the 23d of February, 1883. 
at the age of eighteen years; John AVesley, mar- 
ried and residing in the county; Sebell (Mrs. De- 
Moss), resides in Friendship Township; Mary 
Angeline ( Mrs. Burgess), resides in Lake Township ; 
Emma Elizabeth (Mrs. Peyton), residing on the 
home farm; Lucy, who died in infancy, and Nar- 
cissus at home. Mr. Thompson is rearing a boy, 
named George Thompson. 

Rev. J. T. Thompson, a prominent merchant 
of Marmaduke, and one of the representative 
men of the county, was born near Jackson, West 
Tenn., January 27, 1833, and is of English par- 
entage. His father, James Thompson, was a na- 
tive of North Carolina, in that State growing to 
manhood, and was there married to Miss Lydia Ter- 
rell. He followed the occupation of a farmer, but 
also carried on the blacksmith trade for many 
years. In 1825 he moved to Tennessee, and there 
lost his wife, when their son, J. T. . was seven 
months old. The latter attained his growth in 
Tennessee, attending the common country schools, 
and at the age of nineteen years was united in 
marriage to Miss Mary J. Worrell, who bore him 
eight children, seven of whom are now living; 
James F., married and engaged in the marble 
business at Helena, Ark.; J. P., a carpenter by 
trade, living in West Tennessee, is married and 
has one child; J. J., a carpenter at Marmaduke, is 
married and has one child; Albert Sidney was a 
cari^enter by trade, who, while occupied at his 
work on a house in Rector, in 1887, fell and was so 
injured that he died a few days later; Mary T. is 
at home; Sarah A. married Joseph Conger, of 
Greene County, and is now living on a farm near 
Marmaduke; Susan E. is at home and so also is 
William H. Mr. Thompson enlisted in the Fifty- 
first Confederate Tennessee Regiment, in Novem- 
ber, 1861, at Jackson, Tenn., and was in serv- 
ice in that State, Alabama and Mississippi. His 
regiment was captured at Fort Donelson, but he 
succeeded in making his escape on a steamboat up 
the Tennessee River. His recjiment was reorganized 
at Corinth in the March following, and then in May 
he was sent home on sick furlousrh. Having suf- 
ficiently recovered by August of the same year, he 



enlisted in the Fourteenth Tennessee Cavalry, in 
Gen. Forrest's command, and took part in his 
campaigns through Mississippi, Tennessee and 
Alabama, in 1865. He was detached from his 
command in December, and never returned to his 
regiment until after the close of the war, and so 
was never discharged. After the war he returned 
to Jackson, Tenn. , remained there for some time, 
and then was in Denmark for about four years. 
He moved to Arkansas in 1870, settling within two 
miles of Marmaduke, where he followed farming 



until 1888, and then bought out the drug firm of 
Huckabay & Moore, in Marmaduke. Since then 
he has added dry goods, notions, etc. For his 
second wife Mr. Thompson chose Mrs. Martha A. 
Brand, and four children have been the result of 
this union ; Robert Lee, Rosa B. , Beuna C. 
("Dot ") and an infant, Charles C. Mi-. Thomp- 
son is thoroughly identified with all public enter- 
prises, and a liberal contributor to the same. He 
was licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, in 1874, and has since ministered 
to the spiritual wants of his fellow men in that 
church. He is a member of the Masonic frater- 
nity. Blue Lodge, in which he has filled all the 
chairs. Mrs. Thomjison and most of the children 
are also members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. 

Rev. David Thorne, an extensive farmer and 
fruit-grower, of Greene County, Ark., was born in 
Edgecombe County, N. C, in 1828. His parents, 
Thomas and Morning (Dawes) Thorne, were of 
English descent, and were also born in the "Old 
North State," the former's birth occurring in 
1781. while Gen. Cornwallis was encamped within 
seven miles of the scene. He emigrated to Madi- 
son County, Tenn., in 1831, located, and became 
an extensive farmer, and owned slaves, departing 
this life in his eighty-second year. He and his 
life-partner lived together nearly fifty- five years, 
raising to maturity eleven children, and losing one 
in infancy. His father. Nicholas Thorne, accord- 
ing to family tradition, was liorn in North Caro- 
lina about 1730 or 1740. His father, Richard 
Thorne, was born in England, about the year 1700 
or 1710, and came to America, perhaps, about the 



r'^ 



GREENE COUNTY. 



177 



year 1710 or 1720, serving an apprenticeship 
in Charleston, S. C. His son, Nicholas Thorne, 
was a farmer, and participated in the Revolution- 
ary War, on the side of the colonies. David 
Thorne, the subject of this sketch, attained his 
majority in Madison County, Tenn., and received 
his education in the common schools and the acad- 
emy at Denmark, Madison County, Tenn., his 
instructor in-chief being Dr. William L. Slack, 
now of Friar's Point, Miss. While a resident of 
Hardeman County, Tenn., in the year 1859-60, he 
was elected presiding justice of the county and 
probate court, which position was held two or 
three terms, and was much esteemed by him; 
indeed, with one exception, that honor was held 
par excellence among many favors conferred by the 
grand old county of Hardeman, because it was 
bestowed gratuitously and without solicitation. 
Emigrating to Greene County in 1871, three years 
after, in 1874, he was prevailed upon, by strong 
and urgent solicitation, to become a candidate for 
the constitutional convention, making the race be- 
fore the people in competition with Hons. L. L. 
Mack and B. H. Crowley, and was beaten by only 
fifteen votes, by Mr. Crowley. He was afterward 
elected county and probate judge, and served one 
term. Having been reared by pious and religious 
parents, he naturally felt an interest in Christi- 
anity, and for nearly forty years has had member- 
ship in a Missionary Baptist Church, and since 
18fi8 has been engaged in the ministry. Before 
closing this sketch it is proper to say, that Mr. 
Thorne attributes everything pertaining to what 
he is and has enjoyed, as respects morals and re- 
ligion, to parental training and early impressions 
made In' Christian parents in their work in the 
family nursery; and, in justice to them, whatever 
may have been accom]ilished in the way of good — 
yea. even the hope of Heaven, under the blessings 
of God— all is dedicated in memory to the Christ- 
ian iniluonce of loved parents that have laid their 
armor by. The subject of this sketch is sharing 
the income of a good farm, and is taking a warm 
interest in fruit-growing, for which this section 
seems well adapted. The crowning blessing, re- 
ferred to heretofore, which Hardeman County be- 



stowed, was the gift, in marriage, of one of her 
best daughters, in the person of Miss Mary A. 
Toone, who was a daughter of James Toone, Sr. 
■James Toone, Sr. , was one of the pioneer settlers 
of West Tennessee, and Hardeman County was bis 
adopted home. Before the late war he was one of 
the leading farmers, owning large slave property. 
The marriage i)artnership entered into in June, 
1857, by Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, has culminated in 
quite a family, namely: James L., Thomas L. B. , 
William H., David C. and Wiley, five sons: and 
Mary F. B., JinieB.. Ida R. and AUisE., four 
daughters; all have made the Christian profession, 
and the whole family are members of the same 
church — truly a Baptist family. 

John C. Tredaway is one of the successful 
farmers of Union Township, and one of its oldest 
settlers. He was born in Pendleton District. S. 
C, in 1812, and is a son of Richard and Nancy 
(Smith) Tredaway, who were born in Georgia and 
South Carolina, the former's birth occurring in 
1787. He grew to manhood in his native State, 
was married in South Carolina, and after residing 
in Tenne.ssee for about ten years, returned to 
Georgia, where he was engaged in farming until 
his death in 1851. His wife was born in 1704 
and died in 1871, and both were members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Chiu'ch, South. Of their ten 
children, eight lived to be grown, and seven are 
living at the present time. The maternal grand- 
father came from Europe with two brothers and 
settled in Georgia, but it is not known where the 
others settled. He was a farmer, and lived and 
died in the state of his adoption, his death occur 
ring when between sixty and seventy years of age. 
His wife lived to be nearly 100 years old. and also 
died in Georgia. She was an earnest member of 
the Baptist Church. To them were born five chil- 
dren, the father of our sul)ject lieing the eldest. 
John C. Tredaway, who was the second of his par 
ents' children, grew to manhood in East Tennessee. 
At the age of twenty-one years he commenced for 
himself, engaging in the shoemaker's trade, and 
followed this occupation in connection with farm- 
ing until he went to Georgia, when he opened a 
wagon shop, which he managed with farming for 



<£ k_ 



ITS 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



eight years. In J 85(3 be came to Arkansas and 
located on a farm on Crowley's Ridge in Clay 
County, where he remained for about sixteen 
years, subsequently spc^nding three years in Boone 
County, Ark. Here his wife died on the I'ith of 
November, 1872, her birth occurring in South 
Carolina November 6, 1808, her maiden name 
being Rebecca Chapman. They were married 
August 21, 1834, and became the parents of ten 
children, four of whom are alive. The names of 
the children are: John W., who died in Tennessee; 
Asbury F., who first joined the Confederate army, 
and later, on account of his wife, joined the Union 
forces, went South, and as he was never after- 
ward heard fi'om, was supposed to have been 
killed; Francis M. , who served in the Confeder- 
ate army and died in Mississippi, being buried 
there with 10,000 other soldiers; William B. , also 
a Confederate soldier, was taken sick and died 
somewhere in the South; James R. , who sickened 
and died in Greene County, and was buried at 
Oak Bluff: Nancy E., wife of William Wagner, 
residing in Clay County, Ark.: Sidney S., a resi- 
dent of Clay County; Sarah A., wife of Benjamin 
Copeland, of Clay County ; Mary A. , wife of Buck 
Fain, of Boone County, Ark., and an infant not 
named. Mr. Tredaway was married a second time 
to Amanda Fielder, who was born in Hickman 
County, Tenn. , in 1840. To them six chikken 
have been born: Thomas F. , John W. W. , Edward 
S. , Mary and Martha (twins), and an infant that 
died in childhood, not named. Mr. Tredaway and 
wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, the latter having been a professed 
Christian for fifty-eight years, and an active work- 
er in the church. He is a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. , and in his political views is a Democrat. 

Henry S. Trice, treasurer of Greene County, 
and undertaker, was born in Craighead County, 
Ark., November 'J, 1853, and is the son of Samuel 
T. and Sarah H. (Smith) Trice, both of whom 
were natives of Bedford County, Tenn. The par- 
ents emigrated to Craighead County, Ark. , in 1 853, 
and located on a farm eight miles north of Jones- 
boro. The father was one of the early settlers of 
that county, improved a good farm there, and 



attended to farming until his death, which oc- 
curred at his home, in August, 1861. He was 
county and probate judge of Craighead County 
when he died, and was a very prominent citizen. 
He was also for many years justice of the peace. 
The mother now resides in Jonesboro. They were 
the parents of six children, four of whom are now 
living: Joseph H. , Henry S. , Andrew J. and Sa- 
rah T. (wife of Franklin Lane). Henry S. Trice 
assisted his mother on the farm to make a hard- 
earned living, and received his education in Craig- 
head County. He followed farming until 1885, 
when he moved to Paragould, Greene County, and 
in the fall of 1886 established the undertaker's 
business, which he has since carried on. He was 
elected county treasurer of Greene County in 1886, 
and re-elected in 1888, thus illustrating his popu- 
larity. He was married in 1873 to Miss Margaret 
A. Gamble, a native of Bedford County, Tenn., 
and the fruits of this union are five children: 
Ada P., William F., Joseph T., Mary E. and Sarah 
V. Mr. and Mrs. Trice are members of the Jleth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and he is a member of the 

K. of r. 

William H. Walden, who is not only one of the 
substantial farmers of the county, but also re- 
spected and esteemed for his many good qualities, 
was born near Lexington, Ky., in 1840, and is the 
son of Coleman and Melvina (McKinney) Walden, 
both natives, also, of Kentucky. The father was 
a farmer by occupation, and died in 1878 at the 
age of fifty-five years. He had been twice mar- 
ried; first, in 1839, to Miss McKinsey, who died 
in 1846, leaving one child, William Walden. Mr. 
Walden then selected for his second wife Miss 
Louisa J. Price, a native of Kentucky. The fol- 
lowing children were the result of the second un- 
ion: John, Mollie, Elizabeth, Alice (deceased in 
infancy), Joshua L. (died when grown), George W., 
Mattie C. and Emma. William Walden moved 
with his parents to Haywood County, Tenn., in 
1842, and there remained until 1878, when he 
came to Arkansas and located on his present farm, 
which he cultivates, but also, in connection, is en- 
gaged in running a cotton-gin. When the war 
broke out 'Mv. Walden enlisted in the Confederate 



GREENE COUNTY. 



179 



army, but was rejected on account of a crippled 
foot. During the latter part of the war, however, 
he enli.sted and was wounded at the Battle of 
Perryville, Ky. He was color-bearer of the Ninth 
Tennessee Regiment, Cheatham's division, and 
after receiving his wound he was taken to a hos- 
pital, where he remained about three weeks, fol- 
lowing which he was taken to Danville, Ky. , and 
tliere remained until able to go home. He was 
married to Mis.s Hattie T. Martin, a native of 
Haywood County, Tenn. , bora in 1841, who died 
April 17, 1886, in full communion with the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. Seven children were 
born to this union, all living: Edward C, (who 
married Mattie Russell and lives near the home 
place), John R. L.. James B. , Rosa Lee (wife 
of J. P. Hampton), Freddie, Walter B. and Jes- 
sie T. Mr. Walden was married the second time 
to Mrs. Mollie Bowler, nee Eiberhard, a native 
of New Orleans, who had previously married Eras- 
mus Bowler, who died April 7, 1886. Mr. Wal- 
den affiliates with the Democratic ])arty in his 
political views. 

Dr. Calvin Wall, president of the Bank of 
Paragoukl, and physician, was born in Spartanburg 
District, S. C, October 12. 182-4, and is the son of 
Zachariah and Oney (Clement) Wall, the father a 
native of Wilkes County, N. C, and the mother of 
South Carolina. The parents were married in South 
Carolina and remained there until their deaths, 
the father devoting himself to agricultural pur- 
suits. Their family consisted of ten children, 
only one now living, Dr. Calvin Wall. He was 
reared and educated in South Carolina, assisted 
on the farm until nineteen years of age, and then 
taught school until twenty-six years old, when 
he Vjegau the study of medicine. He graduated at 
the iledical University of Lexington, Ky., in lsr)4, 
and in July of the same year began practicing 
in Polk County, N. C where he remained until 
the latter part of 1857. He then returned to the 
homestead in South Carolina, where he stayed un- 
til Fel)ruary 7, 18ri9, when he started for Greene 
County, Ark. , coming through on horseback and 
arriving March 21). of that year. He located at 
Gainesville and entered upon the i)ractice of his 



profession, in 1S()() he went to Greensboro, Craig- 
head County, remained there six months and then 
returned home, where he practiced until 1886, 
when he came to Paragoukl. Here he has since 
continued to follow his profession. In March, 18Stt. 
he was elected president of the Bank of Paragoukl, 
which position he now occupies. He is also 
president of the Building and Loan Association, 
served two terms as county treasurer while living 
at Gainesville, and has been notary public for over 
twelve years. He owns several thousand acres 
of land in the county, with about 200 acres under 
cultivation. He was married March 18, 1800, to 
Miss Emily A. Gentry, a native of Tennessee, and 
to them have been born six children: Ona J., 
wife of Dr. Kitchen; Elmer S., wife of W. S. 
Ellis; MelvinC, Ethel M., Arthur G. and Ernest 
N. Mr. and Mrs. Wall are members of the Bap- 
tist Church. He is a member of the Masonic 
Fraternity, also belongs to the I. O. O. F., and is 
one of the oldest physicians, in ])oint of residence, 
in the county. 

Rev. Daviil B. Warren, a local minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, residing four 
miles south of Gainesville, Ark., was born in Giles 
County, Tenn., October 3, 1827, and is the fourth 
son of John B. and Rachael (Hunt) Warren, who 
were born near Petersburg, N. C. , the former 
February 27, 17'J(), and the latter November 24. 
17U7. They were married about the year 1817. 
and about 1824 removed to Middle Tennessee, set- 
tling in Giles County. He was a farmer, and a 
part of his life worked at the blacksmith's trade, 
but gave up both occupations several years before 
his death owing to the failure in his eyesight, and 
the last five years of his life he was entirely l)liud. 
He was a worthy, good citizen, and in politics was 
an old line Whig. He took no part in the late 
Civil War, but was a soldier in the War of 1812. 
His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. They both lived to a ripe old age: 
he died February 23, 1884, within only four days 
of being eighty-eight, and she died in March, 
1885, wanting only a few months of being also 
eighty-eight. To them were boru nine children, 
all of whom lived to mature age: Henry J. (who 



180 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



died ia 1882), Sarab J. L. (deceased), James A., 
Joseph A., David B., Mary F., Louisa E., Elmina 
M. (deceased) and William W. Rev. David B. 
Warren received a very meager education in the 
old field schools of that day, but after he attained 
the age of twenty-two attended better schools 
awaj' from home. In 1850 he taught his first 
session of three months, being employed by three 
of his neighbors for |25 (which was only 18 J^ per 
month). But this small beginning was sufficient 
to demonstrate his worth as a teacher, and for 
more than twenty years — six in Tennessee, and 
more than fourteen in Arkansas — his labors were 
crowned with great success, and many of the most 
useful and influential men and women in the com- 
munities where he taught in both States were his 
pupils in their youth, and received instruction at 
his hands. In 1854 he made a profession of 
religion, and two years later was licensed to preach, 
and has been a local minister of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, ever since. In 1870 and 
1871 he was in charge of the Greenslwro circuit as 
a supply. He has been instriunental in doing 
much good, both as a teacher and a preacher, and 
has performed more marriage ceremonies and 
preached more fimeral sermons than almost any 
other preacher in Northeast Arkansas. In 1882 
he was a lay delegate from the White River con- 
ference to the General conference of the Southern 
Mt^thodist Church, which met in Nashville, Tenn. , 
and faithfully represented his constituents in that 
highest and only legislative body of the church. 
He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Marvin, in 
1867, and an elder by Bishop Kavanangh, in 1877, 
and worthily honors the church in the faithful 
discharge of the duties of these important oflices. 
He was married March 4. 1855, to Miss Lucy J. 
Ford, who was born in Giles County, Tenn., 
March 26, 1834, where she grew to maturity and 
was married. Five of the eight children born to 
them are still living: Alice, wife of J. W. New- 
berry ; Ezra, married and living near the old home 
place; Ida, wife of (i. W. Walden, also residing 
near the home place; Osmer, who died November 
11, 1883, aged twenty-one years; Mackey, who 
died February 11, 1882, aged eighteen years; 



Clara, who died December 2. 1871, aged five years; 
Minnie and Albert, who still remain under the 
parental roof. Mr. W'arren has a splendid little 
farm of about KtO acres in cultivation, and a neat, 
comfortable home, and is much beloved and highly 
respected for his sterling integrity as a citizen and 
as a Christian gentleman. He is a distinguished 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and has served 
in several important positions in a local sphere, 
and is now (1889) serving his second year as grand 
lecturer of the State. He takes a lively interest 
in the work and lectures of this ancient and honor- 
able institution, and travels extensively in the dis- 
charge of the duties of his high office. He is also 
an uncompromising advocate of temperance, and 
is opposed to the liquor traffic in all its forms, be- 
lieving it to be the greatest enemy to the pros- 
perity and happiness of the people. In November, 
1872, he was elected clerk of his county, to which 
position he was re elected for ten years in succes- 
sion, and served his people with fidelity and marked 
ability, ]ierforming the intricate and complicated 
duties of the office with satisfaction to the people, 
and in 1882 he voluntarily retired to private life, 
followed In' the good wishes and benedictions of 
all the people, and has well earned their universal 
plaudit, "Well done, thou good and faithful ser- 
vant." 

John E. Watson, father and stockman of 
Greene County, Ark. , was born in Lawrence Dis- 
trict, S. C, July 25, 1841, and is a son of Till- 
man and Sarah (Pape) Watson, who were also 
born in that State. The father was a Democrat, 
a farmer, and he and his wife were members of 
the Baptist Church. They moved from South 
Carolina to Alabama in 1842, remained there un- 
til 1861), and the year following the father's death, 
which occurred in 1875, the mother came to 
Greene County, Ark., where she is still residing. 
The following are their children: William F., 
James H., Martha M., J. E., Sarah J., Elizabeth, 
Israel, and Louis J. , who died when five years of 
age. William F. is a farmer of West Tennessee, 
and he and John E. are the only ones of .the family 
living at the present time. The latter began an 
independent career at the age of twenty years, 



.f 



^ 




aud enlisted in Company D, Twenty-second Ala- 
bama (Day's) Regiment, and Bragg' s division, of 
the Army of the Tennessee, and was in the liattlos 
of Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge 
and Atlanta. He was captured at Atlanta on the 
3d of August, 1804, and was kept in i)rison at 
Camp Chase, Ohio, until the 18th of March, 18G5, 
when he was released on parole, but before the 
parole term had expired the war was ended. After 
his return to Alabama he engaged in farming with 
his father, and in August, 1865, was married to 
Miss Martha P. Grcenway, a daughter of Thomas 
aud Olive Greenway, natives of Georgia, the fa- 
ther a farmer by occupation. Mr. and Mrs. Wat- 
son became the parents of five children: Lugenia 
(Turner), of Greene County, Ark. ; Laura S. 
(Tatum), John H. , living, and Mary Lee and 
James F., deceased. Mr. Watson's second mar- 
riage was to a Miss Smith, in July, 1880, aud by 
her he has one child, Milton. This wife died in 
November, 1885, and in January, 1880, he mar- 
ried his third wife, Mrs. Catherine C. (Lender- 
man) Hyde. To this last union has been born a 
son, William Tell. After his hrst marriage Mr. 
Watson lived one year in Alabama, then removing 
to West Tennessee, where he was engaged in 
farming until the fall of 1869, since which time he 
has been a successful tiller of the soil in Greene 
County, Ark., his first purchase being 120 acres. 
Five years later he traded this farm, which he had 
improved somewhat, for other laud, forty acres of 
which are in the place he now owns. His farm con- 
sists of 140 acres of very finely improved land, and 
the most of this he devotes to cotton, though also 
giving attention to other crops. He is also inter- 
ested in stock breeding. He is an independent 
Democrat in politics, and he and wife are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church. His wife became 
the mother of five children by her first husband: 
Christiana E. , wife of D. C. Smith, a farmer 
residing with Mr. Watson; John Thomas, Edward, 
Jasper E. and Walter, all living with their mother 
and step- father. 

A^'illiam M. Weatherly. In the series of names 
wliich have made Greene County one of the most 
populous and prosperous of the State, Mr. Weath- 



erly' s name holds a prominent place. He was 
born in Madison County, Tenn., in 1834. and is 
a son of Wright M. and Ann (Bryant) Weath 
erly, who were born in North Carolina and Ten 
nessee, in 1805 and 1808, respectively. The father 
came to Tennessee in 1826, where he was mar- 
ried soon after, and then located in Madison 
County, where he remained until 1881, after 
which he moved to Arkansas, and here died, in 
January, 1888. He was a successful farmer up 
to the time of the war, but during that time 
lost his property. He was a Democrat in poli- 
tics, was very active in supporting schools and 
churches, and in early life was a Whig in poli- 
tics, afterward becoming a Democrat. His wife 
was also a member of the Baptist Chiuch, and 
died in February, 1886, mourned by all who 
knew her. They were the parents of nine sons 
and three daughters: John T. (killed at the 
battle of Missionary Ridge), James (killed at the 
battle of Franklin), Thomas, Robert. William, 
Houston S., Rufus A., Richard T., Alexander. 
Wright, Elizabeth C Mary and Nancy A. Will 
iam M. Weatherly attained his majority in Mad 
ison County, and commenced doing for himself 
in 1855, clerking in a dry goods store in Den 
mark one year. He then married and commenced 
farming in Madison County, continuing two years, 
and spent the following three years as overseer 
of a large plantation in that State. In 18()3 he 
enlisted in Company C, Fourteenth Regiment of 
Cavalry, commanded by Capt. Voss. and was at 
the battles of Franklin and Memphis. He was 
wounded at a little fight in Haywood County, 
and was relieved from duty for two weeks. At 
the time of the surrender he was at Gainesville, 
Ala., and returned home, where lie farmed until 
1877, then coming to his present farm in Greene 
County, Ark. On the 26th of January, 187S. 
he was married to Ann Rievely, who was born 
in Madison County, Tenn., in 1835, and by her 
became the father of three ciiildren: Mollie B. 
(who died in infancy), James William (who attend 
ed school in Denmark, Tenn., and at Austin, Ark., 
and has been a teacher of ten years' standing, and 
is now drumming for .i St. Louis grocery ami |iro- 



is-j 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



vision company), ami lvi)l)c(t H. (who is a farmer 
of Greene County, is married and the father of 
two children). Mr. and Mrs. Weatherly are mem- 
bers of the Baptist Church, and he has been a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. since 1873. He has 
always supported the principles of the Democratic 
party. He and wife are rearing a little trjrl l)y the 
name of Ida Davis. 

S. H. Weatherly, a planter, of Friendship 
Township, was born in Madison County, Tenn., in 
1837. being a son of Wright and Aim (Bryant) 
\^'eatherly. the father a native of North Carolina, 
and the mother of Middle Tennessee. They were 
married and resided in the latter State until 1881, 
when they disposed of their large farm, and came 
to Greene County, Ark., and made their home with 
our subject until their respective deaths, in 1882 
and 1885. S. H. Weatherly assisted in clearing 
the home farm in Tennessee, attended the common 
schools, and, while still a resident of that State, 
began doing for himself. He was married in Mad- 
ison County, Tenn., in ]8<)7, to Miss Ann Valen- 
tine, a daughter of William and Charity Valentine, 
who came originally from North Carolina and set- 
tled in Tennessee. They were agriculturalists, 
and the .father died in his adopted State. The 
mother came to Grieene Covinty, Ark., in 1867, 
and is now residing in Friendship Township, being 
the widow of William Burton. Mr. Weatherly re- 
mained one year in Tennessee after his marriage, 
and in 18fi7 came to Greene County, Ark., where 
he bought a farm of 240 acres, only ten of which 
were under ciiltivation. He has since added 360 
acres more to his land, and has 100 acres under 
cultivation, on which are a good residence and 
orchard. He makes a specialty of raising corn and 
hay. He votes with the Democratic party, and has 
ever taken an interest in the political affairs of 
the county. He and wife are members of the Ba]>- 
tist Church, and are the parents of a family of 
seven children, six of whom are living: Texanua 
(Mrs. David Falkner). Mosella, Eldredge M.. 
Florence Ethel, Egbert Eugene and Cornelia A. 
Mr. Weatherly has dom^ a large .share in devolo])- 
ing the coimty, and has always taken an active 
interest in enterprises tending to benefit the same. 



While in Tennessee he joined Company G, Sixth 
Tennessee Infantry, Confederate States Army, 
and was mustered in at Jackson, Tenn., April 22, 
1861, and was at Mi.ssionary Ridge, Franklin, Mur- 
freesboro. Atlanta, and was discharged at Browns 
ville, Tenn. 

Andrew Webb, an enterprising tiller of the soil, 
of (ireene County, Ark., and postmaster of Bethel, 
was born in the State of Tennessee, in 1824, and 
is the fourth of nine children born to James and 
Monnima (Crisp) Webb, who were natives of North 
and South Carolina, respectively. The father fol- 
lowed farming on an extensive scale, and was a 
soldier in the War of 1812. being with Jackson at 
the battle of New Orleans. He died in Tennes- 
see, where he had made his home for many years, 
in 1866, at the age of seventy-six years, followed 
by his wife in 1867. Andrew Webb resided on a 
farm in Tennessee, and vehen twenty -one years of 
age purchased a farm, and began doing for him- 
self. He was married about this time to Miss 
Winnie C. Coburn, a native of Alabama, and re- 
mained in the State of Tennessee engaged in im- 
proving his farm, until 1858, when he sold out 
and came to Greene County, Ark. , where he bought 
a tract of eighty acres of wild land. He cleared 
about forty acres of this farm, set out orchards, 
and put his property under fence, but some three 
years later traded it for a tract containing l'^)0 
acres, on which is now situated the station of 
Bethel. Here he opened up about sixty acres, 
erected good buildings, set out orchards, etc. , and 
when the railroad was established he sold a con- 
siderable amount of his property for business pur- 
poses. In 1883 he received a commission as first 
postmaster of Bethel, and has held this office up to 
the present time. His wife, who died in October, 
1887, bore him five children: Lucinda E., wife of 
\V. A. J. Wood; James W., John William, who 
died at the age of nineteen years; Pamelia E., 
wife of W. O. Lane, and Sarah Ella, who died at 
the age of six years. May 3, 1881t. he was mar- 
ried to Mrs. Mary C. Yepp, a native of Georgia. 
James W. Webb, the only living son of Andrew 
Webb, is at present thirty-seven years of age, and 
is tilling the soil on a portion of his father's farm. 



s-rv 



GREENE COTTNTY, 



and oil 120 acres which he hud purchased. Mr. 
Webb has one of (he best farms in his section, 
al)out sixty acres being under cultivation and fence. 
Ho takes considerable interest in politics, and is a 
Democrat, having been elected on that ticket, in 
1880, to the office of justice of the peace, which 
position he has since held, with th(^ exception of 
two years. He was married in 1869 to Miss Mary 
R. Wood, a native of Mississippi, and a daughter 
of James R. Wood, who came to Arkansas in 18r)9, 
being one of the early settlers of Greene County. 
To them have been born five children: Calador W. 
J. , Sarah Ella, James A. , who died at the age of 
four years and one month, and Mary Lelor. One 
child died in infancy, unnamed. Mr. Webb has a 
pleasant home in Bethel, his lot consisting of two 
acres. He has always been a patron of education, 
and all worthy public enterprises, and his business 
as justice of the peace is quite extensive. He has 
served as school director for six years. 

Dr. Henry McC. AVebb. The name of ^^"ebb , 
is one of the most influential in Greene County, 
Ark. , and Dr. Webb, among its most talented 
^)hy8icians, has obtained a reputation placing 
him in the front rank of the medical fraternity. 
He was born in Madison County, Tenn. , in 1851, 
being a son of Theodric and Elizabeth (Watson) 
Webb, who were born, married and resided in 
South Carolina, and about 1842 settled on a farm 
in Madison County, Tenn., where he is now living 
at the age of seventy-six years. His wife died in 
1 S6 1 . They were members of the Presbyterian 
Church, and the father is now a Democrat in his 
political views, a Royal Arch Mason, and an en- 
thusiastic patron of schools, churches, etc. Dr. 
Henry McC. Webb is next to the youngest of the 
four surviving members of their family of eight 
children. After attending the common schools and 
the High School near Greeneville, he entered the 
I'niversity of Alabama in 1S72. fi'om which insti- 
tution he was graduated in July of the following 
year. He then rtiturned to Lexington, Tenn., and 
being well fitted liy nature for the profession of 
medicine soon entered upon his medical studies 
under Dr. H. W. Wassen. but gave this u]i after 
a short time and entered the law school at Le- 



banon. Tenn.. graduating in June, IS74, later 
practicing this profession for five years in Lexing- 
ton. In the fall of 1879 he entered Vanderbilt 
University, at Nashville, Tenn., attending during 
that year and 1880, and then resumed his practice 
in Lexington, continuing until 188r). when he re 
turned to college and graduated from the medical 
department in the spring of 1886. Since that 
time he has resided in Gainesville, Ark., where 
he has become a leading practitioner, although 
a resident of the county only a few years. He 
is becoming well known, but the heavy calls for his 
services at home prevent him from going much 
abroad. In 1878 he was married to Miss Addle 
E. Smith, who was born in Henderson County. 
Tenn.. and is the mother of three children: Cossy 
T. , Ella Louisa and Robert B. Mrs. Webb is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
James H. Willcoekson, one of the wealthy resi- 
dents of the county, is a native of Middle Tennes- 
see, where he was l)orn in the year 1845. He was 
the third in a family of nine children born to 
William and Mary (Rose) Willcoekson, who were 
Tennesseeans, the grandparents being wealthy 
farmers of Middle Tennessee. Grandfather Rose 
went to Texas, where he bought a large tract of 
land on which he made his home until his death. 
William Willcoekson engaged in farming for him- 
self after attaining his majority, and resided in 
Tennessee (where he was married about 1841) 
until 1850, then moving to Texas, wiiere he bought 
a tract of 100 acres, which he opened for cultiva- 
tion, improved with good buildings, and on which 
he resided until 1853, then coming to Greene 
County. Ark. After residing here for four years 
on two different farms he returned to Texas, where 
he died in December, 181)0, his wife also dying 
the same month. James H. Willcoekson returned 
to Arkansas after the death of his parents, and for 
some time made his home with his grandmotlu'r. 
In 18(55, at the age of twenty years, he began 
farming for himself on rented laud, and continued 
this for three years, when he married Miss ,\.daliue 
Bowling, a native of Greene County, and a daughter 
of one of the early settlers. After his marriage 
he purchased a small farm whicli he sold later 



184 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ou, aud then bought an excellent tract of land 
consisting of eighty acres in the Cache bottom, 
which was then wOd land but is now one of the 
finest fanns in the county. He has since purchased 
twenty-six additional acres, and has now seventy 
acres under fence and cultivation, it being devoted 
to raising the cereals and cotton. He is improving 
his grade of stock, and has crossed his cattle with 
Durham, and has some tine Jersey red hogs. Mr. 
and Mrs. Willcockson are members of the Baptist 
Church, and are the parents of the following 
children: William Carroll, Robert Alexander, 
Lawrence Jetferson, and Anna Lee, who died at 
the age of eighteen years. 

Joseph H. Willcockson ranks among the first of 
the many wealthy farmers of Greene Coiinty, Ark. 
He was born in Tennessee in 1845, and is the sixth 
of a family of fifteen children born to the marriage 
of Sam Willcockson and Frances Gibson, who were 
Tennesseeans, and came to Greene County, Ark., 
in 1850. They settled on a tract of land on the 
west side of Crowley's Ridge, but sold this soon 
after and purchased 200 acres near by, on which 
he erected a steam saw and grist-mill in 1853, 
which was the first mill of the kind in the county. 
Mr. Willcockson owned this mill for many years, 
and many of the houses and buildings in this sec- 
tion are made of lumber sawed here. He soon 
had 100 acres of his land cleared, on which he 
erected a nice residence. He became quite wealthy, 
and continued to add to his original purchase until 
he was the owner of about 1,000 acres of land. He 
was a conspicuous figure in the political circles of 
his section, and besides holding man}' minor offices 
in the county, he was elected to the State legisla- 
ture from Greene County, which position he filled 
for two successive terms. He assisted in the or- 
ganization of the school districts of this locality, 
and held the office of school commissioner for 
many yeiirs. In 1870 or 1871 he disj)osed of his 
extensive farming interests in the county, and 
moved to Newton County, where he purchased 
a large milling jiroperty, consisting of a saw and 
flouring mill, and a cotton-gin. Here he did a 
successful business for many years, and sold out at 
a large advance over what he originally paid. He 



next moved to Brown County, where he bought a 
farm, which he managed until his death, in 1886, 
at the age of seventy years. His widow still sur- 
vives him, and resides on the estate left by her 
active and enterprising husband. Joseph H. Will- 
cockson, the immediate subject of this sketch, was 
reared on his father's extensive farm, and in his 
youth received limited educational advantages. At 
the age of twenty years he rented land and began 
farming for himself, and after one year bought a 
tract of wild land ou the St. Francis River, where 
he cleared about fifty acres, erected buildings, and 
made a good and pleasant home. Subsequently 
he married Miss Matilda McDaniel, a native of 
Greene County, and a daughter of John McDaniel, 
who belonged to one of the first four or five fami- 
lies who settled in Greene County. After resid- 
ing one year in Bethel, Mr. Willcockson bought a 
tract of 160 acres of wild land on Crowley's 
Ridge, and here his wife died, at the end of two 
years, leaving two children: John Gibson and 
Virginia C. (wife of John Patton). who resides on a 
farm belonging to Mr. Willcockson. The latter has 
improved his property very much, and has seven- 
ty-two acres under cultivation and fence, on which 
is a good orchard of assorted fruits. In 1888 he 
erected a commodious dwelling, which is fitted up 
with many conveniences. He carries on general 
farming, but makes a specialty of raising corn, and 
this year (1889) has devoted fifty acres to that grain. 
In 1888 he raised 2,000 bushels. Miss Mary Jane 
'Roberds became his wife in 1884. She was born 
in Arkansas, and by Mr. Willcockson is the mother 
of two children : Ovid Clifton and Ota Louisa. 
Mr. Willcockson is a Democrat politically, but is 
not an active politician. 

T. R. Willcockson, sheriff of Greene County, 
Ark., was born in Giles County, Tenn., August 
10, 1848, and is the son of Samuel and Frances 
(Gibson) Willcockson. the father a native of Vir- 
ginia, and the mother of Kentucky. They were 
married in Tennessee, and there remained until 
October, 1851, when they immigrated to what is 
now Greene County, Ark., coming through in 
wagons, and locating near the old Crowley farm, 
in Cache Township. Heje the father bought a 



171" 



foity-acre' tract, which was about the first deeded 
land in this section of Arkansas. He also put up 
the first steam, saw and grist-mill in Greene County, 
and ran this for several years. He also carried on 
farming, and being one of the earliest settlers, ex- 
perienced all the hardships and privations incident 
to pioneer life. In 1808 he removed to Boone 
County, Ark., where he died in June, 1886. The 
mother is still living. They were the parents of 
fifteen children, only six now living: John W., 
Isaac (deceased), William and Mary Annie (twins 
and both deceased), David C. (deceased), James 
(deceased), Joseph, Thomas R. , Sina, Sarah, Sam- 
uel (deceased), Marion and Frances (twins and 
deceased), Polk and Virginia. T. R. Willcockson, 
the subject of this sketch, was but an infant when 
he was brought to Greene County by his parents, 
and here he grew to manhood and received his 
education in the common schools. He was reared 
on the farm, and tilling the soil has been his chief 
pursuit ever since. He owns 241 acres of land, 
with about sixty acres under cultivation. He was 
elected sheriff and collector in 1880, served four 
years, and in 1886 was re-elected to the same office, 
which position he is now filling. He was married 
in 1868 to Miss Mary Bowlin, who bore him six 
children: Callie, Lucy, Deany, Mack, Sudie and 
Nannie. Mrs. AVillcockson is a member of the 
Baptist Church, and Mr. Willcockson is a member 
of the K. of P. 

J. W. Williams is a native of Panola County, 
Miss., where he was born in the year 1859, being 
the eldest of two children born to John and Mary 
J. (Bishop) Williams, the former of whom was an 
extensive farmer of that section for a long time, 
whither he had come with his father at an early 
day. When the war broke out he enlisted in the 
Confederate army in the company known as the 
"Sardis Blues," and was killed in the battle of 
Shiloh, on the 7th of April, 1862. His widow is 
still living, and resides in Mississippi on the old 
homestead. J. W. Williams was reared to farm 
labor and attended the common schools until four- 
teen years of age, when he began working for 
himself, continuing at farm labor for seven years. 
In 1880, at the age of twenty-one years, he came 



to Greene County, Ark., and located at Walcott, 
where he has since been engaged in renting land; 
this year farming on some of Capt. Crowley's 
property. He contemplates entering a tract of 
160 acres in the fall. He is active and enterpris- 
ing and takes an interest in all matters pertaining 
to the good of the locality in which he has made 
his home. On the 7th of October, 1888, he was 
married to Miss Susie Eubanks, a native of Greene 
County, and a daughter of James and Mary E. 
(Gramling) Eubanks [see sketch of Judge Gram 
ling]. The former came to Greene County, Ark., 
at an early day and entered a large tract of land, 
on which ho did extensive improving, clearing 
about 160 acres and erecting excellent buildings. 
He died a few years ago, and is remembered by all 
as an honest gentlemen and an estimal)le citizen. 
A brother of J. W. Williams, Charles H., came 
with him to Arkansas and married Miss Janie 
Eubanks, a sister of Mrs. J. W. Williams. 

William Worrell, stockman and farmer, was 
born in Tennessee in 1839, and is the tenth of 
twelve chikken born to Peter and Martha Nancy 
Worrell, who were born, reared and married in 
Virginia, and emigrated to Madison County, Tenn. , 
in 1833. They purchased a farm of 103 acres, 
which they improved and made their home until 
their respective deaths. The father died in 1871 
at the age of seventy-four years, and the mother 
when her son William was a child. The latter 
was reared to farm labor and attended the public 
schools until the age of twenty, then renting 
land and farming for three years. In 1862 he en- 
listed in Company C, Twenty-second Tennessee 
Infantry, Confederate States Army, and was in 
the battles of Belmont, Richmond and Mur- 
freesboro, where he was captured and sent to 
Camp Douglas, at Chicago, and there he took the 
oath of allegiance and returned home, where he 
was almost an invalid for three years. In 1864 
he purchased a farm of 303i acres, where he 
resided until 1871, making many improvements, 
then sold out and came to Greene County, Ark. , 
settling near Gainesville, where ho lived for two 
years, later moving to a tract of 360 acres, which 
he liad jM-eviously purchased. Here he cleared 



|M> 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



about 150 acres, erected good buildings, set out 
orchards, and now lias one of the most pleasant 
homes in the county, but owns only eighty acres, 
having sold the rest. He has given considerable 
attention to stock raising, and raises a good grade 
of Berkshire hogs. March 20, 1888, he purchased 
a fine Norman- Perch eron stallion, named George, 
which weighs 1,060 pounds, and is finely marked 
in all points. This animal has an excellent record 
from Indiana where it was raised, and shows a fine 
grade of colts from last season. It is undoubt- 
edly one of the best horses in Northeast Arkansas. 
He also owns another horse named Buck, which has 
an enviable record. On the 7th of July, 1859, 
Mr. Worrell was united in marriage to Miss Ann 
Eliza Freeman, a native of Tennessee, and a 
daughter of AVilliam and Nancy Freeman, who 
were also Tennesseeans, coming to Northeast Ar- 
kansas in 1859. To Mr. and Mrs. Worrell have 
been born the following children : John Isaac, who 
is married and resides in Greene County, and 
Loueza, wife of J. R. Hicks, also of this county, 
being the only ones living. Those deceased are 
Newson, who died at the age of twenty years; 
Luhx Bell, who died when eighteen; Willie, at 
the age of sixteen ; Savannah, who died in infancy, 
and Eveline, at the age of eight years. The fam- 
ily attend the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. 
Worrell takes considerable interest in the culture 
of bees, and has forty stands, all doing well. 

Henry Wrape, manufacturer of tight barrel 
staves, at Paragould, was born in Jennings County, 
Ind. , January 15, 1850, and is the son of Henry, 
Sr. , and Ann (Bible) Wrape, the father a native 
of Ireland, and the mother of New York State. 
Henry Wrape, Sr., emigrated from the Emerald 
Isle when a boy, locating for a while in New York 
State, and went from there in 1850 to Jennings 
County, Ind. He became a large railroad con- 
tractor, and was on the I. M. R. R., and on sev- 
eral other noted railroads. Both parents died in 
Indiana. They had four children: John. Robert, 
Kate, wife of Able T. Morgan, and Henry, who is 
the youngest of the family. The latter was reared 
and educated in Indiana, at Notre Dame, the re- 
nowned Catholic school. He assisted his brother 



on the farm until si.xteen years of age, when he 
engaged in merchandising at North Vernon, Ind. , 
and this continued for one year. He then took a 
trip to South America, stopping at Buenos Ayres to 
settle up the estate of an uncle. He was absent 
about eighteen months, and on his return engaged 
in the stone-quarry business at North Vernon, 
which he followed for five years. In 1882 he 
came to Greene County, Ark, and embarked in his 
present business, which he has since continued. 
He has a large factory, and employs about fifty 
men. He makes a good stave, and turns out about 
5,000,000 per year. He is president of the Para- 
gould & Buffalo Island Railroad, which was built in 
1888, and which extends to the St. Francis River. 
Mr. Wrape is one of the prosperous and public-spir- 
ited men of Paragould. He was married in 18S5 to 
Miss Emma Davis, a native of Indiana, and to them 
have been born two children: Harold and Emma. 
Mr. and Mrs. Wrape are members of the Catholic 
Church. He is the owner of 4,000 acres of land 
in Missouri, and a number of acres in this county. 
Hezekiah B. Wright. In reviewing the various 
business interests of Greene County, Ark. , the name 
of Wright is found to be one of the most prominent, 
especially in connection with farming and mer- 
chandising. Mr. Wright was born in Hickman 
County, Tenn. , in 1829, and there made his home 
until 1850. when he came to Arkansas, having 
commenced the battle of life at the age of eighteen 
years. Two years later he located on his present 
farm, and has about 250 acres of land in an excel- 
lent state of cultivation, besides several other 
tracts, all of which he has earned by energy and 
good judgment. He is also engaged in general 
merchandising at Gainesville, the style of the firm 
being H. B. Wright & Co.. and they are enjoying 
a prosperous trade, owing to their thorough knowl- 
edge of the details of the business and the wants 
of the public, combined with honorable dealing. 
Mr. Wright was married to Mrs. Martha J. (Stares) 
Perry, who died in 1863, having borne two chil- 
dren by Mr. Wright: William J. and John N. 
(twins); and one child by her first husband, Mr. 
Perry: Mary, the wife of H. C. Sharer, of Wright 
County, Mo. Mr. Wright took for his second wife 



^- 



^f==± 



GBEENE COUNTY. 



187 



Mr.s. Peimelia E. (Ward) Wood, widow of C. 
Wood. Their iiiiiou has resulted in the birth of 
eight children: Joseph D., Franklin C. , Alvin T. , 
Emma M., Anna A., Revis and Hezekiah B. j 
Addie J. died when two years and nine months old. 
Mr. and Mrs. A\' right are members of the Mission- 
ar}- Baptist Church, to which their childi'en, Jo- 
seph, Frank and Emma, also belong. Mr. Wright 
is a Royal Arch Mason, and in his political views 
is a Democrat; he was elected county coroner on 
that ticket in 1858, and held the position until the { 
breaking out of the late Civil War. He is a strong 
advocate of and a liberal contributor to schools 
and chui'ches. He is the only surviving member 
of a family of three children (Thompson and Re- 
becca being the other two) born to John and Sarah 
( Barr) Wright, who were natives of South Carolina 
and Kentucky, respectively. When a small boy 
the father was taken by his parents to Tennessee, 
and resided first in Robertson County, then in 
Hickman County, where he attained his majority, 
and where his father died at an advanced age. He i 
was the eldest child, and in 1849 moved to Arkan- ' 
sas, and died in Greene County, in 1867, at the 
age of sixty-five years, his wife dying in 1851, 
aged about forty-seven years. 

Christopher C. Wright (deceased) was one of 
the representative citizens of Greene County, and 
followed the occupations of farmer and miller the 
principal part of his life. He was born in Vir- 
ginia in 1S41 and died February 15, 1889, while 
yet in the prime of life. His father, Dr. John 
Wright, is still living in Lunenburgh County, Va. , 
and is a prominent jihysician and farmer of that 
State. Christo])her C. Wright remained in his 
native State \nitil nineteen years of age, and seven 
years of that time were spent at the tobacco-manu- 
facturing Ijusiness. He then went to Missouri and 
remained in Franklin County until the breaking 
out of the late unjjleasantness between the North 
and South, when he went Soutli and joined the Con- 
federate army. He was wounded at the battle of 
Shiloh, and taken to Memphis. Tenn. , where he 
was discharged. He then went to Arkansas, re- 
mained on Crowley's Ridge for a numl)er of months, 
and then re-enlisted in Price's army, with which 



ho continued until the last raid through Missouri. 
After the war he came Ijack to Clay County, Ark. 
(then Greene County), where he remained three 
years, and at last settled on what was known as 
the Meredith farm, at the original site for the 
county seat of Greene County, where his widow 
now resides. The farm was then unimproved, but 
Mr. Wright went to work and soon had it under 
cultivation and in fine condition. In fact he was 
80 industrious and such an inveterate worker that 
he undermined his health, and death was the re- 
sult. Aside from his farming interest he also ran 
a saw and grist-mill, which he conducted until 
within a short time of his death, when he sold 
the saw-mill, and afterward ran a grist-mill and 
cotton-gin. This Mrs. Wright now manages and 
conducts. Mr. Wright was a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, to which he was a 
liberal contributor, and although quiet and unob- 
trusive in his demeanor, not a better man was to 
be found in the county. Well respected and 
cordially liked by all, his death, which was a sad 
blow to his wife and children, was also lamented 
by his many friends. He was married first at Oak 
Bluff, Ark., to Miss Ann Boothe, who died about 
one year afterward. His second marriage was in 
January, 1866, to Miss C. A. Ledbetter, a native 
of Chatham County, N. C, and the daughter of 
Thomas and Frances Ledbetter, also natives of 
North Carolina. Her parents moved to Arkansas 
in 1851 and located in Greene County, within one 
mile of where the mother is still living, at the age 
of seventy-one years. Her father died May 26, * 
1883. To her parents were born nine children, 
two of whom are now deceased. To the marriage 
of Mr. and Mrs. Wright were born eight children, 
seven of whom are living: Charles (died in in- 
fancy), Lillie, Billie, Katy, Thomas M. and John 
H. (twins). Ruby J. and Robert W. Mrs. Wright 
and family have conducted the farm and mill since 
the death of her husband. She and her eldest 
daughter belong to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Dr. T. H. W'yse, president of the Greene 
County Bank, was born in Jones County, N. C, 
April 19, 1827, and is the son of James and Nancy 



^P 



188 



HISTORY or ARKANSAS. 



(Nunn) Wyse, who were natives of North Carolina, 
and who emigrated to Tennessee in 1838, in that 
State passing their last days. The father was a 
farmer by occui)ation. Dr. T. H. Wyse, one of 
ten children, four now living, was reared in what 
is now Crockett County, Tenn. , and received his 
education in the common schools. At the age of 
twenty- four years he began the study of medicine, 
and graduated at the University of Nashville in 
1854. He then came to Greene County, Ark., 
locating at Gainesville, then the county seat, where 
he practiced for about twenty-five years. He was 
also engaged in mercantile business at that 
place for eighteen years. He lias now retired from 
practice. In November, 1887, he moved to Para- 
gould, and in February, 1888, the Greene County 
Bank was organized, with Dr. Wyse for president, 
which position he now holds. In 1861 he was 



elected to the legislature and served one term. 
He served six years as county treasurer of Greene 
County, and has been one of the county's most 
prominent citizens. He owns some 2,000 acres 
of land in Greene County, about the same number 
in Randolph County, and has nearly 400 acres in 
cultivation. He was married first, in 1851, at 
Brownsville, Tenn. , to Mary Williams, and his 
second marriage was to Miss Alice Kibler, of Ran- 
dolph County, Ark. No children have ever blessed 
his marriages. The Doctor is a member of the 
I Masonic fraternity, a member of the I. O. O. V. , 
and also belongs to the Chapter. He has repre- 
sented both of these lodges several times in the 
grand lodges, and takes a great interest in each 
of them. He is also a liberal contributor to 
worthy enterprises, aiding by his influence in all 
laudable movements. 







CLAY COUNTY. 



189 



-4-^-^ 



Clay County— Location and Description— Duainage— Timber— Soil— Natural Resources— Live 

Stock — Taxation — Population— Railroads— Settlement— County Organization— Change 

OF Name— The County Divided— Public Buildings— County Officers— Politics— 

The Courts— Legal Executions— The Civil War— Towns and Villages— 

Newspapers- Education and Religion— Biographical Sketches. 






I love everything that's old — old friends. 

Old times, old manners, old books. o)(lwine. — Ooldsmith. 




J. AY COUNTY lies in tho 
northeast corner of the State, 
and is bounded north by 
Ripley and Butler Counties, 
in Missouri ; east by Dunklin 
County, of that State; south 
by Greene County, Ark. , and 
west by Randolph, in the latter State. 
It is separated from Dunklin County, 
Mo. , by the St. Francis River, and its 
boundary lines are as follows: Com- 
mencing where the line between the 
States of Arkansas and Missouri inter- 
sects the St. Francis River; thence down 
said river, following its meanders, to 
the line between Sections 21 and 28, 
Township 19 north, Range 9 east; thence west on 
the section lines to the range line between Ranges 
2 and 8 east ; thence north on the range line to Black 
River; thence with the meanders of that river to the 
lino Ijetween Sections 15 and 16, in Township 19 
north, Range 3 east; thence north on the subdivis- 
ional lines to the line between Townships 20 and 
21 north; thence west to the range line between 
Ranges 2 and 8 east; thence north on the range 
line to the State line between Arkansas and Mis- 
souri; thence east on the State line to the place of 



beginning. The area of the county is 613 square 
miles, or 392,820 acres, about one-tenth of which 
is improved. 

A strip of broken or hilly lands, averaging 
between seven and eight miles in width, known as 
Crowley's Ridge, extends through the county in a 
southwesterly direction from its northeast corner. 
The summit of the hills in this tract reaches an 
altitude of fi'om 100 to 200 feet above the sun-ound- 
ing country. There are also four or five sections 
of hilly lands in the northwest portion of the coun- 
ty, west of CuiTent River; and all the balance of 
the county varies only a few feet from a level sur- 
face. The village of Knobel, on the St. Louis, 
Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad, is 181 feet 
above sea level, and this is about the average 
elevation of all except the hilly portions of the 
county; hence the highest point in the county 
may reach an elevation of 400 feet above the sea. 
All that portion lying east of the broken or hUly 
tract above described is drained by the St. Francis 
River and its tributaries, a large part of it being 
subject to overflow in the winter and spring, and 
that division located west is drained by Cache, 
Black and Current Rivers and their tributaries. 

Cache River enters the county from the north, 
near the middle of Range 7 east, and flows ou 



^«- 



190 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



through the county in a southwesterly direction 
to Cache Lake, on the southern boundarj' line, in 
the eastern half of Range 5; thus dividing the 
area of the county into nearly two equal portions. 
It drains the western slope of Crowley's Ridge, 
and central portion of the territory. Black River 
enters fi'om the north about two miles east of the 
range line, between Ranges 5 and f3, and Hows, on 
a very tortuous route, toward the southwest, leav- 
ing the county at a point about two miles north of 
its sonthwest corner. Current River enters the 
county from the west, a short distance south of the 
northwest corner, and flows thence easterly to the 
second tier of sections, thence in a southerly and 
finally in a southwesterly direction, passing out at 
the western boundary of Section 80, Township 20 
north, Range 3 east. The bottom lands along the 
St. Francis and Black Rivers usually overflow in 
the late winter and early spring to a depth of from 
one to two feet, and those along the Current River 
from three to five feet. The water, however, re- 
cedes so early as seldom to interfere with the rais- 
ing of summer crops, and the overflow always de- 
posits a sediment which enriches and re-fertilizes 
the land. It has been demonstrated that the river 
beds are sufficiently low to admit of the complete 
drainage and reclamation of nearly all swamp and 
overflowed lands in the county. Such can be done 
by removing the drift and rubbish from the rivers, 
straightening their channels, and constructing lat- 
eral ditches to empty into them. This, however, 
can only be accomplished by a State drainage law, 
which will assess for the purpose the lands alike of 
the non-resident and resident owners. 

The entire county was originally covered with 
a dense forest, consisting of four varieties of white 
oak, several of black and red oak, three of gum, 
several of hickory, a little walnut, cypress, ash, 
maple, honey locust, poplar, beech, elm, sassafras, 
catalpa, etc., with an iindergrowth of dogwood, 
pawpaw, redbud, spice-wood, hazel, privet, horn- 
beam, huckleberry, blackberry,' etc. Some trees 
of the largest kinds of timber measured from 
four to six feet across the stump. Much of the 
timber has been cut into logs and floated down the 
i streams and thus shipped away; and since the 



county has been traversed with railroads, a great 
deal has been cut into lumber and shipped by rail, 
and there is yet a seemingly ine.\haustible supply. 
The average acreage production of lumber is care- 
fully estimated as follows: Cypress, 5,000 feet: 
poplar and sweet gum, 3,000 feet each: white oak, 
2,000 feet; hickory, ash, walnut and black oak to- 
gether, 3,000 feet. Logs can be rafted on all the 
rivers mentioned and on some of their tributaries. 
It is estimated that each acre of timbered land 
will produce from twenty-five to thirty cords of 
wood, after the saw timber is taken away. 

The soil of the entire county is moderately 
rich and fertile, that of the bottom or overflowed 
lands being mostly composed of alluvial deposits; 
the balance is formed of sand, clay and vegetable 
mould, and the whole is imderlaid with a clay 
subsoil. 

At present the cutting and shipping of logs 
and lumber, with the running of the many saw- 
mills in the county, which give employment to a 
large number of men, constitute one of the leading 
industries and form a source of considerable rev- 
enue to the people of the county. This occupation 
will continue for many years, or imtil the supply 
of timber becomes exhausted. The vegetable pro- 
ductions, as shown by the census of 1880, were as 
follows: Indian corn, 343,836 bushels; oats, 
12,406 bushels; wheat, 13,408 bushels; hay, 100 
tons; cotton, 2,307 bales; Irish potatoes, 4,427 
bushels; sweet potatoes, 5,381 bushels; tobacco, 
11,390 pounds. These amounts were then pro- 
duced from much less than one-tenth of the area 
of the county. Considering the large increase of 
the present population over that of 1880, together 
with the advanced improvements, it is certain that 
the amount of vegetable productions now far ex- 
ceeds, and in some things more than doubles that 
of 1880. Surely "Cotton is king" in Clay Coun- 
ty, as it is the moneyed crop, and the source of the 
greatest income. It is raised to the exclusion of 
many other things that might be produced in 
larger quantities. Some of the late immigrants 
have begun the raising of clover and tame grasses, 
for which the soil is well adapted, with a view of 
making the raising of stock a leading industrj-. 



^ 



^1^ 



i£: 



CLAY COUNTY. 



nil 



The numlier of live animals in tlie county in 
ISSO, according to the census of that year, were 
as follows: Horses, 1,444; mules and asses, 832; 
cattle, (i,574; sheep, ],9fiO; hogs, 24,277. The 
number of animals within the county, according 
to late assessment rolls, are: Horses, 1,698; mules 
and asses, 922; cattle, 8.802; sheep, 1.159: hogs, 
1,325; a large gain in all except sheep and hogs. 
The reduced price of wool accounts for the decrease 
in the number of sheep, and the hogs enumerated 
in 1880 were all that were produced and on hand 
during the year, including those slaughtered and 
sold; while those recently enumerated included 
only those on hand when assessed for taxation; 
consequently there is not a decline in this direc- 
tion. As before stated, the county is well sup- 
plied with streams, and an abundance of good well 
water can be obtained almost anywhere at a depth 
of from twenty to forty feet by simply digging, 
without any blasting or boring through rock. 
These facts, coupled with the great adaptability 
for the growing of tame grasses and clover, the 
mildness of the climate, and the good shipping 
facilities, must eventually make Clay one of the 
best stock-growing counties in the United States, 
a truth of which farmers may profitably avail 
themselves. It is also well adapted to the grow- 
ing of all kinds of fruit common to this latitude. 
Fruit-growing however has not been made the 
specialty that it might. Some of the late immi- 
grants have set out, and are preparing to do so, 
large orchards and develop this industry, having 
perfect confidence of success. 

In 18S0 the real estate of the county was as- 
sessed at !?408,561, and the personal property at 
$244,717, making a total of $713,278; and the 
total taxes charged thereon were $10,022. The 
real estate of the county, as shown by recent 
assessment rolls, was valued at $1,211,258, and 
the personal property at $522,227. making a total 
of $1,733,485, upon which the total taxes charged 
were $25, 502. 25. By comparison it will be seen 
that since 1880 the taxable property and taxes 
charged have much more than doubled. The 
county has fair public buildings, is out of debt, and 
its scrip is worth one hundred cents on the dollar. 



There are twenty-six saw mills and eight stave 
factories within the county. 

In 1880 the population of Clay County was 
white 7,191, colored 22, total 7,213. Since that 
time, and especially within the last four years, 
emigration has so increased that the population 
at this writing (1889) is estimated at about double 
that of 1880. 

The St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern 
Railroad runs in a southwesterly direction across 
the western half of Clay County, the length of the 
main line within its territory being about nine- 
teen miles. The Helena branch extends in a 
southeasterly direction from Knobel, and has a 
length of about four miles within the county. The 
St. Louis & Texas Railroad crosses the St. Francis 
River in Section 18, Township 21, Range 9, where 
it enters the county, and run.s southwesterly along 
the eastern side of Crowley's Ridge, departing a 
few hundred yards below Rector. The length of 
its line here is about seventeen miles. The com- 
bined length of the railroads within the county is 
forty miles, not including a few l)ranches extend- 
ing one or two miles out to certain saw mills. 
The main line of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain 
& Southern Railroad was completed through the 
county early in the 70' s. 

The Helena branch of this road, and the St. 
Louis & Texas (Cotton Belt) Railroad were com- 
pleted through this vicinity in 1882. 

The settlement of the territory composing Clay 
County began al)out the year 1.S32, but increased 
very slowly for the first twenty years, after which 
it advanced quite rapidly, until the outbreak of 
the Civil War, when it came to a standstill. Its 
most noticeable growth has l)een within the last 
five years, immigrants having located here from 
Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana. Illinois and other 
States. Among the first settlers in the western 
part of the county were John J. Griffin, who 
located on Black River in 1832, and Abraham Rol)- 
erts, who settled a few years later near the present 
site of Corning. Prominent pioneers in the east- 
ern part of the county — mostly on Crowley's Ridge 
— were William and Elihu Davis, who settled early 
in the 30' s and were soon followed by the Payne, 



i\^L^ 



l'.t2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Hollis and other families. Among the settlers of 
the 40's were William H. Mack, James Watson 
and others, and during the 50' s the families of 
the Liddells, Millers, J. G. Dudley, Buck Wagster, 
B. H. Mitchell, William Dean, H. M. Granade, 
James Campbell, Singleton Copeland, Edward 
Allen, C. H. Mobley, Dr. Simmons were some of 
those who became settlers. Nearly all of the ear- 
liest comers were from Tennessee. Later immi- 
grants came from other Southern States, and now 
many are entering from the North. 

Clay County was organized as Clayton County, 
in accordance with an act of the General Assembly, 
approved March 24, 1873, and became a part of 
the Third judicial circuit and of the First Con- 
gressional district. That part of it now known as 
the Eastern district was taken from Greene, and 
that known as the Western district was removed 
from Randolph County. The county seat was 
originally located at Corning, on the lot of ground 
now occupied by the present court-house in that 
place. The first term of the coimty court was held 
at Corning, beginning on the 16th day of May, 
1873. Soon after a temporary frame court-house, 
22x40 feet in size, containing two rooms, was built, 
by order of the court, under the supervision of the 
sheriff. A common jail was also erected; subse- 
quently the question of the removal of the coimty 
seat to Boydsville — a more central point — began 
to be agitated, and on the 30th of June, 1874, an 
election was held for the purpose of submitting the 
question to the electors of the county, and when 
the votes were counted it was found, by the court, 
that the people, by a majority of 310. had voted in 
favor of removal. Thereupon the court declared 
Boydsville to be the county seat. However, such 
strong resistance to this decision was manifested 
that no permanent removal of records was made 
for a long time. 

Finally, after a lapse of a few years, the ques- 
tion was again submitted to the people at an elec- 
tion held May 22, 1877, on which occasion forty- 
two votes were cast against the removal and 603 
in favor of it, making a majority of 561 in favor 
of the project, and the court again declared Boyds ■ 
ville to be the county seat, to which place the 



records were soon removed and placed in a tem- 
porary court-house, previously erected by order of 
the county court. The first term of the county 
court was held in Boydsville beginning on Monday 
October 1, 1877. 

By an act of the General Assembly of the 
State, approved December 6, 1875, the name • of 
' ' Clayton ' ' County was changed to ' ' Clay. ' ' 

Having lost the county seat, the people of Corn- 
ing and the western portion of the county, finding 
it difficult to reach Boydsville, commenced to con- 
sider the question of dividing the county into two 
districts. Consequently the legislature, by an act 
approved February 23, 1881, provided that the 
county should be divided into two judicial districts, 
the "Eastern" and the "Western," and that the 
following described line should separate them: 
Commencing at tlie center of the main chan- 
nel of Black River where it crosses the Missouri 
and Arkansas State line; thence down the main 
channel of said river to the range line between 
Ranges 5 and 6, in Township 21; thence south on 
the range line to the west bank of Cache River; 
thence with the west bank of Cache River or lake 
to the line between Clay and Greene Counties. 
The act further provided that the seat of justice 
for the Western district should 'be at Corning; 
that the circuit, chancery and probate courts 
should be held both at Boydsville and at Corning; 
that the circuit courts established in the re- 
spective districts of the county should be as sepa- 
rate and distinct, and have the same relations to 
each other, as if they were of distinct counties; 
that the sheriff, clerk, treasurer and probate judge 
of the county should be the same for both districts; 
that the financial affairs of each district should be 
kept as separate and distinct as though they were 
separate counties, and that the offices for the West- 
ern district should be filled by the deputy county 
officers. 

After dispensing with the temjtorary court- 
house at Boydsville, the present two-story frame 
court-house, with the hall and four rooms on the 
first floor, and court-room on the second, was 
erected, about 1881. The present log and board 
jail, with iron cells, at Boydsville, was erected 



3?11 






CLAY COUNTY. 



l'J3 



immediately after the county seat was perma- 
neutly located there.* The public buildings at 
Corning consist of a court-house similar to the one 
at Boydsville, and the original jail with iron cells, 
which latter were put in immediately or soon after 
the county was divided into districts. The county 
has no ' ' poor farm ' " or asylum for her paiipers. 
The latter are let out separately for their keeping, 
to the lowest responsible bidders. 

Following is a list of the county officers of 
Clay County, from its formation to the present 
time: 

Judges: T. M. Holliiield, 1874-78; E. N. 
Ro^'all, 1878-86; Robert Liddell, present incum- 
bent, first elected in 1886. 

Clerks: T. L. Martin, 1873-74; W. H. Smith, 
1874-78; R. Liddell, 1878-86; W. E. Spence, 
present incumbent, elected in 1886. 

Sheriffs: William G. Akers, 1873-74; E. N. 
Royall, 1874-76; E. M. Allen, 1876-78 ;t J. A. 
McNiel, 1878-86; G. M. McNiel, 1886-88; B. B. 
Biffle, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Treasurers: William Little, 1873-74; James 
Blackshare, 1874-78; John Bearden, 1878-80; N. 
J. Burton. 1880-82; W. S. Blackshare, 1882-84; 
J. S. Simpson, 1884-86; A. L. Blackshare, present 
incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Coroners: J. Cunningham, 1873-74; J. J. 
Payne, 1874-76; J. N. Cummins, 1876-78; H. W. 
Cagle, 1878-84; Dallas Taylor, 1884-86; D. G. 
See, elected in 1886, but failed to qualify; office 
since vacant. 

Surveyors: W. C. Grimsley, 1873-74; E. M. 
Allen, Jr., 1874-76; A. J. Caldwell, 1876-82; E. 
M. Allen, 1882-86; A. Williams, 1886-88; E. M. 
Allen, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: E. N. Royall, 1873-74; J. S. 
Rodgers, 1874-76; W. H. Mack, 1876-78; J. W. 
Rodgers, 1878-82; Henry Holcomb, 1882-86; J. 
S. Blackshare, present incumbent, first elected in 
1886. 

The county at this writing is represented in 
the State legislature by Hon. J. W. Dollison, of 

* The cells were those taken from the jail at Corning. 

+E. X. Royall from September, 1877, I'icc Allen, sus- 
pended by order of circuit court. 



Greenway, and the offices of the Western district 
are filled by the following persons, viz. : E. D. 
Estes, deputy clerk; W. A. Brown, deputy sheriff; 
E. V. Sheeks, deputy treasurer; Jacob Brobst, 
deputy assessor; Z. T. Daniels, deputy surveyor. 
The judge of the county court is also judge of the 
probate court, and the clerk, by virtue of his 
office, is recorder of deeds, the sheriff, by virtue of 
his office, being collector of revenues. The school 
examiner for the Eastern district is R. L. O. Bryen, 
and for the Western district, F. G. Taylor. 

Politically the county of Clay is strongly Dem- 
ocratic. At the State election, held in September, 
1888, J. P. Eagle, the Democratic candidates for 
Governoi', received 1,108 votes, and C. M. Nor- 
wood, the Wheeler, Labor Union and Republican 
candidate, received 717 votes. At the same time 
B. B. Chism, Democratic candidate for secretary 
of State, received 1,121 votes, and G. W. Terry, 
opposition candidate for the same office, received 
697 votes. Only a light vote was cast at the pres- 
idential election. 

The several courts of the county consist of 
the county, probate and circuit courts. The judge 
of the county court is also judge of the probate 
court, and the clerk of the circuit court is also 
clerk of the county and probate courJ;8, and ex-officio 
recorder. 

The county cnurt, which is held only at Boyds- 
ville, meets on the first Mondays of January, 
April, July and October of each year, and the pro 
bate court meets at Boydsville on the third Mon- 
days, and at Corning on the fourth Mondays of 
the same months. The circuit court convenes at 
Corning on the first Mondays of January and 
August of each year, and on the third Mondays of 
the same months at Boydsville. 

The local bar of Clay County consists of G. 
B. Holifield, of Boydsville, F. G. Taylor, G. B. 
Oliver and J. C. Staley, of Corning, John Jones, 
of Peach Orchard, J. A. Barlow, of Rector, and 
H. W. Moore, of Greenway. 

Only two men have been legally executed in 
Clay County for the crime of murder; one of 
these being Bent Taylor, hanged for the murder 
of Rilev Black, and the other Lafayette Melton, 



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194 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



for the murder of Fank Hale. Both were executed 
at Corning, the former in iSSti, and the latter in 
1884. Other crimes have been committed within 
the coimty, for which the perpetrators have re- 
ceived lighter punishments. 

The territory over which Clay now extends 
was but slightly over-run and devastated during 
the Civil War of 1861-65. The citizens at that 
time, having emigrated mostly from Tennessee and 
other .slaveholding States, were in full sympathy 
with the Southern cause, in consequence of which 
a goodly number of soldiers were furnished for 
the Confederate army, while none joined the Union 
forces. Three companies of soldiers, organized re- 
spectively by Capts. F. S. White, Reed and E. M. 
Allen, were recruited principally from what is now 
Clay County. A few also enlisted in the company 
commanded by Capt. G. D. Byers. A company 
of Home Guards consisting of old men was or- 
ganized. In the spring of 1863 Col. Daniels with 
a force of Federal cavalry moved southward on 
Crowley's Ridge, and at a point about two miles 
northeast of the present site of Rector, came in 
contact with this company of Home Guards, firing 
upon and dispersing them. In this action Squire 
George Lynch of the attacked party was killed. 
There was no general biishwhacking here during 
the war, but a number of citizens were taken out 
and ' ' removed ' ' by scouting parties. 

Of the towns of the county, Advance is a post- 
office in the northeastern part. 

Boydsville, the county seat, situated on the 
southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of 
Section 25, Township 20, Range 6, was established 
in 1877. It contains the court-house and jail, four 
general stores, one drug store, one grocery, one 
hotel, two cotton-gins with grist and saw- mills 
attached, one school-house, two churches — Meth- 
odist Episcopal, South, and Methodist Protestant, 
with a hall over the former; a lodge each of 
Masons, Odd Fellows and Knights of Honor, .some 
mechanics' shops, and a population of about 150. 

Corning, the seat of justice for the Western 
district, situated on Section 6, Township 20, of 
Range 5, and on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & 
Southern Railroad, was established in 1873. It 



contains the court house and jail, six general stores, 
two drug stores, one grocery, three saloons, one 
livery stable, four hotels, one stave factory, two 
cotton-gins with grist mills attached, one wagon 
shop, one blacksmith shop, two shoe shops, three 
church organizations — Methodist Episcopal, South, 
Christian and Baptist — with but one church edifice, 
belonging to the Methodists, one school house, 
postoffice, and a population of about 600. It also 
contains a lodge each of Masons, Good Templars 
and Triple Alliance. 

Don is a postoffice in the western part of the 
county. 

Greenway, a town on the St. Louis & Texas 
Railroad, on Section 28, Township 20, Range 8, 
was laid out in February, 1883, by the South- 
western Improvement Company. It contains four 
general stores, one diug store, two groceries, one 
hardware and furniture store, one saloon, two saw- 
mills, two grist-mills, one stave factory, one school- 
house, two church organizations — Methodist and 
Baptist — five physicians, one attorney, the post- 
office, and a population of about 500. 

Knobel, a station at the junction of the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad and 
Helena branch, on the south part of Section 36, 
Township 20, Range 4, was established soon after 
the completion of the railroad. It contains three 
general stores, the railroad buildings, a large hotel, 
one school house and about twenty-five residences. 

Moark, situated on the same railroad, near the 
northern boundary of the county, was established 
soon after the road was completed. It contains 
three saw-mills, one of which is located on Black 
River, three miles east, being connected with the 
village by a wooden tramway, one general store, 
one school house, postoffice, and a few residences. 

Peach Orchard, a station on the St. Louis, 
Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad, on Section 
20, Township 19, Range 4, contains one general 
store, one cotton gin, with sorghum and corn mill 
attached, postoffice, and a few residences. 

Piggott, on the St. Louis & Texas Railroad, on 
Section 10, Town.ship 20, Range 8, was laid out in 
November, 1882. It contains two general stores, 
one drug store, three gi'oceries, one, cotton gin and 



^ 



>^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



iy5 



grist-mill combined, one stave factory, one hotel, 
some work-shops, one school house, church and 
hall combined, a lodge of Odd Fellows, a post of 
the (t. a. R., two physicians, and about 150 
inhabitants. 

Pitman, a postoffiee hamlet, is in the extreme 
northwest corner of the county. 

Rector, on the St. Louis & Texas Railroad, on 
the south half of Section 23, Township 19, Range 
7, was laid out in June, 1882, by the Southwestern ; 
Improvement Company. It contains seven gen- 
eral stores, three di*ug stores, one grocery, two 
(temperance) saloons, one hardware and grocery, 
one harness and saddlery store, some work-shojjs, 
a photograph gallery, one stave factory, two saw- 
mills, two cotton gins, with grist-mills attached, i 
one livery stable, two hotels, one meat market, a 
millinery store, postoffiee, four church organiza- 
tions — Baptist, Cumberland Presbyterian, Meth- 
odist Episcopal, South, and Methodist Protestant; { 
two church edifices, a lodge each of Masons, Odd 
Fellows and Knights of Honor, a public school- ' 
house, two select or private schools, four physi- 
cians, and a population of 700 or over. 

St. Francis, on the St. Louis & Texas Railroad, 
on the west bank of St. Francis River, was laid 
out in January, 1883, by the Southwestern Im- i 
provement Company. It contains six general 
stores, one dtxig store, four groceries, four saw- 
mills, one stave factory, one meat market, some 
work shops, two churches, Methodist and Cum- 
berland Presbyterian, two hotels, one school house, 
restaurant, postoffiee, two physicians, a lodge of 
Triple Alliance, and a population of about 200. 

Thnrman is a postoffiee seven miles west of 
Corning. 

Vidette is a postoffiee ten miles northwest of 
Corning. 

Williams is a postoffiee four miles west of Moark. 
The press of Clay County has ever exerted no 
slight influence in the growth and development of 
this section. While not numerous, those journals 
found here are ever active and energetic in giving 
to the outside unprejudiced, candid facts relating 
to the locality whose interests they represent. 
The Corning Index, a six-column folio weekly 



newspaper, at Corning, was established in the fall 
of 1887. It is published by Clyde C. Estes, and 
edited by E. D. Estes in an acceptable manner, in 
dicating ability and force. 

The Clay County Record, a seven-column week 
ly newspaper published at Rector, was established 
in January, 1889, by its present proprietor, Mr. 
Taylor. This joiu-nal also has at heart the welfare 
of the community, and enjoys a liberal circulation. 
Before the inauguration of the free school sys- 
tem, the educational facilities of the territory now 
composing this county were very meager. The 
old subscription schools taught in the primitive log 
school houses were generally of little benefit to the 
country. The scholastic pojjalation of the county 
in 1882 amounted to 2,863, live of them being 
colored, and in 1886 it reached 3,274, with only 
one colored — an increase, in the four years, of 411. 
In the latter year only 1,791 pupils (all white) 
were enrolled in the public schools, but a little over 
one-half of the scholastic population. This shows 
that the schools were not well attended, or that 
nearly one-half of the children were not compelled 
to attend school. For the year ending June 30, 
1886, there were thirty-four male and eight female 
teachers employed to teach the common schools of 
the county. The male teachers of the first grade 
were paid an average salary of S50 per month . and 
the female teachers of the same grade 137. 50 per 
month. The male teachers of the second grade 
were paid an average salary of $35, and the female 
teachers S32. 50 per month. The male teachers of 
the third grade were paid an average salary of i?25, 
and the female teachers $20 per month. The 
number of school houses re[)orted in the county in 
1886 was thirty-six, both frame and log, valued at 
$6,505. The amount of revenue received for the 
year ending Juue 30, 1886, was $13,224.60, and 
the amount expended for the same time was 
$11, 272.00. leaving a balance on hand of $1,951 .60. 
These statistics have been taken from the last pub- 
li.shed re])ort of the State superintendent of jiub- 
lic instruction. The public schools here, as else- 
where, are improving and becoming more and 
more efficient. 

The first organization of the Methodist Epis- 



196 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



copal Churoh, South, in Clay County was effected 
at Mar's Hill, four miles north of Boydsville, early 
in the 50' s, and the tirst church edifice was erected 
there in 1856. The next society was organized at 
the house of Capt. F. S. White, at Oak Bluff, in 
1856, near where Evans' Chapel was erected the 
next year. There are now three circuits of this 
church within the county, with an aggregate of 
eighteen organizations and about 570 members. 
The circuits are the Boydsville. St. Francis and 
Corning, belonging to the Jonesboro district of 
White River conference. 

Salem Church, three- fourths of a mile south 
of Boydsville, was the first Missionary Baptist 
Church organized within the county, and the num- 
ber has since increased to fourteen, with a total 
membership of 680. Elder Lloyd preached here 
forty years ago, and was probably the first Mis- 
sionary Baptist minister in the county. The Beth- 
lehem Missionary Baptist Association was organ- 
ized at Salem Church in 1868. 

The tirst society of the Methodist Protestant 
Church within the territory of Clay County was 
organized in 1858, at Liberty Hill, five miles north 
of Rector. There are now ten or more organiza- 
tions within the covmty, with a membership of 
about 350. 

The oldest Cumberland Presl)yterian Church 
here was organized at Chalk Bluff", about the year 
1855. There are now four organizations, located 
respectively at St. Francis, Piggott, Greenway and 
Rector. The total membership numbers, perhaps, 
100. 

Within the county there are at least two Regu- 
lar Baptist Churches, with an aggregate member- 
ship of about fifty, and one or more Free Will 
Baptist Churches. There are also a few Christian 
Churches of recent organization. 



S. V»\ Alexander, manufacturer and dealer in 
hard wood lumber, railroad ties, wagons, agricul- 
tural implements, car material, etc. , at Corning, 
Ark., was born in Hancock Comity, Ind., October 
17, 1835, his parents, James and Mary (Mac 
Michael) Alexander, and his grandparents, on 



both sides, being natives of Orange County, N. C. 
They all emigrated at an early day (about 1828) 
to Indiana where they died. The great-grand- 
father was in the Revolutionary War. and fired the 
tirst cannon in that service. James Alexander 
remained in Hancock County, Ind., until the 
spring of 1857, when he emigrated to Polk County, 
Iowa, where he was living at the time of his death, 
in 1882. His wife died in 1872, have borne five 
children: John C, Julia A.. Simeon W., James 
A. and Louisa. Mr. Alexander was a farmer by 
occupation. Simeon W. Alexander, our subject, 
was reared and educated in his native county, and 
from childhood has been familiar with farm life. 
On reaching his majority he was married, and emi- 
grated to Illinois, locating in Cumberland County, 
where he was engaged in the saw-mill business 
until 1859, when he removed to Polk County, 
Iowa, but returned to Illinois in December, 1863, 
and there resided until the fall of 1869. In the 
fall of that year he sold his mill and returned to 
Iowa, where he remained until 1886, being en- 
gaged in both lumbering and farming on an exten- 
sive scale. He owned 400 acres of good land, and 
on coming to Clay County, emljarked in the lumber 
busine.ss, putting i;p a large saw-mill . He still con- 
tinues this business and employs a great many 
hands. He owns about 2,400 acres of land in 
Clay County, some 1,000 of which will make fine 
farming land when improved. He also has one of 
the best houses in the county, situated in Corn- 
ing. October 23, 1856, he was married to Miss 
Mary Faster, a native of Indiana, by whom he has 
seven children: William (in Dakota), Lucy M. , 
Cora (wife of T. J. Conway, of Chicago), Charles 
W., Addie, Freddie and Edward. Mr. Alexander 
is a member of the I. O. O. F., and is one of the 
public-spirited men of Clay County, always being 
ready to advance the interests of the people. 

J. H. Allen, stockman and farmer of Clay 
County, Ark., was born in North Carolina in July, 
1828, being the eighth of nine children born to 
Isaac and Sarah (Hawkins) Allen, who were born 
in North Carolina and Virginia, respectively, the 
latter being a daughter of a Revolutionary i)atriot. 
Both parents died on their home farm in North 



a t- 



CLAY COUNTY. 



197 



Carolina. J. H. Allen attended the public schools 
for some time and remained at home until twenty- 
four years of age, being engaged in overseeing 
the farm until the breaking out of the Rebellion, 
when he gave up this work and began operating a 
grist mill. In November, 1866, he came to what 
is now Clay County (then Randolph County), and 
settled twenty-five miles from Pocahontas, in which 
locality he rented land for some time. He then 
purchased 380 acres of wild land two miles west 
of Knobel, on which he immediately began to 
make improvements. At the present time he has 
150 acres under cultivation, well improved with 
good buildings, orchard, fences, etc. He has 
added 120 acres to his original purchase, on which 
he raises a large number of horses, cattle and hogs 
each year. He has devoted most of his cultivated 
land to corn and stock for his cattle and horses, 
but this year (1889) has put in about lifty acres of 
cotton. He has always been quite active in poli- 
tics, and has held the office of justice of the 
peace for ten years, and has been school director 
a number of years. In 1853 he married Miss 
Margaret Wagner, who was liorn in North Carolina, 
and by her had five children: William, John, 
Isaac, Henry, and Albert, all of whom are dead. 
In 1871 he married Miss Nancy Demaree, a native 
of Illinois, and to them were born three children: 
Amanda, Jesse and David, all now living at home. 
Capt. John J. Allen was born in Lee County, 
Ga., on the 2nd of July, 18-11, and is the son of 
Edward M. and Mary J. (Knight) Allen. The 
father was born in the "Palmetto State" in 1819 
of Scotcli-Irish parents, and was a mechanic and 
ginwright, making machines by hand. He was 
taken to Georgia when small, and was there reared 
to manhood. During the Indian troubles in the 
Southern States, especially in Florida, Mr. Allen 
participated as a private, and received in payment 
for his services a land warrant for 160 acres, and 
in 1853 chose the land on which Capt. John J. Allen 
now resides. Prior to this, however, he took a 
trip through Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and 
the Indian Territory, making the journey on horse- 
back, a distance of 3.lt00 miles. He then re- 
turned to Georgia, and the following year (1853) 



located in Arkansas, the nearest post-office at that 
time being sixteen miles distant, and the second 
nearest (Pocahontas) fifty miles distant. The 
families of McNiel, Nettles, Wooter, Singleton. 
Copeland, Sexton and White, were the only ones 
within a radius of ten miles. Wild animals 
roamed the country at will, and Indians were also 
very numerous. Schools were almost unknown, 
and Mr. Allen assisted in building many of the 
first houses. John G. Taylor, a Missionary Bap- 
tist minister, came with Mr. Allen to the State;, and 
preached the first sermon in Northeast Arkansas. 
The latter oi)ened thirty acres of land the first 
year, which was heavily covered with timber. He 
was a slave owner, and served for twelve months 
in the Confederate army under Price, holding the 
rank of captain, when he resigned on account of his 
age. He died in 1877. His wife was born in 
Jasper County, Ga., about 1822, and was there 
married to Mr. Allen, by whom she became 
the mother of ten children: William A., John J., 
Elizabeth J., Edward M. , Thomas M. , living to 
be grown, and the following dying in infancy: 
Martha, Stapie, and two infants. Mrs. Allen died 
in 1860, and Mr. Allen then married Sarah J. 
Palmer, who bore him five children: Robert, 
Georgia L., George W., Willie, and Odus. Capt. 
Allen, our subject, has resided in Arkansas since 
twelve years of age, but spent his entire school 
days in Georgia. He was reared on the farm on 
which he is now residing, and remained at home 
until his marriage at the age of eighteen years, 
when he was engaged in farming until 1 86 1 . Then 
he enlisted in Company H, Fifth Arkansas Volun- 
teer Infantry, and ser\'ed until the close of the 
war, participating in many battles: Helena. Fred- 
ericksburg, Boonville, Lexington. Newtonia, and 
many others of less note. He enlisted as a pri- 
vate, but was promoted to captain, and was then 
transferred to the cavalry, serving two years. 
After coming home he engaged in farming, and in 
18*)8 opened a mercantile estaVilishment at Scatter- 
ville, and followed this occupation in connection 
with ginning for four years. He then removed 
to Tilton. where he was occu])ied in business until 
August, 18yy, since which time he has been one of 



A* 



198 



HISTOEY OF AllKANSAS. 



the successful business men of Rector. He has 
been a large speculator in land, and in addition to 
his farm, runs a stave factory and saw-mill. His 
farm comprises about 4.000 acres, and he has 
2,200 acres in Greene County, besides consider- 
able land in other districts, all of which is the re- 
sult of his own labor. He was married to Miss 
Permelia L. McNiel, a daughter of Neil McNiel. 
She was born in Clay County, Ark., and she and 
Capt. Allen are the parents of live children: Mary 
L., James B. , Minnie A., Myrtie, and Charles A. 
In 1872 Mrs. Allen died, and Mr. Allen then mar- 
ried Xancy O. McNiel, a sister of his first wife. 
Their children are: George M., Gertrude, Harry 
P., Carrie, and Leonard W. Capt. Allen has 
never been a political man, the highest office he 
ever held being that of notary public. He is one 
of the best known men in the county, and is a 
member of the I. O. O. F. , the Knights of Pythias, 
and the Masonic fraternity, and has long been con- 
nected with the Missionary Baptist Church. 

Joshua Bare, farmer and stock raiser of St. 
Francis Township, is a fair sample of what can be 
accomplished by industry and perseverance. Al- 
though starting life with a limited amount of this 
world's goods, he is now one of the substantial 
farmers of the county, and is the owner of 240 
acres of land in the home place, with 160 acres 
cleared, on which he has good buildings. Aside 
from this he is the owner of another tract of land 
in the township, one and a (juarter miles from 
the home place, consisting of IBO acres of timber 
land. He also possesses some 320 acres in the 
St. Francis bottoms, with about 100 acres cleared, 
and has an interest in 205 acres of other lands, all 
the result of industry and good management. Mr. 
Bare was born in Crawford County, Ind. , Decem- 
ber 13, 1833, and is the son of Jacob Bare and 
Nancy (Copple) Bare, the latter of German descent. 
The father was born in Virginia but was reared in 
Indiana. After marriage he settled in Crawford 
County of that State, where he followed farming 
until about 1843, when he moved to Illinois and 
settled in Jefferson County. He resided there up 
to 1868, when he came to Arkansas, and located in 
what is now Clay County. Here he died in Feb- 



ruary. 1877. He served as sheriff and deputy 
sheriff in Indiana, and was quite a prominent man. 
Joshua Bare was reared in Jefferson County, 111., 
and came to Arkansas in 1855, locating in Clay 
County, but what was then Greene County, and 
entered eighty acres of land. He then bought 
eighty acres near Brown's Ferry, resided there 
about fifteen years, after which he sold this, and 
bought the place where he now lives. He has 
been four times married; first, to Miss Susan 
Williams; then to Nancy Brown, who bore him 
one daughter, Peggy A., wife of John Nettle: his 
next marriage was to Mrs. Nettle, a widow, who 
bore him four childi-en: Clarissa (wife of Wiley 
Thomas), Joshua, Bettie and Arabella. Mr. 
Bare's fourth marriage was to Mrs. Marietta 
Sarver, a widow, and the daughter of Jacob Sarver. 
Three children were born to this union: Jacob, 
Mattie and John Harry. When Mr. Bare first 
came to the State it was a comparative wilderness, 
and for about eleven winters he was engaged in 
trapping. He has killed bear, wolves, wild cats, 
lots of deer, turkey and small game. He would 
average about $200 worth of furs annually at that 
business. Mr. Bare has been a member of the 
I. O. O. F. for thirteen years. Mrs. Bare belongs 
to the Christian Church. An interesting volume 
might be written of many of Mr. Bare's hunting 
expeditions, but space will permit mentit)n of only 
the following: In 1867, one of his neighbors, Billy 
Maner, a single man, had struck camp some seven 
miles south of where our subject lived, in a wild 
locality on Old River. Mr. Bare went on one occa- 
sion to spend the night with him. but found the 
unsuccessful hunter without food. Starting the 
next morning with a determination to return only 
after he shot something, he traveled some distance, 
occasionally seeing game which could not be se- 
cured. Later on, while not far from camp, he 
killed two wolves, and lieing of a humorous dispo- 
sition, the thought was suggested to pass off this 
meat upon the iinsuspecting Billy as venison. 
Bringing a portion of the animal to headquarters 
(together with a squirrel), and assuring him that 
a large buck had been killed, the mess was eaten 
by the victim of Mr. Bare's joke, with a casual 



CLAY COUNTY. 



ik 



remark as to its toughness, etc. Subsequently 
the truth was toUl. Imagination rather than 
words can jjicture the result of such a revelation. 
In 1876 a three-days" hunt was indulged in by Mr. 
Bare, two of his nephews and a little negro boy. 
Starting with a cart and a yoke of oxen, they drove 
into a bottom farm, proceeding horse-back until 
about a mile from their camping ground, when 
fresh bear tracks were discovered. Before very 
long an effort to secure bruin was commenced, and 
proved fruitful. While waiting for help to remove 
the animal (which weighed about 400 pounds) a 
large buck was killed by Mr. Bare. These furnish 
but mere instances of his good fortune with the 
guu and rifle. 

W. F. Barnes, undertaker and furniture dealer, 
of Corning, Ark. , has been in business here since 
August, 1888, when he purchased his stock of 
goods of Mr. Bishop and continued at that stand 
until June 1, 1889, when he moved to his present 
location. His establishment is a two-story frame 
building, 40x20 feet, now under process of erec- 
tion, which will, when finished, be commodious 
and substantial. Mr. Barnes' success in this line 
has been due to his energy and enterprise, and his 
establishment is now one of the leading concerns 
of this kind in the county. He was born in Law- 
rence County, 111., in 1856, and was the eldest in 
a family of eight children born to John and Jane 
(Thompson) Barnes, who were Kentuckians by 
birth, but emigrated to Illinois in their youth, 
where they grew to maturity and met and married. 
The father settled with his parents in Lawrence 
County in 1826, and afterward became a successful 
farmer and teacher of that region, following these 
occupations for many years in that State. He died 
in 1885, but his widow is still residing in Illinois. 
The paternal gi-andfather was an early settler of 
Illinois, where he also makes his home. Mr. 
Barnes was early inured to the duties of farm life, 
and dui'ing his youth also attended the common 
schools of Lawrence and Wabash Counties, 111. 
He engaged in farming for himself in that State 
and was mamed there in 1882 to Miss Ella P. 
Price, a native of that county. Her parents. Jo- 
seph and Hannah (Dart) Price, were born in Ohio 



and Kentucky, respectively, and are now residing 
in Illinois. In 1887 Mr. Barnes came to Corning, 
Ark., and until 1888 worked at the carpenter's 
trade, but has since been engaged in his present 
business. Politically he is a Democrat, and always 
supports the princijiles of that party. He belongs 
to the K. of H. and the I. O. G. T., and he and 
wife are members of the Methodist Church. Thev 
are the parents of two children: Opal V. and 
Verna D. Mr. Barnes has done well financially, 
is the owner of some valuable town property, and 
predicts a bright future for Corning. 

Zachariah T. Bearderi was born in Montgomery 
County, Tenn. , September 29, 1849, and is the son 
of John and Prudence (Majors) Bearden. John 
Bearden was born in Montgomery County, Tenn., 
and is of Irish-English parentage. He received 
a fair, common-school education, later followed 
farming and emigrated to Clay County, Ark., in 
1851. The county was called Greene County at 
that time, but was afterward changed to Clay. At 
that early day there were but six families in an area 
ten miles square, and all the hardships and priva 
tions incident to pioneer life were experienced by 
Mr. Bearden. Schools were taught on the sub- 
scription plan, and church was held about once a 
month in old log cabins. Mr. Bearden was a slave 
owner but generally preferred white labor. He was 
the owner of a large farm, but was broken up dur- 
ing the war. He died May 10, 1888, being seventy- 
six years of age. During life he was never an 
office seeker, but was elected by the people, with 
out solicitation, to the office of county treasurer. 
Mrs. Bearden was also reared in Tennessee, grew to 
womanhood there, and was man-led in that State. 
Nine children were the result of this union; Rich- 
ard E. , Isom K., Judge H. , Zach. T., Samuel J., 
Susan U., William J., Robert W. and Mary E. 
Mrs. Bearden died in this county, August 16. 1877. 
Grandfather and Grandmother Bearden died in 
Tennessee; she was a native of North Carolina. 
Grandfather and Grandmother Majors were na- 
tives of ^^'est Virginia, and at an early day emi- 
grated to Tennessee. Zachariah T. Bearden came 
with his parents to Arkansas when two years of 
age, settling in Greene County, and there remained 



200 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



assisting his father on the farm until twenty-one 
years of age. His educational advantages were 
rather limited, but by self study he became a well 
informed man. At the age mentioned he began 
business for himself by hiring out at a cotton gin by 
the day, and later followed clerking. He then 
bought a tract of land and carried on agricultu- 
ral pursuits for nine years. January 2, 1873, he 
married Miss Elizabeth Harber, a native of Dyer 
County, Tenn. , and the daughter of G. A. Har- 
ber. The fruits of this union were five children, 
four now living: Drewy D., George O., John S. 
and Ethel M. The one deceased was named Dora 
L. Mr. Beardeu engaged in the mercantile busi- 
ness at his present stand in 1882, building the sec- 
ond house in Rector, and has been occupied in 
merchandising ever since. He is also interested 
in a large timber business. He carries a stock of 
merchandise valued at about $3, 000, and also buys 
and exchanges cotton. He is a Democrat in his 
political views. Mrs. Bearden is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

B. B. Biffle, sheriff of Clay County, and one of 
the representative citizens of this section, is a na- 
tive of Humphreys County, Tenn., where he was 
reared and where he received a fair education in 
the common schools. He is the son of William and 
Martha (Skelton) Biffle, the grandson of Nathan 
Biffle, and the great-grandson of Jacob Biffle, who 
came from Germany many years ago. To William 
Biffle and wife were born six children, B. B. Biffle 
being the eldest. He left his native county at the age 
of twenty-one years, or in 1879, and made his way 
to Clay County, Ark. , where he started a store in 
Greenway. and, although a young man, he was the 
first to engage in merchandising at that place. 
After that, in connection with his store, he was for 
some time occupied in running a stave mill, but in 
September, 1888, he was elected to the office of 
sheriff, and then closed out the milling and stave 
business, to give his undivided attention to his 
official duties. He fills that position in an able 
and efficient manner, and to the satisfaction of all 
concerned. He is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, of the Blue Lodge and Chapter. For his 
companion in life he chose Miss Ella Turner, 



daughter of Thomas Turner, of Tennessee. He and 
Mrs. Biffle are members of the Methodist Church. 
Sylvanus Bishop, wagon- maker, painter and 
farmer, is a son of Stephen M. and Caroline (Bun- 
nell) Bishop, and was born in Crawford County, 
Penn., March 1, 1841. His parents were also born 
in that State, and in 1837 emigrated to Indiana, 
\ but, after remaining there a short time, returned 
i to Pennsylvania. About 1844 they again came to 
Indiana, where they made their home until 1880, 
then moving to Peabody, Kas. , where Mr. Bishop 
died in 1886. His widow still survives. To them 
were born fifteen children, eleven of whom are 
living: Jefferson, Sylvanus, Stephen W., Adeline, 
David, Elmira J., Merriman, Silas, Delilah, Mon- 
roe and Daniel S. Sylvanus Bishop attained his 
growth in Indiana, and in 1861 enlisted in Com- 
pany E, Twenty-ninth Indiana Infantry, and 
served iintil the close of the war, participating in 
the following engagements: Shiloh, Stone River, 
Chickamauga, Liberty Gap and others. At the 
battle of Shiloh he was wounded by a gun-shot in 
the left arm. At Stone River he was captured, 
but succeeded in making his escape, and. after a 
time, was discharged for disability, owing to the 
effects of small-pox, which he had contracted in 
the service. From that time until 1877 he was 
engaged in learning and working at his trade in 
Indiana, and then came to Clay County, Ark., and 
has since resided at Corning. He owns a small 
farm adjoining the town, which is in a good state 
of cultivation and well improved, and this he con- 
ducts in connection with carrying on his trade. In 
January, 1886, he was married to Miss Mary E. Ben- 
edict, a native of New York State, by whom he has 
five children: Anna M. , John L., Amy W., Elsie 
V. and A. McDonald. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop are 
members of the Baptist Church, and he belongs 
to the Masonic fraternity. He has been a school 
director for about eleven years, and is interested 
in all public enterprises. For some ten years he 
was engaged in the undertaker's business, his 
profits amounting to about $1,500 per year. He 
now gives his attention to his shop, and is doing 
well. His son, John L. , is an intelligent young 
man, and is one of the first teachers in the county. 



CLAY COUNTY. 



201 



James Blackshare. Among all classes and in 
every condition of life where the struggle for a 
livelihood is going on, where will independence 
be found more clearly demonstrated than in the 
life of the honest, industrious farmer? Mr. 
Blackshare, who has followed agricultural pursuits 
for the past tifty-two years, and who has never 
missed a crop during the years thus spent, is a fair 
example of the independent tiller of the soil. He 
was V)orn in West Tennessee, in 1824, and is the 
son of Rev. Jacob and Mary (Berry) Blackshare, 
the father a native of Tennessee, born in 1802, 
and the mother born in 1799. James Blackshare 
was left motherless at the age of ten years, and 
May 27, 1847, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Sarah A. Dines, who bore him five sons: William 
S. , a member of the firm of Blackshare & Co. , 
in the manufacturing of staves and in the gen- 
eral milling business, is married and the father of 
six children: Robert B. (deceased), left a widow 
and five children; Sidney A. (deceased), left a 
widow and five children; James T., lives on a farm 
near Boydsville, is married and the father of three 
sons, and Jacob L., farmer near Boydsville, is 
married, and the father of two sons and two 
daughters. The mother of these children died in 
1857. March 14, 1858, Mr. Blackshare took for 
his second wife Mrs. Ruth E. Evans, of Tennessee, 
and in the fall of the same year he and family 
moved to Clay Comity (then Greene County), 
Ark. , and settled on the farm where he is now re- 
siding, three miles northeast of Boydsville, which 
consisted of eighty acres, to which he added eighty 
more. To his last marriage were born six chil- 
dren, three of whom survive at the present: Mary 
F., wife of Dr. John J. Prince, and the mother of 
one daughter, resides at Bethel Station, Tenn. , 
where her husband follows his profession and is 
also engaged in merchandising; John S., a merch- 
ant at Rector, married and the father of one child, 
a daughter; Ora A., the wife of A. J. Burton, and 
the mother of three children, two daughters and 
a son, is now living near her father, where her 
husband is occupied in farming; Ira E., died in 
his sixteenth year. Mr. Blackshare came to this 
State with his wife and seven children in two 

13 



wagons, drawn by oxen, being the owner of seven 
or eight head of cattle, six or eight head of horses, 
and about $200 in money. The first winter before 
there were gins introduced into the country, the 
cotton, which they picked with their fingers, was 
made into clothing, for the family. There were no 
mills then except little hand mills, which were only 
used to grind corn, and were called corn crackers. 
They would crack the kernel into about four 
pieces. A few years later Mr. Blackshare raised a 
little wheat and ground it in the same mills and 
" sarcht it;" this consisted of a box with a muslin 
cloth over it, opened at one end, on which was 
dropped some of the meal, and then by a rocking 
motion the bran was forced to the top and back 
through the opening at the rear, while the fine 
flour passed through the muslin into the box. At 
that time their trading was done by exchanging 
pelting and furs for salt, sugar, coflPee, etc.. at 
Cape Girardeau, Mo., 100 miles distant, to which 
place they made their trips with ox teams about 
once a year. Mr. Blackshare has not taken a 
drink of liquor of any kind, or a chew of tobacco, 
for over forty years, or since joining the church, 
and has always been willing to render aid, as far 
as he was able, to all laudal)le enterprises. He 
and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. Mr. Blackshare was township 
magistrate for four terms of two years each, and 
was also county treasurer for two teims. He is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and is one of 
the representative men of the county. He is now 
the owner of 340 acres of land, after having sup- 
ported his family and settled nine children at an 
expense of $14,000, and does not owe a cent. 

W. S. Blackshare, of the milling and stave 
manufacturing firm of W. S. Blackshare & Co.. 
is a native of Tennessee, born in November, 1849. 
•and came to Clay County, Ark., with his father, 
James Blackshare, when a boy of nine years. 
Here he grew to manhood on a farm, and in 1878 
he was appointed by Gov. Garland to the office of 
sheriff of the county, and for two years he was 
county treasurer, having also filled that office for 
several incumbents. He was deputy sheriff for 
four years, and is consider<»1 •mh' .>f the leading 



'2( 12 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Imainess men of the county. He is the owner of 
aljout 200 acres of land on his home place, which 
adjoins the town of Boydsville, and has about 
1 500 acres in the country, and has the best 
buildings to be found in the count}', all erected 
by himself. The house is a two story frame, 
16x40, with a one story L fifty feet long and 
sixteen feet wide, and a porch running the entire 
length of the L. He also has a very large cistern 
under cover. He has two large frame barns, one 
30x40, two stories high, and the other 80x50 
feet, also two stories high, with out-sheds on the 
sides. On his farm on the Cache he has built 
another house on the same plan as his home place, 
and he is also building a good barn there. He was I 
married to Miss Emily S. Cox. who lived Imt 
eighteen months after marriage, and died in 1871, 
leaving him a son, Arthur Lee, who is attending 
the home school. For his second wife Mr. Black- 
share married Miss Mary A. Ellis, daughter of 
Rev. Ira O. Ellis, who came here fi-om Mississippi, 
where his father, Rev. Reuben Ellis, was an 
itinerant preacher in the Methodist Church, South. 
Mrs. Ira O. Ellis is still living in Missoiui. To 
Mr. and Mrs. Blacksharo were bom these children: 
Ezra O., Annie (who is dead), Edgar M. , Angie, 
Lena and Jennie. Mr. Blackshare belongs to 
the I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, into which order he was 
initiated about the time he was twenty-one years 
of age.. In his political views he affiliates with 
the Democratic party. In 1871 he engaged in the 
mercantile business at Big Creek, with his father, 
buying out the interest of Judge Royall, paying 
$500 on time for the goods, and in 1878 removed 
to Boydsville. This business he continued until 
January, 1888, having in the meantime several 
partners: first the firm was J. & W. S. Black- 
share, then for eight years he was in company with- 
his brother, R. B. Blackshare, under the firm title 
of W. S. Blackshare & Co., and was then with i 
Judge Royall for three years, the firm title continu- | 
ing the same. In 1888 he disposed of his stock 
to A. L. Blackshare, who now conducts the busi- 
ness in the same building. In connection with his j 
seventeen years at merchandising, Mr. Blackshare 



devoted some of his time to farming, and is at 
present junior partner of Royall & Blackshare. 
real estate dealers. He is a pleasant, genial 
gentleman, a good conversationalist, and has a 
host of warm friends. He is a splendid man 
physically, and although forty years of age does 
not look a day over thirty. 

A. L. Blackshare, of Boydsville, another prom 
inent and much respected citizen of Clay County. 
Ark., was born in Tennessee, in 1856, and came to 
Clay County, Ark., in 1880. He followed agri- 
cultural pursuits for two years, and in 1885 bought 
out the stock of Mrs. Ella Blackshare, widow of 
R. B. Blackshare, and began business in Boyds- 
ville. This he continued for two years, and then sold 
out to J. S. Blackshare, after which he purchased 
the stock of \V. S. Blackshare & Co., and is now 
engaged in that business, under the firm title of 
A. L. Blackshare. Aside from this he is also oc- 
cupied in milling and manufactimng, under the 
business title of Blackshare & Blackshare. In 
1 886 he was elected to the position of treasurer of 
the company, and was re- elected in 1888. Miss 
Ada Berton, a native of Arkansas, and the daugh- 
ter of Robert Berton, became his wife, and to them 
were born two children, one now living: Robert 
Bascom. The other child, Ernest," died at the age 
of one year. Mr. Blackshare is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. 

Larry Boshers. This successful young planter 
and stockman, of Clay County, of which he has 
been a resident for seventeen years, is well and 
favorably known to the many citizens of Kilgore 
Township. He was born in the State of Tennesseo. 
in 1802, being the seventh of fourteen children 
of Henry and Tabitha (Stewart) Boshers, who were 
also originally from that State, the former being 
a planter by occupation, and there he died. After 
his death his widow came to Clay County, Ark. , 
and here di(>(l on her farm, in 1882. Larry Bosli- 
ers was early taught the rudiments of farm life, 
becoming still better acquainted with that calling 
as he grew to manliood. and is now considered one 
of the enterprising, thorough and reliable young 
agriculturists of the count}'. In 1880 he made 
his first pui'chase of land, which amounted to forty 



acres, in a raw state, and has since added from 
time to time to tbis tract, until he now has a 
vahiahle farm consisting of 480 acres, with 17^) 
under cultivation, the rest being well adapted to 
raisins' stock, to which Mr. Boshers gives consid- 
erable attention. He devotes seventy hve acres to 
the culture of cotton each year. He votes with 
the Democratic party, is a member of the Agri- 
cultural Wheel, and, personally, is held in high 
esteem by all who know him. Miss Jennie Mont 
gomery, a native of Clay County, became his wife 
in ISSO, and died in 18S4, having borne two chil- 
dren, both deceased. Her parents were Daniel and 
Polly Montgomery. 

Giles Bowers, carpenter and builder of Boyds- 
ville, and one of the successful business men of 
that village, is a native of North Carolina, and 
remained in his native State until twenty-seven 
years of age. He was engaged in gold mining 
until the lireaking out of the late war, when he 
enlisted in the Forty-ninth North Carolina Infan- 
try, in April, 1862, and served until the termina- 
tion of hostilities. He was in Gen. Lee's army, 
in Gen. Matt. W. Ransom's brigade, and partici- 
pated in the seven days' fight at Richmond, at 
Gen. McClellan's defeat, and was in all the tights 
and campaigns before Richmond. He was at the 
second battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericks- 
burg, and was captured at Five Forks and placed 
on Johnson Island. Ohio, as a prisoner of war, be- 
ing discharged there from June IS, 1S(55. He then 
returned to North Carolina, remaining until the 
spring of 1868, when he came to what is now Clay 
County, and, settling on a farm, tilled the soil 
until 1879. He is the owner of 120 acres of land, 
with about seventy acres under cultivation. In 
the last mentioned year he opened up a carpenter- 
shop, having learned the trade in previous years, 
and has erected the principal part of the buildings 
in Boydsville. At one time ho was a member of 
the tirm of Bowers &, Toombs, and later of the 
firm of Bowers & Downs. Mr. Bowers also manu- 
factures seats and desks for church and school 
purposes. He has been married twice; tirst, to 
Miss Elizabeth Almond, of North Carolina, who 
bore him ten children, eight of whom survive and 



are named as follows; Josephine, wife of James 
Mooning, and the mother of two children, ie now 
living on a farm in Sharp County; John \V. is 
engaged in business in Boydsville; Flora J., mar- 
ried to C. M. King, a farmer of Clay County, is 
the mother of three children; Nancy A. is at home 
with her father; Kittie Belle, wife of James W. 
Dobbins, a farmer near Boydsville; Frederick C, 
Giles L. and Brantly H. The mother of these 
children died in September, 1885. For his second 
wife Mr. Bowers chose Miss Maggie J. Matthews, 
who survived only seventeen months after mar- 
riage, and left a child, which followed its mother 
to the grave but a month lat(?r. Mr. Bowers is a 
Republican, and is somewhat active in politics, 
having done valiant woik for that party. Although 
not a member of any church, he works in harmony 
with all good people for the benefit of the commu- 
nity and for his fellow men. 

W. D. Bowers. Among the extensive indus- 
trial enterprises which form the basis of Clay 
County's importance and j)ro8perity is the stave 
and head factory located at Corning, in which 
Mr. Bowers has worked for ten years, and of 
which he has been foreman two years, working his 
way up to that position from a mill-hand. His 
native State is Ohio, his birth having occurred in 
Harrison County in 1851, and his parents wei-e also 
from that State. They were Jacob and Lavina 
Bowers, iiee Downs, the father being a tiller of 
the soil and successful in his calling, which occu- 
pation he continued to follow until his death 
in 1881. His wife is still living and makes her 
home in her native State. W. D. Bowers, like 
the majority of youths, lient his energies to learn- 
ing the occupation in which his father was en- 
gaged, and also acquired a good education in the 
public schools of Harrison County. After the 
late Civil War he joined the regular army of the 
United States, and was stationed at different points 
in the South, but in 1879 he came to Corning, 
Ark., and began working in the mill in which he is 
now employed. His wife, whom he married in 
1879, and who was formerly Miss Lenora Powell, 
was born in Tennessee, and was a daughter of B. 
C. Powell and wife, also of that State, the for- 




mer now residing near Austin, and the latter de- 
ceased. In 1883 Mr. Bowers lost his excellent 
wife, she having borne him two children, one of 
whom is living, Floyd. In 1886 Mr. Bowers was 
married in Union County, 111., to Miss Mary Stew- 
art, a native of Indiana. Her parents. Henry 
and Jane (Pollock) Stewart, were Ohio people, 
who moved first to Indiana and from there to 
Cape Girardeau County, Mo., where they opened 
up a farm in 1874, and later kept a hotel at Doni- 
phan. Here Mr. Stewart died in 1887, his wife 
having died in Indiana, in 1885. He enlisted in 
the Union army from Indiana, at the breaking out 
of the Civil War. Mr. Bowers has never been 
very active in politics. Socially he is a member of 
the K. of H. He is very public-spirited, and has 
always practiced those principles of fairness and 
honesty which are bound to command the respect 
and admiration of all right-minded people. 

C. Fred. Brennecke. editor of the Clay County 
Advocate, at Greenway, Ark., was born in Cape 
Girardeau County, Mo. , December 19, 1866, being 
a son of Frederick Brennecke, a native of Ger- 
many, who came to the United States with his 
parents when a lad of ten years and settled in 
Cape Girardeau County, Mo., where he grew to 
manhood and was married, the latter event being 
in the city of Cape Girardeau to Miss Dena Hunze, 
who was born in Germany. Mr. Brennecke served 
in the Union army during the late war. Since 
about 1865 he has resided in Cape Girardeau, and 
is in the service of Col. Robert Sturdivant. C. 
Fred. Brennecke grew to manhood in his native 
county, and learned the printer's trade in Cape 
Girardeau, commencing when thirteen years of age 
and continuing for about four and one half years. 
From this place he went to Jefferson City, but 
only worked there a short time, when he moved to 
Higginsville, La Fayette County, Mo., where he 
followed his trade for two years. J Subsequently 
he came to Greenway, Ark,, and became asso- 
ciated with Mr. Dollison in the publication of the 
Advocate, having charge of the mechanical depart- 
ment one year. January 2, 1889, he became sole 
proprietor, and is now editor and publisher of that 
paper. It is the leading newspaper of the county 



and is independent in politics. Mr. Brennecke 
receives a liberal amount of advertising, and his 
journal has the largest circulation of any ])aper in 
the county. He is a practical printer, a thorough 
business man, and is of exemplary hal)its and 
character. He was elected a member of the town 
board, and is now town recorder. 

Jacob Brobst, the present mayor of Corning, 
and county jailer of the Western division of Clay 
County, Ark., is descended from a family that has 
held a worthy place in the history of this country, 
and wherever its representatives have settled they 
have became recognized as prominent and influen- 
tial members of society. He was born in Colum- 
bus, Ohio, on the 18th of June, 1839, and of this 
State his parents, John and Catherine (Bachar) 
Brobst, were among the pioneer settlers. The 
father is still living and resides in Upper Sandusky, 
Ohio, but the mother died in 1874. Jacob followed 
the occupation of his father until eighteen years of 
age, receiving in the meantime a good education 
in the public schools of Wyandot County, Ohio, 
and after starting out to fight the battle of life for 
himself he worked at the carpenter's trade and 
taught school, securing in the latter profession the 
reputation of being one of the best educators in 
the county. Miss L. M. England, a native of 
Hancock County, Ohio, became his wife in 1862, 
and their union was blessed in the birth of two 
children: J. K.. who is married and resides at 
home, and Mary Alice, also at home. ]\Irs. 
Brobst's parents, Robert and Ellen (Lape) Eng- 
land, were Ohio people, the former being a farmer 
who died in 1875. His widow is a resident of 
Goshen, Ind. In 1864 Mr. Brobst went to Fort 
W'ayne, Ind., and was engaged in railroading in 
that State imtil 1879, when he took up his abode in 
Corning, Ark., which was at that time a very small 
place, and has since given his attention to carpen- 
tering. He votes with the Democratic party, and 
has been jailer of the West division for three years; 
was first elected to the position of mayor in 1882, 
next in 1883, and is now serving his third term. 
During 1884-85-86 and 1887 he was a member of 
the city council, and has also been deputy assessor 
of the Western division of Clay County. He was 



W*^ li 




foreman of the grand jury that found thp indict- 
ment by which the second man of tlie Ku Klux 
was hung, thus breaking up that gang in this sec- 
tion of the country. He is the owner of some fine 
residence property in the town, and besides this 
has a fertile and well tilled farm of ii'iO acres 
in Nelson Township. He believes in building up 
this place, and has done his full share in this direc- 
tion. He and wife are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

J. W. Brown, a farmer residing near Vidette, 
Ark., was born in Hardin County, Tenn., February 
"26, 1835, and is a son of John and Sarah (Garner) 
Brown, who were Tennesseeans, the mother dying 
in her native State when the subject of this sketch 
was a small boy. J. W. Brown was reared on a 
farm in his native county and in 1854 emigrated 
to Arkansas, coming by wagon, and located on the 
farm where he now lives. His place was heavilj' 
covered with timber when he located, but he 
soon erected a little log cabin and began clearing 
his land. He was compelled to work very hard, 
but made good headway, and now has one of the 
most valuable farms in the county, consisting of 
'200 acres, with about 100 acres under cultivation. 
Game of all kinds was quite abundant when he 
tirst came to the State, and one time he brought 
down a bear with his trusty rifle. In 18f>2 he 
enlisted in Company B, Col. White's regiment, 
and during six months' service was in the battle of 
(Jrane Hill. Owing to rheumatism he was compelled 
to leave the army. His first wife was Patience 
Vassar, and his second Emily Sloan, by whom he 
had a family of seven children, four now living: 
Henry, Amanda, George "W. and Sarah E. Both 
these wives were Tennesseeans, whom he married 
while living in that State. His present wife, whose 
maiden name was Martha Garner, has borne him 
three children: Minnie A., Ida M. and Reulien A. 
Mr. and Mrs. Brown are members of the Christian 
Church, and he is a member of the Masonic order. 

Andrew J. Brown, merchant and postmaster at 
Piggott, Ark. , is one of the prominent residents of 
the county, and in his business as well as social 
relations has won the confidence and respect of all 
who know him. His birth occurred in Union 



County, 111., Juno 15, 1843, his parents, Samuel 
and Annie (Dillow) Brown, being natives of the 
same State. They reared their family on a farin 
in Union County, and here Andrew J. Brown re- 
mained until twenty-five years of age, enlisting in 
18()2 in the One Hundred and Ninth Illinois 
Infantrj', which was afterward consolidated with 
the Eleventh Illinois, and served until he received 
his discharge at Springfield on the 15th of July, 
1805. He was in the fight at Vicksburg on the 
4th of July, 1868, and was at Yazoo City, Fort 
Spanish, and the surrender of Mobile. He was in 
the hospital at La Grange, Tenn., a short time, and 
in 1868 removed to Arkansas and located in what is 
now Clay County, where he was occupied in farm- 
ing for a few years. In 1879 he embarked in 
merchandising, and in 1882 located at Prggott, 
where he erected a business house and has since 
been engaged in keeping a general mercantile 
establishment, and has built up a good trade. He 
was appointed postmaster of the town in April, 
1888, which office he has since held. He and wife 
are members of the Missionary Baptist Church (in 
which he is a deacon), and he is a member of the 
G. A. R. organization, and is quartermaster of 
his post. He was married on the 28th of Decem- 
ber, 1868, to Miss M. J. Pollard, a sister of W. 
^\'. Pollard, whose sketch appears in this work, 
and they are the parents of the following cbiltb-en: 
Henry O. , a lad of twelve years: Cindona, a 
daughter, who died March 11,1 889, at the age of 
seventeen years, and an infant deceased. 

Hiram Calvin, of the firm of Clemson & Calvin, 
although a young man, is one of the most success- 
ful business men in this portion of the State. He 
has l)een running the business exclusively for six 
and a half years last, having come to this point with 
a stock of goods in December, 1882. He passed 
through the country eightetni months before the 
road was Iniilt, and, from what he reported, his 
partner in Illinois bought 4,200 acres of timber 
land, about half of which still belongs to the estate. 
They commenced business in Clay County, Ark., 
with a stock of goods worth $2,497, which has 
been increased since .then to $3, 500. In addition 
to the store, the firm own a stave-mill, which they 



J'- 



^ 



206 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



operate, and a farm of 120 acres, all under im- 
provement and well stocked. They have also been 
interested in steamboats on the river, and still 
own a small interest there. The original and only 
investment in goods and buildings amounted to 
$3,100, and, at a very low estimate, profits worth 
$10,000, and the first investment, have been paid 
out. Hiram Calvin is the son of K. T. Calvin and 
Angie (Rifner) Calvin, and the grandson, on his 
mother's side, of Peter and Elizabeth (Rockafellow) 
Rifner. Peter Rifner was a soldier in the War 
of 1812, being commissioned by Gen. Harrison as 
commander of a company. R. T. Calvin was born 
in New Jersey, and emigrated to Harrison, Ohio, 
when a young man. There he man-ied Miss Rif- 
ner. Hiram Calvin easts his vote with the Demo- 
cratic party, and is a member of the "Triple Alli- 
ance. ' ' He married Miss Gussie Boren, daughter 
of Cole Boren, of Mound City, 111. , who was a pilot 
on the Mississippi River, and whose father, Mor- 
gan Borenr, was born in Tennessee, in 1789, he be- 
ing a soldier in the Black Hawk War. The latter 
married Miss Anna Lathran, of Tennessee. To 
Mr. and Mrs. Calvin have been born three chil- 
dren: Fannie, Gussie and Aggie. Mr. Clemson 
died March 30, 1889, at his residence near Olm- 
sted, 111. , aged sixty-four years and ten days. 

William A. Campbell was born in Greene 
County, Mo., April 10, 1848, being a son of Will- 
iam and Nancy Campbell, and grandson of James 
and Lucy Campbell and James and Hannie Col- 
lins, who were natives of Patrick County, Va. 
William Campbell, Sr. , was a farmer, and moved to 
Missouri in 1845, residing in Greene County 
until 1852, when he removed to Cass County, and 
two years later to Kansas Territory. He eon- j 
tinned to make this his home iintil 1807, since 
which time he has been a resident of Vernon 
County, Mo., and is now living at Milo, of that 
county, engaged in merchandising. He and wife 
are the parents of the following family: John W., 
a resident of Arizona Territory, engaged in the 
milling business; George W. , who died in Newton 
County, Mo., in 1886; Marthie E., who died in i 
Greene County, Mo., in 1846; William A., James 
E. , who died in Vernon County, Mo., in 1872; , 



Isaac F., a merchant of Arizona Territory; Melissa 
J., who died in Bourbon County, Kas. , in 1859; 
Thomas H. , who died in Crawford County, Kas. , 
in 1863; David H. , a blacksmith at El Paso, Tex. : 
Melissa, married Charles Baker in 1883, and resides 
in Crawford County, Kas. William A. Campbell 
began life for himself in 1863, when only sixteen 
years old, at which time he enlisted in the Federal 
army, in Company B, Fourteenth Regiment of 
Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, under Capt. Charles 
H. Haynes, and Col. C. W. Blair, in which regi- 
ment he served until June 15, 1865, then being 
honorably discharged with the balance of his regi- 
ment, at Lawrence, Kas. He then went to South- 
east Kansas, where he joined his parents, staying 
there until May 20, 1866, the date of his marriage 
to Miss Rebecca A. Cooper, afterward moving 
to McDonald County, Mo., and from there to 
El Paso, Tex., where he lived one year. Going 
thence to Benton County, Ark., he lived there two 
years and later settled in Newton County, Mo., 
but after a residence in that locality until 1S84, 
moved to Clay County, Ark. , reaching this place 
November 17, 1884. Here he still resides. He 
bought 320 acres of heavily timy>ered land, and 
now has eighteen acres cleared and under fence, 
with a young orchard of 100 apple trees of a select 
variety. William A. Campbell was elected justice 
of the peace in his county, October 20, 1888, 
which ofiice he still holds. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. Rebecca A. Campbell, his 
wife, is the daughter of Hiram and Lucinda 
Cooper, and was born in McDonald Coimty, 
Mo. , March 7, 1 848. Her father died when she 
was four years old, and when she was seven years 
old her mother died, leaving her and one sister 
and two brothers to tight the battle of life as best 
they could. The oldest child was only ten years of 
age. She lived in McDonald County, Mo., until 
the spring of 1862, when she moved to Southeast 
Kansas with relatives, residing there until her 
marriage in 1866. AVilliam A. and Rebecca A. 
Campbell are the parents of six children : George 
W., the eldest, died in Jasper County, Mo., in 
1872; John W. died in Mexico, in 1874; Alex- 
ander died in Mexico in 1874; John W. and Alex- 



CLAY COUNTY. 



207 



ander (twins) died on the same day; Lucinda J., 
Martlia E., and Rosa A., the youngt^st child, still 
remain with their pai'ents. 

William C. Cochran, merchant of Greenway, 
Ark., was born in Massac County, 111., September 
4. 1854, his father. Jesse Cochran, being a native 
of North Carolina. The latter went to Illinois 
when a young man, where he was married to Jane 
Sexton, and resided in Massac County np to 1856, 
when he moved to Arkansas and settled in what 
is now Clay County. Here he entered land, made 
a farm, and reared a family. His death occurred 
in September, 1869. William C. Cochran and two 
sisters are the only surviving members of a family 
of six children. He was reared in Clay County, 
his youth being spent on a farm. He was married 
in this county on the 5th of December, 1881, to 
Miss Sarah E. Leeth. a daughter of John A. Leeth, 
formerly from Tennessee, now deceased. Mrs. 
Cochran was born in Tennessee, but was reared 
in Clay County, and by Mr. Cochran is the mother 
of one child, who is living: Lura, now six years 
old. Jesse died in January, 1886, at the age of 
live months. Mr. Cochran had been engaged in 
farming and the ginning business previous to his 
marriage, and afterwards continued the former 
occupation for three years. In August, 1885, he 
commenced merchandising at Greenway and has 
been interested in that business since that time. 
He was appointed deputy postmaster in 1885 and 
served two years. He carries an excellent stock 
of general merchandise, and has built up a good 
trade. He is a Mason and belongs to the I. O. O. F. 

Robert L. Coleman, proprietor of Piggott 
Hotel, Piggott, Ark., and the son of Col. David 
and Sarah (Love) Coleman, was born in Haywood 
County. N. C, March "26, 1823. Col. David Cole- 
man was a native of North Carolina, but moved to 
Tennessee at an early day. locating in Carroll Coun- 
ty, where he followed farming, and there remained 
until his death. He served as colonel of the State 
militia. His wife, Sarah Love, was also a native 
of North Carolina. Her father, Gen. Tliomas 
Love, was in the Revolutionary War as well as the 
M'ar of 1812. Robert L. Coleman was reared to 
manhood on a farm in Tennessee, read law in Car- 



roll County, and was admitted to the bar, after which 
he practiced there until his removal to Missouri 
in 1851. He then located at Hartsville, Wright 
County, practiced there for throe years and upon re- 
turning to Tennessee, engaged in mercantile pur- 
suits until the breaking out of the late war, wlienhe 
enlisted in the Confederate service, in 18(')2. in Col. 
Napier's regiment. He remained in this regiment 
for about eight months, afterward l>eing in Col. 
Green's regiment, where he was promoted to adju- 
tant and served in that capacity. He was captured 
at Parke's Cross Roads by Gen. Sullivan, was held 
a prisoner at Cam]) Douglas for over three months, 
and was then exchanged. He then returned to 
Tennessee and did not enter the service again. He 
resumed the j>ractice of law in Carroll County for 
about three years, l)ut finally gave up law. He 
has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, for many years and was licensed to 
preach in 1868. He was a local preacher in his 
church for some years. He was ordained deacon 
in 1870 at Trenton, Tenn., by Bishoj) McTyre, and 
followed his ministerial duties in Tennessee up to 
1875, when he moved to Arkansas, settling at Oak 
BlufP in Clay County, and there resided for a num- 
ber of years. He taught school for nine months, 
and then engaged in the manufacture of tobacco 
in 1878, which occupation he has followed up to 
the present date. He built his hotel in the fall of 
1888 and moved in December. His is the first 
and last and only hotel in Piggott. Mr. Coleman 
was married in Carroll County, Tenn., December 
4, 1850, to Miss Harriet E. Norman, a native of 
Carroll County, and the daughter of Judge John 
Norman. To this union were born three children, 
two daughters and a son: Sarah N., wife of Albert 
Hubbard, of Piggott; Mollio X.. widow, and John 
R., who died May 7, 1883, in his twenty-fifth year. 
Mr. Coleman was ordained local elder here in 1881 
by the same bishop that ordained him deacon in 
Tennessee. 

G. W. Cook is a successful agriculturist and 
stockman of Oak Blutf Township, Clay County, 
.\rk. , and was born in Weakley County, West Tenn. , 
in 1N4(), being the youngest in a family of seven 
children born to Richard A. and Ann (David) 



208 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Cook, both of whom were born in Old Virginia. 
At an early day they moved to West Tennessee, 
where the father opened up a farm and there died 
in 1860, at the age of fifty-eight years. His widow 
came to Greene County, Ark. , in August, 1874, 
and here died in October of the same year at the 
age of seventy-six years. G. W. Cook grew to 
manhood in his native State, and received his edu- 
cation in Weakley County, being also married there, 
in 1864, to Miss M. M. Jenkins, a daughter of C. P. 
and Mary G. (Boothe) Jenkins, who were born in 
North Carolina, and were early immigrants of Ten- 
nessee, where they became wealthy farmers and 
spent their declining years, the father dying in 1889 
and the mother in 1872. After his marriage Mr. 
Cook settled on the old homestead, aud there made 
his home until 1873, when he came to Greene 
County, Ark., and purchased a timber tract of 
eighty acres, which he cleared and sold in 1888. 
In 1874 he moved to Clay County, and five years 
later purchased the farm on which he is at present 
residing, which consisted of 120 acres, with thirty 
acres under the plow. He has increased his lands 
until he now has 960 acres, 200 of which are under 
cultivation, in the home farm, and 320 acres, with 
thirty-two under cultivation, in Blue Cane Town- 
ship, Greene County. He is interested in stock 
raising, and makes a specialty of Berkshire and 
Poland China hogs. His principal crop is corn. 
He has never been very active in politics, but 
usually votes the Democratic ticket. He is a mem- 
ber of the A. F. & A. M. lodge at Rector, and is 
intere.sted in all worthy public enterprises. He is 
in every respect a self-made man, and all his prop- 
erty has been acquired by his own exertions. He 
and wife are the parents of the following children: 
Ella, now Mrs. Bolton; Daniel Elvis, Joseph, Oda 
and Edar living, and six children deceased. In 
1861 Mr. Cook enlisted in Weakley County in Com- 
pany C, Fifty-second Tennessee Infantry, and was 
mustered into service at Henderson Station, after- 
ward participating in the battle of Shiloh. At the 
end of six months he returned home. 

Fred \V. Cooper, merchant of Green way, Clay 
County, Ark., was born on the 9th of October, 
1866, in Pulaski County, HI., his parents, C. C. 



and Georgia (McDonald) Cooper, being also born 
in that State. Mr. Cooper was a merchant of Cale- 
donia, 111., for a number of years and died there 
in May, 1877. Fred W. Cooper remained with his 
father until the latter' s death -and received his 
education in the common schools of Illinois and in 
Cincinnati, Ohio. After spending about one year in 
the ' 'Lone Star State' ' he located in Clay County, 
Ark. , in July, 1887, where he bought property, 
erected a store building, and engaged in merchan- 
dising, carrying a large and select stock of shelf and 
heavy hardware, farming implements and furni- 
ture. He has built up a good trade and is making 
money. He was married in Pulaski County, Novem- 
ber 9, 1887, to Miss Gertrude Williamson, a native 
of Ohio, who was reared and educated in Pulaski 

] County, 111. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are the parents 
of one child. Velaria. Mr. Cooper is a young 
man of energy, push and enterprise, and possess- 

I ing excellent business qualifications, is certain to 

; succeed in whatever he undertakes. 

Henry B. Cox, a prominent merchant of Rec- 
tor, Ark., was born February 13, 1843, in Weakley 
County, Tenn. His parents were, William A. 
Cox and Hiley Cox, natives, respectively, of Buck- 
ingham County, Va. , and Giles County, Tenn. 
William A. Cox, the father of our subject, was 
born March 22, 1815. He was of Scotch-Irish 
descent. Remaining in his native State until 
twelve years of age, he emigrated with his parents 
to Tennessee, which State at that time was wild 
and sparsely inhabited, and furnished very limited 
means of education. Still, William A. Cox, in the 
face of every disadvantage, by his own extraor- 
dinary efforts, succeeded in qualifj'ing himself for 
business affairs, and filled various important sta- 
tions. In 1838 he was married to Mrs. Hiley Scho- 
tield, widow of Thomas Schotield, and daughter 
of Asa and Nancy Magee, of Tennessee. Result- 
ing from this union were six children: Ballard C, 
Leamma M. , Henry B. (subject of this sketch), 
William A., Jr., Emily S. and Amanda Cox. Ball- 
ard C. Cox was killed at the battle of Chickamauga 
while in the Confederate sei-vice. Amanda and 
Emily S. , late wife of W. S. Blackshare, are also 
deceased. In 1857 William A. Cox and family 



s.pV 



CLAY COUNTY. 



209 



emigrated from Tennessee to Greene County, Ark. , 
and settled three miles north of the town of Oak 
Bluff. The woods at that time abounded in wild 
animals. School and church privileges were very 
limited. During the late war William A. Cox re- 
mained at home, but he was a Southern sympa- 
thizer. In religion he was a Presbyterian, but was 
identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, at the time of his death, in 1871. Mrs. 
Hiley Cox is still living, and is a resident of Clay 
County, Ark. (Clay County was formerly a part 
of Greene County.) The paternal grandfather, 
John Cox, was a native of Virginia, as was also his 
wife. He was of Scotch descent, and was a farmer 
bj- occupation. The maternal grandparents were 
of Tennessee. The grandfather participated in 
the Indian wars. He was engaged in the memora- 
ble battle of Horseshoe Bend. Henry B. Cox was 
thirteen years of age when the family removed to 
Arkansas. He remained at home on the farm un- 
til March, 1862, when he enlisted in Company D, 
Twenty fifth Arkansas Volunteer Infantry, under 
Capt. G. D. Byers, Confederate army. He was 
elected third lieutenant at Corinth, Miss. At 
Readerville, Tenn., he was promoted to first lieu- 
tenant. He was in the battles at Richmond. 
Ky., and Murfreesboro, Tenn., as well as numer- 
ous smaller engagements. At Murfreesboro he 
was wounded in the right foot, which resulted 
in much suffering and long confinement in the 
Medical College Hospital, at Atlanta, Ga. , of which 
Dr. Willis Westmoreland was chief surgeon. In 
]Sr)3, near GriflSn, Ga. , he was married to Miss 
Addie E. Lavender, daughter of Judge James La- 
vender, a native of Georgia. For two years after 
his marriage he was engaged in farming. In 1867, 
in Carroll County, Ga. , he went into the mercan- 
tile business. He emigrated to Greene County, 
Ark., in 1867, and is still occupied in the same 
business. By his marriage Mr. Cox became the 
father of nine children, as follows: Charles M. B., 
.■Vugusta O., Eugene H. . Cora B. , Mary F., Annie 
L. , Dreas L., Augustus C. and Hubert D. Cox. 
Of these there are surviving only Charles M. B. , 
Cora B., Mary F. and Dreas L. Cox. The wife of 
Mr. Cox, Mrs. Addie E. Cox, passed from this life 



into the future on July 9, 1880, at the age of thirty - 
six years. Mr. Cox afterward married Miss Laura 
I. Cox, a native of Missouri, and daughter of Rev. 
J. W. Cox, of the Methodist Protestant Cliurch. 
To this union were born two children: Addie B. 
and Everett; the last named died at the age of 
four months. Mr. Cox established his business in 
Rector in 1882. He was the purchaser of the first 
lot sold in town, and has l)een quite successful. 
Mr. Cox and family are members of the Methodist 
Protestant Church. He was ordained a minister 
in 1872. He has been a member of the Masonic 
order since 1866, and took the Chapter and Coun- 
cil degrees in 1867, at CarroUton, Carroll County. 
Ga. He is a Democrat in jjolitics; a stanch advo- 
cate of the principles of prohibition, he supported 
Gen. Fisk for president in 1888. In personal ap- 
pearance Mr.. Cox is tall and imposing; is six feet 
and two inches, and weighs 200 ll)s. He has dark- 
brown eyes, and wears a heavy, full beard. 

Thomas J. Crews, farmer and stock raiser of St. 
Francis Township, Clay County, Ark., was bom 
in Bedford County, Tenn., August 1, 1847, and is 
the son of Dr. John Crews, a native of Virginia, 
and Mary A. (Tribble) Crews. Dr. John Crews 
was reared in his native State and was married 
twice, his first wife bearing him two sons and 
three daughters, all now deceased but one, a 
daughter. His second marriage was to the mother 
of our subject, who bore him four children, two 
sons and two daughters, all of whom grew to ma- 
ture years. The Doctor moved from Bedford to 
Weaklev County, residing there some nine years, 
engaged in farming, and then, aliout 187)7, he 
moved with his family to Arkansas, locating in what 
is now Clay County, made a farm and there resided 
until his death, which occurred in December. 1876. 
Thomas J. Crews grew to manhood on the farm in 
Clay County, remaining with his parents until 
''rown, and was married in that county September 
1, 1872, to Miss Mary J. Lively, a native of Ar 
kansas, and the daughter of William Lively, and 
sister of Rev. Lively, whose sketch appears else 
where in this work. After his marriage Mr. 
Crews settled in the neighborhood where he now 
lives, and after his father's de.ith he came to the 



-il 



210 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



old home and bought out the heirs. He has 250 
acres of land with about 125 fenced and under 
cultivation. Mrs. Crews died February 12, 1878, 
and since then Mr. Crews' mother, who is still 
living, has been his housekeeper. Mr. Crews is 
a member of the Masonic fraternity. Wisdom 
Lodge No. 343, and has filled all the official posi- 
tions in his lodge. He has represented the lodge 
in the grand lodge two different times. He is also 
a member of the I. O. O. F., Lodge No. 56, at 
Piggott, and is Noble Grand of this lodge. He 
has served as district deputy for four years, and 
has represented this lodge and Clark Bluff a num- 
ber of times. He is a prominent man and an ex- 
cellent citizen. 

Z. T. Daniel is well known thoughout Clay 
County, Ark. , and for a number of years tilled the 
office of deputy county surveyor, with competence 
and ability. He was born on Blue Grass soil in 
Grant County, in 1848, being the eldest of a 
family of eight children born to Lewis B. and 
Sardinia K. (Canfield) Daniel, the former a native 
of Kentucky, and the latter of Ohio. The father 
was reared in his native State, and in March, 1849, 
moved to Illinois and settled in Schuyler County, 
•where he engaged in farming, continuing this oc- 
cupation until 1862, when he left his farm to en- 
gage in the war, enlisting from Rushville, III., 
in Company B, One Hundred and Nineteenth Illi- 
nois Infantry, and was mustered into service at 
Qujncy. He died in 1863 of disease contracted 
while in the service. His excellent wife still sur- 
vives him and resides at Rushville, 111. Z. T. 
Daniel received excellent facilities for acquiring 
an education, and besides attending the public 
school at Rushville, 111., attended the Washington 
University at St. Louis, in 1874, 1875 and 1876. 
During this time he studied surveying, and in 
March, 1876, he came to Corning, Ark., for the 
purpose of continuing his agricultural operations 
but drifted into surveying, which occuj)ation re- 
ceived the greater part of his attention, his serv- 
ices being utilized in Northern Arkansas and South- 
ern Missouri. He was married in Clay County, 
Ark., in the fall of 1882, to Miss Ellen McClintick, 
a native of Quincy, 111. , and a daughter of Henry 



Clay and Mary Ann (Dilley) McClintick, also of 
Illinois, who came to Corning, Ark., in 1878, 
where they are still residing, the father being the 
proprietor of the Illinois Hotel. Subseqiient to 
his marriage, Z. T. Daniel settled in Corning. 
He worked for the Iron Mountain Railroad Com- 
pany as civil engineer nearly two years. He is 
reporter for the K. of H. , and is an active mem- 
ber of the I. O. G. T. His wife is a member of 
the Baptist Church, and having no family of 
their own they have adopted . a little boy named 
Eddie, 

Elihu Davis, whose success as a farmer and 
stock raiser is well established throughout the 
county, is a native of Hardin County, Ky. , born 
March 11, 1S21. His father, William Davis, was 
also a native of Kentucky, and was married in that 
State to Miss Sarah Hardin, of the same State, 
although her people were from the Carolinas. 
William Davis settled on a faraj in Kentucky, re- 
sided there a number of years, and then moved to 
Wayne County, Tenn., where he purchased a farm 
and here reared his children. He died about 
1835 or 1836. His wife survived him until 1877, 
when she died at the home of her son in Arkansas. 
Elihu Davis was reared in Tennessee and came to 
Arkansas when a young man of eighteen, or in 
1838, locating in Greene County, but now Clay 
County, and finally settled on his present property 
in 1844. His nearest neighbor was three miles 
distant, wild animals were plentiful and many a 
deer and wild turkey fell before his unerring rille. 
Mr. Davis cleared over 100 acres where Greenway 
is now located, and sold forty acres of this in May. 
1889, for an addition to the town. He was mar- 
ried first in Clay County, October 16. 1844, to 
Susan Sites, a native of Arkansas, who died Sep- 
tember 16, 1863. To this union were born seven 
children, who grew to mature years. Mr. Davis 
married his second wife. Mrs. Nancy Boggus, a 
widow, formerly Miss Nancy Sheltou, who was 
born in Alabama. She was the mother of one son 
by her first marriage. This wife died October 23, 
1873, and Mr. Davis married again, in Clay Coun- 
ty, Miss Tennessee Horton, who bore him two chil- 
dren, Joseph and Nancy. Mrs. Davis was born in 



r"^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



211 



Tennessee, but was reared in Missouri and Arkan- 
sas. To Mr. Davis by his first wife were born 
these children: William A., whose sketch appears 
in this work; Solomon T., John, Elilui, Jr., (Clar- 
issa, wife of T. J. Smith; Sarah, and Mary, wife 
of Lewis Clippard. To his second marriag(> one 
son, Thomas L. , was born. Mr. Davis is a Master 
Mason, and a member of the Baptist Church. 

William M. Davis. Among the worthy resi- 
dents of Clay County, Ark., it is but just to say 
that Mr. Davis occupies a conspicuous and honor- 
able place, for he has always been honest, indus- 
trious and enterprising, and as a result has met 
with more than ordinary success. He was born in 
Georgia, on the 1 5th of August, 1842, and is a 
son of D. D. and Rebecca (Isbul) Davis, who were 
born, reared and married in South Carolina. They 
moved to Georgia after their marriage, where they 
remained about ten years and then located in Ala- 
bama, and afterward in Greene County, Ark., 
where the father is now living. William M. Davis 
remained with his father until of age, and in 
1862 enlisted in the Twenty-fifth Arkansas In- 
fantry. Confederate States Army, and served until 
the spring of 18fi5, when he surrendered at Witts- 
burgh, Ark. He was at Murfreesboro, Chick- 
amauga, Franklin, and the siege and surrender 
of Atlanta, being in about thirteen regular engage- 
ments. After the war he was engaged in farming 
in Greene County, and was married in Dunklin 
County, Mo., on Buffalo Island, September lU, 
1867, to Miss Martha Cochran, who was born and 
reared in Dunklin Coimty, being a daughter of 
Pleasant Cochran. Mr. and Mrs. Davis remained 
in Greene County until 1874, when he moved to 
his present place in Clay County, trading his farm 
there for the one on which he is now residing. He 
has 160 acres, with about seventy-five under culti- 
vation, and has built a good frame residence, 
stables and sheds and otherwise greatly imjjroved 
his jiroperty since locating, Mr. and Mrs. Davis 
are the parents of the following children: Cynthia 
E., wife of James Golden; Pleasant L., James 
E., WUliam David, George F., Samuel A., Lou 
Z., John Henry and Poarlie Gertrude. Two chil- 
dren died in early childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Davis 



are members of the Methodist Episcopal Churcli, 
South, and he is a Master Mason. 

William A. Davis, another prominent farmer 
and stock raiser of Haywood Township, Clay 
County, Ark., was born in the above-mentioned 
county, near Greeuway, April 20. 1853, and is the 
son of Elihu Davis, a Kentuckian by birth, who 
was reared in that State and in Tennessee. The 
father came to Arkansas when a young man and 
was here married. AVilliam A. Davis grew to 
manhood on the home farm, remaining with his 
father until twenty-seven years of age, and was 
married here first, March 10, 1881, to Miss Anna 
Randleman, who died in September, 1881. Mr. 
Davis had boiight and located where he resides in 
1880, and this place he has greatly improved. He 
has fifty-five acres of cleared land, neat buildings, 
a good orchard, and has twenty-five acres in tim- 
lier, all good bottom land, one mile from Green- 
way. Mr. Davis was married, in this county, De- 
cember 29, 1886, to Miss Belle Gorden, a native of 
Tennessee, but who was reared and educated in 
Clay County, Ark. Her father, Jordan Gorden, 
who is now deceased, was one of the pioneers of 
Arkansas. To Mr. and Mrs. Davis have been 
born one child. Myrtle, who is now six months old. 
Mr. Davis is a member of the Masonic Order, 
Wisdom Lodge No. 348, in which he is senior 
deacon. 

James Deniston, who is ])rominently identified 
with the farming and stock raising interests of 
Oak Bluff Township, was born in Ballard County, 
Ky., July 13, 1839, and is the son of John Denis- 
ton, who was born and reared in Washington 
County, Va. He was also married in that State, 
to Miss Dorotha L. Puckett, a native of Amelia 
County, Va. Her father served in the War of 
1812. After man-iage Mr. Deniston settled on a 
farm in Kentucky, and followed tilling the soil 
up to the breaking out of the late war, when, at 
the age of fifty-two, he enlisted in the Twenty- 
third Kentucky Infantry, Union Army, and died 
in Texas. James Deniston spent his youth in 
his native county, in Kentuck)', assisting his father 
on the farm, and when in his nineteenth year, 
he was married there to Miss Eliza Brown, who 



212 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bore him five children. After marriage Mr. Den- 
istou followed agricultural pursuits iu Kentucky 
until 1868, when he moved to Missouri, and spent 
one year in Cape Girardeau County. He then re- 
sided two years in Stoddard County, and in the 
spring of 1872 moved to Arkansas, bought raw 
land, and there he lives at the present time. He 
is the owner of 280 acres of land, with about 125 
acres cleared, all good bottom land. He served as 
a member of the school board for ten consecutive 
years, and has the confidence and esteem of his 
fellow men. He was married, in Cape Girardeau 
County, to Miss Mary E. Welch, a native of Illi- 
nois, but who was reared near Alton. Obion Coun- 
ty, Tenn. Nine children were born to the last 
marriage: Isabelle, Ada, Bernetta J., Rhoda,Ida 
M. , Stonewall J. , Scott H. , George and Effie W. 
Mr. and Mrs. Deniston are members of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, and he is a deacon in the 
same. He is a Master Mason, and a member and 
treasurer of Danley Lodge No. 800. A. F. & A. M. 
William H. Denny. Among the many sturdy 
and energetic agriculturists of Clay County, Ark., 
who have attained their property by hard labor 
and economy, may be mentioned Mr. Denny, who 
was born in Monroe County, Mo., September 25, 
1856, being a son of William T. F. and Martha 
(Atchison) Donny, who were born in St. Louis 
County. Mo., and Illinois, respectively, the form- 
er's birth occurring September 24, 1828. They 
were married January 1, 1849, and became the 
parents of seven children; "W. H. , Florence, 
Charles E., Andi-ew J., Cory Bell, Samuel W. and 
Lizy Edna. They moved to Monroe County, Mo. , 
in 1854, but returned to St. Louis County in 1861, 
where they are still living, being engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits. The mother is a member of the 
Presbyterian Church, and the father is a Mason, 
and in his political views a Democrat. William 
H. Denny moved from St. Louis County to Howell 
County, Mo., in 1883, and from the latter county 
to Clay County, Ark., where he purchased, in 
1885, a tract of land consisting of eighty acres, 
twenty of which are under cultivation, lying on 
Current River bottom. It is well adapted to cot- 
ton, corn and fruit, and can all be easily put in a 



tillable condition. It is also a fine grazing prop- 
erty, and is in condition to pasture stock the year 
round. Land in this section is valued at from $2 
to f 25 per acre, and cleared land is equal to the 
best in the State. It is usually covered with a 
heavy growth of timber (suitable for all kinds of 
work), among which may be mentioned gum, ash, 
oak, walnut, linn and cj'press. Mr. Denny in his 
political views is a Democrat. 

Hon. Jasper W. Dollison, a resident of Green- 
way, Clay County, Ark., was born in Cambridge 
City, of the "Buckeye State," December 20, 1849. 
His father, William E. Dollison, was born in 
Pennsylvania, but was reared in Ohio, and was 
married there to Miss Susanna Laird, who was 
born in the State. Mr. Dollison removed to the 
State of Indiana in 1857, and located in Clay 
County, where he engaged in farming and stock 
raising and dealing until 1884, then moving to Kan- 
sas, and he has since made his home in Independ- 
ence. Hon. Jasper W. Dollison grew to mature 
years in Clay County, Ind., and received an excel- 
lent education in the Greencastle University. He 
was engaged in teaching in the public schools of 
that State for a number of years, and in 1877 
moved to Missouri, and located in Andrew County, 
moving from there to Union County, Iowa, after a 
short time, where he made his home for nearly two 
years, having been engaged in teaching in both 
places. In 1881 he located at Newport, Jackson 
County, Ark., and for two years was superintend- 
ent of a lumljer mill. He then entered into the 
newspaper business in Greene County, at Para- 
gould. but in 1884 moved to Clay County and 
bought out the proprietors of the Rector Advocate, 
which he changed to the name of the Clay County 
Advocate, and moved the paper to Greenway in 
June, 1887. He continued the publication of this 
paper until .January, 1889, when he sold out to 
the present editor. In his political views he was 
formerly identified with the Democratic party, but 
when the movement known as the Labor movement 
was inaugurated, he recognized the justice of the 
cause and espoused it. In June, 1888, the State 
Union Labor convention, assembled at Little Rock, 
tendered him the nomination for State land com- 




missioner. He decliaed the honor, however, and 
after very urgent solicitation agreed to make the race 
for the legislature, and vfas nominated and elected 
on that ticket as representative of Clay County, 
serving vpith distinction for the term commencing 
January 14, 1889. He vyas married in Clay County, 
Ind., March 30, 1872, to Miss Anna Williams, 
who was born iu Kentucky, but was reared and 
educated principally in Indiana. Her parents 
were Van Buren and Mary Williams, of Clay 
County, Ind. Mr. and Mrs. Dollison are the 
]>arent8 of live childi'en: Lethe, Delia, Vincent, 
Charles and May. Mrs. Dollison is a mem- 
ber of the Christian Church, and he is a member 
of the K. of H. , the K. of L. and the Agricultural 
Wheel. He is engaged at present in real estate 
and timber enterprises. 

W. S. Downs, blacksmith, and one of the skill- 
ful workmen of the county, is a native of Georgia, 
born in 1848, and the son of Shelly Downs, who 
was born in Virginia. The latter was married in 
his native State, and afterward moved to Georgia, 
where the mother died shortly afterward, and 
where the father died in 18fil, leaving a family of 
three children. ^V. S. Downs was but thirteen 
years of age when his father died, and for three 
years after this, and during the war, he drove a 
team from Atlanta to Bowden, Ga. , and was with 
his teams near Franklin, Ga. (which is 100 miles 
from Atlanta), when that city fell into the hands of 
the Federal troops. At the age of sixteen Mr. 
Downs went to work to learn the carriage and 
wagon-maker's trade with the firm of J. W. 
Downs, and afterward with Downs & Langford, 
at Conyers, Ga., remaining in their employ for 
three years. He then came to Clay County, Ark. , 
where he has resided ever since, with the exception 
of about three years, two of which he spent in New 
Madrid. Mo. , and one year at his old home, where 
he worked for Mr. Langford, who was carrying on 
the same business. During his stay here six years 
were spent in the mill business, the second steam- 
mill in the county, and he afterward followed 
farming until about 1888, when he opened up his 
old business in Boydsville. He has built a shop 
for general repair work, and is having a fair 



trade. He was married in 1869 to Miss Martha 
A. Arnold, daughter of Andrew Arnold, of Clay 
County (but which at that time was Greene Coun- 
ty), and nine children have been the result of this 
union, eight now living. They are named as fol- 
lows: Lenora J., wife of J. A. Burton, of Tennes- 
see, and the mother of one child; J. H., at home 
attending the farm; L. E., at home; William E., 
J. B., Florence A.. Matthew A. and Alvin Shelly, 
who is named after his grandfather. Mr. and 
Mrs. Downs are members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South, and he is a Democrat in jwlitics. 
Joseph Dudgeon. There is nothing which 
adds so much to the prestige of a city in the estim- 
ation of a stranger as first-class hotel accommoda- 
tions, and the Dudgeon House, of which our sub- 
ject is proprietor, has an excellent reputation both 
at home and abroad, although it has been in 
operation only a short time (since February, 
1888). His hotel, so recently completed, consists 
of twenty-three commodious rooms, with a large 
bath-room, all of which are well furnished, and 
supplied with modern conveniences, and he is 
ever coiu'teous and aceommodatintr to his sruests. 
He was born in the "Emerald Isle," County Mon- 
ahan, in March, 1833, and is a son of John and 
Margaret (Mills) Dudgeon, who were of Scotch 
descent, but were born in Ireland, in which coun- 
try the father died. In 1844 Joseph, with his 
mother, went from Belfast to Liverpool, and in the 
latter city took passage for America on the sailing 
vessel "Patrick Henry," and after an ocean voy- 
age of six weeks landed at New York (Jity. Shortly 
after they went to Sullivan County, N. Y. . where 
Joseph received his education, and was reared to 
manhood. He started out to battle his own way in 
the world at the early age of thirteen years, and 
from earliest boyhood his career has been charac- 
terized by hard work, for he was l)rought up as 
a farmer, and received such education as could l)e 
acquired in the common schools previous to his 
sixteenth year. About this time lie and his mother 
went to New Orleans, and there he worked as a 
clerk in a store for about two years, and from that 
time up to ISO") lived lioth in Jri8sissii)pi ami 
Texas. He next located in Saginaw, Mich., where 



214 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



he resided three years, then returning to New York 
State, and the same year located at An Sable, Ulich. , 
being an employe for eleven years of the Loud, 
Priest & Gay Lumber Company, acting as their 
foreman; he was held in tlie highest esteem, and 
commanded the full confidence of his employers. 
He became a noted lumberman of that region, and 
was engaged in the business for himself for some 
time, continuing successfully until 1882, when he 
went to Chicago, and was employed in paving the 
streets for a number of months. In 1883 he moved 
to Randolph County, Mo., but after a short time 
sold all his effects, and returned to Michigan. In 
the spring of 1885 he came to Clay County, Ark., 
and was engaged in tilling a farm near Corning, 
which he had purchased, until February, 1888, 
when he moved to the town, and embarked in his 
present enterprise. In 1860 he was married to Miss 
Amanda Tiffany, a native of Pennsylvania, and a 
daughter of Edwin and Joannah (Parks) Tiffany, 
the former a native of Connecticut, and the latter of 
New York State. Mr. Tiffany is a second cousin of 
George Tiffany, the noted New York City jeweler. 
Mr. and Mrs. Dudgeon became the parents of 
seven children, of whom live are living: Arthur F., 
residing in Michigan; Ella, wife of R. G. Gillard. 
of Ashland, Wis. ; John A., Bertha M., wife of J. 
M. Hawks, of Cotton Plant, Ark., and Pearl A. 
Mr. Dudgeon is a member of the I. O. O. F. , and 
in his political views is a Republican. His mother 
was born in Ireland May 5, 1781. and died at the 
age of 104 years. 

Edward B. Earle, druggist at Rector postoffice, 
was born in Obion County, Tenn. , February 28, 
1858, but was reared at Arlington, Ky. He re- 
mained on the farm until nineteen years of age, 
receiving a common school education, and worked 
in a drug store for some time. October 25, 1886, 
he made his advent in the State of Arkansas with 
$2.85 in cash and worked at the carpenter's trade 
until February 27. 1887, when he began working 
for Mr. Outlaw, with whom he continued for 889 
days without losing any time. Afterward he was 
occupied at odd jobs. He then bought out the 
drug store which he now owns and later purchased 
other property. He is now the most successful 



druggist in Rector, carrying a stock of drugs 
valued at $1,000, and is also a much esteemed 
citizen. September 15, 1887, he married Miss 
Clemmie Trantbam, a native of Clay County, Ark. 
Both he and wife are members of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, and is a Democrat in politics, 
but not a radical one. Mr. Earle' s parents, J. H. 
and Elvira (Ghalson) Earle, were natives of Ken- 
tucky. The father was reared near Barlow, a 
short distance from Cairo, and was quite an exten- 
sive stock man. He was a soldier in the late war 
and is now living in Illinois, aged sixty-six years. 
Mrs. Earle remained in her native State until 
grown, and was married there. To this union 
were born eight children: Sallie. John. Lee, 
Charles, Arthur, Edward B. , Mollie and Leana. 
Dr. Charles Earle, brother of the subject of this 
sketch, came to Rector in 1883, and is a graduate 
of Bellevue College, New York. 

Frederick Ermert is an excellent example of 
the success attending hard work and faithful and 
persistent endeavor, and is now one of the wealthy 
planters of Clay County, Ark. , having been a resi- 
dent of this region since 1856. He is a native of 
Germany, born in 1847, and is the eldest of five 
children born to John and Caroline Ermert, who 
were also natives of that country, and came to the 
State of Missouri in 1850, settling in Madison 
County, where the father engaged in lead mining. 
The following year he took the overland route to 
California, the journey occupying five months, and 
remained in that State for three years. He then 
returned to Madison County, Mo., but shortly 
after moved to Randolph County, and in 1856 he 
settled in what is now Clay County, where he 
followed the occupation of agriculture until his 
death in 1864, Iteing still survived by his ex 
cellent wife. Frederick Ermert received good 
training in growing up, became familiar with the 
details of farm life, and entered actively upon life's 
duties as a farmer after the close of the war, pur 
chasing a piece of raw land, which has since, by 
honest and continued eft'ort on his part, become one 
of the valuable places of the county. This pro- 
perty he sold in 1885, and since March, 1889, has 






CLAY COUNTY. 



215 



resided on bis present farm of 120 acres, sixty of 
which are under cultivation, thirty being devoted 
to the culture of cotton. He has always supported 
the Republican ticket, considering its views as 
sound and well suited to any man. He has been 
married thrice, his first union taking place in Clay 
County, in 1867, to Miss Mary Ann Whitehead, 
a native of that county, whose jjarents were early 
settlers of the locality. He lost his wife in 1875. 
she having borne him one child: Amanda, now the 
wife of William M. Williams, residing in Texas. 
His second marriage took place in Clay County, in 
1878, to Mildi'ed Rhodes, of Mississippi, who died 
in 1879, also leaving one child, William, who is 
residing with his father. His present wife was a 
Miss Sarah Elizabeth Calhoun, of Tennessee, her 
parents, Dunklin and Penelope Calhoun, being 
deceased. To the last union the following chil- 
dren were born: James, Lewis and Fred. Many 
are the changes which have occurred since Mr. Er- 
mert first located here, and he has lived to witness 
the growth of what was almost a wilderness to one 
of the most prosperous counties of the State. 

Watson Forrest, better known as "Patter'" 
Forrest, is one of the oldest settlers in Clay 
County at the present time. He left Gibson 
County, Tenu.. in October, 1832, with his brother, 
Abraham Forrest, and Elisha Fly and their wives, 
all in one wagon drawn by cattle, and they soon 
fell in with James Kennedy, who, with his wife 
and four children, were in a wagon drawn by 
horses. They all settled on Slavin's Creek, in 
what is Greene County now, and there they re- 
mained for three years. During this time Watson 
Forrest was married to Miss Sarah Crafton, of Gib- 
son County, Tenn. , and the daughter of John B. 
Crafton, of Tennessee. Mr. Forrest had returned 
to Tennessee to assist his father, Mark Forrest, to 
move to the farm picked out for him by his son, 
on Slavin's Creek, and here married Miss Crafton, 
and with her and his father he returned to Greene 
County al)out D<>cember 10. 1838. In 1835 he 
and wife moved to what is known as Clay County 
at the present day, settling about one mile from 
where he now lives, and there remained some five 
years. He then moved to Barry County, Mo., 



continued there but thi-ee months and then returned 
and bouglit a log cabin, where his present resi- 
dence is standing. He paid $250 for the log 
cabin and the improvements, and $2.50 per acre 
for forty acres of land. To this he has since 
added 220 acres. The old log house be uses for a 
stable. When Mr. Forrest first came to this State 
there was no market for anything; neither was 
there any law, nor officers neither sejuire, sheriff 
nor constable, and Mr. Forrest assisted in electing 
the first sheriff, Charley Robinson. A man by the 
name of Tucker was the first representative of 
Greene County, and there were only forty votes 
cast in the whole county. Stock had to be driven 
on foot to Memphis. Teiin., 125 miles away, but as 
there was but very little stock in the county, these 
trips were seldom made until about 1845. Pre- 
vious to that time the only way of obtaining 
money was by selling the pelts of animals, deer, 
elk, bear, wildcat, panther, raccoon, mink and 
otter being plentiful at that time. Deer skins 
were the most sought after, and at Cape Girardeau 
were worth from about $1.00 to 12.00 each; coon 
skins fi-om twenty-five to fifty cents each; elks, 
from $1.50 to $2.00 each; bear, from $1.00 to 
$3.00; wildcat, about twenty-five cents; panther. 
fix)m$1.00to $1.50; mink, fi'om $1.50 to S3. 00, 
and otter, from $4.00 to $6.00. Buffalo, in 
rather limited numbers, were in the State also. 
With the exception of the buffalo and elk. all the 
above mentioned animals are still represented in 
the woods, coon and deer being very plentiful. 
The next nearest trading-point was Pocahontas, on 
the Black River, which offered a market for the 
first time about 1835. This was twentj' miles dis- 
tant from where Mr. Forrest lived. The first rail- 
road market to which Mr. Forrest went was Dexter, 
on the Iron Mountain road, in Missouri, and about 
forty miles from his residence. The first church 
built in what is now Clay County was at Salem, 
in about 1842, and was of the Baptist denomina- 
tion. It was constructed by two men. M'illiam 
Nutt and Mr. Winingham, the latter preaching 
the first sermon. He was also the first Baptist 
pnvicher. The first preacher of any kind that Mr. 
Forrest heard was Rev. Fountain Brown, a Meth- 



210 



HISTOKY OF AKKANSAS. 



odist. circuit rider. The first school house in the 
county was l)uilt within a mile of where Mr. For 
rest now lives, and a man by the name of Cyrus 
Owens taught the first session as near as can be 
remembered. Mr. Forrest has in his possession a 
stone which he took fi-om the maw of a spotted 
deer killed by him thirty years ago, and which 
he believes to be a veritable mad stone. It is 
about the size and shape of a chicken's heart, of a 
dull, yellowish or brown color, and resembles a 
well worn molar. On one side is a decayed place 
which appears to be porous in its nature, while the 
stone has a smooth, polished appearance. Three 
people bitten by mad dogs have been cured by 
this stone. In each case, animals had been bitten 
b_y the same dog, and in every case went mad. It 
will also cure rattlesnake bites. In case of the lat- 
ter, or that of a mad dog, the stone adheres to the 
wound until saturated with the poison, when it 
falls, and by placing the stone in warm water or 
milk it will cleanse itself. When there is no poi- 
son in the wound the stone will not take hold. 

John C. Frew. Prominent among the successful 
farmers and stock-raisers of Haywood Township 
stands the name of the above-mentioned gentleman, 
who was born in Wealdey County, Tenn., June 15, 
1843, and is the son of A. and Sarah (Hattler) 
Frew, the former a native of North Carolina and 
his wife of Tennessee. A. Frew went to Tennes- 
see when a young man, was married there and 
afterwards engaged in farming, which he con- 
tinued all his life. He died in November, 1885, 
and his wife died in June of the same year. Their 
family consisted of three sons and three daughters, 
all of whom grew to mature years. One sister 
has since died, but the others are all residents of 
Arkansas. John C, the eldest of this family, re- 
mained with his parents until after his marriage, 
which occurred in Obion County, November 11, 
1866, to Miss Eda Tennessee Rucker. a native of 
Middle Tennessee, and the daughter of Samuel W. 
Eucker. After marriage Mr. Frew raised one crop 
on the old home place, and then moved to Obion 
County, where he farmed for five years. He moved 
to Arkansas in the fall of 1872, and located in what 
is now Clay County, and on the place where he 



at present resides. The place at that time had a 
few acres cleared and on it was a log cabin. Since 
then Mr. Frew has cleared the farm, erected build- 
ings and has greatly improved it. He owns 120 
acres, sixty fenced and under cultivation, and has 
a fine young apple and peach orchard. To his 
marriage were born two children: Laura Victoria, 
wife of J. I. Williams, and Geneva, a miss of ten 
years. Mr. Frew is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel and served as president of the same one 
term. 

Pierce Galvin. The life of this well known 
farmer and stockman affords an example that 
might well be imitated by the young men of to- 
day, for at the early age of fourteen years he left 
the home place, without means, to battle his own 
way in the world, and his endeavors have been re- 
sultf ul of good, and he is now a well-to-do farmer 
of Clay County. He possesses an excellent plac(> 
of 240 acres, 100 being under cultivation, and con- 
duets his farm in an intelligent manner and has it 
well stocked. He was born in Ireland, December 
24, 1834, and on coming to the United States, in 
1845, landed at New York City, but moved on im- 
mediately to Philadelphia, where he had a sister 
living, and there he made his home until grown. 
He then traveled for some time and was engaged in 
railroading in Ohio for seven or eight months, later 
going to Pittslmrgh, Penn., and in 1852 he com- 
menced braking on a train on the Missouri*Pacifie 
Railroad, remaining with this company until 1S73. 
The following year he came to Arkansas and again 
became an employe of the above named road, and 
continued the occupation of railroading until 1884, 
since which time he has resided on his present 
farm. He was first married to Miss Mary Malony, 
who was born in Ireland, but was brought to the 
United States when a child, being reared in the 
State of Missouri. She died in Augu.st, 1879, 
having borne a family of five children: Mary. Mag- 
gie, Katie, James and Statia. who died at the age 
of two years. The living children are residing 
with their father and he is doing all in his power 
to give then good educational advantages. He 
was nexi married to a sister of his first wife, Kate 
Malony, by whom he became the father of two 



CLAY COUNTY. 



217 



:V£ 



children: Frank, who died at the age of live years, 
and Agnes. Mr. and Mrs. Galvin are members 
of the Catholic Church, but he contriVmtes liberally 
(o all enterprises he deems worthy of support. 
During the war he served in the Twenty-third 
Missouri Volunteers anil did railroad work under 
Col. Crowley. He is now a Democrat in politics. 

John T. Gilchrist, merchant at Knobel, Ark., 
was born in 18(il in St. Charles County, Mo., being 
the eldest of nine children born to Kichard and 
Fannie (Coleman) Gilchrist, who were born in 
Ohio and Illinois, respectively. The former was 
a hotel keeper, and in 1860 removed to East St. 
Louis, III., there following that occupation until 
1S76, when he moved to Knobel and engaged in 
the stock raising and saw mill business for a few 
years; then he retired from the saw mill business 
and settled on his farm, where he died in 1888. 
He had about 1(50 acres of farming land, with some 
eighty acres under cultivation, and had 420 acres 
in a stock ranch. His wife died in 1882. John 
T. Gilchrist attended the schools of St. Louis 
until seventeen years of age, then began clerking 
for the Consolidated Steamboat Company, continu- 
ing one year, and in 1879 came to Knobel, Ark., 
and secured the agency at this place of the Iron 
Mountain Railroad Company, and had charge of 
the office for live years. In 1884 he erected a tine 
building and started a saloon and billiard hall, and 
in 1887 built a large store-house and engaged in 
general merchandising, his stock of goods being 
valued at $6,000, and he has a large and rapidly 
increasing trade. He is a member of the K. of P., 
the K. of H., and the K. and li. of H. He is 
particularly active in politics, and votes with the 
Democratic party. His brother, Richard F., is 
associated with him in business. The latter came 
to Knobel with his father in 1876, and worked on 
the farm until 1886, when he formed his present 
partnership. 

A. W. Gills, one of the most thorough going, 
wide-awake business men of this section of the 
county, and a genial, pleasant gentleman, is a 
native of Fulton County, Ky., and came with his 
parents, who were natives of Virginia, to what is 
now Clay County, Ark., at the age of nineteen 



years. They settled near his present residence, 
where the mother died in 1870, and the father tw.. 
years later. Later A. W. Gills [mrchased this 
farm. In addition to his agricultural interests he 
also erected a cotton-gin, and about the 1st of Octo 
ber, 1886, commenced ginning cotton, with acajjac 
ity of nine bales per day. In September of the 
same year he started a stave factory and corn mill, 
all of which he now runs with steam under the 
same roof, the stave business being the principal 
industry, the factory having a capacity of 8,000 
staves per day. He regularly employs fi-om thirty 
to thirty- five men and ten teams. This has been 
the means of building at least half a dozen houses 
in his neighborhood. He still carries on his farm 
of 180 acres, which he has well supplied with good 
stock. Mr. Gills was married in 1882 to Miss 
Claude Gwin, whom he met in Missouri, and whose 
parents are now living there. He is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, being attached to the 
Eastern Star Lodge, and is also a member of 
Chalk Bluff Lodge No. 72, I. O. O. F., and of 
the K of H. In politics he votes with the 
Democratic party. 

Marion C. Glasgow, a prominent agricultur- 
ist and stock raiser of Oak Bluff Township, was 
born in Weakley County, Tenn., Augu.st 25, 1842, 
and is the son of Elijah Glasgow, a native of 
North Carolina, where he was reared and where he 
married Miss Jane Jones, a native of Tennessee. 
He and family moved from Tennessee to Arkansas, 
in October, 1854, locating in Clay County, and 
here Mr. Glasgow followed farming until his death 
which occurred in 1875. Mrs. Glasgow died sev- 
eral years previous. In their family were six sons 
and three daughters who grew to mature years, 
but one brother and one sister are deceased. Mar- 
ion C. Glasgow came to this State and county with 
his parents, and here he attained his growth. In 
March, 1862, he enlisted in the Confederate army, 
and served about eight months, when he was 
wounded and returned home. In 1864 he re-en- 
tered the service, remaining until the close of the 
war. He participated in the following battles: Pilot 
Knob, Independence, Sedalia. ainl many minor en- 
gagements. He was paroled at W ittsburg. Ark. , and 



^ 



I 



218 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



then came home and engaged in faiminor. He was 
married in Clay County, Ark. , in September, 1863, 
to Mrs. F. S. Stephens, daughter of James 
Nettles, one of the pioneer settlers. Mrs. Glas- 
gow was born in Tennessee. Mr. Glasgow located 
on his present property in 1878, bought raw land 
and has cleared and made a valuable farm of the 
same. He has 1()0 acres, with over 100 acres 
under cultivation, all bottom land situated one and a 
half miles from Hector. He has a good house, 
good out-buildings and a fine'ycmngorchard, etc. 
Mr. and Mrs. Glasgow h^d a famiTy-of eleven 
children, named as follows :"■ Luella, James M., 
Dora J., Levana, Thomas E., Benjamin F., 
George H. . Viora and Columbus L. Three chil- 
di'en died in early youth. Mr. Glasgow lost his 
wife October 2, 1884, and later he married Mrs. 
Emma A. Walker, who bore him one child, Colum- 
bus L. Mr. Glasgow is a Master Mason, is also a 
member of the I. O. O. F. , and is Noble Grand of 
his lodge. His first wife was a member of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church. 

John M. Gleghorn was born in Independence 
County, Ark., near Batesville, December 10, 1843, 
being a son of John and Sisley (Coleman) Gleg- 
horn, who were both natives of South Carolina, 
the mother being principally reared in Alabama. 
John Gleghorn removed to Tennessee when a 
young man and there remained until 1842, when 
he emigrated with his family to Independence 
County, Ark., coming on the first steamer that 
sailed up the White Kiver. He entered land 
in that county, on which he remained until 185il, 
subsequently coming to Greene County, Ark., and 
residing on a farm near Gainesville until his 
death, which occurred in April, ISIJd. His widow 
is yet living and resides in Marion County, in her 
eightieth year. The paternal grandfather was 
born in Scotland and emigrated to America at an 
early day. when only twelve years old, locating 
first in South Carolina, then in Middle Tennessee, 
where he spent the remainder of his days. The 
maternal grandfather was born and raised in 
South Carolina, and later spent some time in 
Alabama, dying in Limestone County of that 
State. John M. Gleghorn is one of seven surviv- 



ing members of a family of twelve children, their 
names being as follows: Rhoda E., wife of Samuel 
Pool; Stephen C, Lucretia. widow of William 
Jones; Melissa, wife of J. A. Pool: John M. , 
James K., and Marietta, wife of David Gouch. 
John M. Gleghorn was reared and educated in In- 
dependence County, and was in his sixteenth }'ear 
when he went to Greene County with his parents. 
From early boyhood he has been familiar with 
farm life, and when the war broke out he left the 
plow to engage in that struggle, enlisting in No- 
vember, 1861, in Capt. Morgan's company, in 
which he served until 1863, then being discharged 
on account of disability, at Readyville, Tenn. He 
returned home but afterward enlisted in Mar- 
maduke's brigade, and served until the war 
closed, having taken an active part in the battles 
of Corinth, Fort Pillow, Murfreesboro, Bragg' s 
raid through Kentiicky, Harrisburg, and a num- 
ber of other hard fights. He was wounded by a 
pistol shot while with Price at Big Blue. He 
surrendered at Shreveport, La., June 8, 1865, 
and returned to Greene County, Ark., and was 
engaged in farming there until February, 1871, 
when he came to Clay County, Ark. , and locate<l 
near Knobel, where he farmed on rented land until 
January, 1881, then purchasing his present farm of 
325 acres, about 140 of which are under cultivation. 
He has a good two-story frame house and has 
made other valuable improvements. His princi- 
pal crop is corn, but he also raises some cotton, 
and gives much attention to stock raising, both 
buying and selling. In November, 1865, he was 
married to Mary Arnold, a native of Tennessee, l)y 
whom he has had ten children, five living: Mary J., 
Lindsey C. , Etta, Amanda, and James R. Those 
deceased were : Luther L. , William, Walter, John 
and Anna, the last two twins. Mrs, Gleghorn 
died in November, 1887, having been a worthy 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for a 
number of years. Mr. Gleghorn is a Democrat, 
but has never been an office seeker. He has done 
a great deal to Ijuild up his section of the countrj' 
and has been the cause of manj' worthy men locat- 
ing here, having furnished them with land, and 
grain with which to make a start. 



si 







i 




Lawrence CourHir, Arkansas 




:i£: 



CLAY COUNTY. 



21U 



I. N. Goldsby, who is classed amoug the lead- 
ing and industrious farmers of the county, was 
born in Kentucky and is the son of Mentor Golds- 
by, and the grandson of Edward Goldsby, who 
took part in the War of 1812. Mentor Goldsby 
died in Kentucky in 1858, and in 1861 I. N. 
Goldsby and his mother came to Clay County, 
Ark., and settled on a farm near his present place 
of residence. He is the owner of 180 acres of 
land, seventy-iive of which are improved, and on 
which he has three houses. He was married in 
18r35 to Miss Minerva C. Liddell, daughter of 
William and sister of Robert Liddell, of Clay 
County. Previous to this he served three years 
in the Confederate army, taking part in the battles 
of Prairie Grove, Rector and Pilot Knob, and was 
all through Price's raid in Missouri. He was 
paroled at Vicksburg in May, 1865, after which he 
returned home, married, and settled down to farm- 
ing, which occupation he has followed ever since. 
Mr. and Mrs. Goldsby were the parents of fourteen 
children, seven of whom died in infancy. Those 
living are: William M. (Charley), who is now deputy 
county clerk under Mr. Spence, at Boydsville, and 
is a young man of ability and promise; Jennie, at 
home; Lora, Ettie, Robert, Florence and Lem- 
mer (a daughter). Mr. Goldsby is a member of 
the Masonic fraternit}', and has ever been a liberal 
contributor to all laudable public enterprises. 

G. G. Green, a farmer residing near Vidette, 
Ark., was born on the ISJth of November, 1831, in 
Montgomery County, N. C, his parents being 
James and Elizabeth (Wyatt) Green, who were 
also born in that State, and removed to Kentucky 
in 1832, locating in what was then Galloway 
County, where they made their home until their 
respective deaths. The father was a blacksmith 
and farmer, and he and wife were the parents of 
eleven children, four now living: George G., 
^larcus M. , Frank and Henry. George G. Greene 
was an infant when brought to Kentucky, and he re- 
mained in that State until 1857, then emigrating 
to Butler County, Mo., where he made his home 
one year; coming thence to what is now Clay Coun- 
ty, Ark., he located on the farm of 120 acres on 
which he is now residing. He has about 100 acres 



under fence ami eighty-tive acres under cultivation, 
which he devotes principally to raising corn and 
cotton, but the soil is well adapted to all cereals. 
He rais(>s considerable stock during the year, and 
is a prosperous farmer, and has shown his enter- 
prise and industry by putting his farm, which was 
heavily covered with timber when he settled, in 
its present admirable condition. In 1850 he was 
imited in marriage to Miss Melvina Hyatt, a native 
of Kentucky, by whom he had three children, only 
one of whom is living at the present time: Delia, 
wife of Albert Rhodenback. His second marriage 
took place in 1863, to Miss Sarah J. Gilbert, by 
whom he has the following family: William, 
Robert, Elizabeth, Vernon E., Ida M. and Rosa L. 
Mr. and Mrs. Green have long been members of 
the Methodist Church. 

John J. (iriffin was born in Greene County, N. 
C, June 1, 1826, being a sou of William and Sa- 
rah Griffin, who were members of the Old-School 
Baptist Church and were born in North Carolina, 
the former's birth occurring in 1784 and his death 
in 1859. Of their seventeen children, John J. 
Griffin is the only one now living. He became the 
architect of his own fortune at the age of twenty- 
one years, and for a number of years was engaged 
in farming and rafting. On the 25th of July, 
1846, he was married to Miss Theresa L. Hicks, a 
daughter of Thomas S. and Jane Hicks, who were 
Tennesseeans, the former being engaged in tilling 
the soil. To this union eleven children were born, 
only four of whom are living at the present time: 
Sarah E. (Winningham), James M. (farmer, of 
Clay County, Ark.), John J. (a farmer of Dunk- 
lin County, Mo.), and T. J., also a farmer of 
Dunklin County. Mr. Griffin took for his sec- 
ond wife Miss Sarah E. Spikes, their maiTiage 
taking place on the 22d of June, 1875. Four 
of the seven children born to their marriage are 
living: Sanford and Adaline (twins), born Sep- 
tember 22, 1875; Lee, born February 27, 1880. 
and Rosa, born September 12, 1887. Mr. Grif- 
fin owns a good farm of eighty acres, sixty un- 
der cultivation, and devotes his land [irincipally 
to raising corn and cotton. His pro|>erty was at 
first heavily covered with timber, but he has made 



220 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



valiiHbli' iinprovoiupnts, and has now a >i;oo(l and 
comfortable Lome. He and wife are members of 
the Missionary Ba]>tist Church, and he is a Demo- 
crat, and a member of tlio Aii;ricnltnial Wliei^l. 
For about, lifteen j'ears after tirst coming west he 
spent the fall and winter months in hunting and 
trappinj^, and has killed at least tifty bear and 
hundreds of deer, and in some of his hunting ex- 
peditions met with many thrilling adventures and 
narrow escapes from death. He was also engaged 
in rafting on Black River. His parents moved 
from North Carolina to Tennessee in 1820, and 
two years later located in Posey County, Ind. , 
and in 1840 in Randolph County, Ark. 

\y. T. Griffith, lumberman and ])ostmaster at 
Thurmau, Ark., was l)oru on Kentucky soil (Mont- 
gomery County) June 11, 1885, his parents being 
JetTer.son and Lydia (Brothers) Griffith, who came 
from the " Old Uoniinion " at an early day with 
their jjarents; David Griffith, the grandfather, be- 
ing one of the tirst settlers of Montgomery County, 
Ky. He located near Mt. Sterling, the county 
seat, and became a very wealthy farmer, but died 
in Fleming County, of that State. Jefferson Grif- 
fith died in Kentucky in 1882, at the age of seven 
ty years, having been a mechanic by trade, and a 
prominent man, serving as sheriff of Nicholas 
County for some time. His wife also died in Ken- 
tucky. Five of their seven children are now liv- 
ing: Samuel, John, Sarah J., William T. and 
Maitha. A\'illiam T. Griffith, our 8ubj((ct, was 
reared in Kentucky until fifteen years of age, and 
there received the greater part of his education. 
In 1853 he went to Union County, 111., and located 
on a farm near Jouesborough, the country at that 
time being in a very wild and unsettled condition, 
and here made his home until 1877, when he came 
to Clay County, Ark., and began logging in H. H. 
Williams' large mills, remaining thus employed 
for five years, then locating on his ])rosent excellent 
farm in Kilgore Township. The ino.st of his at- 
tention, however, is given to lumbering and cotton- 
ginning. He owns a sawmill and employs several 
hands to operate it. In July, 1888, the post-office 
at Thurman was established and he became the 
first jrostmaster, and is now holding that position. 



He has held the office of justice of th(> peace for 
two years, and is a member of the Masonic frater- 
nity and the Agricultural Wheel. In 1855 he 
wedd(Hl Miss Barbara I. Lipe, a native of Illinois, 
and by her became the father of twelve childi-en, 
six now living: AV alter, Emma A., Elsie J., Anna, 
John and Lillie. His wifi> dicnl in October, 1880, 
and in 1881 he married Louisa Carter, who was 
born in Adams County, Ind., and by her had one 
child, Rosa P. He and wife are members of the 
Missionary Baptist Church, of which he is also 
clerk. 

Roliert L. Hancock, agent for the "Cotton Belt" 
Railroad and the Soiithern Exjiress Company, is a 
native of Prentiss County, Miss., where he was 
born on the 15th of March, 1852, being the son of 
Benjamin Hancock, who was born in Tennessee 
and reared in Virginia. When a young man he 
went to Tennessee, where he met and married 
Matilda Rowsy of that State, and afterward moved 
to Mississi})pi, residing on a plantation in Pren- 
tiss County until his death in 1854, followed by 
his wife in 18(57. After coming to years of ma- 
turity, Robert L. Hancock attended school in 
Boonville, Miss., receiving a good education, and 
then clerked for four years. In 1874 he went to 
Tennessee, and was married there on the 4th of 
April, 1884, to Miss Delilah Matbeny, who was 
born, reared and educated in Hardin County of 
that State, being a daughter of James and Eliza 
Matbeny. After their marriage they located in 
Williamsville, Wayne County, Mo., and for two 
years he was engaged in teaching school, and the 
next two years oecupi(>d in farming and teach- 
ing in Hardin County, Tenn. In 187U he came to 
Clay County, Ark. . locating on a farm near Green - 
way, and devoted himself to tilling the soil and 
pedagoguing up to 1884, when he moved to (ireen- 
way and was appointed telegraph operator, depot 
and express agent, which ])osition he is now fill- 
ing. He was also engaged in mercantile business 
for one year, and has served as a member of the 
town board. He is an active worker for the cause 
of temperance, and organized the Hancock Tem- 
perance Club at Greenway, of which he is presi- 
dent. Mr. Hancock commenced life in Clav 



»r^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



221 



Couuty with litUc or no cupital, Imt. is now ono of 
the substcantial men of the community, and is the 
owner of considorable town i)ro])orty and a good 
farm near Greeuway. 

J. W. Harb, a mercliant of Corning, Ark., 
was born in Wiilshire, Van Wert Connty, Ohio, 
on the 27th of July, 1851), and is the son of W. 
B. and Caroline (Harper) Harb, who were born in 
Franklin and Richland Count i(>s,(^liio, resi)eetivi>ly. 
In 187;i they removed to Blackford County, Ind. , 
locatincr in Hartford City, where Mr. Harb en- 
gaged in merchandising and manufacturing head- 
ings and staves. In 1S7(') he removeil his family 
to Corning, Ark., whore he continued his manufac- 
turing business until 1878, in the meantime con 
ducting a drug store, which in 1885 he enlarged, 
adding general merchandise, and thus being oc- 
cupied until his death. In 1887 he went back to 
Ohio to take a rest and regain his health, and 
died in West Milton, Ohio, September 11, 1887. 
His nmiains were brought to Corning and buried. 
He was one of the founders of the town, and being 
a physician by profession, practiced considerably 
in tlie county. Altliough not a graduate of any 
college, he was one of the most intelligent pupils 
in the Medical College of Columbus, Ohio. His 
wife died December 24, 188(). J. W. Karl), 
whose name heads this sketch, resided in Ohio and 
Indiana until sixteen years of age, and since 1876 
has lived in Arkansas, l)eing first engaged in the 
drug business with his brother (who is now de- 
ceased) at Walnut Ridge, Ark., continuing until 
1884. At the death of his father he and his 
brother, O. C. Harb, liegan managing the business 
at Corning, but since January 12, 1889, J. W.Harb 
has had entire control of the establishment. 

John H. Hardin ileserves to be classed among 
the prosperous farmers and stockmen of Clay 
(-'ounty, Ark. He was born in McNairy ('ouuty, 
T(>nn., January 2fi, IS^S, and is a son of B. J. 
Hardin and Nancy Bennet, who were also born in 
tliat State. After their marriage they st^ttled in 
McNuiry County, whore the father was engaged in 
husbandry until the opening of the late Civil War, 
when he joined the Fed"ral army and served four 
years, coutractiag in his service chronic diarrhceu. 



which afterward caused his death, in Octolier, 1881. 
His wife died here in September, 1884. In the 
summer of 1805 ho mo.ved to Clay County, Ark., 
and engaged in farming. John H. Hardin re 
mained with his father until he attained mature 
years, and was married here, December 25, 187:5, 
to Miss Sarah I. Mayes, who was born in Tennes 
see August 25, 1854, though reared in Clay Coun 
ty, Ark. After their marriage they rented land 
one year, when Mr. Hardin purchased a tract, 
which he began clearing and improving. He has 
opened up about eighty acres, and has 100 acre.s 
under cultivation, besides twenty acres of timber 
land. He has a comfortable frame residence, two 
fair barns, and an apple and peach orchard con 
sisting of three acres. Ho is a member of the 
Agricultural Wheel, and he and wife are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. They are the 
parents of live children: Lucy Ann, l)orn Septem- 
ber 9, 1876; Dury J., born November 4, 1878; 
Owen D. , born Aiignst 4, 1881, and died Febru- 
ary 4, 1888; Henry L., born April 18, 1884, and 
an infant, born and died December 12, 1887. 

Robert A. Hawthorne, farmer, and postmaster 
at Don, Clay County, Ark., was born on the 12th 
of August, 1849, in Benton County, Tenn., his 
parents, llol)ert H. and Elizal)eth (Baker) Haw- 
thorne, being born in Ohio and Virginia, respect- 
ively. The paternal grandfather was born in Ire- 
land, locating in Ohio after coming to America, and 
afterward moved to Illinois, where he died. The 
maternal grandfather was born in Virginia, and 
removed from there to Tennessee, in which State 
he died, being engaged in farming. Roljert A. 
Hawthorne was reared and educated in Ohio, and 
removed with his father to Illinois, wiiere he made 
his home until about twenty two years of age, when 
he went to Tennessee and began the study of law, 
being admitted to the bar shortly after. He prac- 
ticed his profession for a number of years, and 
was also engaged in farming. At the age of about 
fifty years he gave up his law practice, and turned 
his attention to obtaining pensions for claimants. 
In the summer of 1861 be enlisted in Forrest's 
cavalry, and was sliortly after transferred to the 
infantry and was sent .south, participatiiii.' in many 



] 



battles, and holding the rank of provost mar- 
shal. He was never wounded nor taken prisoner. 
He died January 1, 1866, his death being deeply 
regretted by his many friends and acquaintances. 
His widow is still living, being in her seventy- 
ninth year, and resides with her children: Robert 
A. and John C. The former obtained his educa- 
tion and rearing in Tennessee, remaining on a 
farm in that State until twenty-one years old, when 
he came to Clay County, Ark., and located at Corn- 
ing, where he was engaged in the sale of liquors 
for six years. He then turned his attention to 
farming, and in 1882 bought the farm of 262 acres 
where he now lives; 110 acres are under cultivation 
and fairly improved. He raises corn and cotton, 
principally, and some clover. The land is well 
adapted for raising all the cereals, and makes an 
excellent stock farm, which industry receives much 
of his attention. October 12, 1888, the postoffice 
was established at his house, and he was made 
postmaster, the office taking the name of Don. In 
1871 he was married to Miss Alice Polk, by whom 
he has two children: Ethel and Mary E. (who is 
deceased). Mrs. Hawthorne is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity. 

Hon. G. B. Holifield, who stands at the head 
of the legal profession in the Eastern district of 
Clay County, is a native of Graves County, Ky. , 
and the son of T. M. Holifield, who came to Clay 
County, Ark., with his wife and four children, No- 
vember 15, 1855, and settled two miles northeast 
of Boydsville. Here G. B. Holifield was reared 
and here he received the meager schooling afforded 
by the then few subscription schools of the county. 
Later he finished his education by attending six 
months at Gainesville, Ark., and later, after study 
ing law for some time, was admitted to the bar in 
August, 1881, in the Western district of Clay 
County. He has ))een in constant practice since. 
In 1878 he was elected to the legislature, but pre- 
vious to this he had filled the position of justice of 
the peace for three terms. He has always been 
quite active in politics, though as there is nomi- 
nally only the one party, he has made but few 
speeches. His first marriage was to Miss Mary 



Cummings in 1871, and the fruits of this union 
were two children who survive their mother, she 
dying February 4, 1878. They are named as fol- 
lows: William Stanford and Martha J. For his 
second wife Mr. Holifield chose Miss Verdilla P. 
Perrian, of Clay County, and three children, Etta 
Lee, Maiy Susan and Otis Oscar, are the result of 
this union. Mr. Holifield is one of the prominent 
legal lights of the county, and is thoroughly apace 
with the times in every respect. He and wife are 
members of the Methodist Protestant Church. 

James R. Hollis is a Tennesseean, born in 
Wayne County, January 16, 1837, and is a son of 
W. B. and Susan (Meredith) Hollis, both of whom 
were born in Wayne County, Tenn. In 1839 they 
moved to Ai-kansas and settled in what was then 
Greene County (now Clay), where they made a 
farm and resided until their respective deaths, the 
former's demise occurring in 1873. James R. 
Hollis remained with his father until he attained 
his majority and in June, 1861, enlisted in the Con- 
federate service. Fifth Arkansas Infantry, and 
served until the final surrender, participating in 
some of the most important engagements of the 
war, among which were Murfreesboro, Shiloh, 
siege and surrender of Atlanta, Jonesboro, where 
he was taken prisoner, but was exchanged soon af- 
ter, Nashville, where he was also taken prisoner, 
and Franklin, where he was captured and held un- 
til June 21, 1865. After being paroled he re- 
turned home and engaged in farming. He was 
married in what is now Clay County, August 19, 
1858, to Elizabeth Payne, a daughter of Boswell B. 
Payne, whose sketch appears in this work. Mrs. 
Hollis was born in Adair County, Tenn. , and was 
reared in Arkansas. Soon after his marriage he 
located on his present farm, consisting of some 220 
acres, about 120 acres of which are fenced and 
mostly under cultivation, well improved with good 
residence and barns. Mr. and Mrs. Hollis are the 
parents of the following family: William Thomas, 
JaneB. , wife of G. W. Pickens, Joseph E. , Ada 
E. , Mary Alice, Albert Harvey and John Royal. 
Three infants are deceased. Susan was the wife 
of Francis Davis, and died about 1878. Mr. and 
Mrs. Hollis are members of the Baptist Church, 



^^=^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



223 



aod ho is a Mason aud a member of the Agriciiltu 
ral Wheel. 

G. H. Hovey, cue of the successful and enter- 
prising "sons of the soil," residing near Pitman, 
Ark. , was born in the State of New York, September 
15, 1851, being a son of A. G. Hovey. who was also 
born in that State February 4, 1814. The latter 
was a well-known resident of his county, and while 
residing there held a number of offices, such as 
justice of the peace and postmaster. He removed 
to Newton County, Mo., in 1877, and in 1884 
located in Howell County, where he is still residing, 
being a carpenter by trade. He was married iu 
1841 to Miss Maria Brewer, a native of New York 
State, and by her became the father of three chil- 
dren, two of whom are living: F. A., a farmer re- 
siding in Howell County, the owner of 160 acres 
of land, and George H. , our subject, who is also 
a farmer and owns 200 acres of land, 135 being 
under cultivation, of which 105 have been cleared 
by him in the last three years. He removed to 
this farm from Howell County, Mo., in 1885, and 
here has since made his home, and has one of the 
finest young orchards in the country. He gives 
considerable attention to stock raising and has 
some excellent Durham cattle and Poland China 
hogs. In his youth he acquired a superior edu- 
cation, and in addition to attending the common 
schools was a student in the Tenbroeck Free 
Academy in Cattaraugus County for three years. 
He was then engaged in teaching for twelve terms, 
one term in Pennsylvania, two in New York, and 
nine terms in the public and private schools of 
Missouri. He removed from New York to Penn- 
sylvania in August, 1874, thence to Newton County, 
Mo., in 1876; in the spring of 1883 to Howell 
County, Mo., and from there to Clay County, Ark. 
On the 31st of December. 1871, he was married 
in his native State to Miss Sarah Burns, of New 
York, a daughter of -John and Jiilia (Collins) 
Burns, who were farmei's of that State. Tliey 
have one daughter, born May S, INS I. Mrs. 
Hovey is a member of the Christian Church, and 
he is an earnest worker for education, (>shibiting 
that intelligence and enterprise necessary for the 
successful development of the community. 



A. Hudgeus was born in Robertson County, 
Tenn. , in 1 834, and is the .son of John and Nancy 
(Durham) Hudgens, and the grandson of James 
Hudgens, a native of Virginia. John Hudgens 
was also a native Virginian, but later moved to 
Tennessee, where he married Miss Durham. He had 
limited opportunities for an education, but made 
up for this to some extent by studying at home. 
Besides his work on the farm he conducted a store 
in Marion, 111., and at one time was in quite 
comfortable circumstances, but was obliging enough 
to place his name on a friend' sl)ond, iu consecjuence 
of which he was compelled to pay a large sum of 
money. Thus he was badly harassed for some 
time. A. Hudgens attained his growth in Tennes- 
see, learning the carpenter's trade, and went with 
his father to Illinois in 1852. He was married in 
that State to Miss Harriot IMcIntosh, a native of 
\\'illiam8on County, 111., aud the daughter of 
Benjamin and Elizabeth (Mason) Mcintosh, who 
came from Robertson County, Tenn. After living 
iu Illinois until 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Hudgens moved 
to St. Francis, there being but one dwelling there 
at that time, and ])ut uj) the third house in the 
village. Here they now live and have a very nice 
residence. He has followed his trade and has 
built more than half the houses since he came. 
He has followed contracting and building, and is 
now holding the office of justice of the peace in 
the county. To his marriage were horn seven 
children, all in Illinois. They are named as fol- 
lows: Emma, received her education in the high 
school at Marion, 111., and after teaching in that* 
State for some time is now teaching in .Arkansas; 
Sula, at present finishing her education at Carbon- 
dale, and is studying stenography, having taken 
one course in St. Louis; Minnie, is attending 
school at the State University at Fayetteville, Ark. , 
and will graduate in the class of 1S89; Oscar, is 
also attending the same school and will graduate in 
1889; Frank is at home; Gertrude is also at home, 
and Bessie, an infant. Mr. Hudgens is a ii;,eml)er. 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, located 
at St. Francis, as is also his wife, and he affiliates 
with the Democratic party in his jiolitical views. 

Dr. Samuel W. Huston, physician and surgi-on 



'224- 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of Piggott, Clay County, Ai-k. , was born in Ripley 
County, Mo., February 15, 1847, being a son of 
Dr. William A. Huston, a Missourian, who was 
reared and studied his profession at Troy. He 
was married in Randolph County, Ark. , to Miss 
Vernetta Pittman, a daughter of Dr. Pitiman, of 
Pittnian's Ferry, one of the pioneer physicians of 
Arkansas. After his marriage Dr. Huston settled 
in Ripley Countj% where he practiced a few years 
and afterward moved to Charleston. Mo., and died 
in Perry County, of that State, in 1S50. While 
in Arkansas he represented Randolph County in 
the State legislature. Dr. Samuel W. Huston 
grew to. manhood in Cape Girardeau Count}', Mo., 
making his home with his uncle, M. J. Himes, and 
remained with him until he attained his majority. 
He studied medicine under Dr. Henderson, one of 
the leading physicians of eJackson, and took his 
fir.st course of lectures at the McDowell Medical 
College, of St. Louis, about 1868. He continued 
the study of his profession in Cape Girardeau 
County, and did his first practicing in Greene 
County, Ark., in 1874, remaining there about 
eighteen months, when he moved to his present 
location, where he has built up an excellent prac- 
tice. He was married in the village of Piggott, 
September 23, 1877, to Miss Susan Jane Low- 
rance, a native of Carroll County, but reared in 
Clay County, Ark. She is a daughter of David G. 
Lowrance (deceased), and she and Dr. Huston are 
th(> parents of six children : Lenora M. , Myrtle C. , 
Edna S. , Sam, Oran and Carl. The Doctor and 
wife are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church (in which he is an elder), and are highly 
respected citizens of the community in which they 
reside. 

N. A. Keller, another successful business man 
of St. Francis, was born in Tennessee, but grew to 
manhood in Union County, 111., where he went 
with his father. Rev. Francis F. Keller, when but 
a child. The father was a minister in the Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church and followed that 
calling for many years. The mother, Elizabeth 
Keller, was a member of that church for nearly 
sixty years. She recently died at the age of sev- 
enty-eight years. N. A. Keller attended the district 



schools in Union County until twenty-one years of 
age, after which he spent a year at Gravel Hill, 
Mo., and then taught school for several years in 
Missouri and Arkansas. After this he went with 
Gregorj', Lasswell & Co., of Maiden, Mo., where 
he remained for about two years engaged in the 
general merchandise business, and then came to 
St. Francis, and after embarking in business for 
some eighteen months, accepted a position on the 
road for Kelley, Goodfellow & Co., boot and shoe 
dealers of St. Louis, with whom he remained for 
about two years, traveling in Southern Illinois 
and West Tennessee. He then returned to St. 
Francis and took a position with Clemson & Calvin, 
with whom he continued until July 1, 1889, when 
he purchased the entire stock of that firm. He was 
married January 20, 1886, to Miss Mattie Calvin, 
daughter of Robert T. Calvin, of Pulaski County, 
111., and the sister of Mr. Hiram Calvin of the 
firm of which Mr. Keller was the trusted employe. 
Two children were born to this union: Tell and 
Pearl. Mr. Keller has been reasonably successful 
since coming to St. Francis, and is the owner of 
three houses and lots in the village. He is a mem- 
ber of Evergreen Lodge No. 581, I. O. O. F.. of 
Illinois, and belongs to the Triple Alliance, in 
which he carries 11,000 insurance, and also $1,000 
in the Globe, of Baltimore, Md. Mrs. Keller is a 
member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 

G. W. Kelley, of Corning, Ark., is now serving 
his second term as justice of the peace of Kilgore 
Township, and no man has ever held the position 
who was belter fitted to discharge the duties con- 
nected with it than he. He was born in St. Louis 
County, Mo., in 1813, being the eldest of six chil- 
dren born to the marriage of William Kelley and 
Nancy Lancaster, who were Virginians, and early 
emigrants to Missouri, where they opened and im- 
proved a farm. In 1837 William Kelley removed 
to West Tennessee, where his death occurred in 
1843, and his wife's in 1858. G. W. Kelley as- 
sisted on the home farm until twelve years of age, 
and was then apprenticed to the machinist's trade, 
which occupation received his attention for a num- 
ber of years. While a resident of Tennessee he was 
married, in 1856, to Miss S. E. Andrews, a native 



y\-. 



CLAY COUNTY. 



of M'est Tennessee, iiud a danghter of Edmond 
and Lanina Andrews, who were born in the ' ' Old 
North State," and there lived, afterward moving 
to Tennessee, where they died. They were en- 
gaged in tilling the soil. After his marriage Mr. 
Kelley settled in Tennessee, and in 1S40 enlisted 
fi'om Adairsburg, of that State, in Company E, 
Second Tennessee, under Gen. Taylor, and was in 
the battles of Cerro Gordo, Monterey, Cheruliusco, 
City of Mexico, and other engagements. After the 
war he returned to Tennessee, and in 1867 moved 
to Hickman, Fulton County, Ky., where he worked 
at his trade, moving from there, in 187-t, to Clay 
Coanty, Ark., where he purchased and began im- 
proving a farm in Bradshaw Township. In 1S84 
he moved to Corning, and although he still owns 
his farm, is living retired from the active duties of 
life. In 1885 he was elected, on the Democratic 
ticket, of which party he is a member, to the office 
of justice of the peace, which position he is now fill- 
ing. He has aided very materially in building up 
Corning and vicinity, and has given liberally of his 
means in supporting worthy enterprises. He and 
his wife are members of the Baptist Church, and 
the names of their children are as follows: Ed- 
ward A., who is married and resides at Tiptonville, 
Tenn. ; A. M., Julia (Mrs. Gills), residing at Buf- 
tington. Mo. ; Ula, Willie, Anton and Kirby. 
During his term of service Mr. Kelley has come in 
contact with many criminals, and has dealt with 
them in a manner highly satisfactory to lovers of 
good law. 

Marcellus Ketchum, hotel- keeper and farmer, 
at Knobel, Clay County, Ark. , was born in Will- 
iamson County, m., in 1852, being the third of 
seven children born to Jesse and Elizabeth (Mc- 
Cowan) Ketchum, who were born in North Caro- 
lina and Illinois, respectively. The maternal 
grandfather, who was a native of Ireland, became 
an early settler of Illinois. Jesse Ketchum fol- 
lowed the occupation of farming throughout life 
and died when his son Marcellus was a child. The 
latter has been familiar with farm life from early 
boyhood, but received little or no educational 
advantages in youth. At the age of nineteen 
years he began farming for himself in his native 



State, which occupation he followed there until 
1877, then coming to Clay County, Ark., where he 
resumed farming near Peach Orchard. In 1887 
he bought property in the village of Knobel and 
opened a hotel, but still continues his agricultural 
pursuits in the vicinity. He has about fifty acres 
devoted to raising such crops as are intended for 
feeding stock, his hogs amounting to about 100 
head and his cattle to thirty. In his political 
views he is conservative, and always votes for whom 
he considers the best man. In 1873 he was mar- 
ried to Miss Mary Jane Fozzard, a native of Illi- 
nois and a daughter of Edward Fozzard, who was 
captain of Company G, Eighty-first Illinois Cav- 
alry. He was a well known farmei' of \Mlliamson 
County and died in 1870. To the union of Mr. 
and Mrs. Ketchum two children have been born: 
Minnie and Lebert Otto. Mr. Ketchum is ant en- 
terprising citizen and is rapidly becoming identi- 
fied with the growth and prosperity of his section. 
Franz Kop]), farmer and proprietor of Kopi)'s 
sawmill, in St. Francis Township, was born in Ba- 
varia, Germany, May 24, 1840, and is the son of 
Philip and Mary Ann Kopp, both natives of Ba- 
varia. Philip Kopp emigrated to the States in 
1848 and nine years later, or in 1857, Mrs. Kopp 
and family arrived and settled in New iladrid, 
Mo., where Mr. Kopp engaged in the lumber 
business, manufacturing for a number of years. 
He died in Octoljer, 1879. Franz Kopp attained 
his growth in New Madrid, Mo., and there followed 
farming and assisted his father in the manufacture 
of lumber until twenty-one years of age. In 
August, 1864, he enlisted in the Federal army. 
First Missouri Cavalry, and served until his dis- 
charge, September 1, 1865. He was stationed at 
Little Kock, Ark., and was mustered out there. 
He then returned to his home and for a niimber of 
years was engaged in farming and in the luml)er 
business. June 3, 1880, he married Miss S. C. 
Morrison, a native of New Madrid. Mo., and the 
daughter of Hon. T. J. O. Morrison, one of the 
pioneers and prominent men of New Madrid Coun- 
ty. After marriage Mr. Kopji followed his former 
business for three years in the county mentioned, 
and then in July, 1883, removed his mill to 



i^ 



226 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Arkansas and located in St. Francis Township, 
Clay County, where he has been manufacturing 
lumber ever since until a short time ago, when 
he leased the mill out. He has been very suc- 
cessful in this business. Mr. Kopp settled with 
his family at Piggott and opened up a farm adjoin- 
ing the town. He now has some eighty acres of 
cleared land and about 800 acres of heavily tim- 
bered land all in a body. He has a neat residence 
and good outbuildings. Mr. Kopp served as al- 
derman while in New Madrid and filled other local 
offices. He and wife are members of the Catholic 
Church. He has cut on an average 500,000 feet 
of lumber per year. 

A. J. Langley, a South Carolinian by birth, 
who is prominently identified with the farming in- 
terests of Clay County, was reared and remained 
in his native State until forty-two years of age. He 
attended the common subscription schools of the 
county of his birth, and in 1862 enlisted in the 
Twenty-ninth Mississippi Regiment, Volunteer In- 
fantry, and served three years. He was under 
Gens. Bragg, Johnston and Hood, in all the prin- 
cipal fights, was captured at the battle at Franklin, 
Tenn., in November, 1864, and was sent to Chi- 
cago, 111. He was held at Camp Douglass as a 
prisoner of war until he was released June 18, 
1865, and then returned to Mississippi, where he 
followed farming until 1869, finally moving to 
his present residence, seven miles west of St. 
Francis, Clay County. He is the owner of 240 
acres of land, 100 under cultivation, and is one of 
the wide-awake, thorough-going farmers of the 
county. His first marriage was to Miss Mary A. 
Pert, of South Carolina in which State Mr. Lang- 
ley first met her, and to them wore born two chil- 
dren, one of whom, Thomas L., now lives near 
Yazoo City, Miss., where he owns a farm, and is 
the father of one child, Mr. Langley was mar- 
ried the second time to a sister of his former wife. 
Miss Elizabeth Pert, who bore him one child, Eliz- 
abeth, who is now married to Willis White, and a 
resident of South Carolina. After the death of 
his second wife Mr. Langley married Miss Mary 
A. Goodman, also of South Carolina, she being the 
daughter of James W. Goodman, of Cross Hill. 



To this union were born eleven children: W. W. 
lives on a farm in Mississippi; Virginia, one of a 
pair of twins, married J. W. Daniels, a farmer of 
Clay County, and is the mother of seven children: 
Andrew W. married Miss Fannie Malone, and is 
the father of three children — he is farming in 
Clay County: Charles married, and died, leaving a 
wife and child: Jackianna, married R. M. Ways- 
ter, of Clay County, where they -now live, and are 
the parents of three children: Samuel, recently 
married to Miss Lula Booth, is now living in Mis- 
souri; Fannie, who married John McLeskey, bore 
two children, and is now deceased: Tollula, mar 
ried D. J. McCleskey, and is now deceased: Eugene 
P. is not married, and lives on a farm in Missouri; 
Ira C, at home, and Robert, at home. Mr. Lang- 
ley is a Democrat in his political views; is a mem- 
ber of the Methodigt Church, and belongs to the 
Masonic fraternity, Blue Lodge and Chapter. He 
is generally identified with all public enterj)rises, 
giving cheerfully as far as he is able. 

W. S. Liddell, postmaster, and one of the 
prominent business men of St. Francis, was born 
in Weakley County, Tenn., and is the son of 
William and Louisa (Mitchell) Liddell, the latter 
a daughter of Archilles Mitchell, of Virginia. 
William Liddell is a native of Tennessee, and im- 
migrated to Arkansas, settling in Clay (then 
Greene) County, in 1852. There Mrs. Liddle died 
in 1881. and he in 1887. W. S. Liddell remained 
on the farm until he enlisted in the Fifth Trans- 
Mississippi Regiment, commanded by R. A. Hart, 
and was in the battle of Helena, Ark., July 4. 
1863. where he was captured and carried to Alton, 
111., and there held as a prisoner of war until 
March, 1864, when he was removed to Fort Dela- 
ware, Del. There he was held until the close of 
the war. After this he returned to Clay (then 
Greene) County, Ark., continuing on his father's 
farm, and was united in marriage to Miss Sarah J. 
Dalton, in 1867, a native of Clay (then Greene) 
County, and the daughter of Timothy Dalton. 
Mr. Liddell continued farming until 1832, and in 
connection with it he found time to assist in con- 
ducting a store and attend to his duties as post- 
master of Chalk Bluff. AVhen the " Cotton Belt " 



^ 



:i^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



227 



Route was opened through the county in 18S2, 
Messrs. Liddell & Sons built a storeroom in St. 
Francis, which was just started, and moved their 
stock of goods. The original firm, up to the time 
of the death of Mr. Liddell, Sr. , was Liddell & 
Sons; since then it has been changed to Liddell 
Bros. They carry a stock of goods valued at 
$2,000 during the busy season, consisting of gen- 
eral merchandise. AV. S. Liddell is at this time 
postmaster, which office he has held since 1878, 
beyond the existence of St. Francis as a town. 
Since coming to this place he has built a nice 
house, which he now occupies. To his marriage 
were born seven childi-en, four now living: James 
Albert, who assists his father in the postoffice and 
store; Stella May, at home attending school; Fan- 
nie E. and Thomas. In polities Mr. Liddell affil- 
iates with the Democratic party. He is a mem- 
ber of Eastern Star Lodge of the A. F. & A. M. , 
also of Chalk Bluff Lodge No. 72, I. O. O. F. 
In the former he has held the office of secretary 
for about eight or ten j-ears, and has also served 
as treasurer and junior warden. 

Robert Liddell, judge of the county and pro- 
bate court of Clay County, Ark., was born in 
Tennessee, in 1850, and is the son of William and 
Louisa (Mitchell) Liddell. and a grandson of Fran- 
> eis Liddell. In 1852 the parents emigrated to 
Greene County, Ark. (which was afterward formed 
into Clay County), and made their home at what 
is now known as Chalk BlufF. Clay County, 
where they continued to pass the remainder of 
their days. Judge Robert Liddell was but two 
years of age when he came with his parents to 
Greene County, and here he grew to manhood. 
He received a practical English education in the 
common schools of the locality, which he supple- 
mented by attending two terms in ^[issouri. He 
then followed agricultural pursuits until 1878, 
when he was elected clerk of the circuit court, and 
held this position with honor and credit until Octo- 
ber, 1886. He was then elected judge of the 
county and probate court, and has served in that 
capacity ever since. He takes a deep interest in 
all laudable and worthy enterprises, and is a liberal 
contributor to the same. He is a genial companion. 



an intellectual associate, as his many warm friends 
can testify, and is in every way fitted to till liis 
present position. He was married in 1873 to Miss 
Mary Crawford, of Butler County, Mo., and the 
daughter of P. P. and Margaret (Hudson) (Craw- 
ford. Mrs. Liddell was but a child eight years 
old when her mother died, and her father died 
soon after her marriage. To the Judge and wife 
eight children have been born, five of whom sur- 
vive: Clara, Willie, Beulah, Finis and Eunice. 
The others died in infancy. The Judge is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic Order, the I. O. O. F. and K. 
of H. , and he and his wife are members of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, located at St. 
Francis. 

Rev. Garland Lively, a successful merchant of 
Piggott, Ark. , was born in Monroe (Jounty, Ark. , 
February 10, 1848, and is a son of William R. 
Lively, who was born, reared and married in Mis- 
sissippi, the latter event being to Miss Elizabeth 
Hall of the same State. They moved to Arkansas 
in 1852, but after some time went back to Mi.ssis- 
sippi, and there the father died in De Soto County 
in 1858. His widow returned to Arkansas, and 
after living for three years in Phillips County, 
moved to Tennessee, locating in Dyer County. 
Here our subject was reared, and when in his 
eifhleenth year was married January 30, 1866, to 
Miss Martha J. Hall, a native of Tennessee, and a 
daughter of Jesse Hall. After their marriage 
they resided in that State up to 1 870, then moving 
to Arkansas, and in October of that year settled on 
a farm near the town of Piggott, where he was en 
gaged in tilling the soil up to 1888. Since 1872 
he has been a member of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, having previously been a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Cliurch for eight years. In 
1878 he was licensed to preach, and was or 
dained a minister the following year, and has had 
charge of a number of churches since that time. 
In 1880 he engaged in the mercantile business, and 
carries a good stock of drugs and groceries. He is 
a Mason, a member of the I. O. O. F. . in which he 
has been Noble Grand, and has represented the 
former order in the Grand Lodge. One son, Will- 
iam J. , is married and resides in Clay County. 



.^r 9 



228 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Loda & Bro. , proprietors of the Knobel House 
at Knobel Station, Clay Count}', Ark. This is one 
of the finest hotels in the State, and was erected 
in 1884 by the Iron Mountain Railroad Company 
at a cost of about $10,000, and was first opened 
to the public in June of that year, being placed 
under the management of the Loda Bros. , who are 
experienced hotel men. Eli, the elder member of 
the firm, was born in Cape Vincent, Jefferson 
County, N. Y. , in 1853, and is the seventh of 
twelve children born to Leision and Adelaide 
(Boler) Loda, who were natives of Lower Canada. 
The father was a ship builder by trade, and later 
followed the business of hotel keej)ing, which oc- 
cupation received his attention until his death, 
which occurred in 18G5. His wife died in 1871. 
Eli Loda attended school until his father's death, 
and then secured employment on the lake steam- 
ers for several years, and after that was engaged 
in the railroad business for three years as fireman 
and engineer. In 1874 he came to St. Louis, 
Mo. , securing employment on the Iron Mountain 
Railroad, and ran the engine of the pay-car for 
several years, and in 1884 made a ruQ of over 
3,900 miles with engine No. 380, of the Missouri 
Pacific, which is the longest run ever made by an 
engine; and on this trip he hauled the general 
manager of the road, Mr. A. A. Talmadge. He 
gave up railroad work in June, 1884, leaving an 
excellent record behind him, for during his experi- 
ence on the road he never had an accident happen 
to one of his trains. In 1883 he assumed the 
management of the Belmont Hotel, at Belmont, 
Mo. , it being conducted by his wife (whose maiden 
name was Miss Ida Cloud, and whom he married 
in 1877) and by his brother, Darius. The follow- 
ing year he and his brother assumed the manage- 
ment of the Knobel House, which they have since 
carried on with the beat of success. The younger 
member of the firm, Darius, was also born at Cape 
Vincent, N. Y. , in the year 1857. He was en- 
gaged in steamboating for about nine years, act- 
ing as steward the most of the time, but in 1878 
he gave up this work and went to Colorado and 
opened a restaurant at Georgetown, where he re- 
mained for about three years, being also occupied 



in mining to some extent. He next went to Wyo- 
ming Territory, and was engaged in hotel keeping 
at Laramie City for several months. In 1882 he 
came east as far as Missouri, and in partnership 
with his brother soon after opened the Belmont 
Hotel. These gentlemen are extensive stock raisers 
and farmers, but devote the most of their fine farm 
of 120 acres to stock raising, and give their prin- 
cipal attention to the propagation of horses. They 
purchased their tine Norman-Pereheron stallion, 
St. John, in Illinois, in 1887, at a cost of f(500. 
He is a draft horse of about 1,800 pounds, and is 
a colt of St. Benoit, Jr., by the imported horse 
St. Benoit, owned by the Browns. St. John is 
one of the best animals ever brought into Northeast 
Arkansas. The Loda Bros, also keep twelve 
breeding mares. Owing to the enterprise of these 
men, there is a growing desire among the citizens 
for a better grade of stock, and this feeling is being 
shown by an improved class of stock on the farms. 
Eli Loda has about 140 acres of land under culti- 
vation, which he devotes to raising such ciops as 
are needed for his stock. In 1888, in partnership 
with W. P. McNalley and Harry Flanders, he pur 
chased 100 acres of land adjoining the station and 
railroad land at Knobel, and they immediately had 
their land surveyed and laid out into city lots, antl 
their enterjjrise will secure a fine town here as soon 
as this point is made the terminus of a division. 
Mr. Flanders is master of transportation for the 
South Division of the Iron Mountain Railroad, and 
Mr. McNalley Is passenger conductor for the same 
division. Three children have been born to the 
marriage of Eli Loda and wife: Guy, who is de- 
ceased; Mabel, and Nellie Irene. 

W. R. Looney, a popular druggist of St. Fran- 
cis, Ark. , and one of the most successful in the 
county, was born in Tennessee in 1853, and on ac- 
count of poor health in youth received Imt a lim 
ited education, although he has in late years made 
this up to a great extent by observation and study. 
At the age of seventeen he came, with his father,_, 
mother, and brother, James W. (who died in 1873), 
to Clay County, Ark., and settled near Chalk 
Bluff on the 10th day of January, 1870. Here he 
remained until twenty-two years of age. and Fel)- 



^ 



'\(S 



^y 



— ► 



CLAY COUNTY. 



•J'JU 



ruary "23, 1875, he married Miss Susan E. Leigh, 
dauirhter of J. H. ami Susan E. (Long) Leigh. 
,4ftpr marriage Mr. Looney remained on the farm 
iu Clay County until March, 1881, when he moved 
to Dunklin County, Mo. , and was there engaged in 
the drj-goods store of Sheldon & Wright Bros., 
at Maiden. Afterward, in June, 1883, he was em- 
l)loyed by J. S. Kochtitzky & Co. to run a steam 
corn-sheller, and on the 20th of November met 
with a very serious accident. Having been caught 
ill the main shaft of the machinery, his clothing 
\v;is wound so tightly about him that it dislocated 
his left arm at the shoulder. He suffered excru 
ciatingly from this, failed to get a night's rest for 
forty days, and is now a crijij^le in that arm. Em- 
barking in the grocery business, iu partnership 
with Mr. John Allen, under the tirm title of Allen 
& Looney, six months later he bought Mr. Allen 
out and continued the business until April, 1886, 
when he sold out, and came to St. Francis May 
19 of that year, then starting a drug and grocery 
store. One year later he closed out the groceries 
and now has the finest drug store in the county. 
The firm name is W. R. Looney & Co., and they 
enjoy a profitable, legitimate trade. Mr. Looney 
has been generally identified with the enterprises 
of the town and county. He is the owner of about 
I'iO acres of land adjoining his father's place, 
some four miles from St. Francis, and is paying 
particular attention to the raising of clover, which 
he tliinks is a successful crop and also renews the 
laud. Mr. and Mrs. Looney became the parents 
of six children, all of whom died in infancy. He 
is a Democrat in politics. 

Samuel W. McDonald, a progressive farmer 
and stock raiser, and one who has kept thoroughly 
apace with the times, was born in Randolph 
County, Ala., in December, 1844, being the sou of 
Sebbon McDonald, who was born and reared in 
Georgia, but wlio was married in Alabama to Miss 
Rhoda BIack.ston, a native of the last mentioned 
State. Mr. McDonald served in one of the old 
Indian wars. He was a farmer, and followed this oc- 
cupation in Alabama until his death, which oc- 
curred about 1864. Samuel W. McDonald at- 
tained his growth in Alabama, remained with his 



father until grown, and in 1862 enlisted in the 
Confederate army. Seventeenth Alabama Infantry, 
serving until the final surrender of the Confed- 
eracy. He participated in the fight near Daltou, 
and was stationed nearly all the time at Molule. 
He surrendered in 1865, and after being paroled 
returned to Alabama, where he engaged in farming 
in Randolpli County. He moved to Arkansas in 
1876, located in Clay County, remained there two 
years, and then moved to Boone County, Ark., 
whence after a residence of two years he returned to 
Clay County, and settled on his present farm in 
1881. He has 120 acres of land, with about sev- 
enty-five fenced, and some forty under cultivation. 
Mr. McDonald has been married twice; first, in Clay 
County, in 1874, to Miss Elizabeth Sexton, a na- 
tive of Illinois, who was reared in Arkansas. She 
died in 1885, and was the mother of four children, 
who ai-e named as follows: William B., Riley S., 
Samuel W. and OUie B. Mr. McDonald took for 
his second wife Mrs. Adaline Melton, in September. 
1886, and the results of this union are two chil- 
dren: John E. and Reuben H. Mrs. McDonald is 
a native of Clay County, Ark., where she gi'ew to 
womanhood. She is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Mr. ilcDonald is a member of 
the Baptist Church. 

Thomas Cary McGuire was born in Carroll 
County, Tenu. , June 9, 1850, and is a son of Dr. J. 
M. McGuire. mentioned elsewhere in these pages. 
He became the architect of his own fortune at the 
age of twenty years, and was actively engaged in 
tilling the soil until twenty-seven years old, when 
he was married to Miss Louisa Jane Gossett, a 
native of Jefferson County, 111., and a daughter 
of William and Maiy Gossett, who were farmers. 
To Mr. and Mrs. McGuire have l)een born the fol- 
lowing family of children: America Leota, born 
February 21, 1875, and died Fel)ruary 7, ISM: 
Melissa J., born November 18, 1877; William Mar- 
tin, born March 25, 1879; Dora, born Septemlier 
4, 1880, and died Sej.tember 30, 1884; Mary J., 
born March 21, 1882; Louella. born January S, 
1884; John H., born December 18, 1885; Fred, 
born February 14, 1887, and died June 11, ISsS, 
and Ida May, born November IS, 188S. Mr. 



•^h — ^ 



2:^,0 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



McGuiie has a good farm of eighty acres, twenty- 
live of which are under cultivation, on which he 
raises corn and cotton. This farm is well improved 
with good buildings, fences and orchard, and in 
fact is one of the best improved places in the 
county. He also devotes a considerable amount 
of time to raising cattle and hogs, and is active in 
furthering the cause of education. He belongs to 
the Masonic order, is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and in his political views is a Democrat. 

George M. McNiel, ex-sheriff of Clay County, 
Ark., was born in this county February 28. 1847, 
and is the son of Neal McNiel, who was a native of 
Tennessee. The father left that State about fifty 
years ago, emigrating to Arkansas, and settling in 
what is now Clay County. He was here married 
to Miss Nancy Thomas, daughter of Matthew 
Thomas, one of the earliest settlers of Arkansas. 
Mr. McNiel was for many years a leading stock 
dealer of Arkansas, and died in 1857, at Helena, 
Ark., while on a trip to New Orleans, with a large 
drove of hogs and cattle, valued at $5,000. After 
the stock was sold in New Orleans the money was 
sent to his widow. She is still living, is eighty 
years of age, and has resided near Rector for the 
past thirty-eight years. George M. McNiel re- 
mained with his mother until his marriage, which 
occurred in 1880, to Miss Clara Rosaline Seegraves, 
daughter of J. H. Seegraves, of Oak Bluff, Clay 
County, Ark. Mrs. McNiel died in September, 
1888, leaving three children: Ruth Edith, George 
A. and Ethel. The mother was a worthy and con- 
sistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and died in that faith. The childi'en are now liv- 
ing with Dr. Seegraves, in Rector. In 1874 Mr. 
McNiel engaged in business in Oak Bluff, remain- 
ing there about a year, and then went to Bollinger 
County, Mo., where he accepted a position in the 
firm of Eli Lutes, and there continued eight years. 
He then left and took a place as deputy under 
his brother James, who was sheriff of Clay County, 
and filled this position for eight years. He was 
elected sheriff' in 1886, and his brother was deputy 
iinder him for two years, ending in 1888. Mr. Mc- 
Niel is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is 
also a member of the K. of H. , in which he has 



filled many important offices. During the late war 
he was a member of Capt. J. J. Allen's company, 
Davis' battalion, Clark's brigade, under Gen. 
Price, and surrendered at Shreveport, La., in 
1865, this command being the last army of the 
Confederation to surrender. 

James A. McNiel, ex-sheriff, and one of the 
sturdy sons of toil of Clay County, Ark. , was born 
in Ihis county at Oak Bluff', near where Rector 
now stands, February 7, 1849, his parents being 
Neal McNiel and Nancy (Thomas) McNiel. natives 
of East and West Tennessee, respectively. The 
maternal grandfather, Matthew Thomas, was a na- 
tive of North Carolina. James A. McNiel attended 
such schools as the country afforded, which were 
very primitive up to the breaking out of the late 
war, when all the schools were closed. During 
that time he remained at home with his mother, 
and still continued with her until 1878, when 
he was elected to the office of sheriff of the 
county. He was re-elected four consecutive terms, 
holding that office until 1886, when his brother, 
George McNiel, was elected to the same office. 
Mr. McNiel was married November 19, 1879, to 
Miss Mary Luella Brake, daughter of Jesse Brake, 
of Clay County, and five children were the result 
of this union, four now living: Jesse McNiel, Lil- 
lian Lee, Ralph Alonzo and Rudy Eugene, all now 
at home. Since retiring from office Mr. McNiel 
has followed agricultural pursuits, and has been 
paying considerable attention to trading in stock. 
He has an excellent farm of 580 acres, is the 
owner of one and a half blocks in Rector, and is 
also the owner of his residence in Boydsville. He 
is an honest, upright citizen, and stands in the 
front ranks of his townsmen. He is a member of 
Boydsville Lodge No. 75, A. F. & A. M. , is also a 
member of Boydsville Lodge No. 16, I. O. O. F., 
and is a member of the local Knights of Honor. 
Mr. McNiel is a Democrat in his politics. His wife 
is a member of the Christian Church. 

Daniel W. McPherson, who is recognized as 
one of the county's best citizens, was born March 
25, 1853, in Lee County, Miss., and received a 
good practical education in the common schools. 
At the age of about seventeen, he began working 



CLAY COUNTY. 



231 



oil bis own responsibility as clerk in a grocery 
store, and this continued until coming to Clay 
County, Ark., in 1879. After reaching this 
county he had $2.75 in ready cash, and as soon as 
possible he began clerking for G. W. Spraygins, 
remaining with him and Capt. John J. Allen, for 
about fifteen months. He then engaged in mercan- 
tile pursuits on a limited scale, having but $77 in 
cash, and doing business on a cash basis, as his cap- 
ital would indicate. He thus continued for about 
five years, meeting with merited success from the 
beginning. He is now conducting a general mer- 
cantile business, and is also engaged iu the liquor 
trade. Mr. McPherson is the son of William 
B. and Fidelia W. (Ringo) McPherson. The 
father was born in 1797, in Blount County, Ala., 
was of Scotch parentage, and after growing up 
followed the occupation of a farmer. In 1849 he 
moved to Lee County, Miss., where he died in 
1881. His wife was a native of Kentucky, and to 
them were born ten children: Frank, Lot W. , 
Wallace W., Charles. James M.. Dauiel W., Mary, 
Josephine, Ellen and Catherine. Daniel W. Mc- 
Pherson was married in October, 1881, to Miss 
Lura Johnson, a native of Middle Tennessee 
(where she received her education), and the daugh- 
ter of John R. Johnson. She came to Arkansas 
when grown, and by her union to Mr. McPherson, 
thi'ee children were born, two now living: Ella 
and Lena. Mr. McPherson is one of the pro- 
gressive young men of Arkansas, and is doing 
well at his adopted calling. He is a Democrat in 
politics. 

John S. Magee was born in Pope County, 111. , 
September 19, 1833, being a son of Thomas and 
Nancy Magee, who were born respectively in Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky. John 8. Magee began work- 
ing for himself at the age of eighteen years, first 
as a farm hand, and was married in that State to 
Miss Abbie, a daughter of Austin and Louisa 
Williams, who were farmers of Illinois. They 
were married March 21, 1850. and about a year 
later the mother and an infant died. Mr. Magee 
remained single three years, then moved to Clay 
County, Ark., and was again married, September 
17, 1854, his wife's maiden name beinj; Luvina 



Watson, of Kentucky. She bore him four cliil- 
dren, two of whom are living: W. R., born August 
7, 1855, and Nancy J., who was born Ainil 1(5, 
1861, and is the wife of Robert Hasten, a farmer 
of Louisville, Tex. Eliza A. was born June 28. 
1859, and died January 1, 1883. May 19, 1881. 
Mr. Magee wedded his present wife, Elisabeth 
Tittle, a daughter of Peter and Rachel Tittle of 
Missouri. The last marriage has been blessed in 
the birth of one son and one daughter: John H., 
who was born March 13, 1882, and Mary E., born 
August 6, 1885. Mr. Magee has made the fol 
lowing changes of residence: From Kentucky to 
Arkansas, in 1854; to Illinois, in 1863; to Kansas, 
in 1867; to Illinois, in 1868; to Clay County, Ark., 
in 1869; to Boone County, Ark., in 1875, and back 
to Clay County, Ark., in 1877, where he has since 
made his home, being the owner of 120 acres of 
laud, forty-five of which are under cultivation, the 
rest being heavily timbered. He has good build- 
ings, orchards, and fences, and is considered one 
of the prosperous farmers of the county. He and 
wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and he is a Republican in his political views. Dur 
ing the late war he served the cause of the Con 
i'ederacy in the Home Guards. 

J. F. Mahan is one of Clay County's worthy 
tillers of the soil, residing near Vidette. He was 
born in Ozark County, Mo., on the 30th of May. 
1841, and is the eldest of eight children, five now 
living, of the family of Noah and Oriuda Mahan. 
who were born in Tennessee and Missouri, respect 
ively. The father emigrated with his parents to 
Missouri in 1840, locating iu Ozark County, where 
he and his wife died, as did also his parents. They 
were among the early settlers, and e.\perienced 
many hardships and privations in their endeavors 
to obtain a home. Noah Mahan cleared several 
farms, and became quite wealth}-. His children 
who are living are: James F., William, Cynthia. 
Mary, Hansen. James F., the eldest child, was 
reared on a farm in Ozark County, but owing to 
poor school facilities at that day, received a some- 
what limited education. In 1882 he enlisted in 
Company F, Greene's regiment, and served a little 
over two years, participating in the battles of Ht>li> 



232 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



na. Little lioek, Camden, Shreveport, Gaines' Fer- 
ry and several skirmishes. In the fall of 1804 he 
stopped on furlough in Clay County. Ark. . having 
but 110 in Confederati' monej', and without a whole 
garment on his bfick. He fell into the hands of 
strangers, but was kindlj' cared for l)y his future 
wife's father. After recovering, he worked out for 
some time, and in 1869 bought a farm in Rich woods, 
on which he lived until 1884, when he sold out and 
bought the place where he now resides, consisting 
of 160 acres, about 100 of which are under cultiva- 
tion and finely improved. He has put over 11,000 
worth of improvements on his farm in the last five 
years, and it is now one of the finest places in the 
coimty. He usually devotes about thirty acres to 
cotton, and raises about one bale to the acre. He 
was married, in 1867, to Miss Susan J. Cleveland, 
a native of North Missouri, and by her has five 
children: William T. , Don, Mary, Hugh and 
Edna. Mr. and Mrs. Mahan are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and he belongs to 
the Masonic order. He lias been a resident of Clay 
County for twenty- three years, and is considered 
one of its best residents. 

W. S. Malone is an agriculturist of prominence, 
who, notwithstanding many reverses and discour- 
agements, has ever come l>oldly to the front, and, 
with the push and energy characteristic of him, sur- 
mounted all difficulties. He is a native Tennes- 
seean, moving with his parents to Mississippi when 
nine years of age, or in 1841. They settled in 
Yalobusha County, and here W. S. Malone remained 
until twenty years of age, after which he went to 
Panola County. He continued in this county until 
1859, subsequently locating in Texas, where he re- 
mained until the breaking out of the late war. Then 
he came to Oak Bluff, in what is now Clay Coun- 
ty, and enlisted in the Fifth Arkansas Regiment, 
Col. Cross commanding, and was elected lieutenant 
of the company. He served in that capacity until 
the winter of 18<)2, when he was discharged at 
Bowling Green, Ky. , but re-enlisted in Capt. 
Allen's company, of which Mr. Malone was first 
lieutenant. Later he was put into Col. Hart's regi- 
ment, and took part and commanded the company 
during the battle of Helena, Ark. He was with 



Gen. Price on his raid through Missouri, and took 
part in all the fights that occurred, always having 
command of the company. At one time he was 
shot in the mouth, and lost two teeth. He was dis- 
banded at Cane Hill, and was paroled at Vicks- 
bnrg. In 1863 he was united in marriage with Miss 
M. A. C. Daniels, daughter of John Daniels, of 
Clay County. They settled on a farm of 1 20 acres, 
where they have remained ever since. Shortly 
after marriage they were burned out, losing all their 
possessions and the first crop they had, and for a 
time had nothing but dry corn bread as food, and 
straw, with a limited amount of covering, for a bed. 
Now they are very nicely fixed, having a comforta- 
ble house and good outbuildings, and are prepared 
to enjoy life. In their family were seven children, 
two having died in early youth. Those now living 
are: Fannie L., married Andrew Langley, and is 
the mother of three children ; she now resides near 
the home of her father; Margaret L., married 
Wade Thomas, a farmer who lives in Clay County, 
and is the mother of two children; Willie Genoa, 
a daughter, is now deceased; Lucy Ila, at home; 
H. Eddie, at home, and Bob L., an infant. Mr. 
Malone is a member of the Masonic fraternity; is 
an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and a Democrat in politics. He is now fifty- 
nine years of age, and never sued nor was he ever 
sued. He has not been in a fight since the war, 
but at the battle of Joneslioro, Ark. , was shot in the 
mouth. During the entire time he has been en- 
gaged in farming Mr. Malone has never bought a 
pound of bacon, nor has he ever bought corn to 
eat, always raising sufficient for his family. Mrs. 
Malone, who is a daiighter of Louisa and John 
Daniel, was born near Cottage Grove, Henry 
County, Tenn., and remained there until 1859, 
coming then to Arkansas. Three of the children 
which she has borne, as well as herself, are mem- 
bers of the Cumberland Presbyterian ChiU'ch : 
Maggie, Fanni(> and Ila. The two sons, still small 
children, are lieing train(<d in the right way, the 
hope of their parents being to see them embrace 
religion before they enter their teens. Mrs. Malone 
carries them to Sunday-school each Sunday, where 
she has a class of fifteen scholars. Her father is 



CLAY COUNTY. 



rm 



deceased. Her mother, seventy-eigbt years of. age, 
but still quite cactive, resides with the oldest daugh- 
ter, Nancy. Mrs. Malone has three sisters and 
one brother. 

Patrick Martin's name is well known through- 
out Northeast Arkansas by the traveling ])ublic, 
for since September 10, 1885, he has been the 
proprietor of the City Hotel at Corning, which 
establii^hment, situated opposite the depot, is one 
of the best of its kind in Clay County, and is 
quite commodious, consisting of thirty good-sized 
rooms, with a large sample room. In addition to 
managing the hotel, he keeps a fine stock of liquors 
and cigars, having l)een engaged in this business 
since coming to the county, in the fall of 1888. 
He was born at Donegal, in the North of Ireland, 
March 17, 1858, his parents, Francis and Ann 
(Monday) Martin, being also natives of that coun- 
try, where they are still living. In 1880 Patrick 
Martin emigrated to the United States, and landed 
at New York City in the month of May, but went 
directly from there to Philadelphia, where he re- 
mained throe years, acting as clerk in a wholesale 
and retail liquor store, also serving part i^f the 
time as manager. Since coming to Clay County. 
Ark., in 1883, he has made bis home at Corning, 
but September 7, 1885, was married, at Pocahon- 
tas, Ark., to Miss Nannie B. Lansdell, a native 
of Virginia, as were also her parents. Her father 
was a teacher of high standing in his nativ<' State, 
and there spent his life. After the war her mother 
came to Randolph County. Ark. After his mar 
riage Mr. Martin o])ened his present hotel, which 
he has since very ably conducted. He possesses that 
feeling of kindly hospitality which characterizes the 
people of Arkansas, and has rendered the City 
Hotel a comfortable and desirable hostelry. He 
has always been quite active in politics, and has cast 
his vote with the Di'mocratic party. He and his 
wife are the parents of one child, Andrew, and are 
rearing another child by the name of Hattie Lans- 
dell. They are members of the Catholic Church. 

Robert I. Masterson (deceased) was born in 
Cape Girardeau County, Mo., June 25, 183f). be- 
ing a son of Samuel Masterson, who was a farmer 
l)y occupation. Roliert I. served a short time in 



the late war, and in 18(50 removed to Clay County, 
Ark., locating where his widow and children are 
now living. At that time there was only a small 
portion of the farm under cultivation, and but few 
imi)rovements made, but previous to his death, 
which occurred May 19, 1878, he did much to bet 
ter the condition of his farm. He was married, 
about 1857, in Ca]ie Girardeau County, Mo., to 
Miss Mary Collins, by whom he became the father 
of eight children, four of whom are living: Sarali 
I., Mary L., Robert F. and John H. After his 
death his widow, in 1878, married Elias Cunning 
ham, who was shot December 2, 1878, by outlaws, 
while sitting by a window in his home, and died 
on the 8th of that month. The widow and family 
now live on the old homestead, which consists of 
U)< I acres, about eighty of which are under culti- 
vation. Robert F. and John manage the farm, 
and are experienced and intelligent young men. 
They give the most of their attention to raising 
corn and cotton, their annual yield being very 
large. It is one of the best fai-ms in the northern 
part of Clay County, and the house, which is on a 
high elevation, is surrounded l)y natural shade 
trees. 

Joseph Mellert, hotel jn-oprietor and farmer of 
Kuobel, Clay County, Ark., was born in Germany, 
in 1836, and is the fifth (with a twin brother) in a 
family of twelve, born to F. and Mary Mellert. 
Joseph was reared on a farm and attended school 
until fourteen years of age, when he began learn- 
ing the cigar maker's trade, and in 1859 came to 
the United States and settled in St. Louis, where 
he worked at his trade for about ten years, six 
years of that time being engaged in b\isiness on 
his own account. In 1870 he moved to Illinois, 
remaining there for six years: then moved to 
Randolph County, of the same State, where he 
remained six years more. He then located in 
Cape (Tirardeau, Mo., and after working at his 
trade there for three years, went to Pilot Knob 
for about one year, and in 1881 came to 
Knobel. Ark. . and opened his present hotel. He 
farms about twenty- five acres of land and keeps 
quite a number of cattle and hogs. In 18()1 he 
married Miss Wilhelmina Branica. a native of 



:!4 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



St. Louis, and by her has two childreu: August 
and Louisa. Mr. Mellert is not very active in 
politics, but usually votes vpith the Democratic 
party. Although he has only resided in the county 
a short time, he has seen many improvements 
made, and has aided materially in advancing all 
enterprises for the good of his section. 

Stephen C. Michell was born in Obion County, 
Tenn.. September 21, 18fiO, and is the third of 
nine children, four now living, l)orn to the mar- 
riage of Stephen Michell and Emeline Watts, who 
were born in Tennessee and Indiana, in 1829 and 
1844. respectively. Their marriage took place in 
1 857, and they removed from Tennessee to what is 
now Clay County, Ark., at an early day, and be- 
came the owners of a good farm comprising 160 
acres of land, eighty of which they succeeded in 
putting under cultivation, and greatly improved 
their property by good buildings, fences and or- 
chards. During the Rebellion, Mr. Michell served 
for aViout six months in the Confederate army, and 
after the surrender returned home, where he re- 
sumed farming. He was a member of the Grangers, 
the Masons, and the I. O. O. F., and he and wife 
were first members of the Methodist Church, but 
afterward became connected with the Christian 
Church. His death occurred on the 1st of Novem- 
ber, 1884. The following are his children: Docia 
(Deckard), who died at the age of twenty years; 
Wapallan. who died in Arkansas when fifteen 
years of age; James D. , who was accidentally 
killed by a pistol shot when twelve years old; 
Margaret E., who died at the age of eight; Will- 
iam, who is now twenty years of age and resides 
in Clay County: Mary T. (Moran): Elizabeth, who 
died when five months old; Robert Theo. , who 
lives at home, and Stephen C. The latter owns a 
farm of 120 acres in Clay County, on which he 
has resided for the past fifteen years, and has fifty 
acres under cultivation, and devotes much of his 
time to raising cattle and hogs. He is a member 
of the Christian Church, a Mason, a member of 
the Agricultural Wheel, and in his political views 
is a Democrat, having been elected on this ticket to 
the office of justice of the peace, on the Hd of Sep- 
tember, 1888. He has also been constable of the 



same district a number of terms. April 10, 1S87, 
he married Miss Alice Dennisou. a native of Ar- 
kansas. 

J. T. Miller is a substantial farmer of Clay 
County, who has become well known for his hon- 
(!sty, energy and intelligence. His birth occurred 
in Hardin County, Tenn., in September, 1844, his 
parents, James and Jane (Black) Miller, being also 
natives of that State. In 1850 they emigrated to 
what is now Clay County, Ark., coming through 
in wagons, and located on the Little Black River, 
and here the father died in the fall of 1866, his 
wife's death occurring in Tennessee. They were 
the parents of two children. John T. being the only 
one now living. He grew to manhood on a farm, 
and received such education as could be obtained 
in private schools. In 1882 he purchased the farm 
where he now lives, consisting of 160 acres, about 
seventy of which are under cultivation. He has 
made a great many improvements since locating, 
and devotes the most of his land to corn and 
cotton, but also gives much attention to stock 
raising, being extensively engaged in this business 
at times. He is intelligent and enterprising, and 
is counted one of the influential and jirosperous 
farmers of his locality. He was married, in 186'), 
to Miss Amanda Mulhullen, -who bore him three 
children: Pauline I., Lewis A. and Vandella, who 
is deceased. In 1877 Mr. Miller wedded Miss 
Sarah M. Mulhullen, and by her is the father of 
six children, five of whom are living: Lucy I. 
(deceased), John R. , Leoter, Rosa M. , Gertie C. 
and Thomas J. Mrs. Miller is a member in good 
standing of the Christian Church. 

Harvey W. Moore. Among the prominent and 
numerous attorneys of Clay County may be men- 
tioned Mr. Moore, who was born in Fulton Coun- 
ty, Ind., May 27, 1864, his ])arents being Milton 
M. and Mary A. J. (Stone) Moore, natives, respect- 
ively, of Indiana and Ohio. They were married 
in Montgomery County. Ind , in 1855, and in 
1863 located in Fulton County, where they made 
their home until 1881, removing in January, of 
that year, to Randol[)h County, and in the fall of 
the same year to Clay County. Ark. For five 
years young Moore was here engaged with his 



:^ 



CLAY COUNTY. 



235 



father in changing ii dense forest into a fiirni, ami 
during this time all of his spare moments were 
s])('ut in the study of those branches that were re- 
(luiidd to be taught in the common schools. After 
having taught school successfully he entered the 
('orninghigh school, where ho took a course in the 
highiM- branches of study, commencing the study 
of law in February, 1888, with F. G. Taylor, the 
leading attorney of Clay County, and after reading 
until August, 1888, he was admitted to the Clay 
County liai'. He located in Greenway, in the fall 
of 1888, where he has since been actively engaged 
in the practice of his profession and is doing well, 
giving fair ])romise of becoming one of the lead- 
ing lawyers of N.ortheast Arkansas. He is well 
versed on all of the general topics of the day, is a 
hard .student, and is a young man of exemplarj' 
habits and character. 

John H. Mowls, Jr., a farmer of Clay County, 
Ark., was born in Roanoke County, Va. , March 
29, 1858. and is a son of Henry and Polly Mowls, 
the former of Scotch Irish and the latter of Dutch- 
English ancestry. The father was a colonel in the 
(-'onfederate army during the Rebellion, and acted 
as recruiting officer, and throughout life has fol- 
lowed the occupations of farming, distilling, mer- 
chandising and mechanics, he and wife being now 
losidi'uts of California. John H. Mowls began 
fighting the battle of life for himself at the age of 
I'ighteen years, working as a teamster at the Can- 
iu'lton Coal Jlines of We.st Virginia for one year, 
after which he moved to Portsmouth, Ohio, where 
he was engaged in engineering a tugboat. He 
nest moved to St. Louis, thence to Kansas City, 
and from there to Topeka, where he joined a' trad- 
ing expedition, being thus connected for eighteen 
months. The following two years he spent as a 
cow- boy at Galveston. Tex., and then returned to 
St. Louis and made three trips on the Mississippi 
River as engineer on the tow-boat " Elliott.'" He 
next operated a shingle-yard and farmed in Missis- 
sippi, spending one year at each occupation, liut 
was inundated hy the great overflow of 1873, 
which compelled him to move. He went first to 
C!ape (iirardeau. Mo., then to Union County, 111., 
and was engaged in farming four years. He was 



married there on the 13th of February, 1870, to 
Miss M. A. , a daughter of Daniel and Ann Cook, 
natives of North Carolina and Australia, respect 
ively. On the 10th of August, 1877, Mr. Mowls 
left Illinois and located in Nevada City, Mo., 
where he worked as a painter and mechanic until 
February 27, 1878, when his wif(> died, leaving 
him with an infant only two months old to rear. 
He took the child to his mother, who cared for it 
until its death at the age of si.\ months. Mr. 
Mowls next went to Chicago, and from there to 
Waterloo. 111., where he was occujjied in engineer- 
ing throe months. He ne.vt began railroading, con 
tiuuing this three years. The nuptials of his sec- 
ond marriage were celelwated on the 2r)th of De 
cember, 1870, his wife's maiden name b(>ing Miss 
Emma A. Griffith, of Union County, 111., a 
daughter of W. T. and Jane Griffith, who are 
natives, respectively, of Kentucky and Illinois. In 
1880 Mr. Mowls removed to Butler County, Mo., 
and in 1881 came to Clay County, Ark., and is 
the owner of a saw, grist and cotton- mill in Kil- 
gore Township. He has been engaged in man- 
aging various mills ever since removing to Mis- 
souri in 1880, and has also been interested in 
farming some of the time, and is at present fol 
lowing this occupation, his principal crops being 
cotton and corn. He is a Mason, a member of 
the Agricultural Wheel, is independent in politics, 
and he and wife are members of the Missionary 
Baptist Church. The following are their children: 
Elmer R., born February 11, 1882: Lily M., born 
February 3. 1887, and Joseph J., born July 13, i 
1887. Mr. Mowls was educated in the common 
subscription schools, and expects to give his chil- 
dren good educational advantages. 

J. M. Myers, mayor of St. Francis, and one of 
the most enter])rising men of the town, was Iwrn 
in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and is the .son of Mich- 
ael Myers, who came with his father from Penn- 
sylvania, settling in Ohio, and was there married 
to Miss Susan McClane. a native of Ohio. J. M. 
Myers remained in Sandusky until 1880, when he 
came to St. Francis, where he engaged in the lum 
ber busine.ss and has continued this calling since. 
He is the owner of 380 acres of land in his na 




five State, and 8,000 acres of timber and coal 
land in Morgan County, Ky. After arriving in 
Clay County, Ark., Mr. Myers joined the firm of 
Juvenall, Myers & Co., operating Mr. Ro.sen- 
grant's mill. Afterward in company witli W. S. 
Bryon, of St. Louis, he built a mill and opened 
under the firm name of J. M. Myers & Co. This 
he still contimies and has now completed one of 
the largest and best equipped mills in the county 
or State. When the town of St. Francis was or- 
ganized in 1888 Mr. Myers was elected to the 
office of mayor to fill the interim until the first mu- 
nicipal election, when he was re-elected, and is now 
holding that position to the entire satisfaction of 
all concerned. He has built, in addition to the 
two mills, the finest residence in the county. Al- 
though not a member of any church he has assisted 
materially in the building of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, to which he contributed very 
liberally. He was married in Ohio to Miss Ella 
Bair. who came fi'om Pennsylvania with her pa- 
rents, Jacob and Amy (Uber) Bair, a number of 
years ago. To Mr. and Mrs. Myers have been 
born five children: Edith Floy, Sadie Grace, Gail 
Roena, Grover C. and an infant unnamed. Mr. 
Myers is a Democrat in politics. 

Bertrand Nicolas, farmer and stockman of Clay 
County, Ark. , was born in France in 1844, being 
the second of a family of eight children born to Ber- 
trand and Catherine (Johnson) Nicolas, who were 
also born in France and came to the United States 
in 1847, landing at New Orleans, and afterward set- 
tling at St. Louis, Mo. , where the father engaged 
in weaving. In 1858 they moved to the country 
about twelve miles from the city, where they lived 
ten years, and afterward located about six miles 
north of Kirkwood, where both parents died. 
Bertrand Nicolas, whose name heads this sketch, 
was reared to a farm life and attended the schools 
of St. Louis, receiving a good education. At the 
age of twenty-eight years he began working for 
himself, and was married at the age of thirty-two 
to Miss Rebecca Towe, a native of Missouri, by 
whom he became the father of two children, and 
at the birth of the second child Mrs. Nicolas died. 
George, the elder, is attending school in St. 



Louis. Katie died in infancy. In 1884 Mr. Nic- 
olas married his second wife, whose maiden name 
was Miss Julia Mercillo. a native of Missouri. 
After his second marriage he remained in Missouri 
one year, and then came to Arkansas in the spring 
of 1885, settling near Peach Orchard, and at the 
end of two years located upon his present farm, 
where he is now tilling an excellent tract of fifty 
acres. 

Dr. J. Marshall Orr, physician and surgeon of 
Greenway, Ark. , is a native of Lee County, Miss. , 
where he was born on the 5th of August, ISfil. 
He was reared to manhood here, and received 
a good English education, at the age of eight 
een years, commencing the study of medicine un 
der his father, Dr. Harvey C. Orr, and took his 
fii'st course of lectures in the University of Louis- 
ville, Ky., in the winter of 1882-83. After fin- 
ishing his course, he returned to Mississippi, and 
practiced his profession with his father one year, 
when he located in the county and began practicing 
on his own responsibility, continuing there up to 
February, 1886. He then took another course of 
lectures in the Hospital College of Medicine, at 
Louisville, Ky., and graduated June 17, 1886. 
After completing his course, he located at Green- 
way, Ark., and has built up a large and paying 
practice, which is increasing steadily and profitably. 
His father was born in the " Palmetto State," and, 
after receiving his education and residing there 
until reaching manhood, he went to Mississippi, 
where he met and wedded Miss Mary E. Weath- 
erall. who was born and reared in Mississippi. Dr. 
Orr became settled in Lee County of that State, 
where he has practiced for over thirty years, and 
is still successfully following his calling. 

W. R. Paty, of Corning, Ark., was born in Hum- 
phreys County, Tenn. , August 28, 1849, his parents 
being Matthew and Priscilla Roberts, of Tennessee. 
The former's birth occurred about 1814, and in 
1838 he was married to one Miss Hendi'ix. They had 
three children born to them, of whom two are yet 
living. The wife died in 1845, and in 1847 he was 
maiTied to Miss Priscilla Roberts. They had nine 
children, of whom W. R. Paty is the only living 
member. Matthew Paty was a land holder in his 



CLAY COUNTY. 



237 



native State. In the spring of 1S58 he moved to 
Kipley County, Mo., where he bought a tract of 
land, consisting of 120 acres, on which he resided 
three years, and then moved to Butler County, of 
the same State, where he made his home until his 
death, on the ITjth of February, 1865. He was a 
Democrat in his political views, and he and wife 
were members of the Methodist Church. In the 
spring of 1N07 the widow, with seven children, 
moved to Randolph County, Ark. , and by the 
10th of May, 1884, they all had died, except 
W. R. Paty. On the 30th of November, 1873, he 
was married to Miss Caroline Watson, of Clay 
County, a daughter of Rev. Peter Watson. They 
had five children born to them, all of whom died 
in their infancy. Caroline Paty died October 12, 
1883. On the 14th of September, 1884, W. 
R. Paty was married to Mrs. Ruth A. Alexander, 
a native of Tennessee. She was a widow with one 
child. Mr. Paty now owns a farm, and lives on 
the same, ten miles west of Corning, in Clay Coun- 
ty, Ark., where he intends to remain the rest of 
his days. He received very little education in his 
youth, just learning the forms of the letters, but 
by self application he has made rapid strides in 
the acquirement of knowledge and acquaintance 
with current events. He is independent in his 
political views, and has served as school director 
and road overseer. He is a member of the Agri- 
cultural Wheel. 

Boswell B. Payne, Sr. , retired farmer, is a 
native of Rutherford County, Tenn., born Febru- 
ary 1, 1815, and is a son of James and Permelia 
Ann (Hitchcock) Payne, born in North Carolina and 
Ireland, respectively, though they were reared, mar- 
ried, and resided in Tennessee, and died in that 
State about 1827 and 1828, respectively. Boswell 
B. Payne grew to manhood in Madison County, 
Tenn., and was married in Dyer County, March 
4, 1836, to Miss Nancy Nettle, a daughter of 
Jesse and Catherine (Derosett) Nettle. Mrs. 
Payne was born in Franklin County, Tenn., July 
30, 1817, and she and Mr. Payne reared a family 
of nine children, all of whom are manied and the 
parents of families. They have forty-seven grand- 
children and about eight great-grandchildren. 



After their marriage they farmed in Tennessee for 
seven years, then moving to Poinsett County, Ark. , 
in 1843, where they were engaged in farming for 
about four years, coming thence to what is now 
Clay County, and in 1847 locating near Green way 
on the farm which he now owns. He built a good 
double log house, cleared a farm of sixty-five acres, 
and reared his family. He was a great hunter in 
his day, and has killed many bear, elk, deer, and 
a great amount of small game. He and wife are 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 

John H. Payne. The genealogy of this family 
can be traced directly back to two brothtn-s who, 
on coming to America, settled on James River, Va., 
and were among the early colonists. This family 
is among the old and much respected ones of the 
country. J. H. Payne was born in Greene County 
(now known as Clay Count}'), Ark., Aj)ril 20, 1850, 
and is the son of B. B. and Nancy (Nettle) Payne, 
and grandson of James Payne and wife, nee 
Hitchcock, the latter being of Irish extraction. In 
1844 B. B. Payne came to Clay County, Ark., with 
his wife and family consisting then of three chil- 
di'en, and is now living one and a half mile from 
Greenway. There were nine childjreu in the 
family, five daughters and four sons, all now mar- 
ried, and six of whom were born after their parents 
came to Arkansas. There are seventy five descend- 
ants to this family in children, grandchildren and 
great-grandchildren, living at the present time. 
Jesse Nettle, the maternal grandfather of the sub- 
ject of this sketch, was of Welsh descent, and his 
wife, Polly (Derosett) Nettle, was of French ex- 
traction. J. H. Payne, one of the rising young 
men of the county, has filled the office of magis 
trate for three consecutive terms, and in 1885 he 
was elected to the XXVth General Assembly of 
Arkansas. At the present time he is occupied in 
timber speculations, but previous to this he had 
made farming a specialty. He is a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church, holding credentials as 
a preacher in the same, and at present is study- 
ing for the legal profession. He chose for his wife 
Miss Susan D. Nettle, a native of Clay Coiuity. 
Ark., and the daughter of William R. Nettle, of 
Tennessee. She died September 16, 1888, and 



^1 

SI p 



238 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



-i£: 



left five children: J. H. , Jr., Laura J., David L., 
James C. and George. He is a Democrat and 
takes considerable interest in politics. He lives in 
Piggott, and j)ractices in the inferior courts of the 
State. 

Thomas L. Pierce, M. D. , one of the many emi- 
nent practitioners of Clay County, who has min- 
istered to the wants of the sick and afflicted of 
Clay County, Ark., is a native of Tennessee and 
went with his father, John J. Pierce, to Illinois in 
the spring of 1806. The father was a Union 
man in sentiment, but during the war he re- 
mained in Tennessee, and sided with neither the 
North nor South. After moving to Illinois he 
settled near Vienna, the count}' seat of Johnson 
County, where his son, Thomas L., grew to man- 
hood. The latter received a good practical edu- 
cation in the schools of Johnson County, and in 

1878, when twenty- two years of age, entered the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons at Keokuk, 
I<jwa. Previous to this he had studied in the 
office with Dr. T. L. Grissom, of Samoth, 111., and 
after retm-ning from Keokuk he commenced prac- 
ticing with Dr. J. H. Norris, of Metropolis City, 
III. After remaining there one year he came to 
Boydsville, Ark., where he opened an office in 

1879, and has been engaged in the practice of his 
profession ever since. Aside from the large prac- 
tice that the Doctor has, he also finds time to pay 
some attention to his farms lying in the neigh- 
borhood. He was united in marriage, in 1880, to 
Miss Berlinda Betts, daughter of John H. and 
Martha (Ford) Betts, of Dunklin County, Mo., 
and the result of this union has been the birth of 
five children: Norris, Lillie Myrtle, John Edgar, 
Martha Lena (died at twenty-two months old) and 
Roy Dwight. In his political views Dr. Pierce 
affiliates with the Republican party. 

Willis W. Pollard, druggist of Piggott, Ark., 
was born in L'nion County, 111., in March, 1852, 
being the son of John and Nellie (Leight) Pol- 
lard, who were also of Illinois nativity. In 1854 
they moved to what is now Clay County, Ark., 
where the father died in 1801, after which Willis 
W. Pollard moved back to Illinois with his mother, 
and there made his home until 1883. He was in 



the family grocery business for two years prior to 
coming to Arkansas, aind after removing to this 
State first engaged in the merchandise trade, 
and has been one of the prominent business men 
of the place. In July, 188-t, he was appointed 
station agent for the railroad at Piggott, which 
position he is filling at the present time, being the 
first and only agent at this point. The firm of 
W. W. Pollard & Co., druggists, has just been 
organized, and they carry a well selected stock of 
drugs, medicines, paints, oils, cigars and tobacco. 
Mr. Pollard has been married twice; first, in mi- 
nois in September. 1873, to Mary Casper, a native 
of Union County, 111., who died there in December, 
1870, having borne three children: Martha I., 
C. Otto, and an infant, deceased. In 1877 Mr. 
Pollard married his present wife, whose maiden 
name was Amelia Beaver, who was born, reared 
and married in Union County, 111., and by her be- 
came the father of five children, Charles W. be- 
ing the only one living, four dying in infancy. 
Mr. Pollard is an elder in the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian Church, of which his wife is also a mem- 
ber, and he has filled all the chairs in the I. O. O. 
F,, and is the present District Deputy Grand 
Master. 

Dr. Henry C. Redwine, physician at Vidette, 
Ark. , was born in Graves County, Ky. , June 
15, 1854, and is a son of Jacob and Mary Redwine, 
the former a native of North Carolina, the latter 
of Tennessee. They moved to Graves County 
while young, and are still residing there on a 
farm. Henry C. remained on the farm until his 
seventeenth year, when he began teaching in the 
public schools of his native State, and continued 
this occupation for seven years, being engaged in 
the study of medicine in connection with his teach- 
ing, the last two years of his pedagoguism. In 
1878 he entered Keokuk (Iowa) Medical College, 
from which he came to Randolph County, Ark., 
where he remained until March 1, 1880, then re- 
moving to Clay County, Ark., and locating within 
about two miles of where he now resides. In 1884 
he bought his present property, and in 1888 be- 
came engaged in general mercantile business. In 
September, 1888, a postoffice was established in 



r 



CLAY COUNTY. 



28St 



bis store, thf plucf taking the nnme of Vidette, 
and lif was appointed j)ostmaster. He has a very 
extensive practive, and is also meeting with good 
success in the mercantile business. 

Isaac Reed, a blacksmith and wagon maker at 
Corning, Ark., is a native of Lee County, Va. , 
where he was born on the 12th of March. 1843, his 
parents, George and Mary (Grabill) Heed, being 
born in West Virginia. In 1849 they emigrated to 
Kentucky, locating in Pulaski County, where the 
mother died ten years later. Here the father re- 
sided, engaged in farming, until 1805, when he 
emigrated to Washington County, Ark. , and there 
still makes his home. Of the eight children born 
to himself and wife, live are living: Isaac, Jane, 
Mary, Margaret and Nancy E. Isaac Keed was 
reared priucipally in Kentucky, and in that State 
received the most of his education. When the war 
broke out, he enlisted, on the 24th of Jiily, in 
Company K, Third Kentucky Infantry, and served 
three years and four months, being in the battles 
of Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, 
Buzzard Roost, Pumj)kin Vine, Resaca, Kenesaw 
Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, Siege of Atlanta and 
Jonesboro. He was mustered out of service and 
discharged October 14, 1864, at Louisville, Ky., 
after which he returned home and remained one 
month, then went to Lexington and was engaged 
in driving a post team for the Government. There 
was a train of 800 wagons made uj) to go to Mex- 
ico, but on reaching Louisville, all the men were 
discharged. He then returned home and was en- 
gaged in farming until 18(>9, when he went to 
Clark County, Ind. . and engaged in blacksmithing 
and farming, lemaining ten j-ears.at which time he 
removed to Jefferson County, Mo. In ISSO he 
came to ('orning. Ark., and has since been follow- 
ing his present business, in which he is meeting 
with good .success. He does all kinds of repairing 
and his work is always well performed. He owns 
several lots in the town and a nice home. In IS'io 
he was married to Miss Nancy L. Brown, a native 
of Kentucky, who bore him ten children, six now 
living: Nancy A.. William A. and Isaac M. (twins), 
George W. and Henry C. Itwins) and Charles 
F. Mr. Reed is a member of the Agricultural 



Wheel, and liis wife is a member of the Bajitisl 
Church. 

The Rou.se Springs Sanitarium, so intimately 
connected with the affairs of Clay County, is of 
sucli importance to the interests of this portion of 
the State, that no worthy history of the community 
conld fail to make mention of it, or of its worthy 
and well-known owner. Dr. James Rouse. The 
experiences through which he has passed, the 
honors conferred u])on liini by rich and poor alike, 
the success which has attended his efforts almost 
without exception, proclaim him a man worthy of 
more than ordinary notice, so that a sketch of his 
eventful life cannot but be of interest to the many 
readers of this volume. Dr. Rouse comes from a 
noble ancestry, liaving d(>scended from Rouse who 
was lord of admiralty during Cromwell's govern- 
ment. The Doctor's great-grandfather commanded 
an English ship in the wars between Spain, 
France and England j)rior to tlie American Revolu- 
tion. His grandfather and three brothers served 
in the Revolutionary War in the army of Washing- 
ton, one of the l^rothers falling at Yorktown while 
besieging that place. One of the brothers rose to 
be a general, and settled at Rouse's Point, N. Y. 
Dr. Rouse's father, James Rouse, served in the 
AVar of 1812 under Gen. Brown, and rose to a cap- 
taincy. He man'ied Miss Helen Temple, of Aljer- 
deen, who descended by both her i)arents from the 
house of Stuarts, her uncle being earl of Aberdeen. 
Dr. Rouse, who is now sixty-seven years of age, 
was born in Canada while his parents wei-e there 
on business, but was taken back to Virginia when 
only a few weeks old. He was sent to school in 
Northern Ohio, and also attended schools in Penn- 
sylvania and New York, studying medicine under 
Dr. Dustan, a French physician, and Dr. Johns, an 
English physician. The Doctor, although a Vir- 
ginian, is cosmopolitan in sentiment. He was a 
young man at the breaking out of the Mexican 
War, but saw active service in that conflict, his re- 
turn being through the locality which thirty-live 
years hence was to claim him as a resident. It 
was then that he discovered the rare curative 
(jualities of the springs now bearing his name. 
The beginning of his extensive travels had been 




made. Edinburgh College, of Scotland, had given 
him a dijiloma as a graduate, and being already 
possessed of an excellent knowledge of the science 
of medicine, he has since added to his learning by 
contact with different nations of the world, and by 
observing closely the diversified methods employed 
by various people. The experience thus gained 
has proved of incalculable benefit. While occupied 
at one time in three years of travel in Europe and 
Asia, he was called upon to perform an intricate 
and delicate operation upon one of Queen Victoria's 
army ofiicers, for which he was knighted. Two 
years were spent in South America, and while 
there also the success attending his efforts in sav- 
ing the life of the daughter of the emperor of 
Brazil, and restoring her to health, was rewarded 
by a gift (in addition to a magnificent fee) of a solid 
gold inkstand, weighing three pounds and three 
ounces, inlaid with fine rubies, each valued at over 
1200. Besides this Dr. Rouse possesses a num- 
ber of diamonds and other precious stones received 
from grateful potentates, who had been the bene- 
ficiaries of his ability. Amid constantly changing 
scenes time passed rapidly, and before conscious 
of it the Doctor had passed the three-score mile- 
stone, and was almost broken in health. The ad- 
vent of the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Rail- 
road, through this locality in 1882 caused him 
to turn his attention in this direction, and in 
1883 he settled here, and by personal experience 
determined the effects of the mineral waters so 
bountifully provided by nature. An analysis made 
by the Washington University, of St. Louis, indi- 
cates the presence of silica, iron, magnesium, 
iodine, potassium, sodium and manganese, ingre- 
dients sufficient to have wrought within the past 
six years some wonderful cures. One of the , 
most noteworthy was the case of Joseph Coch- 
ran, son of J. Henry Cochran, banker of Will- 
iamsport, Penn., whose condition had baffled the ] 
skill of physicians of wide reputation for some six 
months. An abscess forming internally had burst 
into the cavity of the bowels, discharging and 
emptying large quantities of pus into the cavity of 
the abdominal and peritoneal membrane. From 
an incision ten inches in length through the ab- 



dominal wall there was removed the matter dis- 
charged into the peritoneal cavity from an ab- 
scess in caecum. The case was most critical as the 
constant discharge needed frequent cleansing, and 
any little exercise caused the bowels to protrude 
some six or eight inches. Hope had almost been 
abandoned when Dr. Rouse undertook the treat- 
ment. There were besides now two holes in crecum, 
one three-quarters of an inch and the other half 
an inch in diameter, from which faeces were con- 
stantly discharged. By patient, untiring atten- 
tion and the help of his good wife, with the aid of 
instruments constructed for this particular case, 
the young man was restored to sound health 
within three months, the medicinal properties of 
the water used aiding greatly in this result. The 
father, without considering the usual formality of 
a bill, presented the Doctor with a check for 
$5,000. The Sanitarium is beautifully situated on 
an eminence overlooking the track of the ' ' Cotton 
Belt ' " Route. In it are contained many interesting 
and curious specimens, viz. : fossils, shells, min- 
erals, etc., evidences of Dr. Rouse's taste as a 
geologist and paleontologist; one of these is a 
piece of rich quartz, containing $700 worth of gold. 
He owns over 700 acres of land in the county, his 
home place containing sQme 2,000 peach and 200 
apple trees, and a garden surpassed by none in 
this portion of the State. One variety of grape is 
produced from a vine the original of which he 
brought from Riga, Russia; other small fruit of 
Canadian origin grow profusely. It only needs a 
visit to his wine cellar to demonstrate his abOity to 
preserve fruit after raising it, last year's crop pro- 
ducing over $1,000 of wine. With opportunities 
for gathering berries from the verge of eternal 
snow to the tropics, and fruit from every clime, 
he claims that there is no country like Arkansas 
capable of producing such a variety of highly fiav- 
ored and useful fruits, while the roses here are 
more fragrant than those of Persia. He already 
has one of the largest farm residences in the county, 
to which an addition will be built sufficient to ac 
commodate fifty patients by the fall of 1889. In 
addition to his duties about the Sanitarium the 
Doctor is surgeon for the railroad, and also has a 



^-. 



CLAY COUNTY. 



■n\ 



large practice in the surrounding country. He is 
of untiring energy, ceaseless activity and persever- 
ing industry, of lithe and sinewy form, erect and 
of commanding presence, his hair tinged with gray 
indicating a dignified age. He has been three times 
married, his hrst wife bearing two children; by his 
second wife he had six, three now living. His first 
wife's children are both married; the eldest, Helen, 
to Mr. Edwin Levitt, of Liberty, Me. ; the second 
daughter to Mr. J. Henry Cochran, of Calais, Me., 
now of W'illiamsport, Penn. His second wife's 
children are also married: James W. Rouse, con- 
ductor on a railroad in Colorado; Lizzie, wife of 
Mr. Frank Miller, an electrician, of Philadelphia, 
Penn. , and Eva Virginia, married to a Mr. Win- 
slow, of Maine. The present Mrs. Rouse was born 
in 1855, and has proved of invaluable benefit to her 
husband in the treatment of cases. Pleasing in 
disposition, an agreeable companion and a welcome 
visitor to the sick room, she has shared very largely 
in the respect and esteem accorded her husband. 
She is a lady of intelligence and worth, having 
graduated from the normal school of her native 
town, Fredericton, N. B. , Canada. She is of Scotch 
descent, her grandfather having been professor in 
Edinburgh University. Her father, William An- 
derson, is the recipient of a valuable gold medal 
given him as the best school-teacher in the Domin- 
ion of Canada. Dr. Rouse is a member of Orient 
Lodge No. 15, A. F. & A. M., of Thomaston, Me. 

E. N. Royall, a self made man and one who 
merits the respect and esteem of all by his industry 
and perseverance, is a native of Carroll County, 
West Tenn., born October 17, 1836, and a son of 
Joseph A. and Ollie (Steel) Royall, the latter a 
daughter of John Arnold, of Virginia. After reach- 
ing manhood, Mr. E. N. Royall engaged in mer- 
chandising in his native State, and was there mar- 
ried to Miss Frances C. Ozier, daughter of Reuben 
Ozier, of Tennessee, formerly of North Carolina. 
Ml', and Mrs. Royall came to Clay County, Ark., in 
18(39, settling on a farm about two miles north of 
Boydsville, on what is known as "' Big Creek," and 
a little later he was appointed assessor of the coun- 
ty, when it was first formed as Clayton County, and 
held this position two j'ears. He was also the first 



sheriff here, serving a full term, and after two 
years was elected county and ])robate judge, in 
which office he remained four consecutive terms, 
or eight years. He has been agent for the St. Louis 
& Iron Mountain Railroad for the past ten years, 
and is still acting as such. He engaged in mer 
handising with James Blackshare, with whom he 
continued for three years, and was then in the same 
business with W. S. Blackshare for some time. 
When first coming to Clay County, Ark. , with his 
family he had about $500 in money and a horse. 
He is now the owner of some 1,500 acres of land 
and has some good property in the village of 
Boydsville. To his marriage has been born one 
son, B. L. Royall, who has been sent to Cape 
Girardeau, Mo., and is also a graduate of the Com- 
mercial College of Lexington, Ky. , and is now 
clerking in the store of A. L. Blackshare, of Boyds- 
ville. Mr. Royall is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, Boydsville Lodge No. 75, and is a Demo- 
crat in politics. 

James R. Scurlock, a successful and promi- 
nent merchant of Piggott, and the son of J. C. and 
Eliza (Davis) Scurlock, was born in Union County. 
111., February 27, 1863. J. C. Scurlock was a 
native of Illinois, where he grew to manhood and 
married Miss Davis, who was also a native of the 
same State. Mr. Scurlock was a prominent man 
of Union County, and held several local oftices. 
He died January 1, 1872. Mrs. Scurlock died 
December 25, 1879. James R. Scurlock attained 
his growth in Union County, 111., receiving a lib- 
eral education, and remained in Illinois until grown. 
He came to Arkansas in November, 1S85, located at 
Piggott, and bought a mercantile house and has con- 
tinued merchandising up to the pre.sent. He car 
ries a stock of general merchandise, dry goods, 
hats, caps, queenswaro and glassware, and has built 
up a very goocTtrade. In May, ISS'.I, he formed 
a partnership and engaged also in the drug busi 
uess. He was married in Illinois, Union County. 
July I'J, 1S88, to Miss Mary E. Lingle. a native 
of Union County, 111., where she was reared and 
educated. She is a daughter of Moses Lingle. 
and a member of the Baptist Church. 

Joseph F. Schnei'l"v ..f tli.' Vik.-insas Stave 



242 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Works, was boru in Clermont County, of the 
"Buckeye State," June 20, 1857, his jjarents be- 
ing Adam and Anna (Weindle) Schneider, both 
of German nativity. Joseph F. Schneider re- 
mained with his father in his native county imtil 
twenty-one years of age, and in 1879 moved west to 
St. Louis, Mo. , where be continued working at the 
cooper business for about six years. In ISSO iie 
came to Greenway, Ark. , and engaged in the man- 
ufacture of staves and headings, and has been 
man.iger of an established business ever since. 
This enterprise gives employment to from fifteen 
to twenty men, and the establishment ships from 
eighty to 100 cars of stock annually. The Arkan- 
sas Stave Works pays, on an average, $1,000 per 
month, for help and material. Mr. Schneider was 
married in St. Louis, Mo., May 15, 1883, to Miss 
Anna Schmitz, who was born, reared and educated 
in St. Louis, and is the daughter of Jacob Schmitz, 
of Union City, Tenn. Mr. and Mrs. Schneider 
have two children: Cecelia and Clarence. He and 
wife are members of the Catholic Church. 

Dr. J. H. Seegraves, a prominent physician and 
leading citizen of Clay County, Ark., was born in 
Surry County. N. C, August 1, 1832, and is the 
son of Gilbraand Sarah (Wilson) Seegraves. Gil- 
bra Seegraves was born in Virginia in 1800, of 
Scotch-Irish descent, and was a brick-mason and 
farmer by occupation. He immigrated to Macon 
County, Tenn., in 1839, and was one of the pio- 
neers of that locality. In 1874 he removed to Ar- 
kansas, settling in Clay County, and there died May 
27, 1887, in his seventy -seventh year. Sarah (Wil- 
son) Seegraves was born in Ashe County, N. C. , 
and was reared and married in that State. The 
nine children born to this union are named as fol- 
lows: Louis, William, Maxwell, Samuel T., Henry, 
Gilbra, Sarah. Martha and John H. Mrs. See- 
graves died December 31, 1885. Dr. J. H. See- 
graves, the subject of this sketch, was jnincipally 
reared in Tennessee, and had good school advan- 
tages. Later he studied for three years under I. 
M. Livingston, M. D., of Lafayette, Tenn., and 
then practiced in partnership with him for four 
years. About this time the war broke out, and he 
enlisted in the Federal army, as recruiting officer. 



There being vacancies to till, he, among others, 
applied as assistant acting surgeon, of the United 
States army, which required a man to be a grad- 
uate of some reputable college. There were four 
who applied for the position, but three failed to 
pass. Dr. Seegraves claimed an examination, and 
passed with honor, and although not a graduate, 
was appointed to the place. His commission was 
as below: 

Hkadquauters Department Tenn , Medical Dikect- 
or's Office, Nashville, Tenn., September 21, 18(i.5. 
Special Order 33: — Surgeon Thaddeus Donahue, One 
Hundred and Tenib United States Cavalry Troops, in 
charge of Post Hosjiilal, Galhitin, Tenn., will be relieved 
of that charge without delay by Acting Assistant Surgeon 
J. H. Seegraves. United States Army, and return to duty 
wilh his regiment. He will turn over his property to his 
successor. By order of the Medical Director. 
John E. McGuirr, 
AsuuUiitt tiiirijean, United Std/ex Vohiitteers. 

Following this Dr. Seegraves was ordered to 
report the sale of property without reporting to 
superior officers, a new departure in military af- 
fairs. He then took charge of the hospital, after 
the abandonment of which he received orders to 
sell and turn over the proceeds, which was done, 
thus showing his standing. Below may be found 
his discharge from duty, and Tiis standing: 

Property Division, Surgeon General's Office, 
Washington, D. C May 1, 18fi6. 
Sir: — I am instructed by the Surgeon General to in- 
form you that your returns of public property belonging 
to the Medical and Hospital dei)artment of the Army, for 
a period commencing September 22, 1805, and ending De- 
cember 31, 1865, with vouchers thereto pertaining, have 
been examined in this office, and found to be correct, and 
finally settled. Relating to Gallatin, Tenn. 
Ver3' respectfully, your obedient servant, 
I W. C. Spencer, Assistant Suryeon, U. S. A. 

Dr. Seegraves served in the medical department 
from 1864 until April 10. 1800, participating in the 
battle of Nashville, and was honorably discharged 
at Louisville. He then located in Illinois, began 
the practice of his profession, and was ofPered the 
position of chief surgeon of the West, but declined. 
Later he settled in Clinton County, 111., practiced 
six years, then came to Arkansas, and settled in 
Clay County, where he has since practiced his pro- 
fession. He is also engaged in the drug business, 



^r^ 




Capx DanMathev^s 
Mmsiesippi Cquntv Arkansas. 



CLAY COUNTY. 



243 



and is the local surgeon of tho St. Louis, Arkaiisas 
& Ti>xas Railroad, which is au honor held by few 
physicians. Dr. Seegravesis also president of the 
Clay County Medical Examining Board. He was 
niiirried, in 1859, to Miss M. A. Atkerson, a native 
of Macon County. Tenn. , and the daughter of 
Johu AV. Atkerson, now a resident of Macon Coun- 
ty. Tenn. To the Doctor and wife were born four 
children living: Lydia A., Ida L. , John O. and 
t'Ora E. Those deceased were named Clara R. , 
Ethel, J. O., aud an infant. The Doctor and wife 
are members of the Missionary Baptist Church. He 
is a member of the G. A. R. and I. O. O. F., join- 
ing the last-named organization in Gallatin, Tenn., 
while surgeon of the army, and while almost a 
stranger, being struck by the grandeur of a proces- 
sion. He also belongs to the K. of H. Aside 
from his profession and the drug business. Dr. 
Seegraves is one of the prominent farmers of the 
county. 

B. H. Selhneyer & Bro., merchants of Knobel, 
Ark. This firm is composed of Bernard H. and 
Joseph Sellmeyer, who were born in Franklin 
County, Ind. , in 1850 and 1S62, respectively, and 
were the sons of John H. and Elizabeth (Brug 
gensmith) Sellmeyer, who were native Germans, 
and came to the United States, where they met 
and afterward married. The father is a tanner by 
trade, and is the owner of a tannery at Olden- 
burg. Ind., which is managed by his eldest son, 
John. Our subjects attended school in Oldenburg 
until a somewhat advanced age, then following 
clerking in their father's store. Bernard continued 
until about 1S70, whea he went to St. Louis and 
clerked in a store in that city for five years, later 
engaging in the grocery business for himself, which 
he continued until 1880, since which time ho has 
resided in Knobel, Ark. He first engaged as a 
contractor in furnishing tics for the Knobel & 
Helena Branch of the Iron Mountain Railroad, 
in partnership with Crawford & Lintz, and in 
about eight months furnished 350.000, and dur- 
ing this time also did some grading on tho White 
River Branch of that railroad. In the fall of 
1S81 he started the first store in Knobel, and it was 
practically the only store in the place for about 



four years. In 1884 he was joined by his l)rotlier 
Joseph, and they formed their present partnership, 
and in coiuiection with their store they are exten- 
sively interested in the timber business, making a 
specialty of piling, staves and ties, which indu.stry 
gives employm(>nt to forty or fifty men. They are 
notv about to erect a cotton-gin and saw mill, and 
owing to the erection of the former, the farmers 
have beeu encouraged to increase their cotton 
cro]> at least 400 per cent, which will prove of 
great benefit to the county. In 1882 Bernard 
Sellmeyer was appointed third postmaster of 
Knobel, and held the position several years, and 
in 1888 Joseph became postmaster, and is holding 
the office at the present time. Since 1884 Ber- 
nard H. has held the office of justice of the ])eace. 
In 1886 Joseph Sellmeyer returned to Oldenburg, 
Ind., and accepted the position of secretary of 
the St. Joseph Western Mill, of Oldenburg, in 
which his father is an extensive stockholder. In 
September, 1888, he was married to Miss Dinah 
Damhus, a native of Indiana, and a daughter of 
Bernard and Philema Damhus, who reside in that 
State. The Sellmeyer brothers own over 2,000 
acres of land, more than half of which is excel- 
lent farming land and susceptible of a high state 
of cultivation. They have about 100 acres under 
cultivation, and are constantly opening up new 
land, and their enterprise and energy form a com- 
mendable example to the citizens of the county. 

Edward Silverberg, M. D., a physician ami 
farmer of Clay County, Ark., was born in Colum- 
bia, Marion County, Miss., in 1829, and is the 
.second of four children of Johnson and Sarah 
(Jones) Silverberg, who were born in Holland and 
Georgia, respectively. When about sixteen years 
of age the father emigrated to the United States, 
and soon after engaged in mercantile business 
in Columbia. Miss., where he remained twelve 
years, then removing to Canlon, Miss., where he 
resumed biisiness in 1833, continuing until his 
death in 1838. He and wife were married in 1S25. 
the latter being a daughter of one of the early 
pioneers of Mississippi. He was a soldier in the 
War of 1812, and participated in the battle of New 
Orleans. Dr. Edward Silverberg received his 






^ 4 v>' 



244 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



education iu the common schools and the Masonic 
College at La Grange, Ky., leaving the latter 
institution at the age of eighteen years. He was 
engaged in clerking for two years and tlnni began 
the study of medicine, graduating from the Medi- 
cal University of Louisville, Ky., in 1S55, and 
entered upon the practice of his profession in 
Jessamine County, Ky. He then spent one year 
in Columbus, Ky. , two years iu Louisiana, and 
came to Helena in 1858, where he was iu the drug 
business, and from that time until 18IH resided in 
Helena. In May, 1862, he entered the Southern 
army as medical purveyor under Gen. Hindmau, 
who had command of the Trans-Mississippi depart- 
ment, and later was under Gen. Holmes, and was 
stationed with his office at Little Rock, Ark. In 
18(54 he resigned this office and entered the field 
as adjutant of what was known as Dobbins' brigade, 
being in the battle of Big Creek, near Helena, 
and in a raid south; was with Price on his raid 
thi'ough Missouri, and took part in the battles at 
Iron Mountain, Big Blti«>. Kansas City and Fort 
Scott, then fell back to Benton County, Ark. , and 
was in his last battle at Fayetteville, in the winter of 
1 864. The army was here divided and the Doctor' s 
command was sent to Northeast Arkansas, and in 
the winter of that year the command stai-ted to 
Mexico with Gen. Shelby. He was taken sick at San 
Antonio, Texas, and, after the final surrender, re- 
turned to Kentucky. He was married in 1856 
to Miss Sallie Lockart, a native of Pennsylvania, 
by whom he became the father of three children: 
Sallie L., wife of Judge J. F. Humphries, clerk 
of the court at Helena, Ark. ; Edward, who is 
married and resides with his father, and Ida, who 
died in infancy. In the spring of 1858 the Doctor 
brought his family to Ai-kansas and settled in 
Helena, where he was in the drug business when 
the war came on. In 1873, after coming to North- 
east Arkansas, and practicing for a short time at 
Pocahontas, he went to Poplar Bluff, Mo., but re- 
turned to Corning, Ark. , in 1876, remaining here 
six years, since which timt! he has lived at Knobel 
and Peach Orchard. In 18S5 he bought a tract of 
laud one-half mile south of Knobel, and on this 
farm he has since resided and made many improve- 



ments. He raises considerable stock and has an 
excellent stallion for breeding purposes. In part- 
nership with his son he is extensively engaged in 
the timber business, shipping staves, stave bolts 
and piling, and making cross ties. He takes an 
active part in politics, and has held the office of 
postmaster at Peach Orchard three years, and at 
Knobel about the same length of time. At both 
these places he carries on general merchandising. 
He is chairman of the County Democratic Conven- 
tion, and was a delegate to the Congressional Con- 
vention at Helena in 1888. He takes quite an 
interest in the culture of fruit, and his orchard 
consists of 300 peach trees, fifty pear, fifty plum, 
twenty-five cherry and 200 apple trees, all of which 
are doing well, and those that are bearing show 
excelh^nt fruit. His son, Edward L. , was married 
to Miss Annie Ratclift'e, a daughter of Hon. T. J. 
and Huldah A. Ratcliffe. The father was a noted 
lawyer and politician of this section and held the 
office of State senator. He died in 1881, but his 
widow still survives him and resides on the old 
homestead, one and a half miles west of Peach 
Orchard. 

G. W. Simmons, M. D., whose face is familiar 
in the homes of the sick and jifflicted of this coun- 
ty, was born in Halifax County, N. C. in 1827, 
and is the son of Jesse H. Simmons, whose father, 
John Simmons, was a native of Scotland. Jesse 
H. Simmons married Miss Nancy B. Whitaker, 
also a native of North Carolina, and the daugh- 
ter of James Whitaker. Her grandfather, >Johu 
Whitaker, was a native of North Carolina and was 
a colonel of some note in the Revolutionary War, 
as was also John Bradford, Mrs. Simmons' maternal 
grandfather. Gov. John Branch, of North Caro- 
lina, who was secretary of the navy in the cabinet 
of President Jackson, was a cousin of .Airs. Sim- 
mons. The Whitaker family was one of the most 
illustrious iu the State. G. W. Simmons moved 
to Wayne County, Tenn., at the age of seventeen, 
and later was married to Miss Martha J. Gee. 
daughter of Thomas Gee, of English and Welsh 
pareutage. He then entered the office of Dr. T. 
L. Carter, where he studied medicine, and a few 
years later opened an office, but in 1856 came to 



CLAY COUNTY. 



Clav County, aud formod a partnership with 
Thomas J. Harris, at Oak Bluff, near where Rector 
now stands, and was the loading physician of the 
county. The partnership continued for three years 
when Dr. Simmons opened up business for himself, 
as his partner had entered the Confederate array. 
Since that time the Doctor has had the greatest 
practice of any physician in the eovmty, and says 
that after an experience of thirty-three years, 
hi> can truthfully say it is an error to make the 
statement that this is an unhealthy country. In 
his earlier practice, when people were very poorly 
housed and very little attention was paid to the 
laws of health, they suffered from ill health, l)ut 
just in proportion to their imjirovement did they be- 
com(> healthier. The Doctor's own family, consist- 
ing of six robust children, is evidence enough of 
the salutary condition of the country, and nowhere 
is to be found a better specimen of young man- 
hood than William H. Simmons, who is clerking in 
his father's store. Dr. Simmons, by his first wife, 
was the father of six children, all of whom are 
now living: Jesse, married, has three children, 
and resides near his father; Alice married G. W. 
Webb, who is now living near Oak Bluff, is a 
carpenter, and they have three childi-en; Ella 
married James Merriwether, son of Dr. Merri- 
wether, of Paragould, and has two children; 
William H. is at home with his father and attends 
the store; Charles lives with his father and attends 
to the farm, and Mary married W. E. Spence, now 
circuit clerk of the county, whose sketch appears 
in anotlier part of this volume. Dr. Simmons 
married Miss Carrie M. Lavender, of Rector, who 
came from Georgia when a girl, with her sistok 
and brother-in-law, H. B. Cox. Her father. James 
Lavender, was a native of Georgia, and her mother, 
Malinda (Ansley) Lavender, was of Irish extrac- 
tion. The Doctor takes an active part in politics 
and votes the Democratic ticket, as do his two sons 
who are old enough to vote. He is a member of 
the Methodist Prolestant Church, and is a Royal 
Arch Mason, having passed through all the chairs 
in that order, and for six years was District Deputy 
Grand Master of the State. He has done much for 
the l)eiietit of the county in which he lives, has liuilt 



several of the finest houses in the vicinity, and is 
now engaged in the general merchandise business, 
having one of the y)est selected stocks in the town, 
valued at from $1,500 to $4,000. When the 
Doctor first settled in the county very little atten- 
tion was paid to education, but whisky was con- 
sidered the staff of life and was sold at every cross- 
roads. Now a school-house takes the place at the 
cross roads and the wliisky seller receives a limited 
amount of patronage. 

A. R. Simpson, M. D., ])hysician and .surgeon, 
was born in Lawrence County, S. C, Augn.st 25, 
ISOO, being a .son of D. D. and E. A. (Harris) 
Simpson, who were also born in the " Palmetto 
State," the father being a m(>rchant and farmer by 
occupation. They are both living and reside in 
their native State. The following are their chil- 
dren: J. H., of Mississippi: Sallie R. (Blakely), 
T. S., R. L (Janes), P. A. and Dr. A. U. The 
paternal grandparents were born in Ireland, and at 
an early day emigrated to America, locating in 
South Carolina, where they spent the rest of their 
days, and died when very old. Dr. A. R. Simp- 
son is the youngest of his parents' children, and 
his youth was spent in attending school and as- 
sisting on the home farm. At the age of sixteen 
I years he began the studj' of medicine, and in 
September, 1S79, entered the University of Balti- 
more, Md., in 1881 entering as a student the Lou- 
isville (Ky. ) Medical College, from which institu- 
tion he was graduated in March, 1882, being one 
of seventeen who gi'aduated with honors out of a 
classof 115. He began practicing liis profession in 
Lawrence County, S. C, and remained until 18S1, 
when he went to Marshall County. Misr,. , but only 
continued here one year. In April, 1885. became 
to Corning, Ark., where he has since resided, and 
has built np a large and lucrative practice. He is 
very public spirited and is ever reatly to advance 
any good cause. He was married in October. 
1886, to Miss Winnie D. Whitehead, of Crystal 
Springs, Miss., and by her has one child. Perry O. 
Dr. and Mrs. Sim])son are members of the Presby 
terian Church. 

J. B. Smith is a planter and stockman of Kil- 
gore Township. C!lay C^ouiity. It is a remarkable 



'A 



240 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fact that the majority of those men of Kentucky 
l)irth, who have become residents of Clay County, 
have been peculiarly successful in the accumula- 
tion of worldly goods, and are considered superior 
farmers, and Mr. Smith is but another example of 
this truth. He was born in Calloway County, 
Ky., September 14, 1849, his parents, Gabriel and 
Agnes (Shotwell) Smith, being natives of Kentucky 
and Ohio, respectively. The father was an hone.st 
tiller of the soil, and remained in the State of his 
birth until 1861, when he removed to Randolph 
County, Ark. (now Clay County), and opened a farm 
in Cache Township, on which he resided until his 
death in 1881, followed by his excellent widow two 
years later. Jasper B. Smith, the subject of this 
sketch, was brought up as a farmer's boy, and has 
ever devoted himself to that calling, and with a 
perseverance and industry which could not fail of 
favorable results. At the age of twenty years he be- 
gan depending on his own resources to obtain a 
livelihood, and made his first purchase of land in 
1S75, which consisted of eighty acres near Black 
River. This farm he improved greatly, then sold 
it and bought his present farm of 1 60 acres, sev- 
enty being under cultivation, and forty of that be- 
ing devoted to the culture of cotton. His attractive 
farm is especially fitted for the raising of stock, 
which occupation receives a fair portion of his 
attention, and his out buildings are all in excellent 
condition. He has always voted the Democratic 
ticket, and socially is a member of the Orient 
Lodge, at Corning, and the Agricultural Wheel. 
He was married in Arkansas on the 14th of March, 
1S6'.), to Miss Harriet Pitcock, a native of Ten- 
nessee, whose parents moved to Arkansas during 
the war; by her he is the father of these children: 
Nancy Ella (Mrs. Park), William Hastings, James 
Caswell, Marcus Vain, Bert, Enola, Ernest and 
Joseph G. and Elgin Eugene, l)oth of whom died 
at the age of one year. Mr. Smith received poor 
school advantages in his youth, but knowing the 
value of a good education has given his childi-en 
excellent opportunities for acquiring learning. He 
and wife are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church. He has been remarkably healthy, never 
having had to call a physician on his own account. 



William E. Spence, circuit clerk of Clay Coun- 
ty, also county clerk and probate court clerk, was 
born in Wilcox County. Ala. , and is the son of Rev. 
Spence and wife, nee Evelyn McNiel, and the grand- 
son, on the mother's side, of Hector McNiel, of 
Camden, who was of Scotch descent. Rev. Spene^e 
was a native of Tennessee, and moved to Alabama 
when a young man, where he married Miss Mc- 
Niel. In 1876 he settled with his family in Greene 
County, Ark., where he remained for about one 
year, and then moved to what was known as Oak 
Bluff, locating about a mile north of the town, 
where he taught school. He was also a preacher in 
the Presbyterian Church, having been ordained 
about the time he moved to Alabama. He was of 
English descent. William E. Spence accompanied 
his parents to Greene County, and always attended 
school to his father until he attended the Commer- 
cial College, at Lexington, Ky. , from which insti- 
tution he graduated the same year. After this he 
took a position as book-keeper and salesman with 
the firm of Tatum & Bragg, of Maiden, Mo., 
where he remained for about two years, or until 
the firm stopped business. He then went to work at 
the same occupation for I. Harris & Co. , also of that 
place, remained about a year, and then came to 
Boydsville, where he is now located, and accepted 
a position with W. S. Blackshare & Co. He re- 
mained with this company for about a year, when 
he engaged in mercantile business for himself, 
thus continuing until elected to his present oflice. 
He then closed out his trade, and now devotes his 
whole time to his official duties. He was first 
married to Miss Dora Pollock, who bore him one 
child, which died with its mother in 1884. Mr. 
Spencer's second marriage was to Miss Mary Sim- 
mons, daughter of Dr. G. W. Simmons, of Boyds- 
ville, in December, 1888. Mr. Spencer is a mem- 
lier of the Masonic fraternity, and is also a mem- 
ber of the K. of H. While modest and unassum- 
ing in his demeanor, he is endowed with those very 
rare qualities of good sense and good judgment, 
which, together with his genial and pleasing man 
ners, not only lit him for any position to which 
he may be elected, but congregate around him 
many warm friends. 



^ 



dA 



CLAY COUNTY. 



2-1"; 



Charles Stokes, farmer auil mechanic of Hay 
wood Township, Clay County, Ark., was born iu 
Winston County, Ala., October 81, 1840, being a 
son of William Stokes, who was born in Georgia, 
and was reared in Warren County, Tenn. He 
was married in that State, and afterward moved 
to Alabama, where he farmed for a numl)er of 
years and then came to Ark., locating in this State 
about 1S77, his death occurring in February, 
18S4. Charles Stokes was reared in the State of 
Alabama, and made his home with his father until 
November 27. 1801, when he married Susan 
Smith, a native of Tennessee, who was reared in 
Alabama, and in August of the following year 
moved to Illinois, locating in Massac County. e 
resided iu this and Pope Counties until the spring 
of 1868, when he moved to Arkansas, arriving on 
the 5th of April of that year. A short time after- 
ward he homesteaded 120 acres, then bought 120, 
and has since increa.sed his acreage to 600, all of 
which is in Mrs. Stokes" name. About 100 acres 
are under cultivation. They have a good residence, 
two good barns and an excellent orchard. Mr. 
Stokes has served as justice of the peace for about 
sis years, and has been a member of the school 
board a number of years. He has filled several of 
the chairs in the Masonic fraternity, and is a member 
of the Agricultural Wheel. In addition to his 
farming he has been doing considerable mechani- 
cal work, such as wagon repairing, blacksmithing, 
carpentering, etc. He and wife are the parents 
of the following children: J. R., A. J., J. H., F. 
M., T. A., Queen C, Pearlie and Nancy A. Two 
children died in infancy. 

Henry Swift was born in Orange County, N. 
Y., July 29, 1843, and is a son of John and Jane 
(Welch) Swift, who were born in Nottingham, 
England, the former's birth occurring in 1815. 
His father, William Swift, was a j)ostman, and 
carried the mail fi'om Longar to Elton, a distance 
of four and a half miles, making two trips per day, 
and in fifty-three years' service did not lose one 
day's time. John Swift served as a jirivate in the 
Crimean War, and was iu the siege of Sebastopol, 
being one of the only two surviving members of 
his camp. He died in 1882, having been a mem- 



ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a well- 
to-do land holder. His wife was also a member of 
the Methodist Church, and in 1848 came to the 
United States, locating in New York State, but re- 
turned to England the same year, and died there 
in October. 1846. Henry Swift lived with his 
giandfathor until his eleventh year, and received a 
good common school education in the schools of 
Longar. He then made a trip to the United 
States, and after living three years iu York State 
returned to England and again attended school. 
Eleven years later he came again to the United 

! States, and lived with an uncle in Jo Daviess Coun- 
ty, 111., for about three years, later working out 
and residing among the farmers in that county for 
two years more, attending school during the winter 
and doing farm work in the summer months. 
While the war was going on he traveled over the 
States of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and at the 
close of hostilities began working on the Missis- 

i sippi River, being engaged in the construction of 
the Belleville RaOroad, continuing such work until 
1873, when he came to Arkansas. He was occu- 
pied in farming in Randolph County until 1885, 
since which time he has been a resident of Clay 
County, and owns 280 acres of fertile land, eighty- 
three of which are under cultivation, although all 
could be easily put under improvement. It was 
heavily covered with timber, but is now furnished 
with good buildings and fences. He gives much 
attention to breeding Poland China hogs, and is a 
thrifty and successful farmer and stockman. He 
was among the first to demonstrate the fact that 
swamp and overflowed land could l)e tilled as 
profitably as the sand ridges, and seven or eight 
of his neighbors have followed his example and 
now possess comfortable homes of their own. He 
is active in school matters, is a Mason, and in his 
political views is a Democrat. He was first mar 
ried February 7. 1871), to Miss Malinda Smart, a 
daughter of Lemuel and Jane Smart, of Arkansas. 

< and by her became the father of two children ; 
Laura, who died at the age of fifteen months, 
and an infant, deceased. His wife died in 18S2. 
and he took for his second wife, in 1884, Mis-. 
Retta Boyd, a daughter of William Boyd, of Shan 



248 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



uon County, Mo. She died quite suddenly in 
Fehniary, 188"), having borne one daughter: Hen- 
rietta, who was l)ora on the 22d of March, 1888. 

Dr. C. C. Synionds. There are always, in the 
profession of which this gentleman is a member, 
some individuals who become eminent and com- 
mand a large patronage, and among these deserv- 
ing of especial recognition is Dr. Symonds, who is 
a skillful physician and surgeon. He was born in 
Cayuga County, N. Y., P^ebruary 15, 1829, and 
was the fourth in a family of five children born to 
the marriage of Shubel Symonds and Mary Baker, 
natives of Rhode Island. They were early pio- 
neers of Syracuse, N. Y., where the father fol- 
lowed tilling the soil, and resided foi a number of 
years. He died in Allegany County, of the same 
State, in 1853, at the age of seventy-six years. 
His excellent widow still survives him, and resides 
at Flora, 111. , having reached the advanced age of 
ninety-three years. Dr. C. 0. Symonds attended 
the common schools of Cayuga County, and after 
attaining a suitable age, began the study of med- 
icine. May 4, 1832, he was married to Miss Sally 
Ann Sawyer, and soon after moved to Allegany 
County, N. Y., and in 1857 to Clay County, 111., 
where he practiced medicine, and was also engaged 
in merchandising and shipping grain. In 1878 he 
emigrated to Corning, Clay County, Ark., where 
he has since been devoting his time to the practice 
of medicine and surgery. He assisted in incor- 
porating Corning, and has been one of the fore- 
most men in building up the town, being now a 
member of the city council. He has always Ijeen 
interested in educational advancement, and is inde- 
pendent in his religious views. He has never been 
very active in politics, but casts his vote with the 
Republican party. He owns a good farm in the 
western division of Clay County, besides other 
property. He and wife are the parents of the fol- 
lowing children: Harriet (Mrs. Loppins), residing 
in Clay County. Ark. ; Amanda (Mrs. Marrow), 
residing in Madison County, Ind. ; Ida (Mrs. 
Noble Stacey), whose hiisband is a druggist at Du 
Quoin, and Marenous, who is married and resides 
with his parents. Mrs. Symonds was born in 
Cayuga County, N. Y., and is a daughter of, Eben- 



ezer and Laura (Smith) Sawyer, also natives of 
New York State. The father was a sturdy tiller 
of the .soil, and remained in his native State 
until his death, in 1854, his wife having died in 
1844. The Doctor has three brothers: Syrenous, 
who is married and resides in Cortland County, 
N. Y., seventy- three years of age; John S. , who 
is married and lives at Flora, 111., of which 
place he is a prominent resident (he represented 
his county in the State legislature, and is now in- 
spector of the Southern Asyltim), and Marenous, 
who resides in Sedgwick County, Kas. , near 
Wichita, and is engaged in farming. 

R. I. Taylor is a native of Henry County, 
West Tenn. , and was born on the 'Jth of April, 
1839, his parents being John and Sarah (Carey) 
Taylor, the father a native of West Tennessee and 
the mother of South Carolina. The paternal 
grandfather was a Virginian by birth, the maternal 
grandfather having come originally from South 
Carolina. John Taylor emigrated from Tennessee 
to what is now Clay County, Ark., about 1852, 
coming in a wagon drawn by an ox team, and 
settled on the farm now owned by Robert Haw- 
thorne, in Carpenter Township, where he made 
improvements and resided until about 1859. Then 
he removed to Howell County, Mo. , and died there 
in ISHfi. His wife died in Stoddard County, Mo., 
on her way to Arkansas. To them were born four 
children R. I. Taylor being the third in order of 
birth. He was but thirteen years of age when he 
came to this State, and received only limited educa- 
tional advantages as there were but few settlers 
and no schools in the coivntry at that time. Such 
knowledge of books as he possesses was obtained 
at home l)y self a))plication. In the spring of 1801 
he enlisted in (Company F, Seventh Arkansas Regi- 
ment, and served until the close of the war, being 
a participant in the battles of Shiloh, Perryville, 
Murfreesboro, Mission Ridge and several hard 
skirmishes. He was wounded by a gun shot in 
the left arm at Shiloh, which has nearly ruined the 
use of that member, and was also wounded by a 
gun-shot at Murfi-eesboro, l)ut soon recovered as it 
was merely a flesh wound. He served as second 
sergeant and was |)aroled in 1865. He returned 



CLAY COUNTY. 



245) 



'~] 



^ 



f 



to Clay (,'ounty, aud about 1872 located on his 
present farm, which consists of 200 acres of land, 
with some sixty-five acres under cultivation. He 
raises corn principally, and gives considerable 
attention to stock. Having followed farming all 
his life he is thoroughly ac(iuainted with its varied 
features. In 1807 he was married to Rebecca 
Howell, a native of Missouri, by whom he has 
three children: John, Lewis and Alma. By his 
second wife, whose maiden name was Annie Heath, 
he had two children: Bosa, living, aud RosellaL., 
who is deceased. Mr. Taylor is a well-respected 
pioneer of Clay County, having resided here since 
the time when not more than a half dozen families 
were within miles of him. He has aided very 
materially in the advance and progress of the com- 
munity. 

Daniel D. Throgmorton, who is classed among 
the respected farmers and stock-raisers of Clay 
County, Ark. , was born on a farm in Henry County, 
Tenn. , January 20, 1850, and is the son of James 
AV. Throgmorton, a native of North Carolina. James 
W. Throgmorton was reared in Tennessee, and 
was there married to Miss Eleanor Pollard, also of 
North Carolina nativity. After marriage he re- 
sided in Henry County, Tenn., until 1809, when 
he came to Arkansas and settled in Clay County, 
where he died June IS, 1876. His wife had died in 
Tennessee in 1866. Daniel D. Throgmorton grew 
to manhood in Henry County, Tenn., came to Ar- 
kansas in 1870, and later spent three years in Dunk 
lin County, Mo. In 1874 he settled on the place 
where he now lives, and bought raw land, which 
he has since cleared, and the town of Piggott is 
laid out on his land. Mr. Throgmorton has about 
ninety acres, with some forty acres under good 
cultivation. He was married first in Dunklin 
County, Mo., February 15, 1873, to a widow, Mrs. 
Amanda E. Lively, who died May 23, 1883. Mr. 
Throgmorton was married in Clay County, Ark., 
December 27, 1883, to Miss Nancy B. Featherston, 
a native of Tennessee, who was reared in Dyer 
County, and a niece of his first wife. This last 
union resulted in the l)irth of three children: 
Thomas Edward, born Novpml)er 24, 1884, and 
Nora B., born September 26, 1888. They lost one 



child, L. Ora, who iliod Uctober 15, 1887, at the 
age of thirteen months. Mr. Throgmorton has 
been elected to and held the office of justice of the 
peace for twelve consecutive years, and has also 
filled other local positions. Mrs. Throgmorton is 
a menil)er of the Methodist Epi.scopal Church. 

John Tisdial. a farmer residing near Corning, 
Ark., was born in Marshall County, Ky., July 22, 
1837, and is a son of Sherrill and Julia (Casinger) 
Tisdial, who were also Kentuckia[is, and of Ger- 
man descent. The paternal grandfather, John, 
was an early settler of F\entucky, and there reared 
six children and resided until his death. Sherrill 
Tisdial was reared and educated in his native State 
and in 1838 emigrated to what is now Clay Coun- 
ty, Ark., making the toilsome journey in wagons. 
He erected a little log cabin at Rockfield. weighted 
down with poles, in which he resided a few years, 
then locating one mile below on the river. In 
the winter of 1866 he was thrown fi-om ahorse and 
killed. He was an extensive stock dealer, and was 
leading a steer when he became fast in the rope. 
During the war he lost heavily, as all his stock was 
taken from him by the soldiers. His widow is still 
living, being in her seventy fourth year. The)' 
were the parents of thirteen children, twelve of 
whom grew to maturity and six of whom are living 
at the present time: John, Frank, Monroe, Eliza 
beth, Ellen and Margaret. John Tisdial was an 
infant when brought to Arkansas, and from ear 
liest boyhood has had the welfare of his adopted 
county at heart. In his youth the country was 
nothing but a wilderness, with a few scattering log 
cabins long distances apart, and he assisted his 
father in clearing their farm and remained with 
him until he attained his majority. Althougli 
there were no schools at that time he applied him- 
self to such books as came in his way, and became 
a well educated man. After his marriage in 18<)0 
he moved to a |)lace of his own, and in the spring 
of 1864 came to his present farm, which consist> 
of 160 acres, eighty being under cultivation. He 
was married to Miss Polly Harriet, a native of 
Missouri, and by her becauje the father of five 
children: William J., Euphemin D. . Julia A.. 
John, and one decreased. He took for his secontl 



a k. 



2.")(1 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



wife Miss Fauuie Leslie, who has borne him two 
children: Daniel H. and Thomas A. His third 
marriage was to Miss Long, who has borne him 
three children: Avey and Noverller living, and 
Bertha deceased. In 1863 Mr. Tisdial enlisted in 
Company E, Second Missouri Cavalry, and served 
until September 15, 1863, when he was discharged 
on account of disability, and remained in the hos- 
pital until convalescent. On entering the army 
he weighed 175 pounds in his stocking feet, but on 
coming out only weighed ninety pounds. In 1864 
he took his family away from Arkansas, though he 
returned in 1866 and has since lived here. 

Marion J. Tucker, merchant and postmaster at 
Greenway, Clay County, Ark., was born in Nash- 
ville, Tenn., November 14, 1844, his father. Col. 
Thomas J. Tucker, being a native of Virginia. 
Upon remaining in the " Old Dominion " until a 
young man, the father went to Tennessee, where 
he was married to Nancy Nance, of that State, and 
after residing in Nashville, Tenn., for several 
years, moved to Haywood County, Tenn., where 
he became the owner of a plantation, and lived 
until his death, his wife having died some time 
before. He was a colonel of militia, and was a 
prominent and well-known man in his day. Marion 
J. Tucker grew to manhood in Haywood County, 
and when the war broke out, in 1861, he enlisted 
in the Confederate service, Ninth Tennessee In- 
fantry, and served until captured at Chick - 
amauga, and was held a prisoner of war until the 
close of the conflict, most of the time at Indian- 
apolis. He was at lirst in Nashville, Tenn., and 
was placed with 115 others in the top story of the 
Maxwell House, which broke through with them, 
and he and the others were carried clear to the 
basement. Mr. Tucker was badly wounded, and 
had one leg and an arm broken. After remaining 
in the hospital until convalescent, he was sent to 
Indianapolis. He was in the engagements at Bel- 
mont, Chickamauga, Murfreesboro and several 
others. After the close of the war he returned 
to his home in West Tennessee, and was married, 
in Lauderdale County, January 9, 1866, to Mary 
Jane Chambers, a native of Tennessee and a 
daughter of Thomas Chambers. After following 



mercantile pursuits in Alamo, Tenn.. for one jear, 
he, in 1867, moved to Lauderdale County, there 
being engaged in farming up to 1874, when he 
sold out and located in Clay County, Ark. , purchas- 
ing a farm and engaging in tilling the soil, also 
following the occupation of merchandising. He 
established a postoliice at that point, of which he 
became postmaster in 1878. He continued this 
business until 1887, then gave the management of 
affairs into the hands of his son, and moved to 
Greenway, where he built a store and put in a 
stock of general merchandise. He has a general 
stock of goods, and in connection with this also 
owns and conducts a livery barn. Since Septem- 
ber, 1888, he has held the office of postmaster of 
Greenway. He is a Master Mason, and is a deacon 
in the Missionary Baj^tist Chiu'ch. January 20, 
1889, his wife died, leaving him with a family of 
nine children: Edgar M. , Columbus, Laiu-a, Gas- 
ton, Wittie, Clyde, Lily, Luther and Lola. Mr. 
Tucker owns two farms in Clay County, amounting 
to about 300 acres, and has some 175 acres under 
cultivation. He married his present wife, a Mrs. 
Annie Gault, May 12, 188U. She was born in 
Illinois. 

Dr. Wiley V. Turner, a retired physician and 
farmer of Greenway, Ark., was born in Humphreys 
County, Tenn., May lU, 1836, his father, Wiley 
Turner, being a native of South Carolina. He was 
reared in Wilson County, Tenn., and was mar- 
ried in Davidson County to Miss Maria Thompson, 
who was born near Nashville. He served in the 
War of 1812 tinder Jackson, and was at the battle 
of New Orleans, dying in Humphreys County. 
Dr. Turner grew to manhood in that county and 
until he attained his majority made his home with 
his father. He received a good practical education 
in Waverly Academy, and when twenty years of 
age commenced the study of medi('in(> under Dr. 
Ellis, taking his first course of lectures in the 
winters of 1858-59 and 1859-60, in the University 
of Nashville, graduating from that institution in 
the spring of the latter year. He then practiced 
his profession in Houston County until the open- 
ing of the war, and in the fall of 1862 enli.sted as 
a private in the Fiftieth Tennessee Infantry, Con- 



CLAY COUNTY. 



•^ 



federate States Army. He was soon after detailed 
as assistant snri^eon, and served in this capacity 
until 1864, when he left the army and returned 
JKime and resumed practice. Here he remained 
until 1871, when he removed to Clay County, Ark., 
and continued the practice of his profes.sion for 
nine years. About 1875 he was appointed post 
master of Clayville. and in 1878 became the first 
postmaster of Greenway. He kept a stock of 
general merchandise at his residence, and con- 
tinued for one year after the location of the town 
of Greenway, when he moved his store to about 
one-half mile from his residence. He has also been 
engaged in farming for a number of years. Au- 
gust 4, 1864, he was married, in Tennessee, to 
Miss Louisa Skelton, a native of Tennessee, and a 
daughter of A. B. Skelton. The Doctor and his 
wife have four children: James, Jo.seph, Charles 
and Robert. Minnie was the wife of B. B. Bif- 
fle, and died in December, 1884. The Doctor and 
his wife are members of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church, in which he is a ruling elder, and 
he belongs to the Masonic fraternity. 

Wright Ward was born in Webster, Hancock 
County, 111., July 18, 1849, and is a son of Zebe- 
diah and Arzilla (Wright) Ward, natives, respect- 
ively, of New York and Tennessee, the former's 
birth occurring on the 23d of March, 1816, in New 
York City. When a child he removed with his 
parents to Dearborn County, Ind. , where he grew 
to manhood, and then located in Hancock County, 
111. , where he apprenticed himself to the wagon- 
maker's trade, which calling has received his atten- 
tion up to the present time. He is a Democrat, 
and he and wife are members of the Christian 
Church. Their children are Wright, a farmer and 
mechanic; Lorinda, who lives in Carthage, 111., and 
Mark, a farmer residing in Northeast Missouri. 
Wright Ward was married in Illinois, on the 1st of 
May, 1873. to Miss Elizabeth L. Pryor, a daugh- 
ter of Lewis R. and Hannah J. Pryor, natives of 
Hancock County, 111. , and by her he has one child, 
Cora L. . bornOctolier '21. 1874. Mr. Ward moved 
with his familv to Clarion County, Mo., in 1875, 
and in 1879 to Randolph County, Ark., where 
he rented land and farmed for four vears. then 



coming to Clay County, Ark., wliere he purchased a 
tract of land containing 200 a(!res. He has fifteen 
acres under cultivation. He has a good young or 
chard, and su\)stantial fences and buildings, and is 
I)reparing to erect a new residence. He is a Dem 
ocrat, is active in his support of schools and 
churches, and is an industrious farmer. 

W. H. Watts, hotel keeper at Boydsville, was 
born in Humphreys County, Tenn., in 1840, where 
he ntmained until after the war, althourrh during 
that eventful period he joined Gen. Forrest's cav 
airy and participated in the battles of Athens. 
Ala., Johnsonville, Tenn., Paducah, Ky., Fort 
Pillow, Parker's Cross Roads, Gun Town, and was 
on the Hood raid from Florence, Ala., to Nashville. 
Tenn. He was in thirteen fights, among which 
was the Franklin fight, where fully one-third of 
the men in the company and regiment were lost, 
and in the Nashville fight, after which a retreat was 
made to Florence, Ala., continued skirmishing be 
ing experienced. During this time Mr. Watts had 
his clothes riddled with bullets, and his hat rim shot 
away in pieces, but he miraculously escaped without 
injury to himself. He was discharged in Missis 
sippi, and sent to Nashville, Tenn., where he took 
the oath of allegiance to the United States. He wa-- 
offered $100 in gold by the officers to go to Texas 
and not to Nashville. He then returned to Humph 
reys County. Tenn.. where he remained about two 
years, after which he moved to Graves County, 
Ky, , where he engaged in agricultural pursuits 
for about seven years. In 18<)8 Miss L. F. Simp- 
son, daughter of D. M. Simpson, became his wife, 
and, in the spring of 1874, they moved to Clay 
County, Ark., and settled where Boydsville now 
stands. At that time the county seat question 
was not settled, but the object was to have it at 
Boydsville, and Mr. Watts built the first house on 
the ground. He lived in one part of this house 
and sold goods in the other, thus continuing until 
the fall, when he gave it up for the county records, 
built a log house and resided in that a number of 
years. In 1878 the county erected the Iniilding at 
present used as the county court-house. Mr. Watts 
now owns the house, a large frame one, which he 
and Judge Holifield built in 1876. and he has 



I* 




bought and sold several farms in this locality. 
To his marriage were born four children, two of 
whom were born in Kentucky, and three are now 
living. They are named as follows: Laura C, 
wife of C. B. Johns, and the mother of two chil- 
dren, now resides in Boydsville, where her hus- 
band is engaged in the stock breeding business; 
William H. and Albert Sidney. Mr. Watts is 
a member of the Masonic fraternity, and also a 
member of the K. of H. , and he and wife belong 
to the Primitive Baptist Church. 

H. J. Weindel, manufacturer of all kinds of 
staves, headings, also lumber and cooi)erage stock 
in general, always carries a large stock, and has on 
hand from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 staves. He 
runs the largest factory in Northeast Arkansas, and 
pays out about $5,000 jjer month for labor. The 
factory was organized by L Weindel and L. Wirth- 
lin, in 1862, at St. Louis, and just at the comple- 
tion of the Iron Mountain Road was moved to 
Corning, where in 1883 the name was changed to 
the Southern Cooperage Company. Mr. Weindel 
was superintendent of the company from 1881 to 
1885, after which he purchased the business from 
the Southern Cooperage Company, and has had 
charge of it since that time. He has a large 
and extensive trade, and has made the busi- 
ness what it is by upright and honest dealing. 
He was born in Bavaria, Germany, July U, 18(51, 
and is the only son born to the union of John and 
Mary (Brobst) Weindel, also natives of Bavaria, 
Germany. The parents moved to St. Louis in 
1882, but in the same year came to Corning, 
and here the mother died in 1882. The father is 
still living. H. J. Weindel came to this country 
in 1880, first settling in St. Louis, attended col- 
lege, and there learned the English language. 
Prior to this he had received a thorough education 
in Europe, had taught school, was also a teacher 
of music, and held an excellent position. He 
came to Corning, Ark., in 1881, not with the inten- 
tion of remaining, but being so thoroughly satis- 
fied with the country, concluded to stay. He was 
married at Corning, in 1886, to Miss Jessie Mc- 
Kay, a native of Illinois, and the daughter of Will- 
iam and Mattie (Knowlen) McKay, the father a 



native of Scotland, and the mother of Alabama. 
Mr. and Mrs. McKay came to this country at an 
early day, locating in Illinois, and in 1880 moved to 
Corning, Ark. The father died in the spring of 
1882, but the mother is still living, and resides in 
Corning. After marriage Mr. Weindel settled 
where he now lives, and there he has since lived. 
He has always taken an active interest in building 
up the town, and in all enterprises pertaining to 
the good of the country. He is not particularly 
active in politics, but votes with tbe Republican 
party. He is a member of the Roman Catholic 
Chui'ch. To his union with Miss McKay were born 
two children, one living, named Hermina. The 
one deceased was Winifred. 

Joseph Whitaker is one of Clay County's 
most prosperous farmers and stockmen. His birth 
occurred in Crawford County, Perm., in 1838, he 
being the second of a family of ten children born 
to the marriage of John Whitaker and Euphemia 
Ann Johnson, originally from New York State. 
After their marriage in their native State, they 
immediately moved to Crawford County, Penn., 
where they bought land and were engaged in 
farming for about fifteen years, then purchasing 
land in Erie County, twenty miles from the city 
of Erie. Here the father is still living, but the 
mother died in 1SS2. Joseph Whitaker attended 
school until he was about nineteen years of age, 
and on the 6th of May, 1861, enlisted in Company 
D, First Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, which was 
known in the field as the "Old Buck-tail Regi- 
ment." He was in the First Army Corps, and 
was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, partici- 
pating in the battles of Drainsville, the Peninsula 
Campaign, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, 
Autietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and was 
with Grant until the battle of Cold Harbor, which 
was the last combat in which he took part. He 
received his discharge on the 4th of July, 1884, 
and was mustered out at Harrisburg, but soon af 
ter re- enlisted in the service, joining the Ninety- 
eighth Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, and was 
sent to the front after Johnston, in North Carolina. 
When the latter surrendered, he returned to Wash- 
ington, D. C , l)ut was mustered out at Philadel- 



' ■^ « 



-r- 



-4- 



CLAY COUNTY. 



253 



pliia. After returuing home ho went to Warren 
County, Penn. , where he was engaged in the lum- 
ber business for some time, and operated two saw- 
mills. In 1883 he sold out and came to Clay 
County, Ark. , and bought eighty acres in what is 
now the village of Knobel, being occupied in 
sawing lumber for a mill company fi'om Burling 
ton, Iowa. There were no improvements whatever 
on his land, but Mr. Whitaker immediately erected 
a comfortable house and out buildings, and cleared 
about twenty-five acres, which are under cultivation. 
He has a good young orchard. He has sold con- 
siderable of his land for town lots, and during his 
residence here has taken considerable interest in 
raising the grade of stock, and in December, 1888, 
imported two registered Durham cattle, a cow and 
a ViuU, which are the only registered animals in 
Clay County. He was married, in 1S66, to Miss 
Elizabeth Searl, a native of England, and an e.sti- 
mable lady, who died in February, 1886, having 
borne the following children: Richard, in the em- 
ploy of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, his head- 
quarters being at Jefferson City, Mo., and Adelle, 
a young lady who manages her father's household 
affairs. 

Elvis B. Whitehorn, a successful fi'uit grower 
and farmer of Clay County, Ark. , was born Sep- 
tember 30, 1840, in Carroll County, Tenn., being 
a son of Jacob H., who was born in Virginia, May 
13, 1815, and grandson of George Whitehorn, 
also born in Virginia, his birth occui'ring October 
17, 1779. The latter moved with his family to 
Tennessee in 1829, being among the pioneers of 
Carroll County, and when the War of 1812 broke 
out he enlisted and served throughout that strug- 
gle. Jacob H. Whitehorn grew to manhood in 
Carroll County, but was married in Humphreys 
County, to Miss Keziah A. Petty, a native of Ten- 
nessee. They resided in that State, near Hunt- 
ington, until their respective deaths, and there 
reared tiieir family. The father's death occurred 
in 1878. Elvis B. Whitehorn remained with his 
father until about eighteen years of age and August 
4, 1864, enlisted in the Twelfth Tennessee Cavalry, 
Company M, serving until he received his dis- 
charge October 7, 1865; he participated in the fight 



at Pulaski, and was with Hood on bis thirteen 
days' raid, being in the battle of Franklin. After 
this battle he was in the hospital a short time, and 
was then sent to the Kansas frontier, being dis- 
charged at Fort Leavenworth. After returning 
home he resumed farming, and August 11, 18*)7, 
was married in Carroll County, to Miss Pearl ie 
Williams, who was born, reared and educated in 
Carroll County. Mr. Whitehorn is a carpenter by 
trade, and was engaged in house carpentering and 
railroad bridge building for a number of years. 
In the wintt^r of 1880 he moved to Arkansas, and 
located on his present home farm consisting of 
200 acres, about 100 of which are under cultivation. 
Besides this he owns SO acres more. He has a 
comfortable home and substantial buildings for 
his stock and grain, and has an orchard consisting 
of 3,000 peach trees, 400 apple trees, and also 
many plum and cherry trees. He raises straw- 
berries in abundance. The j^ear following his ar- 
rival here he engaged in railroading, l)eing em- 
ployed on the construction of the ' ' Cotton Belt ' ' 
Line for about thirteen months. Mr. Whitehorn is 
a member of the Agi-icultural Wheel and was elected 
President of the County Wheel in 1888, being the 
second man in the county to join that society af- 
ter its organization. He and wife are the parents 
of the following family: Mary Alvira, Hester Caro- 
line, Henry B. , James G. , George T. and Joseph B. 
H. H. Williams, manufacturer of lumber for ag- 
ricultural implements, first saw the light in Oneida 
County, N. Y., in September. 1841. being one of 
nine children, eight living, born to thi> marriage of 
Herbert Williams and Jane Hughes, natives of 
Wales, who came to New York State at an early 
day, where they both spent their lives: the father 
being a farmer by occupation. Their children 
who are living are: William H., Evan H., Cather- 
ine, Mary, Amos. Sarah, Hattie an<l Hugh H. 
The latter is the youngest of the family and was 
reared and educated in Oneida County, receiving 
an academic as well as a common school education. 
From early chiklhood he was reared to a farm life, 
which he followed until January, 1864, when he 
went to Jacksonville, 111., and was employed in 
the .Insane Asylum. From that time until ls76 he 



A 



254 



"HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was engaged in the lumber business in Pulaski and 
Aloxander Counties, and at the latter date moved to 
Scott County, Mo., locating near Morley, where 
he remained two years, since which time he has 
lived in Clay County, Ark., being a resident of 
Corning the first year. He has since been occupied 
in the lumber business in Williams, which he con- 
ducts on a very large scale, and employs on an 
average about thirty men, shipping his product 
north. In 1887 he shipped from his mill $32,000 
worth of lumber. This mill is one of the largest 
in the county, and besides he owns a large farm 
and several thousand acres of timber land. In 
September, 1888, he had a postoffice established 
at his mill, which is called Williams' postoffice. 
Mr. Williams is wide-awake and enterprising, and 
takes an interest in all movements to l)eneiit the 
county. He belongs to the I. O. O. F. , and in 
1863 was married to Miss Kate B. Billings, a 
native of Oneida County, N. Y. They have no 
family. 

Francis A. Williams, one of the well-to-do 
farmers and stockmen of the county, is a Carroll 
Coimty Tennes8eean,and was born January 5, 1844, 
being a .son of Benjamin Williams, who was born 
in North Carolina, but was reared in Tennessee. 
In this State he was married to Hester C. Enix, a 
native of the State, and settled on a farm in Carroll 
County, where he resided until his death, in the 
summer of 1871. Francis A. Williams made his 
home in Carroll County until twenty-three years 
of age, and was married August 11, 1868, to Mrs. 
Martha ^Vynn, a daughter of John Foster. She 
was born and reared in Gibson County, Tenn. 
After marriage Mr. Williams made three crops in 
Carroll County, and in the fall of 1870 moved to 
Arkansas and located in Clay County, where he 
bought the tract of laud where he now lives three 
years later. It consists of 240 acres in one body, 
about 135 acres being cleared and improved with a 
good frame residence and out- buildings. He has 
two cotton-gins on his farm and for the past 
ten years has been engaged in ginning cotton. He 
has been a member of the Agricultural Wheel 
ever since the organization of that society in the 
county, and held some local offices in his township. 



Mr. and Mrs. Williams are the parents of nine 
children: Hester, wife of Lee Wiley; Benjamin 
E., Mary F., wife of Samuel Blackshare; Elbert. 
Ada, Edwin, Lola, Lura and Alfred D. 

Wilson Bros., proprietors of the Piggott Stave 
Factories, at Piggott, Ark. , are deserving of high 
tribute for the enterprise and influence which have 
contributed to the commercial success of this sec- 
tion. All manufacturing establishments of mod- 
ern times have embraced many features of practical 
utility, and the concern with which these brothers 
are associated is worthy of high consideration. 
They located herein the spring of 1884 and estab- 
lished at this point one stave factory, but two 
years' experience was sufficient to demonstrate 
the need of increased capacity, and another fac- 
tory was started in the summer of 1886 two miles 
from Piggott. Even this has not proved adequate, 
and at the present time another is being pushed 
forward. Each factory has a daily capacity of ten 
cords of timber, and forty men are actively occu- 
pied in various caj)acities. The quality of work 
turned out is unexcelled, and the attention given 
by the proprietors to their product is a sufficient 
guarantee as to its sale. It is evident that they 
have only tried to make the merits of the work 
satisfactory to all. Charles, Cyrus F. and H. S. 
Wilson are Kentuckians by birth, and natives of 
Fulton County, their father now belonging to 
Hickman, of that county. Dr. H. H. Wilson was 
born, reared and educated in Tennessee, and there 
commenced the study of medicine, subsequently 
graduating from one of the medical colleges of 
Philadelj)hia. Afterward he located at Hickman, 
Ky., and entered upon the successful practice of 
his profession. He was first married in Tennes- 
see to Miss Lucy Davis, of that State, after whose 
death he married again. Besides the tliree sons 
living there is one daughter, a resident of Ken- 
tucky. Cyrus F. Wilson grew to manhood at 
Hickman, to which i)lace he afterward returned 
and married, February 29, 1888, Mrs. Bettie Pl- 
iant, a native of Kentucky, and daughter of Judge 
Rile}', of Hickman. She was partially reared in 
Louisiana. One child was born to this union, 
Nannie Belle. Mrs. Wilson is a member of the 



f 



^f 



.i£. 




Prcslntprian Chnrch. H. S. Wilson was married 
at Martiu, Tenn.. March 28. 187S. to Miss Jennie 
Anderson, of Tennessee, and the daughter of Ed- 
win Anderson. They have five children: Cora, 
Lucy, Gland, Stanley and Aleck. 

John S. W instead, farmer and stock raiser of 
Haywood Township, Clay County. Ark. , is a native 
of North Carolina, and was born in Persoh Coun- 
ty May 4, 1830. His father, Seth M. Winstead, 
was also of North Carolina birth, and was there 
married to Miss Mary Winstead, daui>;hter of John 
Winstead. The Winsteads were prominent ])io- 
neers of that State. Seth Winstead moved to 
Tennessee about 1S3.S, settling in Weakley Covinty, 
engaged in farming, and there reared his family. 
He died in that State in 1882. John S. Winstead 
is the second in order of birth of three sons and 
one daughter born to his parents. He attained 
his growth in AVeakley County, remaining with his 
parents until twenty-three years of age. and was 
married, in Obion County, November 18, 1860, to 
Miss Victoria Rucker, a native of Middle Tennes- 
see, and the daughter of S. W. and Eda Rucker. 
After maiTiage Mr. Winstead farmed in Obion 
County for a number of years, but later sold out 
and moved to Arkansas in 1872. Two years later 
hi' bought and settled on his present farm, which 
he has greatly improved. He has 100 acres cleared 
and si.xty acres in timber, all one tract. He has 
fair buildings and a good orchard. This is a very 
desirable farm, and is located one mile duo west 
of Gre(»nway. To Mr. and Mrs. Winstead were 
born these children: Erasmus, Charles, William 
Samuel, Minnie Ballard, John, Zachariah T. and 
Victoria. They lost unc daughter, Emma, who 
grew np, was married, and died in February, 1888, 
leaving one child. Mr. and Mrs. Winstead are 
members of. the Christian Church, and Mr. AVin- 
stead belongs to the Agricultural Wheel. 

Louis M. Wolf, of the firm of Long & Wolf, 
merchants, of Greenway. Clay County. Ark., was 
born in the city of St. Louis October 12, 1803, and 
is a son of Raphael Wolf, who was born and reared 
in Germany. After reaching manhood he emi- 
grated to the United States, and was married, in 
St. Louis, Mo., to Miss Minnie Schoen. also a na 



' tive of Germany. He was a stock dealer, trader 
and merchant in St. liouis until his death, in 1S71. 
Louis M. Wolf remained in St. Louis until he was 
eight years of age, and was then sent to Cleveland, 
Ohio, and was educated in a Jewish college of 
that city. After completing his studies, at the 
end of seven years, he returned to St. Louis and 
was engaged in clerking there for a short time, 
going thence to Topeka, Kas. , and later to Missouri. 
After clerking in Maiden, Mo., for J. S. Levi iV; 
Co., for a number of years, he, in April, 1887, 
came to Arkansas and located at Greenway, where 
he bought property and Ijuilt a business house, 
and ill connection with Louis Long, of St. Louis, 
Mo., conducts a general mercantile establishment, 
their stock of goods being large and well selected, 
and their aniuxal sales amounting to $2,500. Mr. 
Wolf is an enterprising young business man, and 
is doing a pro.sperous business. He is also a mem- 
ber of the K. of P., and is connected with the 
Hebrew Synagogue. His mother is residing with 
and keeping house for him. 

C. W. Woodall. Among the planters and stock 
dealers of Kilgore Township, Clay County, Ark., 
who have attained the highest round in the ladder 
of success, and are counted among its worthy and 
honored citizens, may be mentioned Mr. Woodall, 
who was born in Marshall County, of the "Blue- 
grass State," in 1845, lieing the second of eleven 
children born to the marriage of Roland Woodall 
and Nancy Urennon, natives, respc^ctively, of Nortli 
Carolina and S])ringtield. 111. The father was 
taken to Kentucky by his i)arents when three years 
of age, and was there reared and educated, and 
spent his days. He was an extensive planter, and 
owned a large farm of 500 acres, successfully 
managing it until his death, which occurred in 
18fi4, and throughout life he was an active politi- 
cian. His estimable wife survived him many years 
and died in 1886, at the age of sixty nine years. 
Her father was one of the first settlers of JIarshall 
County, Ky., and was the first one buried in the 
family cemetery in that county. C. W. Woodall, 
whose name heads this sketch, was reared on his 
father's plantation and educated in tlie schools of 
his native State, but in 1803 left school, and August 



-*fv 



2r^c, 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



29 of that year went to Padueah, Ky. , where he 
enlisted in Company A, Fifteenth Kentucky Cav- 
alry, for three years, and afterward participated in 
the battles of Spring Creek, Murfreesboro, and 
several skirmishes, serving as orderly for Maj. W. 
W. Waller. He served until the close of the war, 
and after receiving his discharge at Padueah. Ky., 
returned home and engaged in farming, and was 
married here on the 29th of August, 1867, to C. A. 
Brazell, a native of Kentucky, by whom he is the 
father of live children: Mary A., wife of J. Dud- 
geon: Sarah Elizabeth, Ida Belle, Amy and Nora 
Arlena. After his marriage Mr. Woodall purchased 
a plantation in Kentucky, on which he resided until 
1871, when he came to Clay County, Ark., and set- 
tled on the plantation which he now occupies. 
November 12, 1872, he bought 120 acres of raw 
land, which he has since improved and added to 
until he now has 467 acres in the home plantation, 
and besides this property has forty-one and a half 
acres at Corning, and his old farm in Kentucky, 
besides selling 300 acres. On an average he de- 
votes 100 acres to cotton raising and about the 
same to corn, and the greater portion of the re- 
mainder of his land is given to stock, of which he 
is the heaviest buyer as well as raiser in Clay 
County. He stall-feeds about sixty head of cattle 
each year and from fifty to seventy-five hogs, be- 
sides what he buys and .ships. His property is 
nicely improved by a good house and barns and a 
fine apple and peach orchard. He has always 
taken great interest in enterprises tending to bene- 
fit the county, and has given much attention to 
school matters and to the church. He is an ad- 
mirer of the Ji'ffersonian sy.stem and supports the 
Democratic party, and has served on the United 
States grand jury two terms, and the county grand 
jury nearly every year. Socially he belongs to 
Orient Lodge No. 297, at Corning, Ark. ; I. O. 
O. F. Lodge No. 78, and he and wife belong to 
the Eastern Star Lodge at Reno. Mrs. Woodall's 
parents. Pleasant and Mary Jane (Hunt) Brazell, 
were born in North Carolina and Virginia, respect- 
ively, but removed with their jmrents to Kentucky 
at a very early day, where they were reared, mar- 
ried, and spent the remainder of their days. 



William Wynn. In giving a history of the 
jirominent citizens of Clay Countj% Ark., the bio- 
graphical department of this work would be in- 
complete without mentioning the gentleman whose 
name heads this sketch, for he is deservedly ranked 
among its prominent planters and stock dealers. 
His birth occurred in West Tennessee in 1857. 
being the fifth of thirteen children born to W. J. 
and Mary (Barker) Wynn, who were natives of the 
" Old North State" and Tennessee, respectively. 
\V. J. Wynn became an early resident of Tennes- 
see and eventually acquired considerable wealth, 
owning some 1,500 acres of land, and he and wife 
are now residents of Tiptonville. William Wynn 
while young aided his father on the plantation, re- 
ceiving his education in the district schools and 
the schools of Tiptonville. In October, 1885, he 
was married in Benton ("ounty to Miss Arabelle 
Walker, a native of Tennessee, and soon after this 
settled on his farm in Clay County, Ark., which 
he had purchased in 188-1. It then comprised 
160 acres of land, but since locating he has 
greatly improved and increased his property until 
he is now the owner of 696 acres in Kilgore and 
Carpenter Townships. He has cleared about 200 
acres and has 400 under cultivation. He puts in 
annually 150 acres of cotton, and devotes the rest 
to the cereals and to the pasturage of a large 
number of cattle, horses, and mules, in which he 
is an extensive dealer. He has the largest amount 
of land in a tillable condition of any one in Kil- 
goi'e Township, and has done his full share in de- 
veloping and furthering the interests of Clay 
County, being especially concerned in the cause of 
education, to which he gives his liberal support. 
He has never been a verj' active politician, but 
has always given his infiuence to the Democratic 
party. In March, 188S, he lost his excellent wife, 
who had l)orne him two children: Thomas W^ill- 
iam and John Henry, and he was afterward 
wedded in Clay County in Septemlier, 1888, to 
Mrs. Margaret (Allen) Toms, who was born in 
Kentucky, and is a daughter of Daniel Allen. 
The father was also a Kentuckian, but in 1880 be- 
came a resident of Carpenter Township, Clay 
Countv, Ark., where he and wife are living at the 



y\-. 



a 



CLAY COUNTY. 



2.".7 



present time, being worthy and successful tillers 
of the soil. Mr. Wynn is a member of the Agri- 
cultural Wheel, and during his short residence in 
the county, he has become well known for his intel- 
ligence, enterprise, and liberality, not only in a 
business way, but socially, and commands the re 
spect. confidence and esteem of all who know him. 
William L. Yancey, another prominent farmer 
and stock raiser of Oak BlufiP Township, and son 
of Robert and Parthena Yancey, was born in Fay- 
ette County, Tenu., September 22, 1837. Rob- 
ert Yancey was born in Mecklenburg County, 
Vh. , grew to manhood there, and was there mar- 
ried to Parthena Yancey, who was also a native of 
Virginia. After marriage they moved to Tennes- 
see, settling in Fayette County, and here the father 
followed farming and reared his family. He died 
in 1849, and his widow in 1865. In their family 
were two sons and one daughter, all of whom grew 
to mature years. Both brothers grew up in Fay- 
ette County, Tenn. , and both served in the Con- 
federate army. William L. enlisted, in March, 
1862, in Col. Jackson's cavalry regiment, com- 
manded by Gen. Forrest, and served until the 
final surrender. He was paroled at Gainesville, 
Ala., in 1865, and was a participant in the follow- 
ing battles: Jackson, Miss., Holly Springs. Miss.. 
Guntown, Miss., Nashville and Franklin, Tenn., 
and was in a number of minor engagements. After 
the war he returned to Tennessee, farmed in Fay- 
ette County for two years, and then moved to Ar- 
kansas in the fall of 1866, where he remained for 
one year, when he bought the place where he 
now resides, five acres being cleared. He is the 
owner of 240 acres, all in one tract, 180 acres 
cleared and one-half bottom and very rich land. 
He has good buildings on his farm, five acres of 
bearing orchard and five acres in young orchard. 
Mr. Yancey has been three times married; first, in 
1859, September 22, to Miss Susan Bradsher, a 
native of North Carolina, and five children were 
lK)rn to this union, four now living. Mrs. Yancey 
died in Arkansas, and Mr. Yancey took for his 
second wife Miss Jane Wooten, a native of Arkan- 
sas, reared in Greene County. She died in Au- 
gust, 1877, leaving one son. Mr. Yancev married 



his present wife, Mrs. Martha Virginia Owen, 
in January, 1878. She was born in Tennessee, 
and is the daughter of Rev. A. M. Pickens, a minis- 
ter in the Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Yancey ha<l 
one daughter by her former marriage, Edgewortli. 
wife of Matthew Thomas, and Mr. Yancey's chil 
dren are named as follows: Sarah P., wife of 
James Wooten; Willie Ann, deceased; Mary K.. 
wife of John Wamble; Robert J. and James, by 
his first wife, and Stephen H. by his second wife. 
Mr. Yancey and wife are members of the Alethod 
i.st Protestant Church. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, Dannolley Lodge No. 300, also 
belonging to Evergreen Lodge No. 66, I. O. O. F. 
Bustamente Yates, merchant, emigrated to 
Greene County, Ark., in 1876. Going from Weak- 
ley County, Tenn., to Texas, he remained three 
years engaged in the photograph business, that be- 
ing his profession, and while in that State was (piite 
successful financially. Mr. Yates was born in 
Henry County, Tenn., Fel)ruary 15, 1844, and 
when small came with his parents to Weakley 
County, of the same State. He is the son of 
Joseph M. and Ann W. (Davis) Yates, and grand 
son of Lloyd Yates, who lived to be one hundred 
and four years of age, and never had an ailment 
until his death. He was a soldier in the Revolu 
tionary War. Joseph Yates was born in North 
Carolina, and is now living four miles from Rec- 
tor, in his eightieth year, and is hale and hearty. 
He is of Irish descent. During his trip to this 
country from North Carolina he was taken with 
measles, and was unconscious for seven days, sub- 
ject to the severe weather, snow, etc.. during that 
time. While in North Carolina he was planter and 
overseer, having charge of a large number of 
negroes. Ann W. (Davis) Yates, was also Ijorn in 
North Carolina, probably Orange County, but was 
married after going to Tennessee, in Obion County. 
She was the mother of eleven children, nine now 
living: Lavinia V.. Bustamente H.. Roan. Cazelia 
F., Dalphin W., Lanora M., JohnC. William H. 
and Emma. DeWitt and an infant are deceased. 
The mother of these children is .still living. Grand 
father Davis was from Orange County, N. C. , and 
emigrated to Tennessee many years ago. He was 



J^l 



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258 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



a fanner by occupation, and followed this industry 
in Tennessee until his death. Grandmother Davis 
was also from Orange County, N. C and died a 
number of years ago in Tennessee. She was proV)- 
ably of German descent. Bustamente Yates was 
principally reared on a farm in Tennessee, and re- 
ceived a common school education. After growing 
up he went to Dresden, Tenn., and clerked for 
some time, after which he engaged in merchan- 
dising until coming to Ai'kansas, thirteen years ago. 
Since then he has been interested in many differ- 
ent pursuits, and is now in the mercantile business. 



being occupied also in the liquor trade, and is the 
owner of considerable jiroperty. In 1877 Mr. 
Yates was married to Miss Sarah L. Eason, daugh- 
ter of Alfred and Emily E. Eason. both natives of 
Virginia, but reared in Tennessee, where their 
daughter was born. Mr. and Mrs. Yates are the 
parents of six children, four now living: Robert 
H. , George, Joseph and Annie L. Rose and an 
infant are deceased. Mr. Yates is not active in 
politics, but affiliates with the Democratic party. 
He is a member of the I. O. O. F. , and also a 
member of the Masonic fraternity. 




A 



FULTON COUNTY. 



'Ihil 



XI 



-4-4-5- 



FuLTOx CoTNTY— Its Formation, Organization AND Ofi-hjehs— Its Caimtal and Biildinhs— Polit- 
ical Record— The Bench and Bar— Sititation ok the County— I.MPoitTANT Statlstics fok 
THE iNSTurcTioN of Immigrants— Real and Personal Taxation— Aggregate Popu- 
lation—Educational and Religious Advancement— Selected Family- 
Records — The Gi'.eat REBELLiox--MrNiciPAL Organizations. 



O. the pleasant days of old, whiili so often ))eoi)le praise! 
True, they wanted all the luxuvies that i^racc our modern days: 
Bare floors were strewed with rushes, the walls let in the cold: 
O, how they must have shivered in those pleasant days of old. — Br 




'ULTON COUNTY was organ 
ized in 1843, in accordance 
with an act of the General 
Sr Assembly of the State ap- 
proved December 21, 1842. 
The tirst officers under the 
.^Jl^O^ organization head the list 
^ of county officers following 
in this work. The territory com- 
posing the county formerly belonged 
to Izard, and was originally a por- 
tion of the old county of Lawrence. 
In 1855 a part of Fulton County was 
set off to Marion, and a part of Law- 
rence was attached to it. In 1878 
territory from Fulton was taken ofF in the forma- 
tion of Baxter County. 

Soon after the county was organized, the site 
of the present town of Salem was selected for the 
seat of justice, where it has ever since remained. 
-V log court house containing one room was soon 
erected on the public square. After being used 
for a numl)er of years it was replaced with a larger 
log structure containing a court-room and clerk's 
office. This l)nilding. together with all of Salem 



except one log cabin, was consumed by tire during 
the Civil War. The lire was supposed to have 
been the work of a marauding party. Afterwards 
another log court-hotise was erected and stood 
ttntil the fall of 1870, when it, together with all 
records saved to that time, was also consumed by 
fire. After that time, the present court house, a 
medium-sized, two-story frame structure, with a 
hall and offices on the first floor and the court- 
room on the second, was erected. It .stands in the 
center of the large public square; and the jail, a 
wooden building, the walls of which are made of 
planks lying flatwise — one upon another and se- 
curely spiked together — is located in the southwi-st 
corner of the square. 

The following is a list of the names of county 
officers, and dates of term of service, from the or 
ganizatiou of the county to the present writing: 

Judges: E. C. Hunter, 1843-10; John Plum 
lee, 1846-48; S. Billingsley, 1848-50; L. Bowling, 
1850-54; R. L. Brantley, 1854-50; S. Billingsley, 
1856-58; E. C. Hunter. 1858-60; L. Bowling, 
1860 62; W. R. Chestnut, 1862-64; J. D. Isham, 
1864-66; \V. R. Chestnut, 1866-68: H. Turner. 
1868-70; J. W. Ball, 1870-72; commissimier-. 



260 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1872-74; T. J. Cunningham. 1874-80; S. H. 
White, 1880-82; R. E. Richardson, 1882-84; T. N. 
Chestnut, present incumbent, first elected in 1884. 

Clerks: Isaac King. 1843-52; W. M. Bennett, 
1852-54; J. A. Simpson, 1854-56; J. C. Todd, 
1856-58; S. W. Davis. 1858-62; T. N. Estes, 
1862-64; J. P. Cochran. 1864-68; Wiley King, 
1868-71; A. R. Brantley. 1871-72; W. P. Rhea, 
1872-82; L. P. Kay, 1882-86; H. F. Northcutt, 
present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Sheriffs: F. Tolbert, 1843-44; Daniel Beck, 
1844-46; C. E. Simmons, 1846-48; S. H. Tolbert, 
1848-50; N. L. Barker, 1850-54; R. Benton, 
1854-56; L. D. Bryant, 1856-58; T. Martin, 
1858-60; L. D. Bryant, 1860-62; E. O. Wolf, 
1862-64; M. V. Shaver, 1864-66; E. O. Wolf, 
1866-68; W. E. Spear, 1868-72; W. T. Livingston, 
1872-74; B. R. P. Todd, 1874-76; W. T. Living- 
ston, 1876-80; D. P. Tunstall, 1880-82; W. T. 
Livingston, 1882-84; D. P. Tunstall, 1884-86; 
W. T. Livingston, 1886-88; A. F. Basham, 1888, 
present incumbent. 

Treasurers: D. Hubble, 1843-44; W. Falken- 
berry, 1844-60; J. Montgomery, 1860-64; S. Bil- 
lingsley, 1864-66; J. M. Archer, 1866-68; J. 
Andrews, 1868-70; T. Chestnut. 1872-74; E. D. 
Hays, 1874-76; T. W. Chestnut. 1876-84; S. P. 
Welden, present incumbent, first elected in 1884. 

Surveyors: B. Archer, 1843-46; H. Long, 
1846-50; W. E. Davis, 1850-52; J. O. Brown, 
1852-58; J. T. Livingston, 1858-60; S. H. Tol- 
bert, 1860-62; M. F. Billingsley, 1862-64; S. 
Vanatta, 1864-68; William Raines, 1868-72; S. 
H. White, 1872-76; C. C. Torrence, 1876-80; 
William Anderson, 1880-82; W. C. Anderson, 
1882-84; C. C. Torrence. 1884-88; C. C. Davis, 
1888, present incumbent. 

Assessors: J. W. Kennedy, 1864-66; W. H. 
H. Orr, 1866-68; J. W. Cleghorn, 1868-72; J. 
M. Archer, 1872-74; A. L. Pearson, 1874-76; S. 
H. White, 1876-80; M. T. Price, 1880-82; C. C. 
Torrence, 1882-84; W. C. Anderson. 1884-86; T. 
H. Hammond, present incumbent, first elected in 
1886. 

Representatives in constitutional conventions: 
1861, S. W. Cochran and George C. Watkins; 



1868. William A. Wyatt; 1874, Edwin R. Lucas. 

At the September election in 1888 the number 
of votes cast in Fulton County, for the candidates 
for governor, were as follows: James P. Eagle, 
Democrat, 1,011; C M. Norwood, opposition, 612. 
At the presidential election in November. 1888, 
the number of votes cast within the county for the 
several candidates were as follows: Cleveland. Dem- 
ocrat, 873; Harrison, Republican, 272; Streeter, 
Union Labor. 195: Fisk, Prohibition, 29. 

Just when, or in what particular house the 
sessions of the county and probate courts were held 
prior to the selection of the site for the seat of 
justice, and before the first court-house was con- 
structed, can not now be given, for the reason that 
all records of the county prior to the fall of 1870 
have been destroyed. It is presumed, however, 
that they were held in Salem very soon after the 
county was organized. The regular sessions of the 
county coiirt now begin on the first Mondays of 
Januar}', April, July and October of each year, and 
of the probate court on the first Mondays of March, 
June, September and December. 

The Fulton circuit court belongs to the Four- 
teenth judicial district, and its regular sessions 
begin on the fourth Mondays of March and Sep- 
tember of each year. 

The legal bar of Fulton County is composed 
of the following named attorneys: C. A. Phillips. 
B. H. Castleberr.v, J. L. Short, R. B. Maxey and 
J. M. Burrow. 

Fulton, like all sections of country, has, to 
some extent, been afflicted with criminals. A few 
murders have been committed, but no legal execu- 
tions of the offenders have taken place. They 
have, however, been punished with terms of ser- 
vice in the penitentiary. Society is now well 
regulated, and the safety of persons and property 
is secured. 

The county of Fulton, located in Northeast 
Arkansas, on the southern slope of the Ozark 
Mountain Range, is bounded north by Ozark. How- 
ell and Oregon Counties in Missouri, east by Sharp 
County, Ark., south by Sharp and Izard Coun- 
ties, and west by Baxter County, and has an area 
of 600 square miles, with only about one-tenth of 






FULTON COUNTY. 



261 



it improved. Its hoiuidary lines are hs follows: 
Beginning on the State line between Arkansas 
and iVIissouri, where it crosses the line between 
llanges 4 and 5 west of the Fifth Priuci])al 
Meridian; thence south on the range line to the 
line dividing Townships 19 and 20 north; thence 
west on the township line to the line betwiien 
Ranges 5 and 6 west; thence south on the range 
line to the line dividing Townships 18 and 19 
north; thence west on the towilship line to the 
middle of Range 11, west; thence north on section 
lintis to the north line of the State; thence east 
(jn the State line to the place of beginning. 

Spring River is formed by the Mammoth Spring 
at the town of Mammoth Spring, at the State line, 
about three miles west of the northeast corner of 
the county, and flows in a southerly direction 
across its eastern portion. Myatfs Creek rises 
near the center of the northern boundary of the 
county and flows southeasterly and empties into 
Spring River in the east central part. Soiith Fork 
enters the county from Missouri a little west of 
the middle of the northern boundary, and flows 
south and east to its junction with Spring River 
in Township 19 north. Range 5 west. Straw- 
berry River and the tributaries forming it rise in 
the south central portion of the county — the river 
itself flowing in a southeasterly direction. The 
creeks in the extreme western division of the county 
flow in a southwesterly direction and partially 
form the Big North Fork of White River. The 
streams above named, together with their tribu- 
taries, furnish excellent drainage for the entire 
county, and on the larger ones there are many 
good mill sites. Numerous jjure mountain springs 
abound everywhere, the most noted of which are 
Mammoth Spring, at the head of Sjmng River, 
and Sharp's Spring, in the southern part of the 
county. Good well water can be obtained at an 
average depth of thirty feet, and many wells are in 
use, as are also cisterns. These sources furnish an 
abundant supply of water for all purposes. 

The entire surface of the county is more or 
less hilly and mountainous, though the knobs and 
ridges do not reach to any considerable height. 
Many of the hill sides are sufficiently level for 



cultivation, and on the tops of the ridges are 
found a number of comparatively level tracts. 
Valley lands abound along the larger streams. 
The south central and southwestern portion of the 
county is not so hilly and broken as elsewhere, 
and in this and in the valleys of the streams the 
best farms are found. In the extreme southwest- 
ern portion, where pine timber abounds, the soil 
is thin and sandy. On Myatt's Creek and South 
Fork the soil is a black sandy loam, while on 
Spring River it is mostly a clay soil. On Straw 
berry the soil is called a "mulatto soil," and is 
that kind best adapted to the raising of cotton. 
It is a loamy clay, composed largely also of veg 
etable mould. The soil of the uplands consists 
principally of clay and vegetable mould, and in 
many places is exceedingly stony. The stone, 
however, is small and loose upon the surface, and 
easily removed. Lead and zinc have been dis- 
covered in different places within the county, but 
no mines have been opened. 

The first land entries date from 1880, but 
not many were made prior to 1850. During the 
50' s more entries are noticed than at any other 
period of similar length. Large tracts of laud are 
owned by non-residents. Many of the citizens 
have made homestead entries, and many have al- 
ready '"proved up" and secured their titles. 
There are thousands of acres of Government lands 
in each of several Congressional districts yet sub- 
ject to homestead entry, and to the home-seeker 
who desires to secure a home under the homestead 
laws, this county presents many advantages over 
those of the cold, bleak and liarren regions of the 
West and Northwest. 

The timber of the valley lands consists of wal- 
nut, sycamore, burr, white and "sour" oak, lin- 
den, ash, hickory, sweet and black gum, cotton- 
wood, box- elder, etc. On the uplands black jack, 
post, black and white oak and hickory abound. 
The best saw-timber is found in the valleys. Good 
pine timber is also abundant in the extreme south- 
western portion of this territory. The timber has 
not been shipjied out of the county to any consid- 
erable extent. A few saw-mills are iu oi>eration, 
all of which are doing good busiue.ss. 



•262 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



The principal resources of the county, as now 
developed, and the principal vegetable productions 
are corn and cotton. According to the United 
States census of 1880, there were within the 
county 866 farms and 24,629 acres of improved 
land, and from these the vegetable produetions of 
the previous year were as follows; Indian corn, 
299,980 bushels; oats. 20,827 bushels; wheat, 
10,924 bushels; hay, 166 tons; cotton, 2,438 
bales; Irish potatoes, 95 bushels; sweet potatoes, 
681 bushels; tobacco, 3,400 pounds. Thus it will 
be seen that corn and cotton were extensively raised, 
while but little attention was given to the growing 
of other crops. The soil is well adapted to the 
development of all kinds of vegetables named, and 
the tame grasses and clover. Clover, timothy and 
herds grass (red top) have recently been introduced, 
but have not been raised to any considerable ex- 
tent. The reason for this is the liberal range 
upon which the stock lives and fattens, requiring 
only a little feed through the short winters. The 
number of live stock within the county, as shown 
by the census of 1880, was as follows: Horses, 
1,615; mules and asses, 567; neat cattle, 5,934; 
sheep, 4, 189; hogs, 16,427. The number assessed 
for taxation in 1888 is as follows: Horses, 2,471; 
mules and asses, 891; neat cattle, 12,426; sheep, 
5,764; hogs, 16,483. The apparent small increase 
in the number of hogs is attributable to the fact 
that the number given by the census of 1880 in- 
cliules all slaughtered and sold during the previous 
year, while the number given in 1888 includes only 
those on hand when assessed. The real increase 
of hoffs must have been enormous. Fulton Countv 
is excellent for stock raising, the climate being 
mild, the water supply good, and the range for 
pasturage extensive. It is also well adajited to the 
cultivation of all kinds of fi-uit common in this lati- 
tude: V)ut fi-uit growing has not been very largely 
followed, at least not for shipping purposes. It 
could be made a very profitable industry, and the 
opportunity is here for all who may wish to en- 
gage in it. 

According to the United States census of 1880 
the assessed value of real estate in Fulton County 
WMs $201,186, and of personal i)roperty, $205,836, 



making a total of $407,022. The total taxes 
charged thereon for all purposes amounted to 
$7,008. 

The taxable wealth of the county in 1888, as 
shown by the assessment rolls, is as follows: Real 
estate, 1617,821; personal property, $519,371, 
making a total of $1,139,192; and the total taxes 
charged for all purposes is $17,150.92. Thus it 
is seen that from 1880 to 1888, the taxable wealth 
of the county nearly trebled. The assessment of 
1889 will undoubtedly show it more than trebled. 
These figures prove that the county's resources are 
being rapidly developed. 

Tlie aggregate population of the county at the 
end of the several census decades has been as fol- 
lows: 1850, 1,819: 1860, 4,024; 1870, 4,843; 1880, 
6,720. The colored population was, in 1860, 88; 
1870, 85, and in 1880, only 36. 

The only railroad here is the Kansas City, Fort 
Scott & Memphis, which was completed in 1883. 
It enters the county, from Missouri, at Mammoth 
Spring, and runs thence in a southerly direction 
across its territory for between thirteen and four- 
teen miles. It was assessed for taxation in 1888 
at $141,765. It has been and will continue to be 
of great advantage to the county. 

Prior to the actual settlement of the section 
now composing Fulton County, it was occupied by 
a few adventurous and migratory hunters who suli- 
sisted upon wild game, wild honey, berries and other 
articles of food that they sometimes procured by 
returning to the frontier settlements and stealing. 
This class did not long remain after the permanent 
settlement began, which, according to best infor- 
mation, took place during the 20' s and early in the 
30' s. Among the early settlers that may now be men- 
tioned were G. A\'. Archer and his family, consist- 
ing of nine sons and three daughters, who settled 
on South Fork, four miles east of Salem, and Daniel 
Hubble, William Wells, Moses Branaon, Mr. Cobb, 
the Barkers, John Nichols, the Batons and the Lew- 
ises, all of whom located with their families on 
South Fork. '■ Tilt " Hubble settled on the Nes- 
bit place, four miles south of Salem, and Moses 
Steward in the same neighborhood. It is said of 
the latter that he raised a familv there without any 






■«. = ^»- 



!>: 



FULTON COUNTY. 



2(53 



beds except beds of leaves. Enos C. Hunter, the 
first judge of the county court, took up his resi- 
dence in 1840 on Indian Camp, six miles east of 
Salem. Milton Yar berry settled eight miles north- 
west of Salem, near the Stat(> line. A Mr. Mor 
rison located on the site of Salem, and John C. 
Claiborne near that place. John D. Isenhour, 
Ferd. and Daniel Shaver, Dr. A. Cantrell and Sam- 
uel W. Cochran were j)ioueers near the present 
town of Union. 

A few Indians remained here until after the 
settlement began, and it is related by surviving old 
residents that one of the pioneers, whose name, for 
the sake of his descendants, shall not be revealed, 
stole a pony from the Indians, for which offense 
the Indians caught and punished him in a novel 
manner. Placing him astride of a pony, they tied 
his feet together under its body, with his hands 
behind him, attached a halter around his neck and 
the other end of it to a tree, then removed the bridle 
from the pony and quietly left him to his fate. 
As the pony began to graze, the halter became 
stretched, and the man was about choking to death 
just as a party of his friends arrived and by free- 
ing him saved his life. 

The early settlers suffered many hardships and 
l)rivations. They wore their own homespun cloth- 
ing, and upon attending preaching service in a pri- 
vate house or in " God's tirst temples, the groves," 
the rich, as they were called, wore moccasins on 
their feet, while the poor went barefooted. 

In this county the cause of education has been 
greatly benefitted by the stanch public sentiment 
in its favor. About the year 1850 a subscription 
school lasting only a few weeks was taught in 
Salem. This it is believed was the tirst school 
taught here, and only a few others were in exist- 
ence until the fi'ee school system was established, 
after the close of the Civil War. The old citizens 
of the county — those who were children when the 
settlements began, or were born .soon afterward, 
never had an opportunity to attend school. l)ut 
grew to manhood with such education as they could 
ac<juire at home. The following statistics, taken 
from the report of the State superintendent of 
public instruction for the year ending June 30, 



1888, indicates the advancement made in the pub- 
lic schools of the county: Scholastic popula- 
tion — white 3,500, colored 32, total 3,592: numVier 
of pupils taught in the public schools — white, 
1,647; colored, 16; total, 1,663; number of school 
districts, 61); number reporting enrollment in the 
schools, 48; number of teachers employed — males, 
20; females, 18; total, 38; average monthly salar- 
ies paid teachers — first grade, males, $34 ; females, 
$27; second grade, males, $24.75: females, none; 
third grade, males, $26; females, $20; amount of 
revenue expended for the support of the schools, 
$6,208.51. These figures show by comparison 
that of the .scholastic population less than one-half 
were enrolled in the public schools; but the figures 
do not include the pupils of schools where the di- 
rectors failed to make reports. The wages paid 
teachers are much less than in many other coun- 
ties. County Examiner S. H. White said in his 
report to the State superintendent for 1888: " The 
public schools have no opposition in this county at 
this time, and the tax books show that thirty-nine 
of the districts voted a tax last year ranging from 
two and one-half to five mills.'" 

In addition to the public schools there are two 
well sustained academies in the county, the Salem 
Academy and the County Line Academy, the hit 
ter in the northwest corner. 

Of the several religious denominations, the 
Methodists and Baptists were the pioneer workers 
hereabouts. About 1840, the former had preach 
ing at the Hubble place, three miles north of the 
present site of Salem, and a little later the latter 
held services at Indian Camp, some six miles east 
of Salem. Churches then began to be organized, 
but the few that were formed prior to the war pc 
riod became disorganized during that time. 

The Methodist Episco]jal Church. South, now 
embraces one circuit and three missions. Salem 
circuit contains seven appointments, with an ag- 
gregate membership of 3i)4, including three local 
preachers. Rev. J. S. Watson is the pastor in 
charge at this writing. Viola Mission includes 
six appointments, with a total membership of 233. 
including six local preachers. Rev. R. D. Moon is 
the present pastor. Mammoth Spring Mission has 






264 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



three appointments, whose membership has reached 

I forty-five. Rev. J. F. Troy is present pastor. 
State Line Mission has seven appointments, with 

j an aggregate membership of 187. The present 
pastor is Rev. J. R. Edwards. These all belong 

; to the Batesville district of the White River con- 
ference, from the minutes of which the statistics 
have been taken. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church embraces 

I within the county the whole of one and a portion 
of another circuit. Viola Circuit contains six ap- 
pointments, with an aggregate membership of 105. 
Wild Cherry Circuit has two appointments in the 
county — Wild Cherry and Gum Springs — the two 
having a membership of about 125. Rev. J. W. 
Slusher is pastor. Viola Cu'cuit has no pastor at 
this writing. These churches belong to the Harri- 
son district of Arkansas conference, of which Rev. 
W. C. Evans is presiding elder. There are a few 
organizations in the county of Methodist Protes- 
tants. 

Of the Missionary Baptist Church there are the 
following organizations: Mount Zion, at Union, 
Lil erty Hill, Little Strawberry, Enterprise, Gum 
Springs, Shady Grove, Mount Vernon, Salem, 
Viola, Oak Grove and Shiloh, with an estimated 
aggregate membership of 4-13. These organiza- 
tions all belong to Big Creek association of Mis- 
sionary Baptists. There are not less than eleven 
Christian Church organizations scattered though - 
out the county, having an aggregate membership 
of about 350. At Mammoth Si:)ring is the St. 
Andrew's Episcopal Church, with a membership 
of twenty five. It was organized in November, 
1887, by Dr. Lawson, of Mississippi, and is the 
only one of that denomination in the county. Of 
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, there are at 
least three organizations in the county, viz: Hick- 
ory Grove, Fairview and one near Pleasant Valley. 
One Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church is 
in the county — Prosperity, four and a half miles 
southwest from Salem. It has a membership of 
about forty-five. Rev. J. C. McDonald, of Izard 
County, is the present pastor. All the settled por- 
tions of the county are supplied with churches and 
school-houses. 



At the outbreak of the Civil War nearly all the 
citizens of Fulton County were in favor of estab- 
lishing the Southern Confederacy. A very few 
who remained loyal to the Union departed to the 
North. Several companies of soldiers, commanded 
respectively by Capts. M. V. Shaver, Harry Tracy, 
L. D. Bryant and others, were raised within the 
county and served in the Confederate army during 
the war. In the early part of that period a skirmish 
took place on the Simmons farm in the northern 
part between a battalion of Confederate and a bat- 
talion of Federal troops, on which occasion the lat- 
ter were routed, with a loss of six killed and a few 
wounded. The Confederates lost but one killed. 
Another skirmish occurred toward the close of 
the war, on Little Strawberry Creek, about four 
miles south of Salem, between a battalion of Clay- 
ton's command of Federal troops and a battalion 
of Confederate troops, under Col. Cloud, on which 
occasion the latter were completely routed. There 
was a small loss on each side. These were the 
only engagements worthy of mention within the 
county between the contending forces, but scout- 
ing and marauding parties frequently scoured the 
country, killing individuals and taking or destroy- 
ed much property. The county was over-run and 
laid waste, and before the war -closed it was almost 
deserted. There was no bushwhacking among its 
citizens. 

Towns and villages of commercial importance 
have sprung up here and there, forming necessary 
trading points for the surrounding country. 

Afton, a station of the Kansas City, Fort Scott 
& Memphis Railroad, five miles south of Mam- 
moth Spring, contains a depot, store, hotel and 
sawmill. 

Camp is seven miles northeast of Salem. Here 
are a store, grocery, grist-mill and cotton-gin. 

Elizabeth, eighteen miles southwest of Salem, 
has a general store, drug store and a cotton-gin, 
with three saw-mills in the near vicinity. 

Mitchell, fifteen miles southwest of Salem, has 
one general store. 

Myatt, in the northeastern part of the county, 
has one store, grist-mill and cotton gin. 

Mammoth Spring is located on the Kansas 



FULTON COUNTY. 



2fi5 



City, Port Scott & Memphis Railroad, at the fa- 
mous sprinw of that name. The old town, con- 
taining a .small cluster of houses and a saloon, on 
the Missouri side of the State line, located at the 
Hany Tunstall Spring, about half a mile west of 
the big spring, was established many years ago, 
!)ut the new town, near the big spring and the rail- 
road, has been almost wholly constructed since the 
completion of the railroad, in 1883. It now con- 
tains three general stores, three groceries, two 
drug stores, a hardware and furniture store, a ,iew- 
elry and a millinery store, three hotels, two res- 
taurants, a livery stable, a weekly newspaper, two 
real estate offices, a liuilding and loan association, 
a lumber yard, a lish farm, the Calumet Cotton 
Factory, two church edifices, a large brick school- 
house, a complement of mechanics' shops, a lodge 
each of Masons, Odd Fellows and Knights of 
Pythias, etc., etc.. and a population of about 800. 
The town is "booming," the immigration is rapid 
and the population will soon double and treble. 
The place is designed by nature for a health and 
summer resort, and is being fitted up for that pur- 
pose. A commodious hotel, commanding splendid 
views, recently under construction, is now com- 
pleted, and is especially adapted for the accommo- 
dation of health and pleasure seekers. The Mam- 
moth Spring Monitor, a Democratic newspaper, is 
published weekly by its proprietors. Gulp & Dead- 
erick. It is now in its second volume, and is well 
supjiorted, as its ably written columns and sub- 
stantial local matter deserve. 

The great spring from which the river flows is 
about liSO feet in diameter, but the Mammoth 
Spring Improvement Company have constructed a 
huge dam across the river at a projier distance 
below the spring, thus forming a reservoir, com- 
pletely submerging the spring and containing an 
area of eighteen acres. The sheet of water that 
flows over the dam is 107 feet wide, the depth of fall 
is fourteen feet, and the quantity that falls is over 
45,000 cubic feet per minute, enough to turn all 
the mills and factories that can be built adjacent 
to it. The supply is constant and does not vary 
with the change of seasons. The river, with this 
great body of water, for a distance of eleven and 



three-fourth miles from below the dam has a fall 
of 134 feet. In this distance many dams co\ild l)e 
constructed and hundreds of mills operated. Mam 
moth Spring and the river that flows from it form 
one of nature's greatest wonders. The Calumet 
Cotton Factory stands by the dam mentioned. It 
is a two-story brick building. 50x250 feet in size, 
with a one-story wing attach(>d, 40x90 feet, and at 
this writing is well supplied with looms and other 
machinery. The rnimber of looms is about 120 
and the number of spindles 5,000. One hundred 
and fifty hands are employed and all the finer 
grades of colored cotton goods manufactured. 
These hands and their families add mucli to the 
population of the place. 

Salem, the county seat, is near the geograph- 
ical center of the county, and has a beautiful site 
at the foot and south of Pilot Hill. It had its 
origin with the county's organization. As pre 
viously mentioned, it was destroyed during the 
Civil War. It now contains two general stores, 
a drug store, grocery, school-house, church, two 
hotels, the county buildings, two newspapers, etc.. 
and twenty two families. The Fulton County Ban- 
ner, published weekly at Salem, is now in its fifth 
year. It is published by Lee Davis, is Demociatic 
in politics, and has a fair circulation. The Salem 
Informer, now in its thirteenth volume, is published 
by Jesse Matthews. It advocates Republican ])rin- 
ciples and has for its motto. '" Whatever will ad- 
vance the laborer's interest." 

South Fork, in the eastern part of the county, 
has a general store, a drug store, flouring-mill 
and cotton-gin. 

Union, ten miles south of Salem, contains a 
general store and school-house. 

Viola, in the western part of the county, con- 
tains two general stores, a drug store, flouring 
mill, two cotton-gins, blacksmith shops, a school 
house and Masonic hall. 

Wheeling, four miles south of Salem, has a 
grocery, a saw and grist-mill and cotton-gin. a 
church and school -house. 

Wild Cherry, in the .southwest portion of the 
county, contains two general stores, two churches, 
a grist mill and cotton-gin. blacksmith shop, a 



2i)() 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Masonic hail and Odd Fellows" hall. At each of 
the towns and places above named there is a post- 
office. 



James M. Archer, senior member of the jj^en- 
eral merchandise firm of Archer, Daniels & Co. 
Fulton County has within her borders many men 
to whom she may point with ]>ride; men, who, for 
getting their own interests, have labored assidu- 
ously, bending all their eflPorts to one great end — 
their country's advancement and welfare. These 
men, in braving the dangers and privations in- 
cident to a pioneer's life, have pressed rapidly 
forward, paving and preparing the way for the 
advantages now reaped by a younger generation. 
Such a man is James M. Archer, who was born in 
Lawrence County, Ark., June 10, 1832, and when 
but five years of age removed with his parents to 
Fulton County. He suffered the loss of his 
mother when still a mere lad, and a few years 
later his father was stricken down with paralysis, 
lingering a helpless cripple for sixteen years. 
This was a terrible blow for young Archer, as it 
robbed him of his support and reduced him to a 
state of destitution. It was in this trying ordeal 
that the boy showed the metal of which he was 
made. Born of a sturdy line of ancestry, he inher- 
ited a vim which refused to bow under adverse cir- 
cumstances, and here were developed that deter- 
mination of purjaose and untiring energy which 
has characterized his after life. He is first found 
occupying the humble position of knife rubber on 
a steamboat, which he followed for three years, 
never once complaining of his hard lot. Later he 
was engaged in labor upon a farm, receiving for 
his work the mere pittance of four dollars per 
month, which he saved for the purpose of attending 
school. His small amount of funds was soon ex- 
hausted, and he was compelled to resume his la- 
bors, and for five years more was engaged in 
various occupations. When the war broke out he 
was not long in making his decision, and, espous- 
ing the cause of the Confederacy, he organized the 
first company of Confederate troops in Marion 
County, Ark., where he was then located. He 



assumed the captaincy of this company, which was 
mustered into service in the Seventh Regiment 
Arkansas Infantry, and for a short time was sta- 
tioned at Pocahontas, Ark. He next joined the 
Regulars and was commissioned regimental adju- 
tant of the Fourth Cavalry, participating in many 
engagements, among which were the battles of 
Fitz Hugh's Woods, Ironton, Boonville, Inde- 
pendence and others. After the close of the war 
he embarked in agricultural pursuits near Salem. 
Ark., and in 1869 he engaged in business at that 
town, where he remained until 1882. In 1887 he 
obtained control of Mammoth Spring, and at once 
devoted his attention to the general improvement 
of the place. He is now general manager and 
secretary of the Mammoth Spring Imjirovement 
& Water Power Compau)', and director of the 
Calamity Cotton Mills. In 1879 Mr. Archer was 
elected representative of Fulton County, and re- 
elected in 1881. His wife was Miss Laura Tun- 
.stall, of Arkansas, a daughter of Thomas T. and 
Elizabeth Tunstall, early settlers of this State. 
They are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and are held in the highest esteem. 
In political faith Mr. Archer is an ardent adherent 
of Democratic principles. He is also a member of 
the K. of P, 

A. F. Bassham is the present efficient sheriff 
and ex-officio collector of Fulton County, Ark., and 
is well-known throughout the county as a man of 
ability and honor. He was born in Lawi-ence 
County. Tenn., January 25, 1859, and is a son of 
S. H. and Elizabeth (Ray) Bassham, who were 
born in Tennessee and Alabama, September 9, 
1829, and January 1, 1830, respectively. The 
former grew to maturity and was married in his 
native State, being there engaged in the pursuit 
of farming, but after the late war, in which he 
served on the Confederate side, he emigrated to 
Arkansas, in 1874, where he followed the same oc- 
cupation, but is now residing in Salem. He is a 
Democrat, and he and wife are members of the Free 
Will Baptist Church. His father, Richard Bassham. 
was a native and a farmer of Tennessee, and was 
married to a Miss Pennekuff, who died in Lawrence 
County, Tenn. In all probability the maternal 





'^%V ^ L 



V 




SHARP couifrr, Arkansas 



FULTON COUNTY. 



2Cn 



giandfutber, Beujiimiu Euy, was a native of Ala- 
bama. A. F. Basshaiu was reared to the age of 
foui'teeu years in Tennessee, since wbi(!h time be 
has been a resident of Fulton County, Ark. Being 
desirous of supplementing the primary education 
which he received, in the vicinity of his home, with 
a more thorough knowledge he entered the graded 
school at Mountain Home, Ark. , where his career was 
marked with rapid advancement. Now thoronglilv 
(jnalitied to enter upon a ]irofessional career, he 
engaged in teaching school, and was one of the 
popular educators of Fulton County for several 
years. He gave up this work, however, to assume 
the responsible duties of his present office, to which 
he was elected September 3, 1888, by the Demo- 
cratic party, of which he has always been an active 
member. He is a Master Mason, and is secretary 
of Viola Lodge No. 399; also belonging to Salem 
Lodge No. 28, I. O. O. F. October 15, 1881, he 
was married to Miss Allie Brown, who was born in 
1862, and by her has an interesting little family of 
three children; Frederick, Maude and William. 
Mr. Bassham owns a good farm of 120 acres. 

W. W. Brooks, now in the employ of the Mam- 
moth Spring Fish Farm, was originally from Troup 
County, Ga. , where he was born in 1851. His 
father, Capt. Henry Brooks, was born in Jackson 
County, Ga. , in 1816, and was married in Troup 
County, of the same State, to Miss Eliza Wideman, 
a native of Trou]) County, born in 1824. The 
mother died in 1856, and two years later Mr. 
Brooks removed to Tallapoosa County, Ala., from 
there to Pontotoc County, Miss., in 1868, and in 
ISTO to Independence County, Ark., where he 
died in 1874. He had been married twice. Dur- 
ing his entire life he followed the occupation 
of a farmer, and was very successful in this pur 
suit. During the late war he was captain of 
Company (t. Fourteenth Alabama Infantry, Con- 
federate Army, and was with the Army of Virginia 
until 1862, when he resigned on account of poor 
health. He then joined Young's company of Ala- 
bama State troops and served uutil the close of the 
war. He was captured at the surrender of Selma, 
Ala., and paroled. He was major of the militia in 
an early day, and held the position of justice of 



the peace for a niiinber of years. He was a mem 
ber of the Masonic fraternity for years, and also 
belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. His father, John Brooks, was born in 
Jackson County, Ga., and died in Troup County. 
of the same State. He was of English descent, 
was a member of the Baptist Church, and was a 
soldier in the early wars. The maternal grand 
father of the subject of this sketch was a native of 
South Carolina, and died in Troup County, Ga. 
\V. W. Brooks was the third of four sons born to 
his parents. Like most of the youths of his vicin- 
ity, as he grew up he devoted his time and atten- 
tion to labors on the farm, and in the meantime re- 
ceived a fair education in the common schools. 
He began for himself at the age of twenty-one 
and went to the Lone Star State, where he went 
at braking on the railroad. Later he clerked in a 
store a( Batesville for two years, and was tlien 
made deputy sheriff of Independence County. 
After this he engaged in the milling business, raiU 
roading, and was also in the railway mail service 
for a number of years, or until in March. 1889, 
when he was employed by his present company. 
His marriage to Miss MoUie Jeffeiy occurred in 
1882, and two sons were the result. Mrs. Brooks 
was born in Izard County, and is the daughter of 
Daniel M. JefFery, who was also a native of Izard 
County, where he died in 1888. He was a farmer, 
also being a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. 
Mr. Brooks came to Fulton County, Ark., in 188(l, 
lived at Salem three year.s, and while there was en- 
gaged in the milling business. Since then he has 
resided at Mammoth Spring. He was appointed by 
President Arthur postmaster at Mammoth Spring, 
and tilled this position in a satisfactory manner for 
two years. He was justice of the peace from 18S4 
to 1886. and was postmaster at the same time. In 
1885 he was a member of the equalization board 
of Fulton County, appointed by Gov. Hughes. 
He was formerly a member of the I. O. O. F. He 
is an active worker iu the Democratic ])arty, and 
voted for Horace Greeley in 1872. 

Hon. S. A. Brown, ex- member of the Twenty - 
fifth General Asspinl)ly. and one of the largest land 
owners and farmers of Bennett Bayou, was bom in 



f 



L^ 



2fi8 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



tlu> Buckeye State, and is the son of Matthew and 
Hannah (O'Key) Brown, natives of Ohio. They 
were married in their native State, and remained 
there until 1866, he engaged in farming and stock 
raising. In 1861 the elder Brown joined the United 
States troops as first lieutenant of Company D, 
Twenty- seventh Ohio Infantry, and served about 
one year, participating in the following battles: 
New Madrid, Island No. 10 and Corinth. When 
the call for 600,000 troops was made, Lieut. 
Brown came home, raised a company, was made 
captain, and joined the One Hundred and Sixteenth 
Ohio Infantry, Company F, and remained with 
that company for three years. He took part in 
several noted engagements: Winchester, Cedar 
Creek, Piedmont, Petersburg and Richmond. He 
was wounded at Winchester while on picket duty, 
being shot in the arm. He was discharged at Har- 
per's Ferry in 1864, and came home. In 1866 he 
went to Southwest Missouri, and in 1869 came to 
Fulton County, Ark., and bought the place on 
which his son, Hon. S. A., now resides, for $2,000. 
Three years later he sold this farm to his son, and 
bought one on Big North Fork of White River, 
in Baxter County. Ark. , where he died in 1876. 
Ho was public administrator of this county for 
three or four years, and was also county judge of 
the same county. He was not an office seeker, 
and was appointed to the positions he held by the 
Governor. Previous to the war, he had been a 
strong Democrat, but after that his ideas coincided 
witli those of the Republican party. He was a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity. Nine children were 
born to his marriage, eight of whom lived to V)e 
grown, and seven are now living: Edward, S. A., 
born December 28. 1839; Catherine, A. R., Nancy 
(deceased), Mary A., Jennie D. and Josephine. 
S. A. Brown was a soldier in the late war, having 
joined Company F, One Hundred and Sixteenth 
Ohio, in his twenty-first year, and served three 
years. He was discharged on accoiuit of a wound, 
and was afterward captured at Staunton, Va. , and 
kept in prison three months. He was in Libby 
prison a short period, but the principal part of the 
time was spent in the hospital. He was paroled at 
Richmond, Va., on the Tith of August, 1865. 



While in service he participated in the following 
battles: Winchester, Gettysburg, and at Piedmont, 
Va. , where he was wounded by a musket ball in 
the arm. He held the rank of orderly sergeant of 
his company during the war. After his return 
home in 1865, he remained there for about a year, 
and then, in company with his father, moved to 
Polk County, Mo. , where he continued for three 
years. After this he taught school, and in 1S69 
came to Fulton County, Ark., where he taught the 
fiirst free school in this section after the war. Sub- 
sequently he engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 
has continued the same up to the present. On the 
8th of December, 1870, Miss Lou Baker became 
his wife, and to them have been born three chil- 
dren: Claud, born on the 19th of September, 1871; 
Bettie, born on the 2d of November, 1878, and 
Bertha, born on the 4th of February, 1881. Mrs. 
Brown died on the 28th of April, 1882, and Mr. 
Brown married Mrs. Josie Simpson, nee Tuttle, 
August 4, 1884, and they have two children, Ros- 
coe C, born on the 16th of August, 1885, and 
Archie, born on the 16th of April, 1887. Mrs. 
Brown is the daughter of Capt. T. C. Fluty, of 
Tennessee, a captain in the Confederate army, 
and one of the prominent farmers of Baxter Coun- 
ty, Ark. Mr. Brown has represented his county 
in the legislature, and has held several minor offi- 
ces, filling the position of commissioner of public 
accounts for two terms. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. Queen Elizabeth Lodge No. 
360, and is also a member of the I. O. O. F., 
Vidette Lodge No. 94. He belongs to Simp. 
Mason Post No. 228, G. A. R., Department of 
Missouri, and was appointed on the staff of John 
E. Phelps, commander of the State of Missouri. 
He is a Republican in politics, and he and Mrs 
Brown are members of the Methodist Episco[)al 
Church. 

Thomas J. Brown. No name is more prop- 
erly placed in the history of the county than that 
of Mr. Brown, who is not only one of the most 
enterprising farmers of the county, but is of such 
a social, genial nature, that he has made many 
friends. He owes his nativity to the State of Ten- 
nessee, where his birth occurred January 5, 1854. 



FULTON COUNTY. 



'im 



His parents, John and Caroline (Harber) Brown, 
are natives of Tennessee. The elder Brown was a 
sturdy sou of toil and followed this occupation in 
his native State until his subsequent removal to 
Dunklin County, Mo. His death occurred April 30, 
1S5S. He had been constable in Tennessee and 
filled the position in a highly satisfactory manner. 
His marriage took place in 184:4, and six children 
were the result: Henry N. , born Sept(!mber 27, 
1846, died October 2S, 1846; Martin W., born Sep- 
tember 30, 1847, died October 14, 1848; Martha 
J., born December 22, 1849, died May 4, 1886, 
Joseph M. , born January 26, 1852; Amanda C, 
born July 30, 1858, died February 22, 1876. John 
Brown, the father of these childi-en, was born on 
the I'Jth of July, 1824, and his wife was born on 
the 20th day of October, 1825. She died August 
28, 1888, and was a worthy and consistent member 
of the Christian Church. Thomas J. Brown com- 
menced life for himself at the age of nineteen 
years, and his marriage to Miss Eliza J. Pumphrey 
was consummated on the 24th of August, 1873. 
She was born in Ozark County, Mo., October 10, 
1852. With his parents he left Dunklin County, 
Mo. ; came to Fulton County, Ark., iu 1858, and 
has been a resident of this county ever since. In 
1874 he purchased his present property, and is 
now the owner of 320 acres of land, 150 under a 
tine state of cultivation. Over his Inroad acres 
roam cattle, sheep and horses and mules, which 
he makes a specialty of raising. To his marriage 
were born six children : John ^N" . , born on the 13th 
of .Tune, 1874; Richard W., born on the 12th of 
Fel)ruary, 1877; Elizabeth C, born on the 20th of 
August, 1879; Ollie M., born on the 7th of May, 
1885; Thomas M., born on the 21st of March, 
1887 ; James E. , born on the 6th day of August, 
1889. Mr. Brown has made the principal part of 
his property by his own labor. His wife is the 
daughter of ^\■illiam (J. Pumphrey and Elizabeth 
(Hawkins; Pumphrey, both natives of Tennessee. 
They came to Missouri at an early day. settling 
on The Big North Fork of White Biver, in Ozark 
County, Mo. , and were married there in 1848. After 
remaining in that county until 1887, he moved to 
Boone County, Ark. His tirst marriage was to Miss 



Fannie Holt, of Tenne.ssee, who bore him two 
children, one living at present: Mary. By his 
marriage to Miss Hawkins he l)ecame th(? fatlier of 
six children, four of whom survive: Benjamin J. 
(deceased), Eliza J., George W., Sarah A., M. T., 
and William (deceased). Mr. Brown is a Demo- 
crat and has tilled the office of deputy sheriff of his 
county for two years. His wife is a member of 
the Missionary Ba[)tist Church. 

Charles J. Brimsou's life from his earliest rec- 
ollections has been passed on a farm, his early 
days being spent in assisting his father on the old 
homestead in Georgia, iu Twiggs County of which 
State he was born January 7, 1827. His parents, 
Jarrett N. and Mary M. (Stephens) Brunson, were 
born in South Carolina, the former's birth occur- 
ring about 1797. He was a farmer by occupation, 
of Scotch descent, and died in Georgia near 1842, 
being one of thirteen children (eleven sons and 
two daughters) born to Peter Brunson, who lived 
and died in South Carolina. Mrs. Mary M. Brun- 
son died in the State of Georgia about 1829, hav- 
ing borne a family of four children, of whom our 
subject is the third. After his father's death 
Charles J. began making his home with his elder 
brother, and while living with him attended school 
one year, making good use of his opportunities. He 
then went to his uncle's, Marion Brunson, in Ala- 
bama, and again entered school, attending about 
three months, after which he took charge of liis 
uncle's plantation, and overseered his slaves, who 
numbered about sixty, for two years. Being of- 
fered better wages, he became an overseer for a 
neighboring planter, remaining with him one year. 
In 1848 he was married, in the State of Alabama, 
to Miss Mary Hickman, who was born in Twiggs 
County, Ga., October 23. 1833, and died iu Ful- 
ton County, Ark.. January 1, 1872. She left, 
besides her hu.sband, a family of three children to 
mourn her loss: Charles J., James L. and Anna 
E. (wife of J. H. Nichols.) Three children are 
deceased. In the latter part of 1872 Mr. Brunson 
took for his second wife Mrs. Margaret (Huffman) 
Willcox, who was born in Davidson County, N. C , 
November 19, 1837. They have one son, Joseph 
A. In 1854 Mr. Brunson moved with his family 



270 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



to Ashley County, Ark., and there resided until 
1865, when he settled in Jefferson County, where 
he spent two years. Since that time he has been 
a resident of Fulton County. By his own unaided 
efforts he has become the owner of a fine farm 
comprising 280 acres, with about 130 under culti- 
vation, and has made all the improvements, stich as 
building fences and houses, and clearing the land, 
himself. He served two years in the Confederate 
army during the Rebellion, and has since been a 
Democrat in politics. He has held the position of 
constable both in Alabama and Arkansas, and has 
been solicited to accept other local offices, but has 
declined. He and family belong to the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, of which he has been a 
member since twenty one years cf age. His first 
wife was a member of the Missionary Baptist 
Church. 

George C. Buford, dealer in general merchan- 
dise, farm implements, etc.. Mammoth Spring. Of 
the many names that make uj) the strength of the 
business portion of Mammoth Spring that of Mr. 
Buford is foremost. His business was established 
in 1885, and the value of the stock is estimated at 
about $12,000. Mr. Buford was born in Frederick- 
town, Mo., October 20, 1849, and is the son of 
Christopher Y. and Mary (Nifong) Buford, natives 
of South Carolina and Pennsylvania, respective!}'. 
The parents were married in Missouri, and there 
spent the remainder of their lives. Mrs. Buford 
died in 185,5 and Mr. Buford in 1879. Her father, 
George AV. Nifong, was a native of Pennsylvania, 
and moved to Southeast Missouri at a very early 
day, where he died at the age of ninety-eight years. 
Mr. Buford was married twice. He was a well to- 
do farmer, stock raiser and general trader, and was 
also a member of the Masonic fraternity. His 
father died in Louisiana at the age of eighty years. 
George C. Buford was one of six children born to 
his parents, and received a thorough education at 
Fredericktown, and at Washington University, St. 
Louis. He also graduated from Reed's Commer- 
cial College, of St. Louis, in 1869. SuVisequently 
he taught school for several years in Frederick- 
town, Mo., until 1871, when he removed to New- 
port, Ark., and there engaged in merchandising 



and general trading with marked success until 
1884. He then came to Mammoth Spring, where 
he purchased the first business and residence lots 
sold by the town syndicate. He immediately 
erected buildings, and built the first brick business 
house in that town, besides investing largely in real 
estate there. He is also the owner of considerable 
real estate in and around Newport, and is one of 
the most thoroughgoing and active business men 
in Fulton County. He enjoys an immense trade. 
He was the assessor of Jackson County, Ark. , for 
four years, and filled that position to the satisfac 
tion of all. He has been married three times; first, 
in 1874, to Miss Lena Claridge, the daughter of 
Dr. H. B. Claridge, who came from Tennessee to 
Jackson County, where he was one of the leading 
physicians. Mrs. Buford died in 1879, and in 1883 
Mr. Buford married Miss Delia Harrison, who died 
in 1884. In 1886 he married Miss Nettie Ander- 
son, daughter of J. L. Anderson, who came from 
Iowa to Arkansas, where he is living at the present 
time, engaged in agricultural pursuits. Mr. Bu- 
ford is a Democrat in jjolitics, and his first presi- 
dential vote was for Horace Greeley in 1872. He 
has been a member of Mammoth Spring Lodge of 
the I. O. O. F. for twelve years.- He and wife are 
much esteemed members of the Christian Church. 
G. A. Bundren. farmer and stock raiser of 
Washington Township, was born in Tennessee, 
January 30, 1847, and passed his youth and early 
manhood in that State and in Illinois. His par- 
ents, G. C. and Lucinda (Keyton) Bundren, were 
natives of Virginia, the father born in 1807, and 
the mother in 1828. In their family were five 
children, four of whom lived to be grown. They 
were named as follows: James C, who died in the 
Union army in 1863, and whose family now reside 
in Johnson County, 111. ; Surena, wife of George 
Everett, a resident of Williamson County, 111. ; 
Melissa, wife of David Sollis, living in Du- 
quoin. 111., and G. A. The father of these chil- 
dren was a successful agriculturist, and followed 
this occupation in Tennessee until 1851, when be 
moved to Illinois. He entered land in that State 
and continued tilling the soil until his death, which 
occurred in 1882. He was a Democrat in politics, 



A. 



J) 'y 



l>£ 



FULTON COUNTY. 



271 



but wiis aot an aspirant for office, nor was Im act 
ive in politics. He was a member of the United 
Baptist Chnrch, as was also his wife. G. A. Buiid- 
ren, like so many of the substantial citizens of this 
county at the present time, was initiated into the 
mysteries of farming fi'om the very first, and this 
has since continued to be the calling to which his 
attention has been directed. He received a fair 
education in his native State, and in the State of 
Illinois, and at the age of seventeen began for 
himself, attending to farm duties in Illinois until ' 
1866, when he moved to Kentucky. Two years 
later he went to Cape Girardeau, Mo., resided 
there two years, going thence to Dunklin County, 
thence in 1876 to Scott County, Mo., and from 
there, in 1878, to Peach Orchard, Clay County, 
Ark., where he engaged in the practice of medicine, 
and also started a drug store. At the same time he 
filled the position of postmaster. In 1882 he left 
Peach Orchard, and moved to Knobel the same 
county, where he embarked in merchandising, and 
this continued for two years. From there he 
moved to Woodruff County, Ark., and in connection 
with farming, practiced medicine, conducting also 
a mercantile store at Howell Station, on the Bates- 
ville & Briukley Railroad. He remained there but 
a short time, and in 1885 came to Fulton County, 
and here attends to his practice in connection with 
farming. By his marriage to Mrs. Elizabeth 
Holmes nee Thompson, January 1, 1863, he be- 
came the father of six children, three now living: 
James A., born February 26, 1865, and now liv- 
ing at home; C. W., born February 3, 1869, and 
also at home, and M. B. , whose l)irth occurred on 
the 3d of February, 186U, and is at home. The 
other children died in infancy. Mrs. Bundren died 
at Knobel, Ark., in 1883; she was a consistent 
member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Bundren was 
7narried the second time in May, 1885, to Mrs. 
Sarah J. Wilson, nee Young, a native of Ken- 
tucky, and the mother of four children, the fruit 
of her former union. They are named as follows: 
Hannibal Wilson, living at Alicia, Ark.; W. V., 
also at Alicia. Ark.. Mary, wife of H. Hensley, re 
siding at Alicia, Ark., and Celia, wife of T. B. 
Caple, a resident of P'ulton County, Ark. Mr. 



Bundren is not active in politics, but votes the 
Democratic ticket. He and wife are members of 
the Christian Church. 

J. M. Burrow, a prominent attorney-at-law al 
Mammoth Spring, is among those who contril)nte 
to the strength of the Arkansas bar. He is a na 
tive of Tennessee, born in Bedford County in 1854. 
His parents. Freeman and Louisa (Nichols) Bur 
row, were born also in Bedford County, Tenn., in 
1834 and 1833, respectively. They resided in that 
county until 1857, when they came to Sharp Coun- 
ty, Ark., where Mrs. Burrow died in 1874. Mr. 
Burrow is slill living, and has followed tilling the 
soil for many years. He tilled the position of jus- 
tice of the peace for four years, and served four 
years in the Confederate array with Gens. Price 
and Freeman. He has been a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. since 1857, and belongs to the Methodist 
Church, of which his wife was also a member. Of 
the six children born to their union J. M. was the 
eldest. He was educated in the log school- houses, 
and like the majority of farmers' boys, assisted on 
the farm. When about twenty one years of age he 
taught school, and followed this occupation for two 
years. When twenty- two years of age he began 
the study of law, and diligently continued this in 
connection with farming for several years. In 1885 
he was admitted to the bar. and since 1883 has 
lived at Mammoth Spring. He is one of the 
most substantia] attorneys of Fulton County, and 
also practices in Sharp and Izard Counties. He 
was married in Se])tember, 1878, to Miss Josie 
Whiteside, daughter of Allen and Sarah Whiteside, 
who came to Fulton County from Illinois at an 
early day, and there the father died. The mother 
is still living. In politics Mr. Burrow is a Demo 
crat, his first presidential vote being for S. J. Til 
den, in 1876. He is a member of the A. F. & A. 
M., Myatt Lodge No. 401, and also belongs to 
Spring River Lodge No. 4V), K. of P., at Mammoth 
Spring. He has a very i)leasant home on Emi- 
nence Hill, Archer Avenue. * 

James Marion Butler. Ever since his location 
in this county in 1870, Mr. Butler has enjoyed the 
reputation of being not only a substantial and pru 
irressive farmer, but au intelligent and thoroughly 



4, 



•21-2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



posted man in all public affairs; and a short sketch 
of his life will lie of more thau passing interest to 
the citizens of this locality. He was born in 
Chambers County, Ala., October 15, 1838, and is 
a sou of Nathan H. and Francis R. (Hogue) But- 
ler, who were born in Elbert and Waltham Coun- 
ties, Ga., respectively, the former's birth occur- 
ring in 1818; and like his father, Daniel Butler 
(■who was born in South Carolina, and died in 
Georgia), he was a worker in wood and a skillful 
wagon-maker. He and wife were married in 
Paulding County, Ga., and resided in that State 
and in various counties in Alabama, until 1855, 
when they came to Arkansas, locating in White 
County, but only remained a short time and then 
moved back to Alabama. In 1863 or 1864, they 
went to Mississippi and Tennessee, and in 1875 
located in Fulton County, Ark., where the father 
died the same fall. His widow is now residing in 
Viola, of that county, and is enjoying good health. 
She is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
as was her husband, and to them were born eight 
children, of whom James Marion was the eldest. 
Of these only four are now living: M. L. , a 
blacksmith of Viola; Louisa M. . wife of William 
Smith; William P. H. , residing in the State of 
Colorado, and our subject. Those deceased are 
Napoleon B. , Martha A. E. , George W. and Mary 
J. -Tames Marion Butler received his schooling 
in the State of Alabama, and while growing to 
manhood learned the blacksmith and wagon- 
maker's trade of his father. At the age of twen- 
ty-one years he began depending on his own re- 
sources for obtaining a livelihood, and from that 
time until the opening of the Rebellion worked in 
Alabama. Although his father served in the 
Union army for some time, he espoused the cause 
of the Confederacy and first joined the Alabama 
Legion, which was consolidated and thrown into 
other regiments, the Twenty-third Alabama Bat- 
talion of Sharp-shooters being a part left over. 
He served two years as sergeant, participating in 
many battles, among which wen^ Chickamaugn, 
Petersburg, being intrenched in the ditches of that 
city for nine months; Hatch's Run, and the Vir- 
ginia campaign. He received a flesh wound in 



the leg at Chickamauga, and at Appomattox Court 
House, about two hom-s before the sun-ender, he 
received a very severe wound in the right arm. 
After the war he remained in Alabama until 1866. 
when he went to the State of Mississippi, and 
from there came to Fulton County, Ark., in 1870. 
and here has since made his home. In 1879 he 
moved to his present location, which is a farm 
consisting of 360 acres of as good land as there 
is anywhere, and in addition to looking after 
this property still continues to work at his trade. 
He is a Democrat in his political views, and in 
1885-86 served as justice of the peace. He is also 
a member of the Masonic fraternity, and as a citi- 
zen of Fulton County has been identified with its 
advancement and growth ever since locating here. 
He was married in 1860 to Miss Rhoda Ann Bry- 
ant, a daughter of Alexander Bryant, and her 
death occurred in Izard County, Ark., in 1875, 
when thirty-seven years of age. Of the eight 
children born to her union only four are now living; 
Charles D., of Texas; Elizabeth E. , wife of James 
A. Talley, a farmer of the county; Nancy E., 
wife of Abraham L. Reed, a farmer residing near 
Mansfield, and Nathan D., at home. Mrs. Butler 
was a member of the Methodfst Episcopal Church, 
South. 

Thomas B. Caldwell is possessed of those ad- 
vanced ideas and progressive principles regarding 
agricultural life which seem to be among the 
chief characteristics of the average native Mis- 
sourian. He was born in Franklin County of that 
State on the 16th of October, 1840, and is a son of 
James Patten and Ann (Caldwell) Caldwell, the 
former of Irish descent, born in the State of Mis- 
souri, in the year 1816. He was a well known 
agriculturist of his region, and died in Fulton 
County, Ark., in 1S63. His wife was also born 
in Missouri, and died when her son, Thomas B., 
was about seven years of age, her demise occur- 
ring in Franklin County. The paternal grand- 
parents were Andrew and Nancy (Farrow) Caldwell, 
the former being a native Kentackian. He moved 
to Franklin County, Mo., during the early history 
of that country, and died there at his son's home 
in 1847. His wife, Nancy, died there also. The 



FULTON COUNTY. 



'>7:i 



paternal great-graudfather, Kincaid Caldwoll, was 
l)orii in the " Emerald Isle." The maternal grand- 
father also bore the name of Andrew Caldwell, but 
the two families were not related. Thomas B. 
Caldwell is one of two surviving members of a 
family of five children, the other being a sister 
residing on the Iron Mountain Railroad in Mis- 
souri. He was reared in his native State, but never 
received any educational advantages in youth, 
being compelled to assist his father in tilling 
the home farm; but by contact with the world 
and by self-application he has liecome a well posted 
man. He was twenty years of age when he enlisted 
in the army, and was a member of Capt. B. B. 
Bray's Seventh Division of Missouri Volunteers. 
He particiijated in the engagements at Mansfield, 
Pleasant Hill, and in numerous skirmishes. He 
was second sergeant of artillery for about twelve 
months prior to the close of the war. On the 9th 
of March, 1802, he was captured at Mountain 
Grove, Mo. , and was sent to St. Louis, thence to 
Alton, 111. , and from there to Vicksburg, Miss. , 
where he was exchanged on the 22d of September, 
of the same year. Nearly ever since the close of 
the war he has been a resident of Fulton County, 
Ark. , and has been actively engaged in tilling the 
soil. On the 5th of March, ISOS, he was married 
to Miss Luciutha M. Smith, who was born in 
South Carolina in 1842, a daughter of Inman and 
Mary A. Smith. The father died in the "Palmetto 
State," but the mother is still living and resides 
in Fulton County, Ark., the wife of a Mr. Hutch- 
esson. To Mr. Caldwell and his wife the follow- 
ing children have been born: James Henry, 
Benjamin H. , Thomas J. (deceased), John H., 
Mary A. (deceased). Iluthi(> J. and Joanuah. The 
greater part of Mr. Caldwell's time has been occu- 
pied in farming, and he is now the owner of 310 
acres of land, with about eighty acres under culti- 
vation. He is a Democrat, his tirst presidential 
vote being cast for Douglas, and he was elected on 
that ticket to the office of deputy sheriff and con- 
stable. He and wife are connected with the Chris- 
tian Church, and he is a Mason and a member of 
the I. O. O. F. Mr. Caldwell is a man univer- 
sally respected, and to know him is to Inive a high 



admiration for him, for he is possessed of those 
sterling principles which make a true man and a 
valuable citizen. 

C!apt. John G. Carroll, a farmer of Fulton 
Township, is now successfully following the occu- 
pation to which he was reared and which has Ijeeii 
his life work, a calling that for ages has received 
undivided efforts from many worthy individuals, 
and one that always, furnishes sustenance to the 
ready worker. He was born in North Carolina in 
1834, and is the son of Green and Priscilla (Earles) 
Carroll, natives of South Carolina and North Car 
oliua, and born in 1802 and 1808, respectively. 
The parents removed to White County, Tenn., and 
in 1859 came to Fulton County, Ark., where Mr. 
Carroll died in 1870. He was the son of Jesse 
Carroll and the grandson of William Carroll, who 
was of English descent, went through the Rev 
olutiouary War, and died in North Carolina at the 
age of nearly one hundred years. Jesse Carroll 
was born in North Carolina, and died in Georgia at 
the age of ninety-eight years. He was a mill- 
wright by occupation. This family is of the same 
as that Carroll who was one of the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. The paternal grand- 
father, William Earles, was bom in North Caro- 
lina and died in Tennessee at about the age of one 
hundred and two years; he was of Welsh descent. 
His father was a Revolutionary soldier. Capt. 
John G. Carroll, the second of eight children 
born to his parents, received very meager edu- 
cational advantages. He came with his parents 
to Fulton County, Ark., in 1859 and in ISOl Miss 
Auerilla Copeland, a native of Tennessee, became 
his wife. She died in 1879, leaving six children, 
three sons and three daughters. Capt. Carroll 
then married Miss Eliza Baize, a native of Mis- 
souri and the daughter of George Baize. To this 
union were born four children, a son and three 
daughters. Capt. Carroll is one of (he prominent 
agriculturists of Fulton County, is the owner of 
520 acres of land, with 300 under cultivation, and 
also possesses consideraliie [)roj)erty in Viola, all 
the result of his own industry. When the war 
cloud hovered over the United States he enlisted 
in Company F. Fourteenth Arkansas Infantry, 



274 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Coufederate Army, and served three years and 
eleven months. After the first nine months he 
was promoted to the rank of captain in his regi- 
ment and operated in Arkansas, Mississippi and 
Louisiana. He took a prominent part in the 
battles of Elkliorn, Augusta, Farmington, Corinth, 
luka. Port Hudson, etc. He was captured at 
Saltillo, Miss., but after sixteen days escaped and 
rejoined his regiment at Tupelo. At the clo.se of 
the war he returned to farm life. Politically a 
Democrat, his first jiresidential vote was for Bu- 
chanan in 1856. He filled the office of deputy 
sheriff two years, justice of the peace for four 
years and constable two years. He has been a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. for twenty-eight 
years, now belonging to Viola Lodge No. 399, and 
was master and senior warden for sixteen years of 
that time. He is also a member of the Eastern 
Star lodge at Viola. He and wife belong to the 
Missionary Baptist Church, he having experienced 
religion at the age of sixteen, and he is a deacon 
in the same. 

B. H. Castleberry is another excellent example 
of what can be accomplished through energy 
and perseverance, for he has won his way up to 
his present enviable position through his own vm- 
aided efforts. He was born in the State of Geor- 
gia, on the 1st of July, 1854, and is a son of S. G. 
and Jane E. (Bell) Castleberry, both of whom 
were Georgians, the former born in 1S21. He was a 
farmer and a miner, but made milling his principal 
occupation through life, and is still the owner of 
some gold mines in Georgia, near Cleveland. His 
father, who was a native of the State, owned some 
mines there and was also an extensive slave owner 
at the time of his death. The great-grandfather 
was a Georgian, but the great-groat-grandfather 
and six brothers emigrated from the Old "World, 
and settled in the Southern States. B. H. Castle- 
berry was one of seven children, and his youth and 
early manhood were spent in his native State. He 
received his literary education in the North Georgia 
Agricultural College, and principally through his 
own efforts secured means with which to prosecute 
his studies. In December, 1876, he emigrated to 
the State of Arkansas, settling in Fulton County, 



where he began the study of law, and the same 
characteristics which marked his progress at school, 
were prominent in his legal studies. After a 
thorough preparation he was admitted to the bar 
and entered upon his practice at Salem, and his 
patronage steadily and substantially increased dur- 
ing his two years of practice. At the end of 
that time he engaged in merchandising with his 
brother, their stock of goods amounting to about 
$8,000, and besides this they each own a half in- 
terest in 500 acres of land. Our immediate sub- 
ject also owns 1,500 acres in his own right. He 
was married on the 10th of April, 1881, to Miss 
Laura P. AVainwright, by whom he has two inter- 
esting children: William Lessie and Rex. Mr. 
Castleberry is a Democrat, and a member of the 
I. O. O. F. William Castleberry, his brother, a 
member of the general mercantile firm of Castle- 
berry & Co., was born in White County, Ga., in 
1856, and during his youth and early manhood 
worked with his father. He received an excellent 
education in Dahlonega College, Ga. , and also at 
Nacoochee Valley, and after leaving school engaged 
in mercantile pursuits as clerk in a general mer- 
chandise store in the latter ])lace, but eighteen 
months later went to Rabun County, where he be- 
gan merchandising in partnership with C. W. Oakes. 
Two years later they dissolved partnership, and Mr. 
Castleberi-y came to Salem, and in 1881 embarked 
in business with his brother and William Wain- 
wright, keeping a grocery. At the end of one year 
this association was terminated, and the two 
brothers started a general mercantile establishment 
of their own. They thoroughly understand the en- 
terprise in which they are engaged, and have done 
much in their line to increase the trade and influ- 
ence of the town. They are thoroughly reliable 
and honest in all their transactions, and as a result 
enjoy a large and lucrative custom. William Cas- 
tleberry is also a Democrat politically, and a mem- 
ber of the I. O. O. F. He is unmarried. 

William D. Chase, one of the prominent mil- 
lers and farmers of Elizabeth, was born in Maury 
(now Gordon) County, Ga. , in 1839, and is the son 
of Hon. Dean W. and Alley (Johnson) Chase. 
The father was born in Pawtucket, R. I., and re- 



FULTON (X)TTNTY. 



275 



ceivod iiu unusually good education. ■ At the age 
of nineteen he was sent to Georgia to erect a spin- 
ning factory, which he operated for a number of 
years. He was married and spent the remainder of 
his days there and in Tennessee, where he manu- 
factured cotton goods all his life. He died in Gil 
more County, Ga., in ISSl. He was justice of 
the peace many years and once represented Gor- 
don County in the legislature. He was also for 
thirty-five or forty years a traveling minister in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and besides was an 
officer in the Mexican War. His wife was a native 
of North Carolina, and died in Gilmore County, 
Ga. , July 8, 1S86. She, too, was a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Her father, James 
Johnson, was a native of North Carolina, who died 
in Walker County, Ga. He was a soldier in the 
Mexican War. William D. Chase, the second of ten 
children, born to his parents, received his educa- 
tion in the common schools. He was reared to the 
arduous duties on the farm, and in 1861 Miss Ade- 
line Sprouell became his wife. She was bom in Ful- 
ton County, Ga. , and was the daughter of Wilson 
E. and Eliza J. Sprouell, natives of Abbeville Dis- 
trict, S. C. , but who moved to Georgia, where Mrs. 
Sprouell died. To Mr. and Mrs. Chase were born 
eleven children, seven sons and three daughters 
now living. Mr. Chase served over four years in the 
Confederate Army, Company E, Georgia Volunteer 
Infantry, was at Cumberland Gap, Richmond, 
Siege of Vicksburg. Lookout Mountain, Missionary 
Hidge, Resaca, Kingston, Calhoun, New Hope 
Church. Kenesaw Mountain, etc. He was captured 
several times, the last time at Peach Tree Creek, 
and imprisoned at Nashville. He was afterward 
taken to Indianapolis, where he was at the time of 
the surrender. He never received a wound during 
his time of service. After the war he returned to 
the farm and in 1872 came to Fulton County, Ark. 
He followed agricultural pursuits for five years 
and then engaged in merchandising at Newburg, 
Izard County, for three years. This not suiting him 
be entered into the milling business there for six 
years, after which he returned to Fulton County, 
and continued merchandising at Elizabeth for four 
years. Since then he has been occupied in milling 



and farming and has two Hour and saw, shingle and 
planing mills. He is also the owner of about 900 
acres of land in Missouri, Fulton, Izard and Law 
rence Counties. All his ])roperty is the result of 
hard labor since the war. He has been a Demo- 
crat in his i)olitical views all his life, and his fim* 
jjresidential vote was for Gen. McClellaii. He is 
a member of the Masonic fraternity, Elizabeth 
Lodge, and is also a member of Newburg Lodge 
of the I. O. O. F. in Izard County. Mrs. Chase has 
been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
for many years. 

Hon. Samuel W. Cochran. For a jjeriod up 
wards of thirty-three years, he whose name heads 
this sketch has been a resident of Fulton County, 
and during this time he has enjoyed the reputation 
of being an honest, upright man in every respect, 
fully deserving the good opinion with which he is 
regarded by all who know him. His life up to 
the time of his location in Arkansas was rather 
unsettled, but notwithstanding the old sfiying that 
"a rolling stone gath(^rs no moss," Mr. Cochran 
has been quite successful in accumulating worldly 
goods, and is one of the leading merchants of 
this county. His birth occurred in Abbeville Dis 
trict, S. C. May 20, 1820, and he was left an 
orphan when an infant. Lentil ten years of age 
he was cared for by an uncle. J. C. Wharton, and 
from that period until sixteen years of age was taken 
care of by his guardian, Samuel Jordan. At this 
time he went with his uncle, Mr. Wharton, to 
Tennessee, and located at Raleigh, near Memphis, 
but shortly after went to Tipton, and still later to 
Columbia, of the same State, where he remained 
two years. He then returned to his old home in 
South Carolina, where he attended school for one 
year, after which he came back to Columliia, and 
was a salesman two years for the mercantile firm of 
G. Frierson & Co. At the end of this time he again 
returned to South Carolina, where he remaineil 
with his guardian for some time, and was married 
there to Miss Julia A. Chiles, moving with her at 
a later period to Cass County, Ga., where he gave 
his attention to farming until 185(>. In that year 
he came to Fulton County, Ark., and located in 
the neii'hborhood of where he now lives, continu- 



if 

w" 



^ 



<a k^ 




ing his farming operations up to 1881, when he 
opened a store at his present stand, and has met 
with the best of success in this enterprise. In 1861 
he was a member of the State convention, and 
voted for secession, and in 1863 was elected to 
i-^resent Fulton County in the State legislature. 
His wife was a daughter of William Chiles, of 
Abbeville District, S. C. , and was born October 7, 
1827, being killed at Rolla, Mo., November 6, 
1864. To them were boru four children, three of 
whom are living: William C, a farmer of Fulton 
County ; J. C. , also a farmer of the county, and 
J. D., farming near his father. Samuel W. died 
in 1863, when twelve years of age. In 1865 Mr. 
Cochran wedded Miss Martha E. Living.ston, a 
daughter of James Livingston, who was also born 
in Abbeville District, S. C. , her birth occurring in 
1831. In 1818 Mr. Cochran was licensed to preach 
the gospel, having joined the Missionary Baptist 
Church three years previous, and his wife and 
children are also members of this church. He is a 
Democrat politically, and previous to the war held 
the position of postmaster at Union, and received 
his last appointment in 1887. When a young 
man he taught school in Georgia, and also in Ful- 
ton County, Ark. Mr. Cochran's parents, Clark 
iiud Sarah (Wharton) Cochran, were born in Abbe- 
ville District, S. C, where the father was engaged 
in merchandising and farming imtil his death. He 
was of Scjtch-Irish descent, and was a son of John 
Cochran, a native of Virginia, and a soldier in the 
Revolutionary War. He died in South Carolina. 
The maternal grandfather. Pleasant Wharton, was 
born in the ' ' Palmetto State. ' " A large extent of 
land in South Carolina was given his ancestors by 
George III, and has been in possession of the fam- 
ily ever since that time. 

Alvah L. Cooper, farmer and stock raiser, and 
the recently appointed postmaster of the thriving 
little city of Mammoth Spring, was born in Tomp- 
kins County, New York, April 1, 1842, and was 
the fourth of ten children, eight now living, born 
to Laban D. and Sarah M. (Woodin) Cooper, both 
of whom were born in Dutchess County, N. Y., the 
former in 1780, and the latter in 1812. In the 
primitive days of the Republic, the Coopers were 



among its most valiant defenders. In the gloomy 
days of 1778, when the notorious Tory refugee, 
John Butler, defeated his cousin. Col. Zeb Butler, 
and so unmercifully massacred the inhabitants of 
Wyoming, Penn. , the paternal grandfather became 
one of the victims. Laban Cooper was of English 
descent, and a soldier in Gen. Scott's brigade, re- 
ceiving four different gun-shot wounds. At the 
memorable battle of Lundy's Laneor Bridgewater, 
he was wounded twice, one of which was received 
while assisting Col. Miller in his historical charge 
on the British batteries on the heights, the kej' 
to the British position. In the no less eventful 
battle of Chippeway he was wounded. He was 
promoted to the rank of lieutenant for services ren- 
dered during the war, and as his wife is still living, 
she now receives a pension. She resides at Moun- 
tain Lake, Penn., at the age of seventy-seven 
years. Alvah Cooper's youth was spent in Bradford 
County, Penn., and his education was there re- 
ceived in the public schools. He and two of his 
brothers served nearly four years each in the late 
Rebellion. Alvah enlisted May, 1881, in Company 
F, Sixth Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, was elected 
captain and transferred to Company D, One 
Hundred and Thirty- Second 'Pennsylvania Volun 
teers of the Second Army Corps. From the 
baftle of Bull Run to the closing scene at Appo- 
mattox, he was in all the principal battles in 
Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, never re- 
ceiving a wound. Mr. Cooper has been in the em- 
ploy of the Government as special pension examiner 
and other positions almost continually since the 
war, and has ever been a consistent, hard working 
Republican. It was in recognition of his services 
and abilities as a political organizer that he was 
recently ap})ointed postmaster at Mammoth Spring. 
He is thoroughly imbued with the principles of 
the Republican party, and is an indefatigable polit 
ical worker, and has probably done more than any 
other single man toward organizing the Republi- 
can^party of this part of the State. He was one 
of the first to Join the G. A. R., and has held 
many offices of trust in that order. Before com- 
ing to this State he was elected commander of the 
Soldiers' and Sailors' encampment of Bradford 



■^k. 



FULTON COUNTY. 



277 



County, iilso ohairraan of tbo Bradford County 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monumental Association, for 
three years. On leaving his native State he re- 
signed both positions, but was held in such high 
esteem by his eomrailes that his resignation was 
not accepted, and he continued to hold his office 
until the expiration of his term although out of the 
State. For a number of years he was a director 
of the Agricultural Society of Bradford County. 
In 18H6 he was married to Miss Sarah Ann Lar- 
com. a native of Bradford County, Penn., born in 
1*^1:3. and dying in 1888; to them were born these 
children: Mintie M.. wife of F. L. Sayles; Elmer 
C. , Woodard C. , killed when fourteen years of age; 
(jracie, Fred. C, Nellie, Warner and Grant. 
In 1886, like many of the. hardy sons of the East, 
desiring a more congenial clime and soil in which 
to care for his family, he started toward the 
•'Sunny South" to try his fortunes. The wood- 
land of Arkansas pleased him. He and his son 
each homesteaded 160 acres, and have purchased 
240 acres in addition, making in all a ranch of 560 
acres of land. In every day life Mr. Cooper is 
looked upon as an energetic, honest citizen. He 
spends his time closely in building up his farms 
and superintending the postoffice, and if fortune 
continues to smile on him, in a few years he will 
be one of the most prosperous as well as one of 
most jirominent citizens of North Arkansas. 

Charles W. Culp, M. D. , is one of the rising 
young members of the medical fi-aternity of Ful- 
ton County, Ark. He was born in Izard County, 
of the same State, May 14, 1858. His parents, 
Thomas and Elizabeth (Benbrook) Culp, were 
born, reared and married in Izard County, the for- 
mer's birth occurring in 18>il, and his death March 
8. 1S80. The paternal grandfather, Thomas B. 
Culp. was a Tennesseean, who removed to Izard 
County, Ark., at an early day and took a prom- 
inent part, in aiding in the growth and devel- 
opmt'ut of this region, and both he and his son 
Thomas were physicians. They were of German 
descent, and all the male members of the family 
have been Democrats in their political views. Of 
the family of eight children born to Thomas and 
Elizabeth Culp, four are now living, two sons and 



two daughters, all of whom reside in Fulton Coun- 
ty, with the exception of a daughter, who is a resi- 
dent of Izard County. Dr. Charles W. Culp re- 
ceived his literary education in the common .schools 
of Izard County, after which he entered the Mem- 
pliis Hospital Medical College, fi-om which institu- 
' tion he was graduated as an M. D.. February 25. 
1885. Previous to graduating he had practiced 
the profession (since 18711), and has won an envia- 
ble position among the medical fraternity of Ful- 
ton and surrounding counties. December 22, 
1880, he was married to Miss Joannah C. Sharp, 
who was born in Sharp County, Ark.. December 
4, 1861, and is a daught(»r of Ephraim Sharp, 
whose sketch appears in this work. Dr. Culp is a 
RoyaJ Arch Mason, belonging to Rural Chapter 
No. 50, Evening Shade, Sharp County. He is al 
so a member of Ash Flat Lodge No. 159, F. & A. 
M., Ash Flat, Ark. He is a Democrat, his first 
presidential vote being cast for Hancock, and he 
and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. His mother is a resident of Ful 
ton County, and is the worthy wife of J. M. Cook. 
W. H. Culp, editor and proprietor of the Mam 
moth Spring Monitor, at Man)moth Spring, Ark. . 
is of German descent, the name originally being 
Kolb, but it was changed to Culp when the family 
became Americanized. He was born in Izanl 
County, Ark.. November 5. 1863. and after ac- 
quiring a fair education in the common schools he 
entered the office of the Clipper, at Melbourne. 
Ark., and learned the ])rinter's trade. In 188'2 
he bought a half intere.st in the Izard County Reg 
ister, at Melbourne, and in August, 1884, purchased 
the remaining interest and conducted the paper 
with highly satisfactory results until November. 
1886, when he leased the press and moved to Lee 
County, Ark., where he spent a part of the follow 
ing year in an unsuccessful attempt to raise a cot- 
ton crop. Moving to Mammoth Spring, Ark., 
he established the Mammoth Spring Monitor, the 
first number being issued February 2. 1888. This 
paper has proved a decided success financially, and 
is one of the spiciest, best and most iMy edited 
business papers in Northwest Arkansas, and Mr. 
Culp has become well known throughout the State 



^ spy 



278 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



as one of its most .successful editors. He e.stab- 
lished the Thayer Tribune at Thayer, Mo., in 
1888, but has since sold it and is now devoting 
his time and energies to the publication of the 
Monitor. He was married in 1884 to Miss Amy 
D. Owen, of Forrest City, Ark., she being a daugh 
ter of Dexter Owen, who was born in Providence, 
R.I. They have two children: Homer and Madge. 
Mr. Gulp is a son of Dr. T. B. and Elizabeth 
(Benbrook) Gulp, the former's birth occurring in 
Izard Gounty, Ark. , in 1835, and his death in Mel- 
bourne of the same county in 1880. His widow 
still survives him and is a resident of this covmty, 
being forty-five years of age. 

Judge Thomas J. Cunningham, a prosperous 
Fulton County farmer, came originally from Ran- 
dolph County, Mo. , his birth occurring December 
31, 1837. His father, Robert H. Cunningham, 
was born in Lincoln County, Tenn., in 1808, and 
in 1834 emigrated to Randolph County, Mo., where 
he was one of the earliest settlers. He was an 
active tiller of the soil there until about 1807, and 
from that time until his death, in 1868, he resided 
in Fulton County, Ark. His parents, James and 
Jane Cunningham, removed from Tennessee to 
Randolph County several years prior to their son, 
and both died in Adair County of that State. The 
wife of Robert H. Cunningham was born in Ten- 
nessee in 1810, and died in Fulton County, Ark., in 
August, 1886, having borne a family of ten chil- 
dren, nine of whom grew to mature years, and 
eight of whom are yet living. Four sons and one 
daughter reside in Fulton Coimty, one son lives 
in the State of Texas, a daughter in Randolph 
County, Mo., and one son in Macon County, Mo. 
Thomas J. Cunningham is the fourth of the family, 
and from his earliest recollections has been famil- 
iar with the details of farm life; while growing up 
he learned lessons of industry, fnigal habits and 
economy, which he has never forgotten. His rudi- 
mentary education was acquired in the common 
schools, and was supplemented by a collegiate 
course in Macon County, Mo. He remained with 
his father and mother until 1861, when, full of zeal 
and enthusiam for the land of chivalry and the 
cause of the South, he joined Gen. Price's com- 



maud, whose division was commanded by Gen. 
John B. Clark, Sr. , and served two years, partici- 
pating in the battle of Lexington and numerous 
other engagements. In 1863 he went by mule 
train to California, in which State he remained 
until 1870, being engaged in farming, and in that 
year he left California and came to Fulton Gounty, 
Ark., and located near where he now lives. In 
1866, while in California, he was married to Miss 
Mary E. Proctor, who was born in Randolph 
County, Mo., in 1841. She died in 1873. in Ful- 
ton County, Ark . having borue a family of four 
children: Julia, wife of William T. Cunningham, 
of Texas; Jennie D. , wife of John D. Isenhour, 
of Fulton Gounty; Rollen P., now in Texas, and 
Robert H. (deceased). In 1875 Mr. Cunningham 
united his fortunes with those of Miss Sarah E. 
Jeffery, a native of Izard Gounty, Ark. , born Oc- 
tober 26, 1853. Her parents are Rev. Daniel and 
Nancy Jeffery. To Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham 
were born the following children: Rol>ert G. (de- 
ceased), James G., Edgar, Margaret Ann, Ida, 
Thomas J. and Henry K. Mr. Cunningham has 
resided in Fulton Gounty sufficiently long to ena- 
ble his many sterling qualities to become well 
known. About forty-tive acres of his 180 acre farm 
are under cultivation. He is a Democrat, and in 
1874 was elected judge of the county court, and 
served six successive years, making an able and 
efficient officer. His first presidential vote was cast 
for John G. Breckenridge. His wife is a member 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 

Charles C. Davis, surveyor of Fulton County, 
and one of the enterprising agriculturists of Mam- 
moth Spring Township, was born in Webster 
County, Mo., January 22, 1854, receiving a very 
meager education in the common schools. He fol- 
lowed the plow for his father until nineteen years 
of age, and was then united in marriage to Miss 
Nancy G. Young, a native of Oregon County, Mo., 
August 11, 1872, the daughter of J. L. Young. 
Mrs. Davis died April 17, 1885, and September 18 
of the same year Mr. Davis married Martha, sister 
of his first wife. Her parents were natives of St. 
Francois Gounty, Mo. , now of Oregon Gounty, Mo. , 
and Mr. Young served in the Confederate army as 






FULTON COUNTY. 



27<t 



a private. By his fii'st marriage Mr. Davis became 
the father of live children, three sons and two 
daughters, and to his second union were born two 
children, l)oth sons. Since his first marriage lie 
has lived on his present farm, one mile east of 
Mammoth Spring, where he has 'JOG acres of good 
land, with 180 under cultivation. He followed 
farming and also dealt in stock until the railroad 
was built, after which for some years he was local 
agent, locating settlers, etc. He has been a practical 
survej'or for some time, surveying for the county, 
and in 1888 was elected county surveyor for two 
years. In politics he affiliates with the Democratic 
party, and his first presidential vote was for S. J. 
Tilden in 1876. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, Myatt Lodge No. 401, and was Junior 
Warden one year. Mr. Davis is pleasant and agree- 
able in his demeanor to all with whom he comes in 
contact, and is a man who attracts the regard of 
all who api)roach him. He is universally respected 
by his fellow citizens. He is the sou of Eliphaz 
and Permealey Davis, and the grandson of Charles 
(j. Davis, who was born in Jackson County, 111 , in 
1800, and died in Oregon County, Mo., in 1878. 
He was a soldier in the Black Hawk War, was jus- 
tice of the peace and also county judge for some 
years. He was of Welsh descent. Eliphaz Davis 
was born in Randolph County, Ark., January 1, 
1822, and was mamed in that county to Miss Ed- 
wards, a native of Indiana. From there they 
moved to Webster County, Mo., and in 1858 to 
Oregon County, where Mrs. Davis died in 1863. 
Mrs. Davis is still living there. He is a member 
of the Christian Church (as was also his wife), and 
is a successful farmer. 

Lee Davis. Under the efficient management 
of Mr. Davis the Fulton County Banner has come 
to be regarded as one of the representative journals 
of the county, and although he has only been its 
editor since 1887, be has proven himself to be a 
man of good judgment in directing the editorial 
I)olicy of his paper. He is a native of the county 
in which he is now residing, his birth occurring in 
186."), but received his education in La Crosse, 
Izard County, Ark. . and as the school was good, 
he acquired an excellent education. After train- 



ing the -'young idea" for some time, lie first 
entered the journalistic field in 1884. in Elizabeth, 
Ark. In 1887 he purchased the Banner, at Salem, 
Ark., a paper which he has since edited in a very 
efficient manner, and through the columns of this 
journal he has wielded no slight inflnenec in di- 
recting the proper steps to be taken for worth}- 
movements. As the worth of his paper becomes 
known the circulation increasas accordingly, and 
he has won the patronage of all the l)etter class of 
citizens in the county. He was first married, at 
the age of nineteen years, to Miss Josie Lytle, a 
native of Tennessee, who died ten months after 
her marriage, and after remaining a widower until 
1889, he wedded Miss Mary Jeffery, whose birth 
occurred in Izard County, Ark. Mr. Davis is one 
of eight children born to Solomon M. and Eliza 
(Pipkin) Davis, who were born, reared and mar 
ried in the State of Tennessee, and who lived there 
until a number of their children were born, after 
which they moved to Missouri, being among the 
pioneers of that State. After residing there a 
number of years they came to Arkansas, being 
among the first settlers of Fulton County. The 
father was an officer in the Confederate array, and 
died in 1880, at the age of forty-nine years. He 
was a farmer by occupation, and is still sur\ived 
by his widow. Our subject's paternal and mater- 
nal grandfathers, G. A. Davis and G. F. Pij)kiii, 
were also Tennesseeans by birth. 

Dr. D. S. Deaderick, real estate agent. Mam- 
moth Spring. In that proud series of names 
which have aided materially in developing the bus- 
iness interests of Fulton County, that of Mr. 
Deaderick holds a leading place. He was born in 
Saline County, Mo., in 1842 and is the son of John 
S. and Ellen (Cotter) Deaderick, and grandson of 
David Deaderick. who was a native of Tennessee. 
John S. Deaderick was born in Georgia in 18111. 
and in 1840 was united in man-iage to Miss Cotter. 
at Potosi, Mo. She was Ixirn in Pittsburg. Penn.. 
in 1820. After mairiage the parents removed to 
St. Louis, where the father was interested in the 
shot tower. In 1S48 they moved to Saline County 
of the same State, and there he was engaged 
in agricultural pursuits until 1857. when they 



_J 



•>H0 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



moved to Plattin Rock, in Jefferson County. Dur- 
ing the year 1861 they were in different parts of 
the South, and in 1865 returned to St. Louis, 
where Mr. Deaderick was occupied in wool manu- 
facture for several years. In 1874 they came to 
Mammoth Spring and were the first settlers here. 
He erected a flonr mill and cotton-gin, which he 
operated until June, 1887, when he sold out. He 
was a thorough-going business man and was at one 
time (juite wealthy. His death occurred in 1887. 
Florence Cotter, the grandfather of Dr. Dead 
erick. was a native of Ireland and came to the 
United States about 1796. He settled in Penn- 
sylvania, where he died early in the present cen- 
tury. Dr. D. S. Deaderick, the eldest of two 
sons and one daughter, received his education 
in the St. Louis University. During the late up- 
pleasantness between the North and South he 
served four years in the Confederate Army, Com- 
pany E, Second Missouri Cavalry. He enlisted as 
a private and came out as adjutant of the regi 
iment. He operated in Missouri, Tennessee and 
Mississippi with Gen. Forrest, and was wounded 
several times. After the war he engaged in the 
lumber business in Iron and St. Francois Coun- 
ties, Mo., and in 1870 took up the study of medi 
icinc and graduated at the St. Louis Medical Col- 
lege in 1872. He then practiced in that city until 
1874, when he came to Mammoth Spring, and in 
comjiany with his father embarked in milling and 
merchandising, and was also for a number of 
years interested in the real estate business. He 
has continued the real estate business in town and 
besides is the owner of several farms in Missouri 
and Arkansas. In his political views he affiliates 
with the Democratic party, and his first presiden- 
tial vote was cast for Gen. Hancock in 1880. He is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, Myatt Lodge 
No. 401, and Evening Shade Chapter No. 50. He 
is also a member of Mammoth Spring Lodge No. 
48. I. O. O. F. His only sister is the wife of J. 
D. Lucas, of St. Louis, and his brother. Dr. 
James S.. is a practicing physician of De Soto. 
Mo. His mother is still living and resides at 
Mammoth Spring. The family are members of 
the Catholic Church. 



William Deatherage, one of the foremost farm- 
ers of Mount Calm Township, on Bennett River, 
owes his nativity to Tennessee, where he was born 
in 1842. His father, A. J. Deatherage. was born 
in Tennessee, about 1811, and died in Roane Coun- 
ty, of that State, in 1847. The latter was married 
in his native State to Miss Sarah Jackson, also a 
native of Tennessee, born about 1822. Three chil- 
dren were the result of this union, William being 
the eldest. One was drowned in the Tennessee 
River, by the overturning of a skiff, when only 
seven years of ago, and Martha, became the wife 
of O. B. Fuller, and is now living in Tennessee. 
Mrs. Deatherage was married the second time, in 
1850. to W. F. Ellis, and by this union became 
the mother of eight children, six daughters and 
two sons: Sarah (deceased), Margaret (deceased). 
Minerva, wife of George Jones, and now living 
in Tennessee; Nancy and Becky (twins), were mar- 
ried to twin brothers, Samuel and Elijah Kelon. 
and live in Tennessee; Caleb, Franklin, and Mary, 
at home with her mother. A. J. Deatherage was 
a major in the United States army when the In- 
dians were moved to Indian Territory. William 
Deatherage commenced for himself in life l)y join- 
ing the Confederate army. Company A, Twenty- 
sixth Tennessee Infantry Regiment, on the 1 5th 
of June. 1861, and served about four years. He 
participated in sixteen hard-fought battles, the 
principal ones being Fort Donelson, Murfrees- 
boro, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Taylor 
Ridge Gap, Swamp Creek, Resaca, New Hope, 
Marietta, Jonesboro, Columbia, Franklin, Nash 
ville; was with Forrest at Murfreesboro the second 
time, Columbia. Bentonville, Chickasaw Mountain, 
etc. He surrendered on the 5th of April, 1865, at 
Greensboro. N. C. after which Mr. Deatherage re 
turned to Greeneville,Tenn. , and from thence home, 
where he commenced farming. He started out after 
the war with nothing but a Confederate suit of 
clothes, with forty-eight bullet holes in it. He 
was married. May 28, 1868. to Miss Rebecca Hall, 
of Tennessee, and in the fall of the following year 
he came to Fulton Coiiuty, and settled on Ben- 
nett's Bayou, and there remained three years. In 
1873 he moved to his present line property, con- 



sistingof 'If'tl iicrns, with 100 acres improved. He 
has irood liuildings, and a comfortable home. As 
he has had hut little help since comuieiicing for 
himself, he is the architect of his own fortune. To 
his marriage were born eleven children, eight liv- 
ing at present: Snsan. born October 12, 1870; 
E. J., born February 9, 1872; G. W'., born on the 
:id of September, 1874; Lydia M., born on the Sth 
of September, 1876; Sarah A., born on the 5th of 
December, 1878; W. S., born on the 5th of March, 
1880; James K. P., born on the 12th of October, 
1885, and Nancy, born on the 11th of June, 1888. 
Mr. Deatherage has been justice of the peace of his 
township for one term. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, County Line Lodge No. 873, 
and in his political opinions is with the Democrats. 
Mrs. Deatherage is the daughter of Elijah and 
Lydia Hall, who were the parents of eleven chil- 
dren, the following living: Samuel, Elisha, Mollie, 
Elijah, Lydia, Thomas, Rebecca D. and J. K. P. 

James Dinwiddle is a man whom nature seems 
to have especially fitted to be a farmer, for he has 
met with good success in his farming operations. 
He was born in Greene County, East Tenn.. on the 
14th of August, 1856, and is a son of Calvin and 
Mary (Carr) Dinwiddle, the former being also a 
native of East Teimessee, his birth occurring Feb- 
ruary 23, 1828. He was a school teacher in his 
youth, and by trade was a tailor, and these occu- 
pations he followed in his native State until 1859, 
when he moved to Arkansas. While at Greenfield, 
Mo., in 1864, he was captured by the Federal 
troops and taken to Indianapolis. Ind. , where he 
died the same year from the effects of a wound re- 
ceived from a sabre at the time of his capture. He 
was a son of James H. Dinwiddie, who died in 
East Tennessee. Mary (Carr) Dinwiddie was born 
in Knoxville, Tenn., April 5, 1830, and died in 
.\rkansas on the 13th <lay of December, 1885. Of 
her two children. James, the subject of this sketch, 
was the elder. His youth was spent in .Vrkansas, 
and in this State his early scholastic advantages 
were eujoye<l. though only such as the common 
schools of that period afforded. He has resided 
in Fulton County since February 11, 1862, and 
has thoroughly identified himself with the interests 



of this section, owning an excellent farm com- 
prising IflO acres of land. He is industrious and 
enterprising, and his present farm denotes him to 
be possessed of thrift and energy. He is a Demo- 
crat in his political views. Mi.ss Elizabeth Taylor 
became his wife on the 1 6th of February, 1 888. She 
was born in Fulton County, Ark., in 1871. and is 
a daughter of C. C. and Mary Taylor, both of 
whom are now deceased. 

John L. Golden. Among the ])romiuent farm- 
ers of Washington Township appears the name of 
the above mentioned gentleman, whose success as 
a tiller of the .soil is second to none in the town- 
ship. He was born in Weakley County, Temi., 
on the 27th day of • July, 1849, and since early 
youth has applied himself steadfastly to agricul- 
tural pursuits, and with what success may be in- 
ferred when the fact is mentioned that he is the 
owner of one of the finest tracts of land in this 
section of the county. He is the son of J. C. and 
Mary (Winu) Golden, both natives of Mississippi, 
and of English parentage. The father was born 
in 1824, was a tiller of the soil, and moved to Ten- 
nessee at a very early day. They were the parents 
of ten children, seven living to be grown: S. D. 
(deceased), W. W., lives in Lawrence County, 
Ark.; James H. (deceased), J. L., Martha, wife 
of Alexander Cannon; Jesse F. , Lydia J., wife of 
George Dunivan. Mr. Golden was a Democrat 
during his life, ami had accumulated considerable 
property which he lost during the war. John L. 
Golden commenced work for himself at the age 
of twenty one. and has tilled the soil assiduously 
ever since. When first starting out for himself 
he was possessor of 185, one horse, a few hogs, 
and a little corn. He is now the owner of 219 
acres of land, with about 140 acres under culti 
vation, besides having his farm well stocked with 
horses, cattle, hogs, and all else to be ,seea on a 
well conducted farm. He left Tennessee in 1872, 
settling in Independence County, Ark., ami there 
remained for three years. In 1875 he came to 
Fulton County an<l followed farming on rented 
land. He then bought a farm of eighty acres, im- 
proved the same, and in 1884 sold out and lionght 
his present property. He was married on the 6th 



; Vw 



_^. 



282 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



of January, 1S7'J, to Miss Rachel M. Anderson, 
and two children have been born to this marriage: 
Lula A., born August 2. 1883, and Luther F., 
born May 20, 1889. Mrs. Golden is the daughter 
of J. M. and Martha J. (Kelton) Anderson, natives 
of Tennessee, and the parents of live childi-en, four 
now living: J. C. (deceased), Rachel M. , Lucy 
A. M. , wife of Jasper Rives, of Fulton County ; 
Martha C, wife of Alexander Sanders, and Har- 
riet L. , wife of James Lingle, of Fulton County. 
Mr. Anderson came to this State in 1874, settling 
first in Stone County, and in 1875 moved to this 
county, where he has since resided. He has been 
postmaster at Ten Mile postoffice for thirteen years, 
and is a much esteemed citizen. John L. Golden 
votes with the Democratic party, and Mrs. Golden 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. 

Amos E. Golder has passed the uneventful lif(> 
of the farmei', continuing steadily to pursue the 
even tenor of his way, and is now ranked among 
the prosperoiis farmers of Fulton County, being 
the owner of 312 acres of land in the home place, 
of which forty-eight are under cultivation, and 
seventy-five acres in Myatt Township. He was 
born in Phillips County, Ark., October 27, 1842, 
and is the second of eight children born to Dr. 
James B. and Mary (Bond) Golder, whose births oc- 
curred in Richmond, Va., Octobers, 1816, and Knox 
County, Tenn., May 27, 1813, and died in Randolph 
and Fulton Counties, Ark., December 26, 1861, 
and January 9, 1888, respectively. Dr. James 
Golder removed to Phillips County, Ark., at an 
early day, and was there married, moving in 1852 
to Fulton County, of which he was one of the 
early settlers. Politically he was a Democrat, and 
held the office of justice of the peace, and was also 
postmaster in Fulton County. He served in the 
Confederate army, and just prior to his death was 
to have been appointed regimental surgeon. Amos 
E. Golden and his brother, J. M., are the only 
ones of their parents' family who are now living, 
and both reside in Fulton County. The former 
has lived here since ten years of age, but before 
reaching his twenty- first birthday he received only 
few educational advantages. In July, 1861, he 



enlisted in Company I, Seventh Arkansas Regi 
ment of the Confederate States Army, and served 
until he was captured at the battle of Franklin, 
Tenn., in 1864. He was taken to Chicago, 111., 
and after being ke])t in captivity five months, was 
liberated and soon after joined the United States 
army, and served from 1865 to November. 186(i. 
After receiving his discharge he returned to Ar- 
kansas and resumed farming in Fulton County. 
On the 5th of September, 1867, he was married to 
Miss Mary R. Partie, who was born in Izard 
County, Ark., on the 6th of April, 1843, and by 
her has had a family of eight children: James (de- 
ceased), Elisabeth K. (deceased), George A., 
Laura (deceased), Martha, Emma (deceased), Peter 
E., and Amos G. (deceased). Mr. Golder is a 
Democrat, his first presidential vote being cast for 
Greeley. He is a Master Mason, belonging to 
Myatt Lodge No. 407. He and wife are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr.-. 
Golder' s parents, George and Mary Partie, were 
born in Kentucky and Tennessee, November 25. 
1811, and March 4, 1814, respectively. They 
were married in Arkansas. The maternal grand- 
father, Louis Partie, was born in Kentucky in 
1763, and in 1814 emigrated to Arkansas, locat- 
ing near Mount Olive, being'oue of the first set 
tiers of that part of the State. His wife, whose 
maiden name was Mary Ramsey, was born in 
Maryland, in 1768, and was of English descent. 
Mr. Partie was a French Canadian. They were 
married in 1787. Soon after the former joined 
the United States army, and served three years in 
the defense of the Union. The great-grandfather, 
Charles Ramsey, spent seven years of his life in 
fighting for the liberty we now enjoy. This has 
been handed down to the present generation by 
Mrs. Golder' s grandmother, who now rests under 
the sod on the bank of White River. 

J. R. Green, farmer, Bennett's Bayou, Fulton 
County, Ark. The father of Mr. Green, William 
Green, was a native of Alabama, and after reach- 
ing manhood was united in marriage to Miss Ro- 
sanna Deshazo, a native of Tennessee, in 1857 or 
1858. To this marriage were born four children, 
two now living: J. R. Green, born on the 24th 



«■ 

^'* 



-i\ 



of May, 1859, aad Susau, wife of L. C. Woods. 
The parents moved to Arkansas iu 180], set- 
tling in Izard County until after the war, and 
then, in 18fi(5, moved to Fulton County. They 
[)urchased a farm on Bennett's Eiver, and this he 
improved in every respect. During the late Civil 
War the father served in the Confederate army 
nearly the whole time of the conflict, and was with 
Gen. Price on his raid through Missouri. He was 
a Democrat in politics, and although a man who 
had received but limited educational advantages, 
had improved his time to such an extent that he 
was considered well-informed on all subjects. 
Mrs. Green was married the second time, about 
1870, to Mr. W. Harber, by whom she had two 
childi'en: Rebecca Jane, born in 1872, and Mi'iry 
E., born in 1874. Mr. Harber was born in Crock- 
ett County, Tenu., and was married to Mrs. Green 
iu Greene County, Ark. He died in 1874. He was 
a man who had taken a prominent part in the poli- 
tics of the county, and voted the Democratic 
ticket. He was a member of the Christian Church. 
Mrs. Harber was a member of the Missionary Bap- 
tist Church. J. R. Green's chances for an educa- 
tion were very limited and the principal part of his 
youthful days were spent on the farm. On the 
10th of July, 1884. his marriage to Miss F. A. 
Wilson, of Alabama, took place. She. also, had 
received rather limited advantages for an educa- 
tion, but. like her husband, she has improved her 
time by study and observation. They are the par- 
ents of three children : M. C. , born on the 6th of 
July, 1885; W. H., born on the 17th of March, 
18S7, and Rebecca, born on the 'I{fth of April, 
1889. Mr. Green commenced farming in 1884, 
and has continued this pursuit up to the present. 
He is the owner of a tine farm of '280 acres, which 
he jKiid for l)y the honest sweat of his brow. 
Alth<iugh of limited education himself Mr. Green 
is always in favor of public schools, and is a liberal 
contributor to that and all other laudable enter- 
prises. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
Waterville Lodge No. 50. He is also a member 
of Vidette Lodge No. 94, I. O. (). F. In poli- 
tics his political preference is with the Demo- 
cratic party. His wife is the daughter of W. H. 



and M. J. (Driseol) Wilson, natives of Alabama, 
and the parents of only one child, Mrs. Green. 
Mrs. Wilson died on the 4th of January, 1870, in 
full communion with the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Mr. Wilson married the second time. 
Miss Martlia Graves, of Alabama, on the 25th of 
December, 1870, and they became the parents of 
four children, three deceased. The one living is 
William H., who.se birth occurred on the 25lh of 
December, 1874. Mr. Wilson resides in Baxter 
County and is in very comfortable circumstances. 
He takes quite an active part in politics and is a 
Republican. He was in the Confederate army dur- 
ing the war, was a commissioned officer and was 
taken prisoner, remaining in prison for some time. 
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belong- 
ing to County Line Lodge No. 373, and also the 
Chapter at Mountain Home. 

Thomas Hall has been a resident of Fulton 
County, Ark., for the past nineteen years, and his 
example of industry, and his earnest and sincere 
efforts to make life a success, are well worthy the 
imitation of all. The condition of his farm, which 
consists of 280 acres, shows the thrift and energy 
which are among his chief characteristics, and all 
necessary buildings and fences form a prominent 
feature of the improvements. Thomas Hall was 
born iu Morgan County, Tenn. , February 25, 
184U, and is one of eight surviving members of a 
family of eleven children, born to Elijah and Lydia 
(Scott) Hall, who were born in Morgan County, 
Tenn., and Kentucky, iu 1797 and 1812, respect- 
ively. Elijah Hall was a farmer by occupation, 
and about 1870 moved to Fulton Coimty, Ark., 
where he passed the rest of his days, dying in 
1881. His widow still survives him, and resides 
in Baxter County, Ark. The paternal grandpar 
ents were North Carolinians, who removed to Ten- 
nessee at an early ilay, and there died. The youth 
ful days of Thomas Hall were divided between farm 
work and attending the common schools, where he 
received a fair education oidy. He remained with 
his parents until he attained his majority, and was 
then married August 14, 1870, to Miss Dorcas E. 
Kerr, who was l)orn iu Tennessee October 30. 
1850, and is a daughter of William aud Jane Kerr, 



- 1 » 



LA 



284 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



both natives of Ireland, who died in Fulton Coun- 
ty. Ark. To Thomas Hall and liis wife eight chil- 
dren have been born, six of whom are living: Katie, 
born August 3, 1872; Glory Ann, born January '2(\, 
1875; Mary Alice, born May 20, 1877: John L., 
born May 13, 1879, died January 13, 1880: Ada 
Gordan. born April 21, 1881; Myrtle Eva, bom 
October 30, 1883: Sabra Poreas, born October 
9, 1886, and Victor Thomas, born August 13. 
1889. Mr. Hall has always voted the Democratic 
ticket, and his first vote was cast for Horace Gree- 
ley for the Presidency. He is a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church, and his wife is con- 
nected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
They are intelligent and enterprising citizens, and 
would give life to any community in which they 
might settle. 

W. S. Hamilton. A history of any community, 
large or small, is made up, to a greater or less de- 
gree, of the lives of its citizens, and it is apparent 
to any intelligent observer that the history of this 
coiinty is only such as has been made by those who 
have been identified with its development for 
some time. Mr. Hamilton can safely be classed 
among the pioneers of the State of Arkansas. His 
father, Thomas Hamilton, was a native of Ohio, 
born in 1822, and came to Kentucky at an early 
day. He was a miller liy trade, and followed this 
pursuit during the principal part of his life. He 
was married in Kentucky, in 1846, to Miss Sarah 
Bunton, a native of Virginia, Ijorn about 1828. 
Eight children were given them, five of whom 
are now living: W. S., John W., David, farmer in 
the Indian Nation; William, resides in Independ- 
ence County, Ark., and is a farmer; and Melissa, 
wife of John M. McCandlass, a farmer of Fulton 
County. Thomas Hamilton left Kentucky in 1856, 
and moved to Illinois, where he resided until 1809, 
but subsequently he located in Greene County, 
Ark. After remaining there two years he moved 
to Fulton County, Ark., and engagcKl in the mill- 
ing biisiness at Elizabeth, where he remained 
thus occupied until his death, which occurred on 
the 20th of Octolier, 1887. He had been justice 
of the peace of his township in this county for some 
time, and was a man universally respected. He 



and wife were both members of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church. The mother died JIarch 3, 
1861. W. S. Hamilton came to this county with 
his father, and settled on Spring River, in the east 
portion foj' some six years. He then moved to 
liis present property of 160 acres, eighty acres 
under cultivation, and there he has since remained. 
He has made all the improvements, and has a fine 
farm. His marriage occurred in 1868, in Illinois, 
to Miss Mary A. Green, a native of Tennessee, and 
to them have been born ten children, nine now liv- 
ing: Sarah E. (deceased), Philip T., born April 7, 
1871; N. J., born on the 22d of July, 1873; Me- 
lissa, bom January 22, 1876; Emily F., born on 
the 7th of November, 1878; George W. , born on the 
17th of March, 1880; Nancy E., born on the 22d 
of June, 1882; H. W. and Letha A. (twins), born 
on the 6th of November, 1885; and Susan M. , born 
on the 23d of April, 1888. Mrs. Hamilton is the 
daughter of Thomas and Mary A. Green, natives 
of Tennessee, who were the parents of two children: 
Mary A., born on the 12th of January, 1852, and 
Philip, who resides in Illinois. Mr. Green died in 
1852, and in 1855 his widow married Thomas Nip- 
per, by whom she had these children: Sarah J. (de- 
ceased), Emily C. (deceased), J. H. , and Thomas 
(deceased). Mr. Nipper died in 1865, of smallpox, 
and all the children, but the two mentioned above, 
died of the same dread disease. Mr. Nipjier was in 
the Union army, but was so disabled from exposure 
that he was discharged about 1863. Mr. Hamil- 
ton has filled the office of constable, has also been 
justice of the peace, and, like his father, is a Dem- 
ocrat in politics. He is a member of Lodge No. 
94, of the I. O. O. F.. at Vidette, Ark., and has 
served as secretary and treasurer, and also vice 
grand of his lodge. 

Sidney K. Harkleroad. The subject of this 
sketch is a Tennesseean by birth and bringing up, 
and has inculcated in him the sterling principles 
of his German ancestors. He was born in Sulli- 
van County, Tenn., March 13, 1848, and is a son 
of Henry and Margaret Adaline (Berry) Harkle- 
road, who were born in East Tennessee and Vir- 
ginia, respectively, and both died in Fulton County, 
Ark., the former on the 18th of December, 1869. 



FULTON COUNTY. 



285 



at the -Age of eighty one years, and the latter 
on the ISth of November, 1888, aged seventy-one 
years. They were married in the mother's native 
State, but resided in Sullivan County, Tenn., un- 
til coming to Arkansas in 18r)0. They were mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
and he was a soldier in the War of 1812, and by 
occupation was a blacksmith, carpenter, and far- 
mer, as such being very successful until coming to 
Arkansas. At his death he left a competency for 
his family. He was a son of Henry Harkleroad, a 
native German, who was one of the first settlers of 
the State of Tennessee, and died there. Five 
sons and one daughter were born to the latter, 
five of the family now living: W. H. C. , a farmer 
of Union Township, James H. , Joseph T. and S. 
K., being also millers of that township, and Mar- 
garet E., wife of R. C. Byrumof Union Township. } 
\\'. H. C. was in the Confederate army thiee years 1 
during the Rebellion, and participated in many j 
battles, and James H. was also in the service a i 
short time. The latter, with our subject and his 
brother, J. T. , were extensively engaged in the 
saw-mill business in Izard County for about eight- 
een years. In 1888 Sidney K. Harkleroad built a 
grist mill and cotton-gin on his farm, which he 
has since been successfully operating, the work j 
which he turns out proving unusually satisfact- 
ory, and the ])atronago that has been attracted 
to this ])hice for milling purposes is steadily in- 
creasing. If close application and study of the 
wants of his customers will serve to make a per- 
manent success of this mill, then Mr. Harkleroad 
need have no fear as to the outcome of his venture. 
He endeavors to please and keep apace with other 
institutions of like nature, and the results are prov- 
ing very favorable. In connection with his mill 
and farming, he and his brother, James H. , are 
engaged in operating a tan yard, which is the only 
business of the kind in Fulton ('ounty. Sarah R. 
Berry, a native of East Tennessee, and a daughter 
of Thomas Berry, became his wife in 1870, and 
their union has resulted in the l)irth of live chil- 
dren: ^Margaret A., Thomas H., James M., Julia 
E. and Elmer C. Mr. Harkleroad and his wife 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 



South, in which he is trustee and clas.s k-ader. 
Both he and his brother, James H., are members 
of the Masonic fi-aternity, and are Democrats in 
their political views. 

Dr. James Monroe Hazlewood was born in 
Williamson County, Tenn., October 15, 1837, and 
is the only surviving one of two children of 
Thomas and Sarah (Sutton) Hazlewood, the form 
er born in Virginia March 15, 1807, and the latter 
in the same State February 14, 1814. Thomas 
Hazlewood was taken to Tennessee at an early day 
by his father, who also bore the name of Thomas, 
and there spent his life, engaged in farming, his 
death occurring October 7, 1838, followed l)y his 
wife November 3, 1887, she being an earnest 
member of the Christian Church. Our subject, 
Dr. Hazlewood. inherits English and Irish Ijlood 
from his father. In 1842 he was taken by his 
parents to Mississippi, and until 1847 they resided 
near the city of Jackson, then moving to Hardin 
County, Tenn., and in 1852 to Perry County. In 
18(50 Dr. Hazlewood emigrated to Dunklin Coun- 
ty, Mo., and in 1870 to Oregon County, of the 
same State, and in 1871 he again made a change 
of residence, this time coming to Sharp County, 
Ark., and three years later to where he now lives. 
His lands amount to 215 acres, and he has about 
sixty acres under cultivation. His marriage to 
Miss Martha J. Lindsey took place August 1<). 
1855. She was born in Tennessee May 4, 1837, 
and is a daughter of John and Sarah Lindsey, who 
removed to Arkansas during the early history of 
that State, and there died. Dr. and Mrs. Hazle- 
wood became the parents of eleven children, of 
whom the following are living: Mary J. (wife of 
John A. Michael), Margaret M. (wife of C. C. 
Allen), Martha T. C, Julia I. V., Samuel J. S. 
and John S. D. The Doctor has been au ordained 
minister of the Christian Church since 18<S4, and 
has been a practicing physician since 1874. Dur- 
ing the war he served six months as lieutenant of 
Company B, Richardson's artillery. His first 
presidential vote was cast for John Boll, of Tt-ii 
nessee. He is a Master Mason. 

Joseph Highfill has given his attention strictly 
to farming throughout life, and his eaiuest en- 



^=-[v 



^ 



it 



286 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



deavors iu pursuing this calling, coupled with 
strict integrity and honesty of purpose, have 
placed him among the honored and respected agri- 
culturists of the county- He was born in Tennes- 
see in 1839. and is a son of Dr. James and Martha 
(Jackson) Highfill, who were born in Tennessee in 
1812 and 1825. and died in Oregon County. Mo., 
and Jackson County, Ark., in 1878 and 1874, re- 
spectively. The father was of English lineage, 
and was a well-known and skillful physician. He 
also followed the occupation of farming, and in 
this connection as well as in the capacity of a phy 
sician, he attained prominence. Bennett and 
Margaret Hightill emigrated from Tennessee to 
Dallas County, Mo., in 1854, and five years later 
moved to Oregon County. The grandfather Ben- 
nett died in Tennessee, and his wife in Dallas 
County, Mo. Joseph Highfill was the fourth of 
fourteen children, and made his home with his 
parents until twenty two years of age, receiving 
during his youth a very limited education. In 
1880 he removed from Oregon County, Mo., to 
where he now lives, and is the owner of a good 
farm, comprising 120 acres, with about forty acres 
under ciiltivation. Dnrincj the Rebellion he spent 
some eight months in the Confederate army, but 
has since been a Republican in politics. Miss 
Mary Kirby, who was born in Tennessee, in 1843, 
became his wife in 1803, and by her he has had a 
family of five children: Jennie, Rosa, Ellen, Alice 
and Hattie. They are also rearing an orphan 
child named Maud Koontz. Mrs. Highfill is a 
daughter of Henry and Temperance Kirby, the 
former born in the State of Tennessee, and the 
latter in North Carolina. They moved fi'om Ten- 
nessee to Illinois in 1851, and in 1859 located in 
Oregon County, Mo., where they both died. Mrs. 
Highfill belongs to the Christian Church. 

Sell W. Hinkle, farmer, is now following the 
occupation to which he was reared, and which has 
been his life work, a calling that for ages has re- 
ceived iindivided efforts from many worthy individ- 
uals, and one that furnishes sustenance to the ready 
worker. His parents, Jesse and Annie (Hopkin.s) 
Hinkle, were both natives of North Carolina, and 
at an early day came to Arkansas. They purchased 



a farm in Oil Trough Bottom, and made a great 
many improvements on it. Mr. Hinkle' s first mar- 
riage occurred in 1825 or 1826 in North Carolina, 
and this union was blessed by the birth of these 
children: Wes (deceased), Jesse (deceased). Nar- 
cissus, ' Artemus and Louisa. Mrs. Hinkle died 
about 1852, and Mr. Hinkle took for bis second 
wife, two years later. Miss Fannie Hopkins, who 
bore him two children: Sell and Sarah J. (de- 
ceased). Mr. Hinkle died near 1858, and his widow 
followed him to the grave the next year. Sell 
Hinkle began working for himself at the age of 
nineteen as a farm hand, and this continued until 
twent}' years of age. He then chose Miss Lucy 
Lee, of Leon County, Texas, as his companion 
through life, and they were married in 1878. Mr. 
Hinkle continued to farm in Oil Trough Bottom 
until 1S84, when he moved to Fulton County and 
bought 160 acres of land. He erected good build 
ings and made many other improvements, and still 
I owns eighty acres in Oil Trough Bottom, all well- 
improved and worth 150 per acre. Mrs. Hinkle is 
the daughter of Thomas and Jane (Merriman) Lee, 
and one of two children: Lucy, born November 10, 
1861, and Sarah, wife of Mr. James, living in Fill 
ton County. Mr. Lee died in 1865 from the effect 
of injuries received in a collision on the train. 
He served " in the Confederate army as a private. 
Mrs. Lee was married the second time in 1870 to 
Wesley Thompson, and by him became the mother 
of five children: George and Mollie (twins), Elijah, 
Carroll and Alice. Mrs. Thompson died in 1880, 
and Ml-. Thompson five years later. He was a 
farmer in Jackson County, Ark., and was one of 
the well-to-do farmers. Mr. Hinkle received a very 
meager education, but is a liberal supporter of 
public schools, etc. He is a Democrat in politics. 
Mrs. Hinkle is a member of the Christian Church. 
He belongs to the I. O. O. F. 

William Howard is one of the sturdy and pro- 
gressive tillers of the soil of Fulton County, Ark., 
and a man who has won a host of warm friends 
by his many admirable traits of character. He 
was born in Lauderdale County, Ala., August 15, 
1823, and is a son of Robert and Susan (Smith) 
Howard. The father died in Wayne County, Mo. , 



liL 



FULTON COUNTY. 



287 



wlipn our subject was about thirteen yt><li"s of age, 
and the ilate of his liirth is uiikiiovvu. He re- 
moved from Alabama to Missouri in 1820, and was 
of Irish descent, his iijrandfathei- having Ijeen born 
in the " Emerahl Isl(>. '" His wife was supposed to 
have been born in Alabama in 1805, and died in 
Jackson County, Ark. , in 1 8f)2. Two of her nine 
children are now living, of whom our subject is 
the eldest. He attended the common schools of 
Wayne County, Mo. , and until twenty two years 
of age remained faithfully by his mother, assist- 
mg her iu making a living. In March, 1844, he 
moved to Jackson County, Ark., and was married 
there in May two years later to Miss Caroline 
Kinder, who was born in Cape Girardeau County, 
Mo., in 1828. She died in her native county 
iu LS'il, having become the mother of two chil- 
dren, both of whom are deceased. On February 
22, 1S5S, he married Mrs. Elizabeth (Brecken- 
ridge) Dennis, who was born in Alabama in 1826. 
Of the seven children born to them only one is 
now living: William, who was born June 14, 1854, 
is living with his parents and is married to Susan 
Mtillens. They have two children: Robert L. and 
Walter C. Mr. and Mrs. Howard are members of 
the Baptiist Church. In 1863 Mr. Howard enlisted 
in Company E, Clark's regiment, and served un- 
til the final surrender, the latter part of his ser- 
vice being under Marmaduke. He was also with 
Price on his raid and served as second lieutenant. 
Since al)Out 1844 he has been a resident of Ar- 
kansas and in his political views has always been a 
Democrat, having cast his first presidential vote for 
James K. Polk. 

Dr. D. T. Hudgens, of Elizabeth. Ark., has 
been successful as both druggist and practicing 
physician, and is one of the prominent business 
men of the place. He was born in Pulaski County, 
Mo., March 27, 1850. and received his rudimentary 
education in the common schools, supplementing 
the same by a two years" course in the high school 
at Itolla. When about twenty years of age he en- 
gaged in farming, and two years later entered the 
ministry, being licensed in August, 1872. He was 
a traveling preacher for five years and held all 
the offices in the Free Will Baptist Church. He 



has l)een an ordained elder since 1872 and occa 
sionally occupies the pulpit now, thus administer 
ing to the spiritual wants of his fellow man as well 
as to their i)liysical n(>eds. He is popular with all. 
kind and courteous in his intercourse with his ac- 
quaintances, and is always to the front in aiding 
any enterprise which tends to the advancement of 
the county. In December, 1869, he selected a wife 
in the person of Miss Martha Ousley, a native of 
Osage County, Mo., and the daughter of William 
and Martha Ousley, the father one of the wealth- 
iest farmers of Pulaski County, Mo. This union 
resulted in the ))irth of five children, one son and 
three daughters living. While practicing he was 
studying medicine in Pulaski County, and in 1878 
he came to Fulton County and was the first settler 
at Elizabeth, becoming one of the most successful 
and prominent physiciaiis of the county. When 
first entering upon the practice of his profession 
he was in poor circumstancc^s. but his true worth 
soon became apparent and a large patronage was 
the result. Ho never attended medical college, but 
in 1882 he passed the l)est examination before the 
medical examiners of any physician in Fulton Coun- 
ty. For three years he has been in the drug bus 
iness in connection with his practice. He was the 
first postmaster at Elizabeth and held the position 
for several years. A Democrat in his political 
preferences, his first presidential vote was cast for 
Tilden in 1876. He was a charter member of AVild 
Cherry Lodge No. 443, A. F. & A. M., and has 
held nearly all the offices. He is also a member 
of Eastern Star Chaj»ter, at Wild Cherry. His 
wife has been a member of the church for many 
years, and he has been a member since 180(1. 
His parents, Robert and Mahala C. (Dodd) Hudg 
ens, were born in Kentucky and Tennessee, re- 
spectively. They were married in Missouri, where 
they were eai-ly settlers, and there the father was 
a successful attorney for twenty years. He died 
in Rolla in October, 1864, and at the time of his 
death was one of the leading lawyers of Southern 
^lissouri, then holding, also, the position of provost 
marshal. He was also treasurer of Pulaski County 
at one time. After his death his widow married 
again and moved to Elizabeth, where shi' died in 



1885. She was a member of the Baptist Church 
for soventeen years. 

Jacob T. Hudson is a man whose natural char- 
acteristics have especially favored as a tiller of the 
soil. The pursuit of agriculture has afforded him 
high gratification, and in the conduct of a farm 
the jirinciples which he haa held have been pecu- 
liarly adapted to the successful development and 
improvement of the varied elements of farm life. 
Of unquestioned honesty and integrity, his course 
through life has been unimpaired by criticism. Mr. 
Hudson was born in Itawamba County, Miss., in 
1850, and is the son of William P. and Celia 
(Thomas) Hudson, the former a native of Anson 
County, N. C, born July 8, 1808, and the latter 
of Darlington District, S. C. They were wedded 
in the last named place, and from there removed 
to Pickens County, Ala., in 1845 or 1846, and 
from there soon after to Itawamba County. Miss. 
In 1870 they moved to Fulton County, Ark., and 
there Mr. Hudson died in 1871. He was a well- 
to-do farmer, and was of Dutch extraction. His 
wife died in Tennessee about 1884, and both were 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church. Like 
most of the youths of that viciuity, as he grew up, 
he devoted his time and attention to farming, re- 
ceiving in the meantime a rather limited amount 
of schooling. In ISrJO he came with his brother- 
in law to Fulton County, and was engaged in farm 
labor until 1873, when he was united in marriage 
to Miss Martha E., daughter of Josiah and Ma- 
tilda Ross, natives of Tenne.ssee and Kentucky, 
respectively. Mr. Ross died in Fulton County, 
but his wife is still living. Mrs. Hudson was born 
in Izard County, and by her union to Mr. Hudson 
became the mother of six childi-en, one son and 
three daughters living. Since 1878 Mr. Hudson 
has lived on his present farm of 175 acres, with 
sixty-five or seventy under cultivation. All this is 
his own work, as there were but twelve acres cleared 
when he first settled there. He is a Republican 
in his political views, and his first presidential vote 
was for Gen. Grant in 1872. He has been a mem- 
ber of Lodge No. 443, A. F. & A. M. , at Wild 
Cherry, and has held nearly all the ofiices except 
Master. He is also a memlier of Ladies Chapter 



of Eastern Star (White Lily) No. fil. at Wild 
Cherry, and is a charter member of both lodges. 
He and wife belong to the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and he is clerk in the Mount Vernon and 
Pleasant Ridge Church. One brotlier, E. D., and 
two sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth Wallace and Mrs. 
Argen D. Harris, are residing in Fulton County, 
while one brother, John A., is in Alabama, and 
two sisters, Mrs. Mary P. Mayhall and Mrs. Bet 
sey A. Mayhall, are both natives of Mississippi. 

Dr. John S. Hutchensou, physician and sur- 
geon. Wild Cherry. Among the people of Fulton 
as well as surrounding counties the name that 
heads this sketch is by no means an unfamiliar 
one, for for many years he has been active and 
successfully occupied in the prosecution of his 
chosen profession, and during that time his career 
as a practitioner and thorough student of medicine 
has won for him no less a reputation than did his 
personal characteristics as a citizen and neighbor. 
He owes his nativity to Carroll County, Ark. , where 
he was born in 1854. His parents, John W. 
and Mary (Sudduth) Hutchenson, the former a na- 
tive of Alabama, and the latter of South Carolina, 
were married in Mississippi, about 1850, later re- 
moving to Carroll County, Ark. , and four years 
after to Fulton County, of the same State. They 
settled on the farm where the Doctor is now living, 
and in 1855 the father went to Kansas and was 
absent about four months in search for gold. He 
was a farmer, but also followed merchandising at 
Wild Cherry. There he died in 1858 in full com- 
munion with the Christian Church. Mrs. Hutch- 
enson was married twice, Mr. Hutchenson being 
her last husband. She has been living on the old 
home place since 1854, and is one of the old set- 
tlers in Big Creek Township. She has be(>n a 
member of the Christian Church for many years. 
Dr. John S. Hutchenson wasthe third of four sons: 
and his education was acquired in the common 
.schools. When sixteen years of age he began the 
study of medicine and in 1878 ami 187U at- 
tended Keokuk Medical College, at Keokuk, Iowa, 
and has since practiced his profession in the locality 
in which he was reared. January 2, 1874, Miss 
Mary Trap, originally from Tennessee, became his 



rv 



« 



FULTON COUNTY. 



285) 



wife. She was sin orphan, was roared in Missouri, 
and died on September 20, 187(5, leaving one son. 
She was a member in good standing in the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church. Dr, Hutcheuson owns the 
home farm of 520 acres, with 225 under cultiva- 
tion. He is the only child living of his father's 
family. In politics he affiliates with the Demo 
cratic party, and cast his fiist presidential vote for 
S. J. Tilden in 1870. 

P. P. B. Hynson of the general mercantile lirm 
of Archer, Daniel & Co. of Mammoth Spring, 
Ark., was born in Batesville, Independence Coun- 
ty, in 1851, his parents being William and lios- 
alie (Burton) Hynson, the former of Maryland by 
birth and rearing. In 1838 he came to Arkan- 
sas, and located at Batesville, where he married 
in 1842, and resided until his death in 1858, at the 
age of forty three years. His family came from 
England and settled upon the eastern shore of 
Maryland. His wife was born in Virginia, and 
now resides in Batesville, having become the 
mother of four children. The maternal grand- 
father. P. P. Burton, was a native of Virginia, and 
was a successful physician; he graduated from 
a medical college at Philadelphia, and tirst prac 
ticed his profession at Lexington, Va. , then at 
Holly Springs, Miss., and finally located in Little 
Rock, Ark., in 1840. He was a practicing ]ihysi- 
cian for sixty years, and was United States sur- 
geon at Little Rock for many years. His death 
occurred in 1S72 at the age of eighty-five years. 
The great grandfather was a Scotchman, who moved 
from his native land to the colonies at an early day, 
and during the progress of the Revolutionary War 
served in the Continental army in the rank of 
major. He was donated 4,000 acres of land by the 
Government for valuable services. P. P. B. Hyn- 
son was educated in Batesville, Ark. , and began 
life for himself as a clerk in a general mercantile 
store in that town at the age of sixteen years, con- 
tinuing until 1871 when he became a member of 
the firm, remaining as such until 1873. Since 1876 
he has been a resident of Fulton County, Ark., 
and has been associated with his present partners. 
They carry a stock of goods valued at about ^2'!.- 
000. Mr. Hynson is president and a stockholder 



of the Mammoth Spring Fish Farm, is a director 
in the Motor Light & Water Company and is a di 
rector of the Building & Loan Association, all of 
these companies being incorporateil. He was mar 
ried in 1879 to Miss MoUie McKee, of Owensboro. 
Ky. . and their union has resulted in the l)irth of fonr 
children : Robert T., Rosalie B. , Lawrence M. and 
Selden L. Mr. Hynson is a Democrat. His 
grandmother was a Scott, a relative of Gen. Scott. 
William M. Lafevers, farmer, Viola. No 
worthy reference to the affairs of this county 
would be com[)lete without mention of Mr. Lafevers, 
who, among others, is engaged in tilling the soil. 
Besides enjoying to an unlimited extent the conti 
dence and respect of all who know him he came 
of a family of children that have not only done 
credit to themselves but have brought honor upon 
the name they bear. Mr. Lafevers' parents, Alex- 
ander and Rebecca (Bradley) Lafevers, were both 
natives of North Carolina, the father bora iu Burke 
County and the mother in Cherokee County. They 
moved to Hardin County, Tenn., in 1871, to Izard 
County, Ark., about 1876, and to Fulton County 
in 1878, where Mrs Lafevers died in 1883. The 
father is still living, and is sixty-four years of age. 
He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, as 
was also his wife. He is a farmer by occupation 
and served in both th(* Mexican and Civil Wars. 
Of the ten children born to his marriage seven are 
still living, and all but one iu Fulton County. 
William M. Lafevers is the eldest child of thi.-^ 
family. He was born in Cherokee County, N. C. . 
in lNr)2, and though his educational advantages iu 
youth were very meager, and though perhaps deti 
cient in general learning, his vigorous mind has so 
grasped and embraced the opportunities which 
have presented themselves that he is accounted 
among the intelligent men of this vicinity. He 
was from the first taught everything connected with 
farming, later moving with his parents to Izard 
County. In 1875 he wedded Miss Tennessee Cole, 
daughter of Henry and Mary Cole, early settler> 
of Arkansas, and the same year of his mairiage 
he moved to Fulton County. He is the owner of 
207 acres of land, with 100 under cultivation, and 
also has other interests. He is a Democrat in 



"' w^ 



21)0 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



politics, casting his first vote for Tilden: is a mem- 
h)er of the Agricultural Wheel, and he and wife 
belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
William Thomas Livingston. The many j'ears 
])assed in sincere and earnest endeavor in thor- 
oughly discharging every duty in the different 
branches of business to which his attention has 
been directed, have contributed very materially to 
the success that has fallen to the career of Mr. L. 
He was born in Chambers County, Ala., May 14, 
1885, and is a son of James T. and Emma W. 
(Childs) Livingston, who were born in Abbeville 
District, S. C, in 1803 and 1810. and died in 
Fulton County, Ark.. July 7, 1859, and in 1864, 
respectively. Their marriage took place in their 
native district in 1830. and about three years later 
they moved to Chambers County, Ala., and in 
1850 to Cass County, Ga. (now known as Bartow 
County), where they made their home until the 
fall of 1856. Then they came to Arkansas and 
located in Fulton County, the country at that time 
being in a very wild and unsettled condition and 
the homes of the settlers few and far between. 
Mr. Livingston engaged in farming and milling, 
and was successful in the former occupation, but in 
the latter his efPorts were not attended with good 
results. He served in the Creek War for a short 
time, and while in Alabama and Georgia held the 
office of justice of the peace at different times, and 
at the time of his death in this State he was county 
surveyor of Fulton County. He acquired an excel- 
lent education by experience as a salesman in a 
mercantile establishment in Old Cambridge, S. C, 
and afterward became a partner in the business. 
He was a son of Thomas Livingston, who was a 
soldier in the Revolutionary War, being at the 
battle of Horse Shoe Bend. He died in Abbeville 
District, S. C. William Thomas Livingston, our 
immediate subject, was the second of eight chil- 
dren, six of whom survive, and acquired his edu- 
cation in the common schools of Alabama and 
Georgia. He remained faithf ullj' by his parents 
until their deaths, and assisted his father in man- 
aging the home place. In 1858 he was appointed 
deputy sheriff under Thomas E. Martin, serving 
two years, then farmed iintil May, 1862. at which 



time he enlisted in the Confederate army, in the 
Tenth Missouri Infantry, and served as forage and 
wagon-master until starting for home the day 
Isefore Lee surrendered. April S, 1865, with a dis- 
charge by reason of his election as representative 
of his county. After his retui-n home he again 
took up the implements of farm life, was appointed 
deputy sheriff of Fulton County, and in 1S6H again 
appointed to the same position under M. Y. 
Shaver, and again in 1867 under E. O. Wolf. In 
1872, at the close of reconstruction, he was elected 
sheriff, again in 1876 and 1878, then in 1882, and 
once more in 1886, in all ten years — a longer term 
of office than has ever been held by any one man in 
the county, with the exception of W. P. Rhea, who 
was circuit court clerk for the same length of time. 
He was assessor of Fulton County in 1859, 1867 
and 1868: and in 1864, while in the army, was 
elected to represent Fulton County in the General 
Assembly. In 1867 his union with Miss Louesa 
L. Jenkins took place, and by her he became the 
father of eleven children, seven of whom are living: 
James T. , William S., Mary T. , Emma J., Carrie 
M. . Cora A. and Daisy B. Mr. Livingston is a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church, is a 
Democrat in his political views, and has shown his 
brotherly spirit by becoming a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, rejiresenting his lodge in the 
Grand Lodge in 1873. 

Hon. E. R. Lucas, farmer, Viola. No name is 
justl)' entitled to a more enviable place in the his- 
tory of Fulton County than the one which heads 
this sketch, for it is borne by a man who has been 
usefully and honorably identified with the inter- 
ests of this county, and with its advancement, in 
every worthy particular. He owes his nativity to 
Dallas County, Ala., where he was born in 1835. 
His parents, Harvey B. and Amy (Wilson) Lucas, 
were born in Kentucky, in 1808, and Georgia, in 
1810, respectively. The father went to New York 
City when twenty-one years of age, engaged in 
merchandising, but was burned out in the fire of 
1833. After this he went to Alabama, was mar- 
ried there, and began the study of medicine. He 
practiced in that State for some time, then gradu- 
ated in his profession at Cincinnati, Ohio, after 





w^ ^ 





SC EDl-A 

Mississippi County, Arkansas 



>>• 



PULTON COUNTY. 



'2111 



whieli, his health beiug very poor, ho was advised 
to go to Europe, but died on the ocean, in 1844 or 
lS4r). leavini; a wife and fonr children, in poor 
circnmstanoes. He was of Scotch descent, was a 
member of the Baptist Chnrcli, also a Mason, 
and was a very promising man. His widow is 
still living, and has been a meml)er of the Baptist 
Clinrch for over sixty years. She reared four 
children, Hon. E. R. lieing the eldest. Ho re 
ceived very little education until grown, and then 
taught seven terms of school. His wife was for- 
niejly Miss Nancy Radford, whom he married in 
liSriO. Her parents, Reuben and Sarah Radford, 
were natives, respectively, of Alabama and Ken- 
tucky, and jiassed their last days in the former 
State, Mrs. Radford dying in 1853, and Mr. Rad- 
ford some years previous. To Mr. and Mrs. Lucas 
were born ten children, throe sons and four dangh 
ters living. Mr. Lucas served through the war, 
having enlisted in Company K, Eleventh Alabama 
Volunteer Infantry, Confederate Army; the first 
year he was a private, then third lieutenant, and 
afterward first lieutenant, and finally captain. He 
operated in Northern Virginia with Gen. Lee, and 
was in twenty- four general engagements, among 
them Seven Pines, seven days' fight before Rich- 
mond, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettys- 
burg, Wilderness. Spottsylvania, etc., and was 
never captured nor wounded. He received a fur- 
lough, and was at home during the final surrender. 
He then returned to tilling the soil, and in 186'J 
came to Fulton County, Ark. , where he has since 
lived, residing on his present farm for the |>ast six 
years. He has been a close student all his life, 
and is at present one of the best informed men in 
Fulton County. In 1874 he was a member of 
the constitutional convention that framed the pres- 
ent constitution of Arkansas, and in 1882 was 
elected to represent the county mentioned in the 
State legislature, holding the position for two 
years. He has been a life-long Democrat, and his 
first presidential vote was for James Buchanan, in 
1^5(1 He has been a Mason since 1801. now 
belonging to Viola Lodge No. 399. and has held 
nearly all the offices, and was Master two years. 
He is also a member of the Agricultural Wheel. 



He and wife belong to the Missionary Ba])tist 
Church, in which he has been a divicon for a num- 
ber of years. His maternal grandfather, William 
Wilson, was a native Virginian, and died in Georgia. 
He was of English descent, and a soldier in the 
Rm'olutionary War. Mr. Lucas has one brother, 
Rev. Oscar M. Lucas, who has been a prominent 
Baptist minister for about twenty-five years. He 
was educated principally at Mountain Home, in 
Baxter County. William P., another brother, 
served about fourteen months in the ('onfederate 
army, and was wounded at the seven days' battle, 
in June, 1802, and died from the effects July 9, of 
the same year. A sister, Sarah F., is the wife of 
William P. Cameron, and is also a member of the 
Baptist Church. 

Elder Joseph B. McGlasson, minister of the 
(christian Church, and farmer of Big Creek Town 
shij>, was born in Cumberland County, Ky., in 
1809, and is at present one of the oldest and most 
esteemed citizens of Fulton County. His early life 
was one of hardship and trouble, and at that day 
he received very limited educational advantages, 
the most of his education being acquired after 
attaining his majority. Previous to that he had 
left home under rather unpleasant circumstances, 
his father being (|uite dissipated, and ragged and 
bare-foot, and with little or no schooling, he was 
compelled to make his way in life. He worked for 
a man one day to get some leather, and for anothei- 
man a short time to get the leather made up into 
a pair of shoes. He continued to labor at such 
occupation as be could find, until he had a good 
suit of clothes, after which he attended school, etc. 
He was married September 16, 1830, to Miss 
Fannie Ross, who was originally from Cumberland 
County, Ky., and who died in Fulton County. 
Ark., in 1858. Eleven children were born to tliis 
marriage, six sons and five daughters, only four of 
whom are now living, viz.: Isabelle S. , Susan, 
wife of William L. Cavnett, of Phelps County, M<>. : 
Jane and Fannie. Mr. McGlasson's second nuir 
riage occurred, in isr)9, to Mrs. JIargaret J. Nib- 
blett, daughter of William and Lucy Fewell. 
She was born in Alaljama, and by her marriage 
became the mother of four children, two now 



* » 



292 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



liviug: Francis M. and Tabitba. wife of James ' 
James, of Randolph County, Ark. The second 
Mrs. McGlasson died about 1877, and Mr. Mc- 
Glasson then married Mrs. Nancy Hewitt, who 
died in 1883. In August of the following year 
he man'ied Mrs. Elizabeth Watson, daughter of 
James Hammond, and a native of Graves County, 
Ky. She was previously a member of the Baptist | 
Church, but for the last seven years has been a 
member of the Christian Church. In 1836 Mr. 
McGlasson removed to Southwest Arkansas, where 
he remained until 1851, then locating in Izard 
County, and from there, one year later, in Fulton 
County, Ark. He settled in the neighborhood 
where he now lives, and was one of the first white 
settlers of the county, he being only one of two \ 
now living in Big Creek Township who were I 
in that township at that time. He has long been 
recognized as an honest, upright and much es- 
teemed citizen, and one of the county's leading 
farmers. He now has 148 acres of land, with 
some sixty acres under cultivation. For about 
fifty- eight years he has been a Christian, first a 
member of the Methodist Church, and in 1845 he 
was licensed to preach by that church. He has 
preached more or less ever since, and is among 
the oldest ministers of Arkansas. He was a Meth- 
odist until the separation in 1845, and was then a 
Protestant Methodist until the war. He then re- 
mained out of the church until 18*35, when he 
joined the Christian Church. From 1844 to 1850 
he was justice of the peace, and filled this position 
for four years in Fulton County. He was drum- 
mer for four years in the militia in Kentucky, and 
was lieutenant of a volunteer company in the 
year 1845. In politics he has been a Democrat 
all his life, and his first presidential vote was . 
cast for Andrew Jackson, in 1828. He is a mem- 
ber of Wild Cherry Lodge No. 85, I. O. O. F. 
Mr. McGlasson is the son of James and Susannah 
(Harley) McGlasson, natives of Virginia, born in ' 
Franklin and Bedford Counties, respectively. The 
parents were married in their native State, in 
1807, and removed to Cumberland County, Ky. , 
locating in the woods, and were among the very 
earliest settlers. Theie they spent their entire , 



lives, the mother dying since the war, at the age 
of ninety-seven years. She was a member of the 
Baptist Church for many years. The father was 
a good farmer. They were the parents of eleven 
children. Matt McGlasson, the grandfather of 
the subject of this sketch, was a native of Scot- 
land, and came to America when quite young. He 
enlisted in the Revolutionary War when only 
eighteen years of age, and was in service during 
the entire war. He located first in Virginia, but 
later moved to Kentucky, where he passed his 
last days. He was one of the first settlers. His 
wife, Elizabeth Cunningham, was born in France. 
Mathew McGlasson, the great-grandfather of the 
subject of this sketch, spent his entire life in Scot- 
land. The maternal grandfather, Francis Harley, 
was of Dutch descent, and died in Virginia. 

Azriah W. McKenzie. The career of Mr. Mc- 
Kenzie presents an example of industry, j)ersever- 
ance and good management, rewarded by substan 
tial results, well worthy the imitation of all who 
start out in life as he did with no capital except a 
good constitution and liberal supply of pluck and 
energy. He is numbered among those of Georgia 
nativity now in Fulton County, having been born 
in that State on the 7th of November, 1831. 
John McKenzie, his father, was a Georgian, born 
about 1800, and first settled in the wilds of Law- 
rence County, Ark., in 1848. He pursued the oc- 
cupation of farming until his death at the age of 
sixty-five years. After residing in Lawrence 
County a few years he moved to Madison County, 
thence to Missouri, and finally returned to his son's 
(Azriah) home in 1862. He was a soldier in the 
Florida and Indian War. His father was born in 
Scotland, and came to the United States at the 
time of the Revolutionary War. Our subject's 
mother was a Miss Jane Canady, who was born in 
Georgia, about 1801, and died in Lawrence 
County, Ark. (now Sharp County), in 1851. She 
was the mother of seven sons and four daughters, 
all of whom grew to mature years, and two of 
whom art5 now liviug: Azriah and a sister, both of 
whom live in Fulton County. The former was the 
sixth of the family, and remained with his parents 
until about eighteen years of age, when he started 



~7n 



for California, which State he reached in the sum- 
mer of 1852. He remained there engaged in 
mining until December, 1857, then returned to 
Arkansas, where he continued until the spring of 
1859, when he again crossed the plains, and for 
two yeai's was occupied in cattle dealing in Cali- 
fornia. In the last named year he again returned 
home, and in July of that year enlisted in the 
('onfederate army, being under Capt. Wyatt, and 
>erved until the close of the war. He was taken 
prisoner at Big Blue while with Price on his raid, 
and was retained at Alton, 111., for four months, 
lifter which he was jiaroled. He then rejoined 
his company in the south part of Arkansas, and 
at the close of hostilities returned home and re- 
sumed his farming operations. He has a fine farm 
of 400 acres, with 185 under cultivation, which he 
has acfpiired by hard work and good management. 
His first vote for the presidency was cast for Frank- 
lin Pierce, and he has always been a Democrat. 
He is unmarried. 

Dr. Joel McLemore, a physician of acknowl- 
edged merit in Fulton County, was born in Hali- 
fax County. N. C, June 1'2, 1835. and there re- 
mained until ten years of age, when he was taken 
by his mother to Tennessee, receiving his liter- 
ary education in Waynesboro, of that State. Dur- 
ing this time he formed a strong desire to study 
medicine and made the investigation of this 
science his chief business for a number of years. 
He has been practicing since 1865, and has 
been a successful practitioner of Fulton County 
ever since 1878. In October. 1855, he was mar- 
ried in Tennessee to Miss Harriet G. McClearen, 
who was born and reareil in Hickman County, 
Middle Tenn. Her parents, John and Elzada 
(.\dams) McClearen, were born in Northern Ala 
bama and Bedford County, Tenn., respectively. 
To Dr. and Mrs. McLemore nine children have 
been given, seven of whom are living: John B., 
Joel H. (deceased), James F. , William B.. Albert 
A.. Sterling P.. Samuel (i., an infant deceased, 
and Allie. During the late war the Doctor served 
four years in the Confederate army as major of a 
battalion. He is a Master Mason, a member of the 
Democratic party, and he and wife belong to 



the iMethodist Protestant Chinch. He owns a 
farm of 240 acres on English Creek, aboijt seven- 
ty-five acres of which are under cultivation. His 
tiarents, Joel and Mrs. Elizabeth (PuUou) McLe- 
more, were born in Virginia and North Carolina in 
May, 1773, and 1803, respectively. The father re- 
moved to North Carolina when a young man and 
was married there. He was a tailor by trade, and 
also followed the occupation of farming, and on his 
extensive plantation in Halifax County employed lOO 
hands. He was twice married, Miss Pullen lieing 
his second wife, and by her he became the father 
of two sons; Joel, and James H., who lives in 
Wayne County. , Tenn. After his demise his widow 
mairied John Whittakei-. and moved to P(>rry 
County, Tenn.. whore she died in April, 1859. 
The jiaternal grandparents of our subject were 
born near London, England, and a short time 
prior to the R(;volutionary ^\ar they emigrated 
to the United States and settled near Richmond, 
Va., where they afterward died. The grandfather 
served as major in the Continental army during 
that war. 

Jesse Matthews is a iiewspajwr man of long ex- 
perience, his connection with his present pajjer 
dating from January 8, 1879. Under his able 
management it has become recognized as a journal 
of decided merit, its editorials being written with 
a clearness and force which indicate a writer of 
ability, while it has become very jiopular for its 
bold and fearless advocacy of measures which it 
deems will |)rove of benefit to this section. His 
parents, Jesse and Mary ( Houston) Matthews, were 
born in Baltimore, Md. . and Paris. Bourbon 
County, Ky., respectively, the former being reared 
to manhood in his native town; then he came west 
and settled at Glasgow, Mo., in whicii place he en- 
gaged in merchant tailoring, and followed this oc- 
cupation for some time. In 1849 he went to Cali- 
fornia, where he spent eight years in gold digging, 
accumulating considerable money. After his re- 
turn to Missouri he located at Huntsville. where his 
worthy wife departed this life. aft(>r which lie re- 
moved to the northwest county in Missouri, where 
he is spending his declining years with a son. The 
paternal grandfather was an early emigrant to 



J^l 



294 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



America, ami was of Scotch ancestry although 
born iu the " " Emerald Isle. ' ' Jesse Matthews, the 
immediate subject of this sketch, was reared at 
Huiitsville. Randolph County, Mo., but was fav- 
ored with only poor advantages for obtaining an 
education, which he improved by entering a print- 
ing office when fourteen years of age, only going 
to school two ten months' sessions. In 1874 he 
was married to Miss Sarah E. Rider, who was born 
in Pulaski County, Mo. , in 1856, and six children 
blessed their union: Maggie A., Edgar M., Elmer 
H. , Mattie, Jessie P., Earnest L. and Emmett G. 
Mr. Matthews learned the printer's trade in his 
youth at Huntsville, Mo., commencing his appren- 
ticeship in July, 1864, and serving five years. He 
then went to Kansas City, and worked on the 
"Kansas City Times" as a compositor for one 
year, and the following year worked on the 
' ' Oswego (Kansas) Register. ' ' He next made a 
short stay iu Arkansas, after which he went back 
to Missouri, and for four years worked at Salem 
on ' ' The Success, ' ' as foreman. He next went to 
Pulaski County where he bought a printer's out- 
fit, and moved to Gainesville, establishing the 
"Gainesville Gazette," afterward removing to 
Licking, where he established the ' ' Ledger, ' ' 
which he conducted one year, then starting the 
" Spirit,"' at Salem, Mo. Since January 8, 1879, 
he has been a resident of Salem, Ark., establish- 
ing the ' ' Salem Informer" " at the above date, 
which he has continuously published up to the 
present time. Mr. Matthews is a conservative 
Democrat, and his paper is independent. He is 
a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and also a mem- 
ber of the Kansas City Typographical Union. 

K. B. Maxey is an attorney of Salem, Ark., who 
has steadily and surely made his way to the front 
in the practice of his chosen profession, and as a 
prominent and useful citizen. He was born in 
Giles County, Tenn., October 11, 1846, and re- 
ceived his education in Lebanon, Wilson County, 
Tenn., and while there formed habits of applica- 
tion and industry so essential to any successful 
career through life, and which stood him iu good 
service when entering upon his legal studies, 
which he did after wielding the ferule for three 



years. His legal ])receptor was AV. F. Hender- 
son, the present supreme judge of New Mexico, 
who was then attorney general of Arkansas. He 
was admitted to the bar of Randolph County, Ark., 
in March, 1872, and the two following years were 
spent in practicing his profession at Pocahontas, 
Mo. From that time until 1878 he resided iu 
Corning, Clay County, Ark. , and then on account of 
ill health, came to Salem, where he has since been 
engaged in regular practice and the real estate 
business. He owns considerable land in the county, 
and some valuable town property. Miss Minnie 
Jones, who was born in Pocahontas, Randolph 
County, Mo., became his wife in 1874, and by her 
he has an interesting family of four children: 
Ollie, Soula, Kittie and Harry. Mr. Maxey holds 
a membership in the I. O. O. F. lodge at Poca- 
hontas, and he and his wife are worthy members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Maxey's 
parents, J. H. and Elizabeth (Black) Maxey, were 
born in the State of Virginia, the former's birth 
occurring in 1812. He was reared to a farm life 
in Tennessee, and there married and spent his life, 
his death occurring in 1871. His wife, who died 
in 1850, bore him five children. Grandfather 
Maxey was a Virginian, who emigrated to Tennes- 
see at an early day, and there spent the rest of his 
days. 

Daniel W. Mitchell, farmer, merchant, and 
postmaster of Mitchell postoffice, which was estab- 
lished in 1881, through his efforts, owes his birth 
to Marion County, Tenn. , where he was born in 
1828. His father, Warren W. Mitchell, was a na- 
tive of North Carolina, born in 1782, and was mar 
ried in Tennessee to Mrs. Blender Lewis, also a 
native of North Carolina, and born in the year 
1792. The father died in Tennessee in 1842. He 
was a successful tiller of the soil. His father, 
John Mitchell, was born and reared in Ireland, 
but on coming to the United States, settled in North 
Carolina, and there died. He served all through 
the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Elender (Lewis) 
Mitchell was married the hrst time in North Caro- 
lina. After the death of Mr. Mitchell, she re- 
moved to North Mississippi, and there died in April, 
1857. Her father, Harbored Lewis, was a Welsh- 



"71 



" — " i\ 



FULTON COUNTY. 



2'.)r. 



man, luul his wife wrh Diitcli. They came to 
America prior to the Revohitionar}- War, settling j 
in Chatham County, N. C, and there passed the 
remainder of their lives. Daniel W., the second of 
tliree sous and four daughters born to his parents, 
received a very limited education, and remained 
with his mother uatil grown, taking charge of the 
family at the age of seventeen. His marriage oc- 
ciured in 1856 to Miss P. A. Walker, a native of 
Alabama, and the daughter of John and Mary 
Walker, who were natives of Tennessee, but who 
passed the last of their days in Mississippi. Mr. 
Mitchell lived in Mississippi until during the war, | 
when he moved to Perry County, 111. , after which he 
returned to Mississippi. In ISTOhecame to Fulton 
County, rented land until 1872, and then settled in 
the dense woods on his present farm, now of about 
600 acres, with 100 acres under cultivation, all 
the result of his own energy, never having inherited 
anything. He is at present a prominent farmer, 
and a successful business man. In 1883 he es- ! 
tablished a store on his farm, and has carried this 
on nearlj' ever since. He was justice of the peace for 
some years in Mississippi, and also filled that posi- 
tion for about two years in Fulton County. In 
politics he was reared a Whig, but is now a Ke- 
publican. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell are members in 
good standing in the Methodist Episcopal Chui'ch, 
and he has been steward in the same for many 
years. 

Edward S. Nesbit is manager of the Nesbit 
Lumber Company, of Mammoth Spring, Ark., 
dealers in dressed and rough lumber, shingles, sash, 
doors, blinds, lime, cement, laths, hair, etc. This 
business was established in March, 1889. Mr. 
Nesbit was born in De Soto County, Miss., in 1838, 
and is the son of Thomas and Margaret (Driver) 
N(>sbit, natives of South Carolina and Alabama, re- 
spectively. When a boy, Thomas Nesbit went to 
Alabama, where he grew to manhood, married, 
and soon after removed to Mississippi, being one 
of the pioneers of that State. He was a wealthy 
farmer, and died in the last mentioned State in 
1SS5, at the age of seventy-three years. He was 
the founder of the town of Nesbit. on the Illinois 
Central Railroad, and one of the most prominent 



citizens of the locality in which he lived. He and 
wife were for many years members in good stand- 
ing in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
Thomas Nesbit, grandfather of Edward H. Nesbit, 
was of Irish parentage, and was a soldier in the 
Revolutionary War. Mrs. Nesbit died about 1881 ; 
she was the daughter of Lewis Driver, who was 
a wealthy agriculturist, and who died in Alabama. 
Of the nine children born to his parents, Edward S. 
Nesbit was the third. He secured a fair education 
in the common schools until nearly grown, and 
when nineteen years of age graduated from W'es- 
leyan University at Florence, Ala. He then en 
gaged in the lumber and saw-mill Imsiness on 
Tallahatchee River, where he remained until the 
breaking out of the Civil War. He then joined 
Company K, Ninth Mississippi Volunteer Infantry, 
and nine months later was appointed lieutenant 
of a battalion of sharp shooters, serving in that 
capacity until the close of the war. He was ca]) 
tured in West Mississippi in October, 1802, and 
was held a prisoner at Fort Pickering for about 
three months. At the close of the strife he en- 
gaged in farming and merchandising, which he 
carried on for some time. On the 1st of March, 
1861, he married Miss Maggie Bradford, a native 
of Arkansas, and who died in 1866. Her father. 
Thomas Bradford, was one of the organizers of the 
Mississippi and Tennessee, now Illinois Central 
Railroad Company. He was a director and leading 
factor in that road until his death. To Mr. and 
Mrs. Nesbit were born four children, two sons auil 
two daughters, all living. Mr. Nesbit" s secoml 
marriage occurred about 1881, to Mrs. Nancy E. 
Nesbit, daughter of J. R. Jeffer^'s, a native of 
Virginia, who died about 1884, in De Soto County, 
Miss. Mrs. Nesbit was also born in Virginia. Mr. 
Nesbit lived in his native county until 18SI, when 
he removed to Imboden, and in ISS'J to Mammotli 
Spring. He was in company with his father in 
the milling, ginning and lumber business, and this 
continued extensively until he came to Arkansas. 
and was then connected with the Imboden Milling 
Company, until 1889. He was mayor of Nesbit, 
Miss., for a number of years. Politically, he was 
a Whig until the war, since which time he has 



7?=;=" 



;r^ 



290 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



been a Democrat, casting bis fiist presidential vote 
for Bell in 1860. He is a Master Mason and Royal 
Arch Mason, and also belongs to the K. of H. 
and K. of L. He is a member of the Cuml>erland 
Presbyterian Church, and bis wife of the Mission- 
ary Baptist. Their children are named as follows: 
Mary E., wife of W. J. Johnson, farmer of De Soto 
County, Miss.: Edward S., Jr.. was educated at 
Nesbit, Miss. , and is a telegraph operator at ImVio- 
den; Milton W. received his education at the same 
place, and is also a telegraph operator at Portia; 
Maggie E. was educated principally at Pulaski, 
Tenn. The children received good school advant- 
ages. 

H. F. Northcutt. one of the most efficient cir- 
cuit and county clerks Fulton County has ever had, 
is a young man well known in the community, and 
has been an incumbent of his present office since 
the fall of 1886, serving by re-election. In the 
year 1863 he first saw the light of day in Warren 
County, Tenn., but was reared in this county, and 
although he attended the free schools for some 
time, he is mainly self-educated. After following 
the monotonous duties of farm life for some time, 
he abandoned this work to enter the county clerk" s 
office as deputy, continuing as such until he was 
elected to the office of county assessor, as soon as 
he was eligible for office, when twenty one years 
of age. He continued to discharge the duties of 
this office in a very satisfactory manner until 1886, 
at which time he was elected to his present posi- 
tion. In social as well as public life he is kind, 
courteous and afPable in his demeanor to all classes, 
and is a young man who attracts the regard of all 
who approach him. He is Democratic in politics, 
and has shown his approval of secret societies by 
becoming a member of the I. O. O. F. His wife 
was formerly Miss Mattie L. Wainwright, whom 
he married in September, 1885. she having been 
born in Fulton County. Ark. Mr. Northcutt is a 
son of J. M. and Mary E. (Doughty) Northcutt, 
who were born in Warren and Wilson Counties, 
Tenn., respectively. They were reared, educated 
and married in their native State, and there made 
their home until 1868, when they came to Arkan- 
sas, locating in Fulton County, at Salem. Mr. 



Northcutt established a general mercantile store, 
and did a prosperous business for a number of 
years, being also quite extensively engaged in stock 
dealing. At one time he left home to dispose of 
some stock and was never afterward heard from, 
but all his baggage was traced to Louisville, Ky. , 
and the supposition is that he was murdered for 
his money. His widow and two children survive 
him (two other children having died), the former 
being a resident of Salem. The paternal grand- 
father, J. M. Northcutt, was a native German. 

Dr. William B. Phillips is a leading physician 
and surgeon of Fulton County, Ark., and pos- 
sesses those sterling qualities which are character- 
istic of people of Scotch descent, as well as of those 
who claim Ohio as the State of their birth. He 
was born in Morgan County, July 24, 1836, and 
there received good educational advantages, which 
he did not fail to improve. He removed with his 
parents from Ohio to Missouri in 1859, and having 
formed the desire to pursue the study of medicine 
with a view to making it a profession, he entered 
the St. Louis Medical College (then called Pope's 
College), where he acquired an excellent knovpledge 
of that calling. When the mutterings of war re- 
sounded through the land he entered the service 
as hospital steward, Vjut afterwaid became hospital 
surgeon, and acted in this capacity until the close 
of the war. After residing in Missouri until 1876 
he came to Izard County, Ark., and in 1882 to 
where he now lives, where his efforts to alleviate 
the sufferings of the sick have been attended with 
most pleasing results. His name has become well 
known throughout the length and breadth of the 
county as an able practitioner, and his success fully 
justifies the large and lucrative patronage he has 
always received. In 1858 he was married to Miss 
Louisa Valaivies, who was born in Belmont County, 
Ohio, in 1889, l)ut her death occurred the follow- 
ing year. Miss Elizabeth M. Hamilton became his 
second wife in 1864. She was born in Pulaski 
County. Mo., in 1842, and she and the Doctor have 

; become the parents of the following children: 
William S., born August 3, 1865; Livie L., born 
January 24, 1867; Hugh H., born April 7, 1868; 

j Viola M.. born May 5, 1870; Ernest A., born 



y'r. 



e w 




Dcc'crnbw 28, 1871; Ansel B., born December 21, 
1873; ArtliurL., born February 1 0, 1876: Alexan- 
der B. , born July 17, 1878; Anna P., born May 
l(i, 1880, and Myrtle L., born January 29, 1883. 
Dr. Phillips resides on a good farm of 200 acres. 
He is a Republican in politics, and cast his first 
vote for Stephen A. Douglas, for the Presidency. 
He is a member of Vidette Lodge No. 94. of the 
I. O. O. F. , at Vina postofBce, and is Deputy 
Grand Master of his district, and secretary of his 
lodge. He is a consistent member of the General 
Baptist Church. He was the eldest of five chil- 
dren, two now living, of Zadock and Phcebe 
(Brown) Phillips, who were born in Athens County. 
Ohio, in 1813 and 1818, respectively. The father 
is yet living, and is engaged in farming in Doug- 
las County, Mo., to which county he moved in 
1859. His wife died in this county in March, 
1889. The grandfather was born in North Caro- 
lina, and the great grandfather was of Scotland 
nativity. 

J. M. Picki'en, one of the most extensive and 
prominent farmers of Fulton County, Ark., is a 
native of the county, born November 15, 1848. 
His father, John Pickren, was a native of Italy, 
born in 1798, and when only nine years of age took 
passage in a vessel and worked his way to Amer- 
ica. He landed in New York, remained there for a 
short time, and then went to Pennsylvania, whence, 
after a stay of five or six years, he journeyed 
to North Carolina, continuing there until about 

1840, when he came to Fulton County, Ark. 
Previous to his advent into North Carolina he had 
followed various occupations, l)ut while in that 
State he had charge and superintended the hands 
working in the gold mines of that State. After 
coming to Arkansas he settled on the tract of land 
owned by his son J. M. , and followed agricultural 
pursuits successfully for a number of years. He 
was killed in 1863 by the Jayhawkers, who claimed 
to be United States soldiers. He was married in 

1841, and was sixty-five yearsof age at the time of 
his death. He was married in North Carolina to 
Miss Mary Stoop, a native of North Carolina, and 
of German origin. Five children were the fruits 
of this union, two of whom died when small and 

10 



one was killed at the same time as the father, 
when sixteen years of age. Those living are; 
Mary, wife of H. Tracey, and is now living in 
North Carolina, and J. M., the subject of this 
sketch. The latter commenced work for himself 
as a farmer in 1872, and cultivated the old home 
stead, which consisted of 510 acres, 150 under 
improvement. He was married November 7 of the 
same year to Miss Nancy Farril, a native of Mis- 
souri, and seven children have been the result of 
this union: Maud, born August 4, 1874; John, 
born January 4, 1876; Harry, l)orn April 21, 1878: 
Minnie. l)orn February 12, 1879: Luther, born 
April 15, 1881; Myrtie, bom Jnne 7. 1885, and 
Cnthliert, born May 20, 1887. Mrs. Pickren is 
the daughter of Wilson and Mary (Grubl)^ Farril, 
and one of ten children, six now living: George, 
John, Mary, Nancy and Hardie. besides one in 
Ozark County. Mr. Pickren is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, and also of the I. O. O F. ; and 
in his political views he is with the Democrats. 

Dr. G. \V. Ray, a prominent medical practi- 
tioner of Fulton County, Ark., was bom in David- 
son County, Tenn., May 8, 1831, being a son of 
Henry D. and Lamora (Glasgow) Ray, who were 
born in Brunswick County, Va. . and Davidson 
County, Tenn., January Vt, l.SOO. and l.SOS, and 
died in the latter State in 1865 and 1873, respect- 
ively. The father removed with his j)arents to 
Tennessee when fourteen years of age, his father 
being Patrick Henry Ray, a native of either Scot 
land or Ireland— not definitely known which. He 
was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and died 
in Virginia. The maternal grandparents, Jesse 
and Catherine Glasgow, were of Scotch descent, 
and were born in North Carolina. Jesse was also 
a Revolutionary soldier and was an officer in the 
Continental army. Dr. G. W. Ray is the eldest 
of seven children, two .sons and one daughter now 
living. After receiving his early education in the 
academic schools of Tenne.ssee he adopted medi 
cine as his profession and entered upon its prac- 
tice in his native State in 1856. At the same time 
he was in the wholesale liipior liusiness, follow- 
ing other occupations at various times until IS77, 
wlien he left Tennessee, and moved to Stoddard 



208 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



County. Mo. Seven yeurs later lie came to Fnltou 
County, Ark. In 1868 he wedded Miss Susan 
Browning, who was born in Robertson County, 
Tenn. , but she lived only two years after her mar- 
riage. December IS, 1888, he took for his second 
wife Mrs. A. C. Jeffrey, nee Cunningham. Mr. 
Jeffrey was a very intelligent and influential citizen, 
and was the author of a descriptive history of 
Fulton and Izard Counties, being the editor of a 
newspaper in the latter county. He and his wife 
(now Mrs. Ray) became the parents of three sons 
and one daughter: Curren, Lulu, Robert and Mit- 
chell. In 1862 Dr. Ray recruited a company of 
soldiers in Robertson County, Teun. , and served as 
its captain until near the close of the war. He 
was also assistant surgeon of his regiment, and 
was in the battles of Fort Donelson and others. 
He is now a Democrat in his political views, but 
was formerly a Whig, and cast his first presidential 
vote for Gen. Scott. He is a member of the I. O. 
O. F., and for many years has been one of the 
active and successful practitioners of the county. 
His wife belongs to the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church. 

W. P. Rhea, of the mercantile firm of W. P. 
Rhea & Co., of Salem, Ark., was born in East 
Tennessee in 1831. and while growing up attended 
Maryville College, receiving educational advan- 
tages which he improved. He was married, in 
1855, to Miss Sarah Pile, who was born in East 
Tennessee September 30, 1836, and the following 
are the children born to their union: Laura E. 
(wife of R. A. Robins), David C, Joseph M., Mar- 
garet L. (wife of A. W. Ellis). Edmund G., Bet- 
tie E., Rob Preston, Kittie (who died in infancy), 
Oscar Lee and Holmes G. In 1866 Mr. Rhea emi- 
grated to Arkansas, thinking to l)etter his worldly 
condition, and after residing in this county for 
some time, and his many admirable qualities be- 
coming known, he was elected to the offices of cir- 
cuit clerk, ex-officio county clerk, clerk of the pro- 
bate court, and county recorder, holding these 
responsible positions for ten consecutive years. 
Since 1883 he has also been engaged in mer- 
cantile business, but is now retired, his establish- 
ment being managed by his two partners, R. A. 



Robins and Arch. Northcutt. Mr. Rhea served 
in the late war for three years, under Gen. Long- 
street, and was in a number of fiercely contested 
engagements. He has since been a Democrat in 
his political views, and has always been deeply 
interested in the cause of education. He is a mem 
ber of the Presbyterian Church. He is the owner 
of 600 acres of fertile land. He was next to the 
youngest of eleven children, eight of whom grew 
to maturity, born to Joseph M. and Kittie (Myers) 
Rhea, who were born in East Tennessee and Berk- 
eley County, Va., May 14, 1787, and July 28, 1788, 
respectively. The father was a farmer and school- 
teacher by occupation, was reared in his native 
State, but was married in the "Old Dominion." 
He served in the War of 1812, and was in Canada 
during that time as private secretary to one of the 
officers of the army. He spent the remainder of 
his life in Tennessee, and died August 14, 1860. 
his wife having died February 25, preceding. 
Matthew Rhea, the grandfather of our subject, 
was born in Scotland, and was an early emigrant 
to America, and took an active part in the Revolu- 
tionary War, being a major in the Continental 
army. After the close of that conflict he settled in 
Tennessee, and was for many years clerk of Sulli 
van County, and held various other civil positions 
in the county. He died at about the age of sixty 
years. The maternal grandparents. Charles and 
Ann (Care) Myers, were Virginians, and were of 
German and French descent, respectively. R. A. 
Robins, of the above mentioned firm, and a pros- 
perous young financier of the county, was born in 
Izard County, Ark., in 1852, and is a son of A. A. 
and Indiana (Pritchett) Robins, the former being 
a Virginian, who grew to manhood in his native 
State, but removed to Tennessee at an early day, 
and still later to Izard County, Ark. , where he 
followed the occupation of carpentering R. A. 
Robins was educated in Philadelphia, of his native 
county, and upon reaching a suitable age, entered 
mercantile pursuits as clerk in a general store in 
Batesville, Independence County, Ark. He re- 
mained here ten years, and then came to Salem, 
and in 1883 became a member of the present firm. 
He owns some valuable town property, and was 



:>: 



FULTON COUNTY. 



2m 



marriod. in 1S(S2, to Miss Laura E. Rhea, wlio 
was horn in Tennessee. They have two <jhildreu 
living; Maud E. and Bernice Preston, and one 
child deceased, named Lillias. Mr. Robins is a 
Democrat, and a member of the Methodist Episco- 
[lal Church, South. The other member of the 
lirm. Arch. Northcutt, is a Warren County Ten- 
nesseean, bis birth occurring in 1858. He loft 
his native State when eleven years of age, and 
came with his people to Arkansas. He was edu- 
cated in the common schools of Izard County, and 
worked at the monotouous duties of farm life for 
his father until be reached his majority, when he 
was married, and entered the employ of Archer & 
Daniels, general merchants of Salem, with whom 
he remained eight years, during which time he 
never lost a day from sickness or otherwise. In 
February, 1887, he became a member of the pres- 
ent firm, which carries a stock of about $5,000, 
their annual sales amounting to $25,000. Mr. 
Northcutt is chairman of the Democratic Central 
Committee of Fulton County, and is now dis- 
charging the duties of this position. He is a char- 
ter member of the I. O. O. F. , and is a member of 
the Methodi.st Episcojial Church. His wife, whose 
maiden name was Jennie Brown, was born in the 
State of Ohio in 1859, and is connected to Judge 
0"Key. To their union have been born three 
children: Burton, Horace and Mamie O'Key. 

Daniel P. Rogers is one of three surviving 
members of a family of six children of Jonathan 
and Martha (Knighton) Rogers, and was born in 
Humphreys County, Tenn., on the 'ifith of Janu- 
ary. 1830. His parents are supposed to have been 
natives of North Carolina, the former's birth oc- 
curring in 1787, and his death in Tennessee in 
1S3U. He was a farmer and mechanic, and served 
two years as a private in the War of 1812. He and 
his wife, who was born about 1795, were married 
iu the State of Tennessee, and after his death the 
widow and her children came to Arkansas, locating 
iu what is now Sharp County, about 1844, where 
she died in 1S59. Daniel P. Rogers received only 
one month's schooling after coming to Arkansas, 
owing to his mother's straitened circumstances, 
and the necessitv of his assistance at home to aid 



in su|)porting the family. He made his home 
with his mother until his marriage, and then she 
continued to reside with iiim until her death. His 
maiTiage to Miss Rebecca Copeland took place in 
1850. She was born in Tennessee in 1832, and 
died six years after her marriage, having become 
the mother of three children: Jesse, who is mar 
ried and is a farmer of the county; George, who 
is also married and resides on a farm; and John 
A., married and residing on a farm near his father. 
In 1858 Mr. Rogers wedded Miss Mary Dowell, 
who was born in Tennessee about 1845, and to 
them was given one son. James P., who resides in 
Boone County, Ark. In 1872 he was so unfort- 
unate as to lose his second wife, but on the 8th of 
October, 1875, he found a true helpmate in the 
person of Mrs. Martha (Davis) Brasier, whose 
birth occurred iu Whitley County, Ky., in 183U. 
They have two children: Martha A. and Andrew 
J. During the Rebellion he joined the Confeder- 
ate army, and served until the final surrender, be- 
ing a member of Capt. Wyatt's Company. He 
was at Prairie Grove and Helena, and was captured 
at the fall of Little Rock, being retained in that 
place for four months. While being taken North 
by his captors, he jumped from the boat near 
Cape Girardeau, Mo., and managed to elude his 
pursuers and rejoin his command. He was then 
in the engagement at Poison Springs, Mark's Mill, 
and Jenkins' Ferry, and was with Price on his 
raid, receiving a slight wound while with his com- 
mand. At the close of the war he returned to his 
farm and has since resided in Fulton County,- of 
which he was one of the pioneers. His farm em- 
braces 200 acres, and i> located between Myatt 
and South Fork Creeks. One hundred acres are 
under cultivation. He is a member of Myatt 
Lodge No. 401, of the A. F. & A. M., and in 
his political views is a Democrat, having cast his 
tirst presidential vote for Pierce. He and wife 
are members of the Protestant Methodist Church. 
Thomas G. Sears is another successful tiller 
of the soil of Fulton County who has secured his 
possessions by energy, determination and judicious 
management. He is a Georgian, born in Octo- 
ber, 1824, and is a son of Wyatt and Frances 



:"?" 



30(1 



HTSTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



(Satterwbite) Sears, both natives of North Caro- '; 
lina, who died in Georgia in 18(53 and 1868, re- j 
spectively. They were married in their native j 
State, and thi'oughout his life the father was an 
industrious tiller of the soil Thomas G. Sears, 
the fourth of their ten children, was educated 
in the common schools of his native State. Like I 
the majority of sons he followed the occupation in 
which his father had always been engaged, and to 
which he was reared, and up to the present day j 
has made that his calling. In the year 1875 he 
moved to Izard County, Ark., and in 1880 settled 
on the farm of 280 acres where he now lives. He 
has ninety acres under cultivation. In 1846 he 
was married in Georgia to Miss Sarah E. Payne, 
who was born in South Carolina in 1826, the 
daughter of Enoch and Sarah Payne, both natives 
of the "Palmetto State," who died in Georgia. 
Eight children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Sears, but the following five are the only ones now 
living: Enoch G., Martha L. (wife of William 
Hollingsworth), James, Frances (wife of William 
Cochran) and Thomas. When the war had l>een 
going on for two years Mr. Sears enlisted as a pri- 
vate in Beauregard's battery and served imtil 
June 20, 1865, proving himself an eflScient and 
trustworthy soldier. He was formerly a Whig 
and cast his vote for Henry Clay for the Presidency, 
but since the war has been a Democrat. He and 
family are all members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, with the exception of one son. who he- 
longs to the Baptist Church, and all are substan- 
tial and law-abiding citizens. The children who 
are deceased are William T. , who died at the age 
of three months; Sarah E. , whose death occurred 
when fourteen years of age, and an infant. 

Ephraim Sharp, an old resident, and a leading 
merchant and farmer of the county, and proprietor 
of a cotton-gin and flour-mill at South Fork, in 
Myatt Township, twelve miles east of Salem, was 
born in Decatur County, Ind. , June 23, 1833, 
and is a son of John E. and Susan (Armstrong) 
Sharp, who were born in Pennsylvania in 1802, 
and in Ohio in 1800, respectively. The father now 
resides in Decatur County, Ind.. and, although he 
is eighty -seven years of age, takes a number of 



newspapers, and is able to read them by lamplight 
without his glasses. He has always followed farm- 
ing as an occupation, and is of Dutch-Irish ances- 
try. His wife died in Decatur County. Ind. . in 
1842, as did his father. John Sharp, who was born 
in Pennsylvania, his death occurring in 1842. 
Ephraim Sharp is one of two surviving members 
of a family of seven children, and was reared in 
Decatui' County, Ind., to which place his parents 
moved about 1826. He attended the common 
schools, and at the age of twenty-one years left 
home and came to Lawrence County, Ark. , where 
he made his home until 1867. when he moved to 
his present property. His first purchase of land 
comprised 120 acres, but being a good business 
man he has increased this to 400 acres, and has 
150 acres under cultivation, and everything about 
his place shows the energy and good management 
for which he has ever been noted. In 1868 he 
opened a general mercantile establishment under 
the firm name of Wainwright & Sharp, but in 1873 
he purchased Mr. Wainwright's interest, and con- 
ducted affairs alone until 1884. when he sold out 
to Dr. J. S. Risher. He repurchased the goods 
the following year, and has remained proprietor of 
the same ever since. In 1875 South Fork post- 
office was established at Mr. Sharp's store, and he 
was appointed postmaster, which he has since re 
mained, with the exception of one year. He was 
married in Sharp County, Ark., November 22, 
1858. to Miss Mary E. Wainwright, who was l)orn 
in Madison County, Ala., in June, 1833. Six of 
the seven children born to their union are now 
living: Martha M. , wife of Hardy Croom; Joanna 
C, wife of C. W. Culp; Sarah B., Johnnie (de- 
ceased), Thomas W., Hettie L. and Ollie J. In 
1862 Mr. Sharp enlisted in the Confederate army, 
and was first lieutenant of Company L, Tappen's 
brigade. He served in this capacity two years, 
participating in the battle of Prairie Grove, and 
numei'ous skirmishes; then he was honorably dis- 
charged, and returned to his home in Indiana, 
where he remained until 1866. He is a member of 
Myatt Lodge No. 401, of the Masonic order, and 
in his political views is a stanch Democrat, having 
cast his first presidential vote for James Buchanan. 



FULTON COUNTY. 



301 



Ho Hiid iill his children, with tho exception of the 
youngest, are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. 

Rev. J. L. Short, Sr. , a prominent agriculturist 
of Washington Township, Fulton County, Ark., 
and the son of Joab and Sarah (York) Short, was 
born in Franklin County, Tenn. , in 1824. His 
parents were natives of Rockingham County, N. 
C, and were of Irish descent. Joab Short was 
born on the 12tli of August, 1788, and died on the 
1st of April, 1866. The mother was bora in 1790, 
and died in September, 1870. They left their 
native State about 1810, and moved to Tennessee. 
They were the parents of thirteen children, all of 
whom lived to be grown : Alpha, wife of E. 
Thacker; Omega, wife of A. Muse; Mary, wife of 
Rev. John Byrum; Gracie and July (twins), the 
former the wife of P. Holley, and the latter of F. 
M. Yell; Sarah, wife of Thomas Muse; Tabitha, 
wife of John Antney; Delia, wife of William 
W alsh (deceased); Caroline, wife of John Ross; J. 
L., Constant B. (deceased), Joab B., killed at the 
battle of Shiloh, and C. C. (deceased). Mr. 
Short was a Democrat in politics, and was a very 
prominent man in his section of the country. He 
was quite wealthy, and was the owner of a number 
of slaves. His son. Rev. J. L. Short, had all the 
advantages for a thorough education in his youth, 
enjoying opportunities above the average. Since 
then, by close study and observation, he has become 
a well informed man. He commenced work for 
himself at the age of nineteen as a tiller of the 
soil, and this he has followed since in connection 
with his pastoral work. His wife was formerly 
Misa Frances Hawkins, a native of Tennessee, 
whom he married on the 22d of November, 1842. 
One child was born to this union, named Sarah, 
who became the wife of J. W. Blanton, and now 
resides in Cooke County, Tex. Mrs. Short died in 
April, 1844, and our subject was married the sec- 
ond time to Mrs. Frances B. (Campbell) Short, 
widow of Col. A. M. Short, who was in the Mexi 
can \\ ar, and took part in some of the prominent 
engagements of that war. He was county clerk of 
Coffee County. Tenn. , at the time of his death, 
which occurred in 1852 or 1853. He left two 



children, J. L. , who lives in Fulton County, and is 
engaged in farming, and Nancy J., wife of John 
Pendergrass, who is a tiller of the soil and resides 
in Izard County. J. L. Short's second marriage 
occurred in 1857, and to this union were born 
eight children: Tabitha P., born on the 12th of 
December, 1860, is now at home; C. B., born in 
March, 1863, is married and lives in Izard County; 
M. L., born June 24, 1865; J. B.,born March 11, 
1867; Julia F., born May 4, 1869, and the wife of 
Mr. Lavell; Manrie, lives in Fulton County; J. 
M., born April 5, 1872, and J. N., born June 24, 
1875. Mrs. Short was born in 1831, and is the 
daughter of John and Helender (Neel) Campbell, 
natives of South Carolina and Virginia, respect- 
ively. Mr. Campbell was justice of the peace of 
his section for many years, was in very comfort- 
able circumstances and a much respected citizen. 
He was the father of eleven children: William 
(deceased). James, a minister in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and ex -county treasurer of 
Coffee County, Tenn. (he is now living in the Lone 
Star State); Sarah, widow of R. Blanton, and 
Nancy, widow of Coleman Blanton, live in Ten- 
nessee; Caroline, widow of M. Holland, and now 
residing in Bedford County, Tenn. ; Armsted is a 
farmer and lives in Texas; Susan resides in Texas; 
Civility, wife of James Angle, resides in Texas; 
Frances B., Duncan, lives in Coffee County, Tenn., 
and John T. (deceased). Rev. J. L. Short has 
been a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
thirty three years, and his wife is a member of that 
denomination. He also belongs to the A. F. &, A. 
M., and in his political views affiliates with the 
Democratic party. He is the owner of 270 acres 
of land. Previous to coming to Fulton County he 
had lived in Izard, Independence, and other couu 
ties of the State. 

Hon. J. L. Short. Jr. The public services of 
Mr. Short have been characterized by a noticeable 
devotion to the welfare of Fulton County, and his 
ability and fidelity in his present position have 
made a lasting impression upon his sphere of public 
duty. Although a young man, his name has al- 
ways been closely identified with the interests of 
this section and he need have no fear as to his 




future prosperity. He was born in Coffee County, 
Tenn., in 1858, being the seventh of a family of 
nine children, all of whom are living, born to Rev. 
J. L. and Frances B. (Campbell) Short, both of 
whom were born in Tennessee, the former's birth 
occurring in 1824. They were reared, married 
and remained in their native State until 1870, at 
which time they settled in Izard County, Ark, 
moving afterward to Sharp County, and finally to 
Fulton County, where the father engaged in till- 
ing the soil and also preached the gospel, being a 
minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
belonged to the White River conference and was a 
circuit rider. He and wife now reside in Fulton 
County. The paternal grandfather was a North 
Carolinian. J. L. Short, our subject, was placed 
in school as soon as a suitable age was reached, 
where the opportunities afforded were enjoyed and 
improved to the best advantage. He attended 
an academy and evening high school, and the 
reputation he now enjoys as a bright and able 
young lawyer was acquired through his own efforts 
and at the expense of diligent study and hard 
practical experience. He graduated from the law 
department of the University of Mississippi in 
1881, and since 1886 has been one of the leading 
members of the legal fraternity in Salem. In 1888 
he was elected to represent the county in the State 
legislature, and is discharging his duties to the 
entire satisfaction of his constituents. He is a 
Democrat, and a member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. He was married in October, 1886, 
to Miss Josephine Roberts, who was born in 1869. 
Dr. Benjamin S. Thomason, of Fulton County, 
Ark., first saw the light of day April 1, 1841, in 
Dickson County, Tenn., and is one of eleven chil- 
dren born to John and Nancy (Swift) Thomason, 
natives of South Carolina and Tennessee, respect- 
ively. John Thomason was born in 1807 and came 
to Tennessee when yet a boy. In that State Mrs. 
Thomason was born in 1819. They were the par- 
ents of these children: James W. , who died in pris- 
on at Chicago in 1862; Elijah, who died in 1877: 
B. S., Hannah, wife of James W. Swindle and 
died June 5, 1881; John lives in Greene County, 
Ark. ; Elizabeth, wife of Peter Woods, and resides 



in Greene County: Nancy lives in Greene County: 
Richard lives in the same county; Jemimah. wife of 
Bud Newsom,of Greene County, Ark. , and Victoria, 
wife of John McMillan, of Greene County. John 
Thomason entered the service of the Confederate 
army in 1862 under Col. Knapper, and was in a 
number of battles. He was captured, sent to prison 
in Chicago, and there died in 1863. He followed 
trading as his occupation in life, and made a spec- 
ialty of negroes and land. His farm was culti- 
vated by negroes and whites. He always voted 
the Democratic ticket. Benjamin S. Thomason 
left the parental roof in 1859 and journeyed to 
Kentucky, where he remained for some time. He 
then returned to Tennessee, and made his home 
with his uncle for a number of years, and in the 
meantime attended school. He also clerked in a 
store until the breaking out of the late unpleasant- 
ness between the North and Sovith, when he en 
listed in the Eleventh Tennessee Infantry, Com 
pany C, William Green, captain, and commanded 
by James E. Rains. Mr. Thomason served from 
May 9, 1861, until the close of the war and jiartic- 
ipated in the most prominent battles. He was in 
the following engagements besides numerous minor 
ones: Barbersville, London Wild Cat, Fishing 
Creek, Goose Creek, Richmond, Perryville, Mur- 
freesboro, Shelbyville, Chattanooga, Lookout 
Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain and Atlanta. His 
brother, Elijah, was in forty-three pitched battles, 
but was never seriously wounded. Benjamin S. 
Thomason was wounded at Murfreesboro in the 
left wrist and this disabled him from service for 
some time. He was taken prisoner at Thompson's 
Station, Tenn., and remained a prisoner at Fort 
Delaware for some time. When exchanged ho was 
in a very sorry condition. He surrendered at 
Memphis, Tenn., April 26, 1865. He was first 
married November 20, 1875, to Miss Ellen Cannoy, 
of New Madrid County, Mo. , and by her became 
the father of six children, only two now living: 
Hettie M. T., born January 19, 1880, and Benja 
min W. , born December 7, 1882. Mrs. Thomason 
died July 6, 1886, and Mr. Thomason then married 
Miss Mary F. Roby, of Fulton County, Ark., No- 
vember 4, 1886. One child was born to this union. 



FULTON COUNTY. 



iim 



|3 



Jowie M.. whose l)irth occuired July '21. 1887. 
.Mr. Thomasoii is the owner of 210 acres of land, 
and is a very enterprisintj farmer. He and wife 
are members of the Christian Church. Mr. 
Thomason is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and 
in his political views affiliates with the Democratic 
party. 

Dr. William A. Thompson, an eminent medical 
practitioner, who has recently located in Mammoth 
Spring, is a native of Pope County, III., where he 
was born December 22, 1852, being a son of Jacob 
A. and Polly (Shuffelbarger) Thompson, who were 
born in West Virginia in 1819 and Pennsylvania in 
1824, respectively. The former, with his parents, 
was among the very earliest settlers of Pope Coun- 
ty, and there the latter couple died. Jacob Thomp 
son inherits Scotch and Irish blood from his parents, 
and has inherited many of the sterling qualities of 
his Scottish ancestors. He has been a farmer 
throughout life, is still residing in Pope County, 
and in his political views has always been a Dem- 
ocrat. He was a faithful .soldier for the Union 
cause throughout the Rebellion, and was a partici- 
])ant in the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and nu- 
merous other important battles, and was promoted 
to the rank of orderly sergeant. He was one of 
the men who went through on the Gerrison raid. 
His wife died in Pope County the iirtt year of the 
war. having borne a family of eight children, only 
four of whom are now living: One a merchant in 
Alton, Mo., another a stockman of Kansas, one a 
minister of the gospel, and the Doctor. The latter 
was nine years of age when his mother died, and 
shortly after his father went to the war, and he was 
left to make his home with a neighbor. At the 
age of fourteen years he went to Northern Illinois, 
and reci'ivi'd excellent educational opportunities 
(which he did not fail to improve) in McKendrie 
College. St. Clair County, 111. In the spring of 
1888 he was graduated from the Medical University 
of Louisville, Ky. , and after practicing a very short 
time in Stoddard County. Mo., he moved to Oregon 
County, where ho became a well ■ known and success- 
ful practitioner. Since the first of the year 1889 he 
has resided in Mammoth Spring, where he is win 
uing the contideuce and respect of all who know 



him. In March, 1S76, he was married to Miss 
Amanda Miller, who was born in Stoddard County, 
Mo., in 185(), and was there reared to womanhoo<l. 
She died in 1882, having borne two children: 
Birdie and Hattie. She was a daughter of George 
F. and Sarah (Hardy) Miller, both of whom spent 
their lives in Stoddard County. Mrs. Margaret 
George became Dr. Thompson's second wife iti 
December. 1883. Her birth occurred in Randolph 
County, Ai-k., in 184(i, she being a daughter of 
Rev. R. O. Tribble, a Missionary Baptist minister, 
and the tirst minister of Oregon County. The 
Doctor and his wife have one child, William A. 
He owns 700 acres of land in Oregon County, Mo. , 
and his home lot in Mammoth Spring comprises 
three acres. He is a member of the Masonic lodge 
at Alton, Mo., and in his political views has al- 
ways been a stanch Republican, having cast his first 
presidential vote for R. B. Hayes He and wife 
are members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 
His first wife l)elonged to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Robert L. Thompson, who is closely connected 
with the farming interests of the county, is of 
Arkansas nativity, and dates his l)irth from De- 
cember 30, 1856. His father, (i. W. Thompson, 
was a native of Temiessee, a farmer and .stock 
trader, and accumulated considerable property. 
He came to Fulton County at an early day, and 
there met and married Miss Eliza Pumphrey about 
1848. Eight children were born to this union, 
three now living: H. J., living in Baxter County; 
Robert L. , in Fulton, and G. W.. who resides in 
Boone County. The father of these children left 
Fulton County several years ago. and has not been 
heard from since. He is su])])Osed to Ije dead. In 
politics he atliliated with the Republican party. 
Mrs. Thompson resides in Boone County, Ark. 
Robert L. Thompson passed his youth and early 
manhood in his native State, Arkansas. On the 
12th of December, 1880, he married Miss Emma 
E. Cook, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Har 
ris) Cook, and inw of si.K children born to their 
union: Ephraim (deceased). Sarah ■(.. Mary, Per- 
necia. William W., Emma E. and Alice. Henry 
W. Cook was born in Kentucky. July 22. 1S22. 



304 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and married Miss Elizabeth Harris, of the same 
State about 1844. They moved to Arkansas in 
1860, where he died March 17, 1877. He was a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Churcli, and 
also of the Masonic lodge at the time of his death. 
His widow still remains on the old homestead at 
Viola. Alice, the youngest child, who is now a 
widow with two children, resides with her brother, 
William W., whose home is in Texas. He is a 
lawyer by profession, and unmarried. The other 
dve have homes in Arkansas, and are married. 
The fruits of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson's union are 
three children: Huston B.. burn May 11, 1S88; 
Nora A., born January 24, 1885, and James T., 
born August 5, 1887. At the commencement of 
his farm life, Mr. Thompson had 120 acres, and 
has since added eighty acres. He now owns con- 
siderable stock, consisting of hogs, cattle and 
horses. He is considered one of the leading farm- 
ers in this section. He is a man greatly in favor 
of public enterprises, and donates liberally to 
school, churches and all laudable movements. Po- 
litically, he is a native-born Republican. Mr. and 
Mrs. Thompson are members of the Missionary 
Baptist Church. Mr. Thompson professed relig- 
ion in September, 1885, and joined the church in 
August, 1888. Mrs. Thompson professed religion 
August 17, 1874, and joined on the 20th of the 
same month. She has been a member of the 
church fifteen years, becoming such while only 
fourteen years old. 

David P. Tunstall, one of the leading citizens 
of Fulton County, Ark., is a native of Independ- 
ence County, of the same State, his birth occur- 
ring on the 7th of July, 1841. His father, Thomas 
T. Tunstall, was born in Pittsylvania County, Va. , 
and when a boy removed with his parents to Shelby 
County, Ky., where he grew to mature years and 
learned the cabinetmaker's trade, at which occu- 
pation he worked for a few years. He afterward 
turned his attention to steamboating. and after re- 
siding in Chicot County, Ark., for six years he 
moved to Independence County in 1833, in which 
county he was residing at the time of his death, 
in November, 1863, at the age of seventy- six 
years. During his lifetime he farmed for some 



time, and while steaml)oating brought the first 
boat up the White River. He accumulated consid- 
erable wealth in the different enterprises in which 
he was engaged, and at one time was worth over 
$100,000, but lost heavily during the bank crash 
of 1841. He was in the cavalry service during the 
War of 1812, and in one engagement had a horse 
shot from under him. He took a great interest in 
the political affairs of his day and was one of the 
best politicians of the State at that time, although 
not an office-seeker. He was married three times, 
but the name of his tirst wife is unknown. His 
second wife was a Miss Sarah World, who died af 
ter having borne eight children, only one of whom 
is now living: James M. , a farmer, of Independ- 
ence County. His last marriage was to Miss 
Elizabeth Magness, by whom he became the father 
of eleven children, five of whom are living: Har- 
rison M. , David P., Laura (wife of J. M. Archer), 
Rose (wife of Richard A. McHeury), and Kate J. 
(wife of C. A. Phillips, a prominent attorney of 
Fulton County). David P. Tunstall received his 
education in Jackson County, Ark., but in 1861 
gave up all his work to enlist in Company E, of 
the Seventh Arkansas Infantry, Confederate service, 
and served until April, 1804, the last two years 
being orderly sergeant. He was at Shiloh. Per- 
ryvill(\ Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Missionary 
Ridge, the Atlanta campaign and Jonesboro, Ga. , 
where he was taken prisoner. He managed to 
escape by jumping from a train at Decherd Sta- 
tion, Tenn. He was recaptured live days later and 
was taken to Camp Chase, Ohio, where he was 
kept until February 14. 1865. He was paroled at 
Richmond and returned home. His clothes were 
many times riddled with bullets and at Murfrees- 
boro he had one of his pants-legs shot off. He 
then remained in Independence County, Ark., un 
til 1877, at which time he came to Fulton County, 
where he has since made his home. He owns 
some of the best farming laud in the county, his 
property being located on South Fork. In 1880 
he was elected to the office of county sheriff and 
collector, and was reelected in 1884. On the 25th 
of May, 1865, he was married to Miss Martha Jer- 
nigan, a daughter of Rev. \\'illiam H. Jernigau. 



^ 

'■ 



FULTON COUNTY. 



305 



She was born in Henry County, Tenii., in 1845 
(August 16), and to their union the following chil- 
dren have been born: Lemuel E. (farming his 
father's farm), William T. , James F., Harrison 
M., Dioy E. , Charles P., Daniel A. and Grover C 
Mr. and Mrs. Tunstall are members of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, South, and he is a stanch 
Democrat in his politics. On coming home froui 
the army he was without means, and all his proj)- 
erty has been acquired since then, and notwith- 
standing the fact that he has had to pay a great 
many security -debts he has prospered. He is a 
second cousin of Abraham Lincoln's wife, his 
grandmother being a Todd. 

E. L. Tunstall, M. D., a widely known and 
most successful physician of Mammoth Spring, 
Ark., was born in Independence County, of this 
State, in September, 1864. He is a son of H. M. 
and Melissa (Baker) Tunstall, who were born re- 
spectively in Independence County, Ark., and 
Middle Tennessee. The father was reared to a 
mercantile life in his native county, was married 
there, and a few years since came to Fulton 
County, Ark., and engaged in various piirsuits at 
Mammoth Spring. He and wife, who came to 
Arkansas at the age of tive years, became the 
parents of three children, of whom Dr. E. L. 
Tunstall is the second. The paternal grandfather 
was a native of the " Old Dominion," and removed 
to Kentucky during the early history of that State, 
afterward locating in Arkansas, where he engaged 
in steamboating and horse dealing, accumulating 
a large amount of property thereby. The great- 
grandfather came from Wales and located in Vir- 
ginia. Dr. E. L. Tunstall was educated in the 
graded schools of his native county, and during 
this time acquired a taste for the study of medi- 
cine. He determined to make this his professioti. 
and for some time at first studied under a {)receptor, 
and attended his first course of lectures in the 
Missouri Medical College at St. Louis, during the 
winter of 1884-85. He graduated from the Mem- 
phis Hospital Medical College in the spring of 
18S7 (the regular school). After practicing in 
Ozark County, Mo., for some time, he commenced 
practicing in Fulton County in the fall of 1885. 



Miss Mary A. Tyree, who was born in Pulaski 
County, Mo., in February, 1867, became his wife 
in October, 1882, and to their marriage have been 
given two bright little children: Katie S. D. and 
A. G. Thurman. The Doctor is a member of the 
Tri-State Medical Society, which meets once a 
year at Memphis. Tenn. Politically he is a Demo- 
crat. 

William Wainwright is recognized as a careful, 
energetic agriculturist of Fulton County, and by 
his advanced ideas, progressive habits, and liberal 
contributions to worthy enterprises, he has gained 
the respect and esteem of his fellow men. His birth 
occurred in Madison County, Ala., in 1826, and 
he is a son of William and Nancy (Turner) Wain- 
wright, who were born in Virginia and Tf^messee, 
respectively. Upon first leaving his native State, 
he went to Georgia, but before his marriage moved 
from AlaV)ama, where he had located, to Arkansas, 
in 1853, locating in Independence County, but 
afterward died in Sharp County in 1855, at the 
age of seventy -three y^ars. He was a soldier in 
the War of 1812. William Wainwright is one of 
his nine children, and was reared to manhood on a 
farm in Alabama, but when his father came to the 
State of Arkansas, he came with him and liere has 
since made his home. He was married in Sharp 
County, on the ■28th of February, 1860. to Miss 
Margaret Elizabeth Huddleston, and by her has had 
a family of nine children: John B., who died at 
the age of nine months; Louise, who died in 1884 
at the age of twenty-two years; Laura P.. William 
E., Mary M., Martha M., Samuel P.. Lu<-y M. 
and Gundoland. During the late Civil War Mr. 
Wainwright served four years under Gen. Price, 
being in the commissary department the most of 
the time. In 1862 he came to Fulton County, 
Aik., and is now the owner of 1,346 acres of land 
in the country and considerable property in town. 
He has the finest dwelling house in the county, it 
being a fine brick structure, containing eight large 
rooms. Politically he has always atViliated with 
the Democratic party, and socially lie is a memb./r 
of the A. F. & A. M., being a Master Mason. He 
belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Rev. William Iv Watson, a M.-tlmili-,! minister 



306 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and farmer of Fulton Township, was born in Bal- 
lard County, Ky. . in 1846, and received very 
meager educational advantages. He remained 
with his widowed mother until sixteen years of 
age and then, in June, 1863, he enlisted in Com- 
pany B, Wood's Battalion of Missouri Cavalry, 
Confederate troops, and served until the close of 
the war, most of his operations being in Arkansas. 
He was in the engagement at Pine Bluff, and all 
through Price's raid in Missouri. At one time while 
a soldier there was some talk of promoting him 
for bravery to the position of fourth corporal. He 
was captured during that raid in Kansas, in October, 
1864:, and was a prisoner about four months at St. 
Louis and Alton, 111. He was paroled just before 
the general surrender, rejoined his command and 
surrendered in May, 1865. at Shreveport, La. 
He then came to Izard County, and was married 
in June, 1866, to Miss Martha J. Williams, a na- 
tive of Kentucky, and the daughter of Henry and 
Elizabeth Williams, also of Kentucky nativity. 
Her parents died in Izard County, whither they 
had moved when Mrs. Watson was a little girl. 
The fruits of Mr. Watson's union were seven chil- 
dren, four sons and one daughter now living. He 
remained in Izard County until 1875, and then 
came to his present farm, which was then in the 
woods, but now he has 160 acres, with fifty under 
cultivation. He has a pleasant home, one and a 
half miles east of Viola, and aside from his farm- 
ing interest he has been local minister in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for about ten 
years, administering to the spiritual wants of his 
fellow men in a very satisfactory manner. He has 
been a member of that church for a period of 
about twenty-two years. He is a Democrat in his 
political prefei'ences and has held the office of 
justice of the peace since September, 1888. He 
has one brother, James M. , and a sister, the widow 
of William Ferguson, who are living in Fulton 
County. His {)Hrents, Miles and Mary S. (Gilles- 
pie) Watson, were born in Kentucky, where the 
father died when William E. was an infant. In 
about 1853 the family moved to Lawrence County, 
Ark., where Mrs. Watson married William Hawk- 
ins. She afterward moved to Fulton C(Minty, and 



died about 1S6'2, in what is now Baxter Countj'. 
She had been a member of the Methodist Clmrch 
for many years. 

Z. L. Watters, M. D.. is of Scotch-Irish birth 
and antecedents, and his ancestors for four gener- 
ations back have been prominently identified with 
the interests of the State of Georgia, his father, 
Joseph Watters, having been a prominent poli- 
tician of that State in the days of his prime. 
The latter was born in 179'2 and was reared 
to manhood in his native State. During the 
Florida War he served as captain under Gen. 
Nelson. He was a member of the legislature 
from Floyd County, and was also a United States 
Senator from his senatorial district, comprising 
three counties. His death occurred in 1866. His 
wife was born in Oglethorpe County in 1799, and 
became the mother of thirteen children, ten sons 
and three daughters, all of whom grew to maturity. 
All the former served in the Confederate army 
with the exception of two brothers. One brother 
was killed at Sharpsburg while serving in Lee's 
army, and another at Atlanta. Dr. Z. L. Watters, 
our subject, was captain of a company from Gor- 
don County, Ga.. and for gallant service was pro- 
moted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and served 
until Lee's surrender. He received his literary 
education at Rome, Ga. , and being now prepared 
to carry out a long cherished desire he entered 
upon a course of medical study, entering the med- 
ical college of his native State, from which he 
graduated in 1852. He had practiced until the 
opening of the war at Calhoun, Ga.. and also at other 
places in that State, and after the war he again 
located in Calhoun, residing there until he came to 
Arkansas in December, 1869. From that time 
until quite recently he was engaged in practicing 
his j)rofession at Salem, and acquired a suj)erior 
reputation as an able physician and surgeon. A 
short time since he retired from practice and is 
now conducting a drug store, for which he is thor- 
oughly qualified. He was for many years the only 
physician in the place, and owing to his remark- 
ably successful career as such he has become the 
owner of 820 acres of land in three different 
farms. He was married in 1866 to Miss M. A. 



--» ® %• 



FULTON COUNTY. 



!(>7 



Hmuiihieys, liut be was called upon to monru her 
loss liy death in 1874. She left two children: 
Frank and Nora. He subsequently wedded his 
j)resenfc wife, whose maiden name was Saniantha 
Jeffrey. The following are the children which 
have been given them: Zula Lee. Nettie Medora, 
Lamar, Leila and Ethel. Dr. Watters is a Demo- 
crat, and has shown his brotherly spirit by becom 
ing a Mason. 

S. P. Welden, treasurer of Fulton County, Ark. , 
was born in Jackson County, Tenn. , June 15, 
1S32, but was reared in the State of Kentucky, re- 
ceiving fairly good advantages for acquiring an 
education in the old subscription schools of early 
days. His boyhood days were spent in following 
the plow, and learning the blacksmith's trade, the 
two occupations receiving his attention for a num- 
ber of years. He was married at the age of twen- 
ty-four years, to Miss Elizabeth S. Duncan, in Bol- 
linger County. Mo. She was born in Livingston 
County, Ky., May 7, 183S, and to their union five 
children were born, all of whom have passed to 
their long home: Mary A., born December 27, 
1857, died March 14, 1858; an infant, born May 
6, 1859, died the same day; Madoriah F., l)orn 
July 20, 1860, died October 23, 1872; Ewell B., 
born February 2, ]8fi4, died DeQember Ifl, 1S82; 
and one other infant, born November 2, 1867, died 
the same day. Mr. ^'elden bought two quarter- 
sections of land in Fulton County, Ark., in 1868, 
and moved here in 1881. He resided on his prop 
erty until elected to the office of county treasurer 
in September, 1884, when he located at the county 
seat of Fulton County. He was re-elected in Sep- 
tember. 1 88(), and again re-elected in September, 
188S, his majority being each year increased; and 
although he has only been a resident of the county 
a few years, he has become one of its prominent 
citizens, and is respected by all for his sterling in- 
tegrity, sound judgment and liberal, progressive 
ideas. He now owns over 000 acres of land in the 
county, ten forty-acre pieces being in one body. 
He is an old line Democrat, and is the master of 
Salem Lodge No. 418, of the A. F. & A. M. Mr. 
Welden was the third in a family of twelve chil 
dren, seven boys and five girls, eight of whom are 



now living, born to William Welden and wife, 
formerly a Miss Jones, the former being probalily 
a native of North Carolina, born June 12, 180'.), 
and the latter of Tennessee, born May 11, 180'J. 
William Welden moved to Tennessee with his fa- 
ther when young, and was there married to Mary 
K. Jones, subsequently following the occupation 
of farming. He is still living, and is residing at 
Pinkneyville. Livingston County, Ky. His wife 
died on the 18th day of March, 1865. The pater 
nal grandfather, Daniel Welden, was born in North 
Carolina, and died in Kentucky at the home of our 
subject, between ninety-tive and one hundred years 
of age. He was a veteran in the War of 1812, 
under Andrew Jackson. The great grandfather. 
Pines Welden, was a Revolutionary soMier. and 
was of Scotch Irish descent. 

Mfirion Whiteside is a residnit of Fulton 
County, Ark., who seems to be eminently fitted 
for the occupation of farming, for he possesses in- 
dustry and good business ability, and from earliest 
boyhood has been fanjiliar with the details of farm 
life. He was born in Oregon C!ounty, Mo., Oc- 
tober 11. 1850, but was reared in Fulton County., 
Ark., remaining with his parents until he at- 
tained his majority, and. although he received no 
schooling he became familiar with the details of 
farming and blacksmithing, which occupations his 
father followed. He has continued the former oc- 
cupation ever since starting out in life for himself, 
and since 1873 has lived on his present farm of 
120 acres, fifty-five acres of which are under culti- 
vation. He has always been a Democrat political- 
ly, and his first vote for the Presidency was cast 
for Horace Greeley. He is now deputy assessor 
of his townshi]). has been constable of Mammoth 
Spring Townshiii two years, and has served seven 
years as school director, and is elected for two more 
years. He is a member of Mammoth Spring 
Lodge No. 48, of the I. O. O. F. July 7. 1S72. 
he was united in marriage to Miss Annis Moonoy. 
who was born in Dent County. Mo., about 1852. 
and by her he l)eeame the father of eight children, 
six of whom are living: Margaret E., Jackson F., 
IMarthaL., Josephine, Minnie A. and Monroe C. 
Mrs. \\ hiteside is a daughter of John and Mnr 



^ 



a k^ 



308 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



garet Mooiiey. who were native Tennesaeeans, and 
were early settlers of Deut County, Mo. The 
father died in that State, but the mother's death 
occurred in Arkansas. Mr. Whiteside is one 
of eight surviving members of a family of eleven 
children, nine of whom reside in Fulton Coun- 
ty, Ark., and one in Oregon County, Mo., born to 
Hayes and Sarah J. (Payne) Whiteside, who were 
born in Indiana and Missouri, in 1833 and 1836, 
respectively. The father was brought to Arkan- 
sas by his parents when nine years of age, and be- 
came a noted hunter of Fulton County and lived 
in this county until his death, August 27, 1879, 
still survived by his widow. The paternal grand- 
father, Thomas Whiteside, was a Virginian, and 
with his wife moved from that State to Indiana, 
at a very early day. and later to Fulton County, 
Ark., of which they were among the earliest set- 
tlers. He was also a noted hunter and while on 
a hunting expedition was taken sick and died in 
Independence County, Ark. His wife died in Ful- 
ton County, Ark. 

Dr. Joseph M. Wolf, a physician of more than 
ordinary ability, who has practiced his profession 
at Mammoth Sj)ring and vicinity since in August, 
1887, is a native of Izard County, born in 1841, 
and the son of Maj. Jacob and Elizabeth (Sanders) 
Wolf, nee Lantz, natives of North Carolina anil 
Ohio, and born in 1785 and 1800, respectively. 
They were married in Izard County, where they 
came in 1817, and spent the rest of their lives 
there, the mother dying iu 1840, and the father in 
1865. They were excellent people, and both were 
members of the Baptist Church, Mr. Wolf being 
an active worker in the same. Ho had been 
married three times, Mrs. Lantz being his second 
wife; she was the widow Sanders at the time of her 
marriage to Mr. Wolf. The latter was a black 
smith and farmer by occupation, and followed this 
all his life. He was major in the militia, and or- 
ganized a company to go to the Mexican War, but 
it was not received. He served one term in the 
council when Arkansas was a part of Indian Terri- 
tory, and was also a member of the State legisla- 
ture soon after the State was organized. He was 
a pioneer, and one of the representative citizens 



of the State. He traded with the Indians in the 
early settlement of the country, and was for some 
time engaged in flat-boating on the White River. 
His father, Michael Wolf, was a German soldier 
in the War of 1812. He removed from North 
Carolina to Kentucky about 1796, and to Arkansas 
in 1817, where he received his final summons. Of 
the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wolf, Dr. 
Joseph M. was the ninth in order of birth. He 
assisted his father on the farm, and received very 
little education until grown, when he attended 
school for about ten months at Mountain Home, 
Ark. He then went all through the war in the 
Confederate army, serving in various companies, 
but principally in the Fourteenth Arkansas Infan- 
try, Trans-Mississippi department. He was in 
the fights at Oak Hill, Pea Ridge, luka, Corinth, 
Port Hudson, Jenkins' Ferry, and many others. 
He siirrendered at Marshall, Texas, in May, 
1865, and during his entire time of service was 
never wounded. In August, 1865, he began the 
study of medicine with his brother in-law. Dr. J. 
M. Casey, graduating from the University of Louis- 
ville, Ky. , in 1870, and began practicing near 
Jacksonport, where he lived five years. He sub- 
sequently removed to Baxter County, and from 
there soon after to Boone County, thence to Stone 
County, where he remained until he came to Main 
moth Spring, where he has })racticed successfully 
ever since. By his marriage in 1872, to Miss Sarah 
Sink, daughter of George and Sarah Sink, early 
settlers of Jackson County, Ark., there were born 
two sons, Montrose and Eugene. Mr. and Mrs. Sink 
•died in Jackson County, Ark., where Mrs. Wolf was 
born. The latter died in Boone County in 1876. 
Mr. Wolf was married the second time in Stone 
County, in 1878, to Miss Effie, a native of North 
Carolina, boru in 1857, and the daughter of Ben- 
jamin R. and Mary J. Eaton. Mr. and Mrs. Eaton 
came to Washita County in 1865, and are now re 
siding in Van Buren County. To Mr. and Mrs. 
Wolf were born four children now living: Caddie. 
Gertrude, Liiuiie and Virgie. The Doctor is a 
Democrat in his political i)references, and his first 
presidential vote was for Seymour, in 1868. He is 
a member of Blue Mountain Lodge No. 202, A. 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



309 



F. & A. M., in Stone County, and has been sec- ^ at Mammoth Spring, an.l is vic...cliancellor. H.- 
retary of the same several times. He is also a , and wife are members in good standing in th.- 
member of Spring River Lodge No. 49. K. of P., Baptist Church. 



AiL^ 



' >i * 



* i *- 



;iaif 11 x¥m 



-^•i-fr 



Ou.\ionKAD County— LocATio>f and Dksckii'tion-.Stkeams and Drainage— 'I'imbkk and .Sou, -Ki. 
SOURCES and Productions— Live Stock— Property, Heal and Personal— Popula- 
tion— Railroads— Settlement— County Organization- County Seat— County 
Buildings— Local Officers— Politics— The Courts— The Civil War- 
Towns and V"ili.a«es— County IJiogkaphy- Education— Religion. 



Tbcy slimined not labor when 'twas due. 

They wroiii>lit with right good will; 
And for the homes they won for them, 

'J'heir children bless them still. — Anon. 




RAIGHEAD COUNTY, situ 
ated in Northeastern Arkan- 
sas, is hounded on the north 
Viy Lawrence and Greene 
Cotmties, Ark., and Dunklin 
County. Mo. : east by Mis 
sissippi County, south by 
Pomsett and west by Jackson County, 
Ark. Its length ea.stand west is forty 
two miles, and the width at different 
places is twelve, eighteen and twenty - 
one miles, including lakes, river beds 
and sloughs. Its entire area is 710 
ifj:*3i: square miles, or 454, 100 acres, of which 
Tf(jj,)f' 405,430 are under taxation, and of the 
■»lV whole area less than one-tenth is im- 
proved. 

The boundary lines are as follows: Commenc 
ing on the Fifth Principal Meridian at the inter- 
section of the line dividing Townships 14 and 15 
north; thence east on the township line to the in- 



tersection of Cache River, in Range 2 oast: thence 
up stream with its meanders to the line dividing 
Townships 15 and 16; thence east on the township 
line to the St. Francis River in Range 7: thence 
up stream, with the meanders thereof, to the line 
dividing Sections 17 and '20. in Township 16, 
Range 7; thence east to the line dividing Ranges 7 
and 8; thence south on the range line to the line 
dividing Townships 12 and Vi: thence west on the 
township line to the Fifth Principal Meridian; 
thence north on the meridian line to the place of 
beginning. 

Crowley's Ridge, from its continuation in 
Greene County, crosses the west centnil portion of 
Craighead in a southerly direction, lieing twelve 
miles or more in width at the northern boundary. 
and tirst widening and then narrowing down to a 
width of only about thi'ee miles near the southern 
line. The lands on the ridge are gently rolling, 
and gradually slope down to the l(>vel or bottom- 
lands on either side. The low or tlaf and mneh of 



T' 



:^10 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the swamp aud overflowed lands, the latter cousti- 
tiiting a large percentage of the area of the count}', 
will eventually become superior for farming and 
grazing purposes, when the timber shall have been 
cleared away and the drift removed from the water- 
courses. 

The St. Francis River flows from north to 
south across the eastern portion of the county, 
entering it over Section (i. in Township 1"), Range 
7, and over Sections 1 aud 2, in Township 15, 
Range '). This stream varies in its width from a 
half mile to three miles. Its bed covers large 
tracts of land along its original channel which 
were sunk in the earthquakes of ISl 1 -1 'i ; and thus 
becoming covered with water they have since been 
known as the " Sunk Lands." Other tracts lying 
east of the St. Francis River were sunk in the 
same earthquakes, and are also called by a similar 
name. Clay, Greene and other counties in North- 
eastern Arkansas were likewise affected by these 
earthquakes. All that portion of Craighead Coun 
ty lying east of Crowley's Ridge is drained by the 
St. Francis River and its numerous tributaries. 
Cache River enters from the north at the north 
west corner of Section 2, Township 15, Range 2, 
and flows in a southerly and southwesterly direc- 
tion, leaving the county a short distance east of 
its southwest corner. With its tributaries it drains 
all that territory lying west of Crowley's Ridge. 

The water supply for all purposes is abundant. 
A number of good springs — especially on Crow- 
ley's Ridge — are foimd. and a liberal supply of 
good well water can, at all places, be obtained at 
an average depth of a) )out thirty feet, without blast- 
ing or boring through rock. Indeed from wells, 
cisterns and springs, besides the streams, an abun- 
dant supply of water may lie had for every needed 
purpose. 

The timber here is not unlike that of Clay and 
Greene Counties. On the ridge nearly all species 
of oak, gum, poplar, some pine, hickory, ash, etc., 
are common, while on the lower lands the oaks, 
gum, Cottonwood, cypress, hickory, a little wal- 
nut, tupelo, etc. , abound. The poplar and walnut 
have been largely cut out, but of several other 
varieties, especially oak, gum and cypress, a seem- 



ingly inexhaustible supply, excellent for saw tim- 
ber, remains; rail and building timber and wood 
for fuel are sufficiently plenty to last for years. 

The county has a variety of soil from the poor- 
est '"pipe" or white clay to the richest black 
sandy loam. Of the former there is but little. 
With proper cultivation all soils produce well. 
Experienced farmers claim that clover grows lux- 
uriantly on all except the white clay lands, where 
its roots heave out by the action of the winter 
frosts. However, on these lands herds-grass, or 
red top, stands through the winters, and succeeds 
well. The soil in general is thoroughl)' adapted 
to the raising of Indian corn, wheat, oats, cotton 
and all kinds of vegetables, also clover and the 
tame grasses, and tobacco. Fruits common to 
this latitude thrive splendidly. 

At this time lumbering is one of the leading 
industries and greatest sources of income to the 
community. Two stave factories and about fifteen 
saw mills are within the county, engaged in pre- 
paring lumber for shipment, and many logs are 
rafted out on the river ways. The largest revenue 
to the farmers is from the raising of cotton and 
corn, which yield probably a nearly equal crop. 
Some of the saw-mills have cotton-gins and grist- 
mills attached. 

The census of 1880 shows that there were 1, 130 
farms in Craighead County, and 37,(378 acres of 
improved lands. From these the vegetable pro- 
ductions for the year 1879 were as follows: In- 
dian corn, 367,451 bushels; oats, 20,260 bushels; 
wheat, 15,552 bushels; hay, 206 tons; cotton, 
4.374 bales: Irish potatoes, 4,806 bushels: sweet 
potatoes, 9,715 bushels; tobacco, 24.942 poiinds. 
In the growing of tobacco the report shows that 
Craighead ranked as the sixth count}' in the State, 
notwithstanding its small population and small 
area of improved lands. These figures will be 
interesting to compare with the forthcoming cen- 
sus of 1890, which will show a large increase in 
improvements, and a corresponding advance in 
vegetable productions. 

The same census gives the live stock within the 
county in number as follows: Horses, 1,817; mules 
and asses, 778; neat cattle, 10,691; sheep, 2,615; 



!£: 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



811 



hogs. 20, IS'2. The returns as indicated on the 
aissessment books for 1888 are: Horses, 2,541; 
mules and asses, 967; cattle, 12,191; sheep, 2,217; 
hogs, 15,053. By comparison it is seen that siucio 
1880 the number of horses has more than trebled, 
tlie number of mules, asses and cattle has largt^ly 
increased, while there has been a small decrease in 
the number of sheep, caused, probably, by the re- 
duction in the price of wool. 

The showing of the census of 1890 will be of 
much advantage to this territory. 

In 1880 the taxable wealth of the county was 
assessed as follows: ileal estate, $535,011; per- 
sonal property, $280,025; a total of $816,236, on 
which taxes for State, county and all purposes, to 
the amount of $11,150, were charged. In 1888 
real estate, including the railroads, was assessed 
at $1,817,464, and the personal property at $821,- 
264, making a grand total of $2,638,728, with 
$40,841.33 as the total amount of taxes charged. 
These figures demonstrate the great increase in 
taxable wealth. The personal property alone now 
exceeds in value the entire taxable wealth of the 
county in 1M80 — conclusive proof of the wonder- 
ful and rapid development of the resources of the 
county. 

The railroads, which constitute large propor 
tions of the taxable wealth, were assessed in 1888 
as follows : Helena Branch of the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern, $181,000; St. Louis, Arkan 
sas & Texas, $238,637.52; Kansas City, Fort Scott 
& Memphis, $283,212.95; total, $702,850.47. All 
of this has been added to the county since 1880. 
Craighead has no bonded debt, but has a floating 
debt, on outstanding warrants, of about $7,500, 
which will soon be canceled. 

No better argument than the facts and figures 
mentioned, coupled with the mild and genial 
climate where extremes of heat and cold are never 
felt, and where the peojile are hospitable and gen- 
erous constituting excellent society — can be 
offered in favor of inducing immigration. Here 
the moral, sober and industrious man can find and 
obtain everything so desirable, and while, per- 
haps, one may not rise by magic to positions of 
affluence or perfect independence, he may be as- 



sured of the certain success of proper application 
and itidustry. 

In 1860 the population of Craighead County 
was 3,066, of whom 88 were colored; in 1870, 
4,577, with 253 colored; in 1880, 7,037; colored, 
261. There is no means of obtaining the popula- 
tion of the county at this writing, but it is safe to 
estimate it at much more than double that of 1880. 

The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Rail- 
road, completed in 1883, enters the county near the 
northwest corner, and runs in a southeasterly 
direction through and across by way of Jonesboro 
and Nettleton. The length of its line within the 
boundary is twenty six miles and 4,206 feet. The 
Helena Branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & 
Southern Railroad enters on Section 3. Township 
15, Range 5, and runs thence in a southerly direc- 
tion, bearing slightly to the westward, clear 
across the county by way of Nettleton. three 
miles southeast of Jonesboro. Its length is 
twenty and sixty-four onehundredths miles. The 
St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad reaches the 
county line by the side of the Helena Bi-anch 
of the St. Louis, Iron Monntaiu & Southern Rail 
road, which it follows for several miles; then turn- 
ing to the westward, it passes through Jonesboro, 
and afterward runs in a southwesterly ilirection 
through the remainder of the county. Its length is 
twenty-eight miles and 1.953 feet. The combined 
length of the main lines of these three railroads 
within the county is seventy-five miles and 4,31.S 
feet. These railroads give an advantageous outlet 
to all points of the compass. But few counties, 
even in old settled communities are so favored with 
railroad and shipping facilities. 

Entrance into the territory composing Craig- 
head County began about the year KS30, and 
among the first settlers was a Mr. Martin, who 
chose a location some five miles south of the 
present site of Jonesboro. He was probably the 
first permanent resident. Other very early set- 
tlers wore Rufus Snoddy. Daniel O'Guinn. Yancey 
Broadaway and Joshua Grinder. John Hamilton. 
Asa Puckett and Eli Quarles settled in the Broad- 
away settlement, a few miles west of the site of 
Jonesboro. Uncle JackPearce, John and Thunias 



312 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Simmons took up their residence in the Grinder 
settlement, a few miles southwest of that place. 
Perry Osborn, James Stotts, Hardiman Puryear 
and his son, William, the latter now living near 
Jonesboro; D. R. Tyler, the McCrackens, Elias 
Mackey, Henry Powell and William Q. Lane were 
all pioneers to this locality. In 1840, John An- 
derson and his son, John S., the latter now living 
in Jonesboro, settled on Big Creek, in the north- 
west part of the county. Christopher and George 
Cook located on the same creek. The Puryears in 
1840 made a home in the southern part. 

William Pnryear opened the first store in the 
county at his present home near Jonesboro, haul- 
ing his goods from Memphis. He gave $8 per 
sack for salt, the sacks weighing from 200 to 250 
pounds each, and for many other necessaries of 
life corresponding prices were paid. During one 
season, about the year 1 854, his purchase of furs 
from the pioneer settlers and subsequent sales 
amounted to $3,700. In "early days," every- 
thing was of a primitive order. The pioneers wore 
their homespun clothing, also making garments 
out of the skins of animals. Many of the women 
had no shoes to wear except moccasins, made of 
skins with the flesh side turned out, and on fre- 
quent occasions the men attended religious services 
barefooted, and the women with moccasin shoes on. 
None but the survivors can form a proper concep- 
tion of the hardships endured by the pioneer set- 
tlers. Prior to the war period immigration to the 
new territory was extremely slow, and during that 
time it was at a standstill. Afterward it was re- 
newed, but did not increase very perceptibly until 
the completion of the railroads, since which time 
it has been quite rapid. As the county is new and 
but a small portion improved, there is room and 
excellent opportunities for thousands more to ob- 
tain homes within its borders. 

The county of Craighead was organized in ac- 
cordance with an act of the legislature of the State, 
approved February 19, 1859. Thomas B. Craig- 
head, then representing Mississippi and Critten- 
den Counties in the Senate, was opposed to the 
bill creating the new county, while William A. 
Jones, representing St. Francis and Poinsett Coun- 



ties in the same body, was its principal supporter. 
The bill was called up for passage when the form- 
er was absent from his seat, and upon returning 
he found that it had been passed, and that his own 
name had been inserted in the space left blank 
for the name of the county. 

In 1883, the legislature, upon the solicitation 
of certain individuals in the eastern part, divided 
the county into two judicial districts, the Western, 
to be known as the Jonesboro district, and the East- 
ern, as the Lake City district. The range line be- 
tween Ranges 4 and 5 was made the dividing line. 
Two years later (in 1885) the legislature changed 
the line between the districts to the range line 
dividing Ranges 5 and 6, and in 1887, it passed 
another act by which Sections 5. 6, 7, 8, 17, 18 
and 19. in Township 13, Range 6, were taken from 
the Eastern and attached to the Western district. 
The probability is that the districts will, ere long, 
be abolished and the county placed as it formerly 
was, under the management of one seat of justice. 

AViout two years after the county' s.organization, 
the site of Jonesboro was selected for the ])ermHnent 
seat of justice, and before long a two-story fi'ame 
court-house, with the county offices below and the 
court room above, was erected on the public square, 
where the present one stands. This building stood 
until February 14, 1869, when it was consumed 
by lire. A company of the State Militia, who had 
lodged in it the previous night (fire being discov- 
ered shortly after their departure), were charged 
by some with having set it on fire, while others, 
more charitably inclined, deemed the burning a re- 
sult of unintentional carelessness. A frame store 
building on the west side of the square, was then 
rented and used as a court-house, until 1876, when 
it also was burned. Marion Sanders was indicted 
for the destruction of this building, was tried, 
found guilty, and sentenced to serve a term of 
two years in the penitentiary. A similar building 
was then erected on the same ground, and used as 
a com-t-house until 1878. when it was consumed 
in a general fire, in which eight buildings were 
destroyed. In these several fires the early public 
records of the county were all destroyed. The 
present court house was completed in the summer 




of 1886, by the contractor. W. C. Clark, of Little 
Rock, at a total cost of $lt), 500. It is a siil)stiui- 
tial two- story brick structure, with five rooms and 
a fire-proof vault for the records on the first floor, 
and the court and jury rooms on the second. It 
is finished in modern architectural style, with a 
tower and town clock, and is a handsome, attrac 
live building. 

The only jail the county has ever had is a 
small log building, a portion of which is still 
standing a little distance north of the northwest 
corner of the public square. The seat of justice 
for the Lake City district is at the town of Lake 
City, where the county owns no liuildings, but 
rents a small frame building for a court-house. 

The following is a list of the names of the of- 
ficers of Craighead County from its organization, 
with the date of their terms of service. 

Judges: Isham Fuller. 1859-60; Sam P. Trice, 
1860-62; A. C. Huston. 1862-64; J. S. Anderson, 
1864-66; J. M. Cumutt, 1866-67;* James Carson, 
1867-72; J. H. West. 1874-76; W. S. Stepliens. 
1876-80: J. M. Raines, 1880-82; L. W. Loftis, 
1882-86; J. H. Edwards, present incumbent, first 
elected in 1886. 

Clerks: L. H. Sntfin, 1859-64; F. M. Davis, 
instead of Sutfin, from January, 1864; A. Lynch, 
1864-66: L. H. Sutfin, 1866 to October, 1867; R. 
H. McKay fi-om October, 1S67 to 1872; J. C. 
Knight. 1872-76; Jacob Sharp. 1876-86: J. H. 
Maiigrum, present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Sheriffs: William T. Armstrong, 1859-60: 
W. T. E. Armstrong, 1860-62; William Puryear, 
1862-65; W. T. E. Armstrong from January, 
1865 to 1866; J. G. Wood, 1866-67; W. H. Nes- 
bitt, 1867-72; Samuel Nash, 1872-74; D. H. 
Thorn, 1874-80: William T. Lane, present in- 
cumbent, first elected in 1880. and re-elected, 
has since served continuously. 

Treasurers: Thomas Nelson, 1859 60; S. W. 
Chisenhall, 186(1 64: C. Sharp, 1864-65; L. W. 
Loftis, 1865-68; T. S. Ray, 1868-74; E. Watkins, 
1874-78; A. S. Nash, 1878-80; J. M. Minton, 
1880-82; AV. F. Little, 1882-86; J. D. C. Cobb, 

♦James Carson from October. 1867, vice Cumutt, re- 
moved. 

20 



1886-88; a. \V. Cook, present incumbent, elected 

in 1888. 

Coroners: R. H. McCoy, 1859-60; Uriah Kel- 
lar, 1860-64: L. W. Loftis, 1864-65: J. H. Gam- 
ble, 18()5-68; J. Hargruves, 1868-71: J. H. Steph- 
ens. 1871-72; John Tanehill, 1872-74; A. N. 
Couch, 1874-76; R. Rol)ertson, 1876-78; A. N. 
Couch, 1878-80: H. Dorton, 1880-86; David Cal- 
vert, 1886-88; M. D. Willey, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Surveyors: J. N. Bnrk, 1859-62; S. M. Odeu, 
1862-64; A. J. Barnett, 1864-66; E. A. Albright, 
1866-68; Joseph New.son. 1872-73: J. W. New- 
son, 1873-78; W. M. Armstrong, 1878-80; T. M. 
Boyd, 1880-82; G. B. Hopkins, 18.82-84; T. M. 
Boyd. 1884-86; J. H. Burk. present incumbent, 
first elected in 1886. 

Assessors: W. T. E. Armstrong, 1868-72; D. 
M. Goodman, 1872-73; C. W. Covender, 1878 
74: J. M. Raines, 1874-76; J. R. Rutfin, 1876- 
78; J. Broadaway, 1878-84; R. L. Collins, present 
incumbent, elected in 1884, re-elected and served 
continuously since. 

Representatives: Z. Stoddard was the first reji- 
resentative of Craighead County, and J. A. Meek 
is the present one. 

The political aspect of Craighead County may 
be seen by reference to the number of vot(>s cast 
at the September election in 1888, for the candi- 
dates for governor, as follows: James P. Eagle. 
Democrat, 1,386; C. M. Norwood, com 1 lined op 
position, 662. The number of votes ca.-^t in the 
county at the November election in 1888, for the 
presidential candidates, were: For Cleveland, 
1,212; for Harrison, 217; for Streeter, 147. 

Upon the organization of the county the 
courts were held, as provided in the creating act. 
at the store-house of William Puryear. at his pres- 
i*nt residence near Jone.sboro, where future ses- 
sions were held until the site for the seat of justice 
was selected and a court-house erected. 

The county court holds its regular sessions at 
Jonesboro, commencing on the first Mondays of 
January, April, July and October of each year, and 
continuing as long as the Imsiness requires. It 
has jurisdiction over the county business in both 



^^ 



314 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



judicial districts, but does not meet in the Lake 
City district. 

The regular sessions of the probate court are 
held in the Jonesboro judicial district, commenc- 
ing on the second Mondays of January, April, 
July and October of each year, and in Lake City 
judicial district, commencing on the fourth Mon- 
days of the same months. It continues '"from 
day to day until the business is disposed of. " ' 

The regular sessions of the circuit court for the 
Jonesboro district commence on the sixth Monday 
after the first Monday of February and August of 
each year, and for the Lake City district, on the 
fifteenth Monday after the first Monday of the 
same months. * This coiu-t has fortunately never 
been overburdened with criminal trials in this 
county, because of the absence of unlawful citizens. 
A few murders have been committed, but no legal 
executions have followed. Some years ago a negro 
murdered Miss Mattie Ishmael at her father's 
house, a few miles north of Jonesboro. He and 
three other negroes, accessaries, were arrested 
and given a jireliminary trial before a justice of 
the peace. From the evidence it appeared that 
the negroes had contrived to steal money which 
thev thought to be in Mr. Ishmael" s house, and that 
the young lady, being the only one at home, was 
killed to enable them to accomplish the act. The 
justice of the peace found sufficient evidence to 
hold the negroes for the action of the grand jury, 
whereupon the citizens seized and hanged them 
until they were dead. 

The legal bar of Craighead County is composed 
of the following named attorneys: J. C. Brook- 
field, W. H. Cate, T. P. McGovern, J. C. Haw- 
thorn, J. A. Meek, S. A. Warner, N. J. Thompson, 
Will A. May, W. A. May wood. W. W. Nisbett, 
L. J. Wear, E. W. Hillis, E. M. Rolesou, H. J. 
Smith. Additional mention of the members of the 
bar is made on other pages. 

At the oiitbreak of the War of 1861-05, the 
citizens of Craighead County in their actions pur- 
sued the course most natural for tiiem. Being 
emigrants, or their descendants, from Tennessee 



*The time for convening at Lake City ias probably 
been changed by the last session of the legislature. 



and other Southern States, they were almost unan- 
imousl}- in favor of the Southern cause, and eonse 
quently did what they could in its behalf, by fur 
nishiug soldiers for the Confederate army. The 
first company in the county was organized in ISfil. 
and was commanded by Capt. J. M. Pollard. It 
served iu the Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry. The 
next company, raised in the winter of 1S62-63, was 
commanded by Capt. J. D. Hillis. It served in 
Col. O. P. Lyle's Twenty-third Arkansas Infantry. 
The next company was that of Capt. M. A. Adair, 
which served in Col. Young's regiment of Arkan- 
sas infantry. Another, commanded l>y Capt. J. G. 
W'ood, was raised in Craighead and Greene Coun- 
ties, but mostly from the former. It served in a 
battalion of Col. Kitchens' regiment of Arkansas 
troops. Another company raised in 1864 in this 
and Jackson and WoodrufP Counties, by Capt. J. 
B. Hillis, hadaliout one-fourth of its men from this 
county. A few individuals joined companies or- 
ganized outside. No body of troops were organ- 
ized here for the Federal army. A few individu- 
als may have joined regiments from the North 
after their removal from this locality. 

The only action that took place within the 
county during the war, was a tight at Jonesboro in 
1863, between two companies of Confederate troops, 
commanded, respectively, by Capts. Adair, of 
Craighead, and Allen, of Clfiy Counties, and a de- 
tachment of a Federal regiment, commanded by 
Col. Daniels. The latter had stopped in the town 
and were attacked by their enemies, and driven 
out. In the contest about thirty were killed and 
wounded, principally Federals. A portion of Mar- 
maduke's army moved through the county, on his 
retreat from Missouri, and some Federal commands 
also passed through. It was, however, not much 
over-rtin, and did not sittfer from the devastations 
of war such as fell to the lot of many other coun- 
ties within the State. Among the recent immigrants 
from the North are many ex Federal soldiers, and 
their friendly intercourse shows that the battle-ax 
has long since been buried. 

Craighead is favored with a usual quota of 
towns, so essential to any community. 

Bay, a small place situated on the Kansas City, 








Jackson CouMrr, Arkansas. 



/ 



4^ 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



3ir. 



Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, ten miles southeast 
of Joiieshoro. contains a postoffice, three or four 
stores, a saw-mill, two churches, two boarding 
houses, etc. 

Bono, a station and postoffice on the same rail- 
road, ten miles northwest of Jonesboro, is but a 
small village. 

Biouklaiid, on the St. Louis, Arkansas & 
Texas Railroad, eight miles northeast of Jonesboro, 
contains tTireo general stores, one di'ug store, two 
hotels, a church and school-house. 

Culberhouse. on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & 
Memphis Railroad, one and a half mile below Bay, 
has a postoffice, store, boarding-hous<>. and saw- 
mill. 

Dee, a station on the Iron Mountain Railroad 
eight miles south of Jonesboro, contains two stores, 
two churches and two saw-mills. 

Gilkerson is on the St. Louis, Arkansas & 
Texas Railroad, nine miles southeast of Jonesboro. 
A postoffice, store, and a grist and saw- mill and 
cotton-gin coml)ined comprise its interests. 

Greensboro, a very old village and formerly 
a place of much business, eleven miles east of 
north from Jonesboro, has within it a postoffice, 
two or three stores, two churches and a school- 
house. 

Gubertown is a post hamlet in the northeastern 
part of the county. 

Jonesboro, the county seat of Craighead 
County, was established when its site was selected 
for the permanent seat of justice. It was named 
ill honor of William A. Jones, State Senator for 
the counties of St. Francis and Poinsett, for his 
able support of the act creating the county. Lo- 
cated on a beautiful site at the crossing of the St. 
Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad and the Kan- 
sas City, Fort Scott &, Memphis Railroad, it is 
near the center of the territory whose capital it is. 
William Puryear moved his store from his farm 
to the town site and became its first merchant. 
At the beginning of the Civil War the place con- 
tained about ir)0 inhabitants. After the close of 
that struggle it contiiuKid to grow, but slowly, so 
that in 1880, it had three or four small stores and 
some other business enterprises, and a population 



of from 200 to ;50l). Upon the completion of the 
railroads through the county in 1882 and 1883, en- 
terprise was awakened, and now, according to an 
actual and careful census just taken within the 
corporate limits, the population numbers 2,240— 
1,954 white, and 280 colored. To this number 
should be added about 300 for those living just 
outside of the corporation. 

On Saturday, April 27, 1889, about forty 
business houses and residences, including some of 
the best of both within Jonesboro, were swept 
away by devouring flames, causing an estimated 
loss to the property owners of about §175,000. 
The burnt district lies immediately north and 
northeast of the public square, on both sides of 
the street leading to the Union Depot. Before 
this occurrence the town contained the Bank of 
Jonesboro, six general stores, ten groceries, eight 
drug stores, one hardware store, one hardware and 
grocery store, three dry goods stores, one clothing 
store, one undertaker's store, twelve hotels, five 
barber shops, several temperance saloons, several 
blacksmith and other mechanical shops, two corn- 
mills, three planing-mills, two saw- mills, one stave 
factory, three brick yards, three lumber yards, 
four church (edifices, a largo and new two-story 
brick school-house with six rooms, costing $7,000, 
the Union Depot, round house, two freight depots 
and other railroad l)uildings, a number of restaui'- 
ants, boarding houses and business bouses not 
here enumerated. The property Inu-ned consisted 
of stores, warehouses, livery staljle, the Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church, the Southern Hotel, 
residences, etc., etc. 

In addition to the foregoing the city contains 
two weekly newspapers. The Jonesboro Times and 
The Craighead County Sun, both well edited, and 
both devoted to the general interests of the county 
and its people. The Times is published by J. D. 
C. Cobb & Son, and The Sun by Emmet Rudgers. 
The Times lost its press and some othi>r property 
in the late fire, but did not miss its regular ])ul)li 
cation. 

Jonesboro has a lodge and chapter of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, a lodge and encampment of Odd 
Fellows, a lodge each of the Knights of Honor. 



\ « 



316 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Knights and Ladies of Honor, Knights of Pythias, 
Kuights of Labor, and other societies; also six 
physicians and oae dentist. The place was incor- 
porated February 2, 1883, as a city of the second 
class. Its present officers are N. J. Thorn ()sou, 
mayor; J. W. Mackey, recorder; I. J. Stacey, 
treasurer, and J. J. Rooney, marshal. Jonesboro 
is so pleasantly and advantageously located that it 
is a desirable place of residence. Its residences 
in the shady forest surrounding the business por- 
tion of the city al-e both attractive and comforta- 
ble. Though individuals have suffered by the 
late devastating elements the loss v?ill soon be re- 
covered, proving, perhaps, a siabstantial l)lessiug, 
as brick will take the place of wooden buildings. 

Lake City, the seat of justice of the Lake City 
district, was established soon after the Civil War 
as a boat-landing on the St. Francis River. It 
contains the court-house, postoffice, two stores, 
two hotels, a church and school -house. 

Macey is a postoffice in the extreme northeast 
corner of the county. 

Nettleton, at the crossing of the railroads three 
miles southeast of Jonesboro, contains a po.stoffice. 
three or four business houses, etc. 

Stottsville, in the extreme eastern part of the 
county, has a postoffice, store, saw and grist-mill 
and cotton-gin combined, a church and school- 
house. 

Wardsdale, on the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas 
Railroad, thii-teen miles southwest of Jonesboro, 
contains a postoffice and saw-mill. 

No adequate educational facilities existed with- 
in the county prior to the inauguration of the free 
school system. There were, however, a few sub- 
.scription schools taught here and there in the most 
thickly settled neighborhoods, the terms being for 
three months in a year. The following statistics 
from the report of the State superintendent, for 
the year ending June 30, 1888, will prove of inter- 
est to those whose sympathies are with this worthy 
movement. Scholastic population: White, 3,988; 
colored, 160 — total, 4,148. Number of pupils 
taught in the public schools: White, 1,95'.); colored, 
3(3 — total, 1,*JU5. Number of school districts, 56. 
Number of teachers employed: Males, 32; females. 



15 — total, 47. Average monthly salaries paid 
teachers — tirst grade, males, $51); females, 145,10:' 
second grade, males, $40; females, $37.30; third 
grade, males, $33.35; females, $32.50. Revenue 
raised for the support of the common schools, total 
amount, $20,595,64; amount expended, $9,142,53; 
balance unexpended, $11,453,11, These figures 
indicate that less than one-half of the white, and 
less than one-fourth of the colored scholastic popu- 
lation were taught in the public schools during the 
year. However, considering the short time in 
which the free school system has been in existence, 
and the distance the children of sparsely settled 
sections of the county have to travel to attend, it 
may be considered a fair showing. When the 
county becomes more thickly settled and more 
school-houses are erected, a much larger attend- 
ance will result. The wages paid for teachers of 
the first grade is sufficient to secure able and com- 
petent instructors. 

Of the Missionary Baptist Church, the pioneer 
organization of this religious denomination within 
the territory composing Craighead County is 
that known as Macedonia, six miles northeast of 
Jonesboro. It was formed prior to 1846. Next 
was the Jonesboro Church, organized some ten 
years later. Other organizations have since been 
formed from time to time until they now number 
twelve, and are named as follows: Antioch, Black 
Oak, Bethabra, Enterprise, Hermon, Jonesboro, 
Liberty. Macedonia, New Hope, Oak Grove, 
Philadelphia and Rock Hill, with an aggregate 
membership of about 800. The pastors of these 
churches, so far as given in the minutes of the 
Mount Zion Association, are J. F. Mills, at An- 
tioch; E. P. Minton, at Black Oak and Liberty; 
W. G. Stamper, at Bethabra; M. Ball, at Jones- 
boro; J. T. Arrington, at Macedonia, New Hope 
and Oak Grove* J. M. Raines, at Philadelphia, and 
Thomas Williams, at Rock Hill. 

Of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
the Jonesboro Station, W. D. Matthews, pastor, 
has 160 or more members. The Jonesboro Cir- 
cuit, M. J. Hively, pastor, consists of five organi- 
zations: Pleasant Grove, Marvin, Bay, Forest 
Home and Hope, with a membership of 400. 



^^ 




Lake City Circuit, S. G. Lape, pastor, consists 
of four organizations, viz. : Hollywood, Forest 
Chapel, Pleasant Valley and Lake City. ShiloL 
Circuit. John Edison, pastor, consists of seven or- 
f^anizations, viz. : Trinity, Oak Ridge, New Hope, 
Colwell's Chapel, Shiloh, New Haven and Union 
Grove, with an aggregate membership of 432. 

Buffalo Island Mission has seven appointments 
or preaching places: Trinity, Young's Chape], 
Huntou's Chapel, Poplar Ridge, Union School 
House and Black Oak, with an aggregate member- 
.ship of 152. Rev. A. S. Hilburn is pastor. Lake 
City Circuit was recently established, and a por- 
tion of its members were taken from the Jonesboro 
Circuit and Buffalo Island Mission, thus reducing 
their membership as above given. All the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church organizations within the 
county belong to the Jonesboro District of the 
White River Conference, of which Rev. M. M. 
Smith, of Jonesboro, is Presiding Elder. 

The oldest Christian church organization here 
is Christian Valley, seven miles southwest of 
Jonesboro. It was organized soon after the Civil 
War. Other Christian churches are Hope, held in 
a school -house two miles southeast of Jonesboro, 
one at Jonesboro, one on Buffalo Island, and 
another in Texas Township. Together they ag- 
gregate a membership of about 350. Elder J. H. 
Terrell preaches at Hope and Christian Valley, 
and Elder W. Y. M. Wilkerson, at Buffalo Island. 

The Cumberland Pre.sbyterian Church has but 
one organization in the county, and that is at 
Jonesboro. It was organized in 1878, by Rev. J. 
D. C. Cobb, who has since continued to be its 
pastor. The membership numbers sixty. In 1887 
this church society erected a line frame edifice at a 
cost of §2,000. It was consumed in the great fire 
at Jonesboro April 27, 1889. Until further ar- 
rangements are made the society will worship in 
the ilethodist Episcopal Church edifice. A society 
of seven or eight members of the Northern branch 
of the Presbyterian Church have a frame church 
edifice a few miles southeast of Jonesboro. 

The Roman Catholic Church has recently 
erected a small frame edifice in Jonesboro, the 
only one in the county. 



Nearly all of these denominations, excepting 
the latter, have Sunday-schools connected with 
them. Regular preaching services are held, and 
all are doing good work in the cause of Christian- 
ity. The county, though new, and with but ii 
small population, is well supplied with churches. 



James C. Anderson, an influential farmer of 
Craighead County, is a native of Bedford County, 
Tenn. The paternal grandfather, Isaac Ander- 
son, was a native of Virginia, and married Eliz- 
abeth Hunter, fi'om Maryland. They settled in 
Tennessee, and here Richard Anderson, the father 
of James C, was born. He gi'ew to manhood in 
that State, and married JIartha Campbell, also 
born and reared there. There are now four sur- 
vivors of their family of nine children. Richard 
Anderson served creditably as a captain in the late 
war, and was esteemed by all as a good soldier and 
a worthy citizen. He was an active member of the 
I. O. O. F. James C. also served in the late war 
as a lieutenant, and participated in a number of 
engagements, among them New Madrid and Island 
No. 10. He has now a large farm of 400 acres, much 
of which is excellent land, and under cultivation. 
His farm is well stocked with horses, mules and cat- 
tle. He was united in marriage with Susan Nance, 
a native of Tennessee, and after her death was 
again married, this time selecting Martha Jackson, 
who was born and reared in .Alabama. She came 
to Arkansas in 1870 with her father, who is a 
prominent citizen and postmaster at Bono. Eight 
children have been born to this union. Mr. An- 
derson is a member of the Masonic order and of the 
I. O. O. F. , and has occupied official chairs in Ijoth 
of these orders. He and his wife are memliers of 
the Methodist Church. 

Edwin G. BaiTett. Prominciil amimg tin- 
prosperous and intelligent young farmers of Craig 
head County, may be mentioned the name of Ed- 
win G. Barrett, a native of the county, born April 
21, 1859. His paternal grandfather was Caswell 
Barrett, a native of South Carolina, who was reared 
in that State and all his life followed agricultural 
pursuits. He was born in 1793 and died in 1S30. 



S r- 



i. 



318 



fflSTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



His wife, Nancy (Ferguson) Barrett, also a native 
of South Carolina, was of Irish descent, and to 
their union were bom two sons and two daughters, 
the only survivor being Arthur J., who is now a 
prominent planter of Craighead County. He was 
born in Greenville District, S. C, Augu.st 31, 1821, 
and was reared on the farm, receiving a very good 
education. In 1858, to better his fortune, he con- 
cluded to come to Arkansas, and with his wife and 
three children and household goods, started in a 
wagon for this State. After traveling sixty days, 
he drove up and unhitched his wagon at his pres- 
ent farm, where he has lived ever since. There 
are 140 acres in the homestead, about ninety un- 
der cultivation, and he has also eighty-three acres 
of very rich land on the edge of ' ' Cache Bottom. ' ' 
He has always been a Democrat in politics, but 
has never aspired to office. Before the war, he 
was county surveyor for one term, and during the 
war was in the Confederate service. He was mar- 
ried October 11, 1849, to Eunice Barton, a native 
of Georgia, whose parents were Willoughby and 
Sarah (West) Barton, both natives of South Caro- 
lina. Her mother died in 1844, and her father 
afterward came to Arkansas and died in White 
County in 1862. Of Mr. and Mrs. Barrett's ten 
children, only five are living, viz., William F. 
(married to Marzee Watkins), Mary (wife of Pey- 
ton Watkins), Edwin G. (the immediate subject of 
this sketch), and Sarah and Eliza at home. Those 
deceased are: Albert, Gilford, Luther, John and 
Nancy. Nancy was the wife of S. A. Neal, and 
left three little children, Arthur, Marvin and Ida 
Myrtle. Mr. and Mrs. Barrett and their entire 
family are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and those deceased were members. Ed- 
win G. was reared on his father's farm, receiving 
a very fair education. He has been principally 
engaged in farming, but was for a while a clerk 
in the mercantile trade. He has a nice farm of 
seventy-five acres, forty of which are splendidly 
improved. January 20, 1885, he married Julia 
Dodds, a daughter of Allen and Julia (Saye) 
Dodds, residents of this county. This union has 
been blessed by two children: Alva and Margaret. 
Mr. Barrett is a man of strong political convictions. 



and is a Democrat. Both he and his wife are de- 
vout Christians, the former a member of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, and the latter of the 
Methodist Episcopal Chru'ch, South. 

J. R. Blalack, was born in Monroe County, 
Miss., October 2, 1849. He is the son of Josiah 
and Elizabeth (Hendrix) Blalack, both natives of 
Mississippi. They twice came to Arkansas, but 
returned each time to their native home, where 
they both died — the father in 18G5 and the mother 
in the winter of 1885-86. They were the parents 
of eleven children, six of whom are now living, 
and four in this county: John, George, Willis and 
James R. , all farmers. J. R. Blalack was reared 
in his native State and obtained Imt a moderate 
education. When yet a young man he came with 
his father's family to Arkansas and located in 
Craighead County. In the spring of 1869 he was 
united in marriage with Sophia Miranda Herrin. 
a native of Georgia. After his marriage he farmed 
for awhile, then went to Prairie Coimty, Ark. , re- 
maining two years. Then he moved to Bourbon 
County, Kas. , and after eleven months returned to 
Arkansas. He was on St. Francis River two 
months, operated a cotton-gin on Big Bay for one 
year, then he came to his present farm, where he 
rented forty-five acres and a gin — ginning 300 
bales of cotton that year. He then purchased 
thirty acres of land, added to it for two years, and 
for two years more ran a saw-mill. After another 
year of farming he bought ten acres of land, 
moved to his present location, and in connection 
with James M. Herrin erected a combined cotton- 
gin and corn-mill, which they operate together. 
By economy and earnest endeavor he has been 
generally successful. One of his farms contains 
100 acres and the other forty, with two acres for a 
home place. He is a Mason, holding membershi]) 
in Jonesboro Lodge No. 129, and is a Democrat. 
He never sought office, but was always content to 
bear the brunt of the burden in the field or mills. 
He is the father of seven children : Aden C. , 
Philip C, Pervison W., Dell D., Modena, Taylor 
and Zenobia. 

John Boren (deceased) was a successful farmer 
and greatly respected citizen of Maumelle Town- 



V 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



•■uu 



ship. He was boru in Washington Couuty, Tenn., 
but was mostly reared in Macon County, N. C. , his 1 
parents having gone there when he was a small , 
child. He remained there until 1859, when he 
came to Arkansas, locating on a place near Big 
Bay. With the beginning of the war he entered 
the Confederate service, and remained through the 
entire conflict, making a very creditable military 
record. He was in several engagements and had 
many narrow escapes ; he had been promoted to the 
office of first lieutenant when he was captured near 
Mount Vernon. He was then taken to Johnson's 
Island, where he was retained as prisoner for 
eight months. His comrades all remember him as 
a brave and gallant .soldier. He died August 29, 
1809. His widow, whose maiden name was Char- 
lotte Gouldman, was born in Richmond County, 
Va. , in 1832, and is a daughter of Robert and 
Nancy (Parker) Gouldman, natives of the "Old 
Dominion."' Her father, who was a farmer by 
occupation, was born about 1803, and died in No- 
vember of 1838; the mother was born in July, 
1805, and survived her husband until 1842. About 
a year jsrevious to her death she had moved with 
her family first to Tennessee and later to Alabama. 
Of the eight children born to this union, four ai'e 
still living. Mrs. Boren was the fourth child and 
grew to womanhood in Alabama, where she was 
first married to Benjamin C. Vick, a native of 
Limestone County, Ala., born, in 1827, and died 
July 29, 1860. Mr. and Mrs. Vick came to Ar- 
kansas in 1857, locating on the place where he 
soon afterward died, and where his widow still re- 
sides. He was a charitable and enterprising citizen 
and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
They were the parents of six children, three of 
whom are living. William J. is a promising and 
sulistantial farmer and school teacher, educated at 
the Bethel Institute, Tenn. , who has taught school 
for eight years, and served as justice of the peace 
for ten. He married C. E. Tabor, a native of 
Kentucky. September 29, 1878, and they are the 
parents of three children: Mary, Benjamin and 
Willis. Frances M. and Benjamin C. are the two 
other children of Mrs. Boren by her first hu.sband. 
Those deceased were Joseph, Preston and an in- 



fant. To Mr. and Mrs. Boren were born three 
children: Maiy T., James C, and Martha L. (de- 
ceased). Mrs. Boren has a splendid farm, and 
displays much executive ability in its management. 

Simon M. Bowman. Prominent among the 
prosperous and enterprising citizens of Lake City 
Township may he mentioned the subject of this 
sketch, who is a leading farmer and stock raiser, 
and also proprietor of a cotton-gin and saw-mill. 
He vpas born in Henderson County, Tenn., in 
1847, and is a son of Joshua and Sally (Easley) 
Bowman, natives of Tennessee. They were reared 
and married in the "Old Volunteer State," where 
the father died in 185(3. One year later the moth- 
er moved with her family to Arkansas, and located 
on the Maumelle Prairie in this county, where sh& 
remained until 1862, when she removed to Crow- 
ley's Ridge, returning but shortly afterward to the 
Prairie. To Mr. and Mrs. Bowman were born 
eight children, two of whom are now living: Simon 
M. and Mrs. Margaret Butcher. Mrs. Bowman 
was again married to Moses W. Lewis (now de- 
ceased), l)y whom she was the mother of one child. 
Perry E. Lewis. She married the third time, and 
after a life of charitable iisefulness, died aljout 
1871. Simon M. Bowman attained his majority 
in this county, and in 1869 moved to the ])lace 
where he has since resided. He now has about 
400 acres of land, with 110 imder cultivation, over 
sixty of which he has cleared and cultivated him- 
self. He has a good residence, tenant house, or- 
chard, etc. In 1888 he built a cotton gin and saw- 
mill in partnership with his half brother. Perry 
E. Lewis, and that year they ginned 127 bales of 
cotton. Mr. Bowman was first married in 1S68. 
to Miss Sarah Harris, a native of the State, who 
died in June, 1873, leaving two children, Melinda. 
and Perry, both now deceas(>d. For his second 
wife, he married his first wife's sister. Alice Har 
ris, the fruits of which union have been nine chil 
dreu. There are seven living: Mary, Oscar, Joliu, 
Rosa, Amos, Willie and Ada. Those deceased are 
Sally and Jimmie. Mr. and Mrs. Bowman are 
members of the Methodist Chin-ch. 

Jesse C. Broadaway was boru in Lincoln Coun 
ty, Tenn., October 27, 1829, and is the son of 




Yaucy and Elizabeth (Hodges) Broadaway, the for- 
mer born in North Carolina in 1801, the latter a 
native of Lincoln County, Tennesse. When the 
father was yet a boy, his parents moved to Tennes- 
see, where he was reared and educated in his wife's 
native county. Mr. and Mrs. Broadaway were the 
parents of eleven children, seven sons and four 
daughters, six of whom are still living, all in this 
county. Mr. Broadaway all his life engaged in 
farming and stock raising, and in Tennessee was 
very successful in that occupation, and was also 
elected to some local offices. He came to Arkansas 
in the fall of 1841, and here engaged in farming 
and reared his family. He was elected justice of 
the peace, and held that office for eighteen years; 
also served one term as county and probate judge. 
He and wife were devoted Christians, and zealous 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church. After 
a long life of usefulness, he died April 14, 1885, 
aged eighty-four years. His wife still survives 
him, and makes her home with one of her sons. 
The family is of English descent. Jesse C. Broad- 
away, the immediate subject of this sketch, is one 
of the thrifty and successful farmers of the county. 
He owns about 250 acres of good land, and of 
this has about seventy-five acres in a flourishing 
state of cultivation. November 15, 1855, he was 
married to Naucy Jane Harris, a native of Craig- 
head County, Ark., born November 18, 1837, and 
died March 29, 1885. Their union was blessed by 
eleven children, five of whom are yet living: 
William E., Y. E. W., Robert J., Leila L. and 
Lula L. 

George M. Broadaway, a substantial agricult- 
urist and stock dealer of Craighead County, was 
born in Lincoln County, Tenn., January 1, 1832, 
and is a son of Yancy and Elizabeth (Hodges) 
Broadaway, natives of North Carolina and Tennes- 
see, respectively [see sketch of Jesse C. Broad- 
away]. January 3, 1850, he was united in mar- 
riage with Delila Cline, who was born in Alabama 
August 21, 1836, and died December 23, 1861. 
Of this union two children were the issue: John 
C. and Andrew C. January 20, 1868, Miss Cyn- 
thia Barnett became his second wife. She is a 
native of Mississippi, and a daughter of John and 



Jane (Willhite) Barnett, natives of Middle Tennes- 
see, who came to Arkansas in 1864. Mr. Broad- 
away enlisted, in 1862, in the support of the Con- 
federate cause, and served until the sui-render. 
He has a large, nicely improved farm, and devotes 
much time and care to stock raising. He is a 
thorough Democrat, and in the supjiort of progress 
and enterprise, one of the foremost men of the 
county. Mrs. Broadaway is a member of the 
Baptist denomination, which church the family 
attend. 

Anderson K. Broadaway, a prominent mer- 
chant of Lake City, is a native of Craighead Coun- 
ty, born August 1, 1850. He is a son of Judge 
Broadaway [see sketch of Jesse C. Broadaway], 
and like his father, by energy, enterprise and 
strict integrity, has attained the position among 
his fellow citizens of a leading business man. He 
grew to manhood in this county, and remained at 
home until his father's death, in 1885. In early 
life he engaged in farming, but in 1883 began 
selling groceries in Jonesboro, and continued in 
that business for three years, at the same time 
dealing in railroad ties, timber, etc. In 1887 he 
piu'chased an established business at Lake City, 
and has since been enjoying a splendid trade in 
general merchandise. He keeps a good stock, and 
has established an enviable reputation for fair and 
strictly honest dealing. June 4, 1874, he was 
united in marriage with Julia Minton, a native of 
Alabama, and daughter of F. M. Minton. Their 
union has been blessed by two children: Ira Galon 
and Era E. Mr. Broadaway is a member of the 
Knights and Ladies of Honor, and both he and 
wife belong to the Missionar}' Baptist Church. 

J. C. Brookfield. a careful student, a fluent 
speaker, and an able and successful lawyer, is a pio- 
neer citizen of Northeast Arkansas, born in Law- 
rence County, Ark., July 14, 1829. The Brook- 
field family are of Scotch and English origin, and 
were early emigrants to America. Isaac Brook- 
field, Sr., the paternal grandfather of J. C, came 
with his wife, Hannah, from England, and set 
tied in Newark, N. J., and there they resided 
until their respective deaths. James Campbell, 
the maternal grandfather of our subject, was of 



^'^ 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



:!21 



Scotch -Irish descent; and his wife, whose maiden 
name was Wilson, was descended from the Khine 
Dutch, and was a sister of Col. Wilson, once speaker 
of the House of Representatives, who killed Col. 
Anthony in the State-house at Little Rock. Mr. 
and Mrs. Campbell emigrated to Lawrence County, 
Ark., in the fall of \S]'2., and were among the very 
first settlers. About 1821 he was elected sheriff 
of the county, which then comprised several of the 
present counties, and served for some time in that 
capacity. Isaac Brooklield, Jr., the father of J. 
C, through the influence of Bishop Asbury, came 
from New Jersey to St. Louis in 1819, as a mis- 
sionary to the Indians. He was a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, was thoroughly edu- 
cated, and possessed that power and magnetism of 
speech and character so necessary to a successful 
preacher. In 1823 he married Nancy Campbell, 
and after locating settled in Lawrence County, 
where he continued his Master's work, and lived 
an earnest, zealous and consistent Christian life. 
In 1825 he began mercantile Vmsiness, his dry- 
goods, which were shipped from New York, being 
six months in reaching their destination; his gro- 
ceries were principally from New Orleans. He 
continued this business imtil ,his death, in 1844. 
His wife died in 1875. To them were born a 
family of six children. J. C. Brooklield was reared 
on the farm, receiving his education mainly at 
Batesville, Ark. After his father's death, he 
closed up the business, and engaged in rafting on 
the St. Francis River, thus earning sufficient 
means to educate himself. When twenty-one 
j'ears of age he began the study of law, and was 
admitted to the bar in Poinsett County, Ark., 
October 23, 1853. He immediately began practice 
in Harrisburg, and his practice, now extending 
over all adjoining coimties, still embraces that 
court. In 1883 he moved to Jonesl)oro, where he 
has since made his home. At the opening of the 
late war he was captain of a company of militia, 
and once served as deputy clerk of Poinsett County, 
but has never aspired to office, rather choosing to 
serve his party than ask of it official favor. He 
has been for many years a leading lawyer of North- 
east Arkansas, and enjoys, in its fullest extent, the 



love, respect and confidence of his people. He 
was first married, in 1855, to Susan C. Arledge, 
and to them were l)orn five children, two now liv- 
ing: Mrs. Mary L. Roleson and Mrs. Ida A. Ware. 
Mrs. Brooktield died in 1871, and three years later 
Mr. Brookfield was married to Mrs. Julia F. Pope, 
who was the mother of one child, Albert M. Pope. 
Mr. and Mrs. Brookfield are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and lie is 
prominent both as a Mason and an Oddfellow. 

Abraham Brown, farmer and stock raiser of 
Maumelle Township, is a son of David Brown, a 
native of North Carolina, and was born in Hay 
wood County, N. C, October (1, 1832. The father 
was reared in his native State and married Rhoda 
Chastine, a native of South Carolina. After his 
marriage he moved to Georgia, where he engaged 
in both farming and blacksmithing for a numl)(>rof 
years. In 1858 he came to Arkansas, locating on 
Crowley's Ridge, in Poinsett County, where he re- 
sided until his death, in August, 1858. He had 
lost his wife in 1850 and had married a second 
time. Abraham Brown grew to manhood in Geor- 
gia, and until his father's death remained with 
him. After his death he went to Jonesboro and 
ran a hor.se-mill (that was some time before the 
existence of the town), and also engaged in farming 
for two years. September 17, ISOl, he entered 
the Confederate army under Col. Marsh Walker 
and served until the close of the war, when he sur- 
rendered at Wittsburgh, in May, 18(55. He was 
second sergeant and was in several engagements, 
among them New Madrid, Mo., and Island No. 10. 
at the latter of which places he was taken prisoner, 
and held five and one-half months at Camp Butler. 
111. He was exchanged at Vicksburg. and was af- 
terward in the siege at Port Hudson. After tlie 
smrender he returned to this county and soon set- 
tled on the place where he now resides. In \SC,Z 
he had purchased forty acres of timliered land, 
which he then began to clear and improve. He has 
GOO acres in one tract and forty in another. He 
has cleared ninety acres of rich ami valual)le land: 
the remainder is timbered. March H5, 1865, be 
was married in this township to Sarah Thorn, a na- 
tive of Kentuckv, l>ut reared in .Vrkansas. Her 



322 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



father, Jesse Thorn, was one of the pioneer set- 
tlers of Maumelle Township. Mr. Brown has a 
family of seven children: Nancy C. (wife of Guy 
Winningham), Adella, Newton, Alsa, Abraham, 
Joseph A. and Silas. Both Mr. and Mrs. Brown 
are consistent Christians and members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 

E. F. Brown, a leading and prominent attor- 
ney, of Jonesboro, Ark., was born in McNairy 
County, Tenn. , November 22, 1844, and is a son 
of William F. Brown and Nettie (Swain) Brown, 
the former a native of Virginia, and the latter of 
Tennessee, who in 1858 came to Randolph County, 
Ark. , locating near Pocahontas. Here Mr. Brown 
engasred in farming and mercantile business until 
his death in 1869. His wife died two years later. 
To their union were born thirteen children, only 
four of whom are now living. E. F. Brown was 
the fourth child, and when fourteen years of age 
came with his parents to Arkansas. He received 
a common school education, and in 1862, in the 
early part of the late war, enlisted in Col. Kitchens' 
regiment. Reeves' company, and served until the 
close of the conflict, surrendering under Gen. Jeff 
Thompson, at Wittsburg, Ark. He was in battle 
at Whitewater bridge, Redlief farm, Little Mis- 
souri and Saline Rivers, and Little Rock. Peace 
having been restored, he returned home, and com- 
pleted his education. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1871, and in 1872 took a course of lectures in 
the law department at Lebanon, Tenn., and in 
July, 1873, located at Oak Bluff, Clay County, 
where lie began the practice of his chosen profes- 
sion. The following year he was elected a dele- 
gate to the constitutional convention, and in 1875- 
76 represented the First district in the Senate. 
In 1878 he was elected prosecuting attorney of the 
Second judicial district, and was re-elected to the 
same office. In 1883 he came to Jone.sboro, where 
he has since been engaged in the practice of his 
profession. He was married, in 1879, to Ada Par- 
risli, daughter of N. C. Parrish, of Humphreys 
County, Tenn., and their union has been blessed 
by one child, Doswell. Mr. Brown has a beauti- 
ful residence in Joucslwro, and has one of the fin- 
est libraries in Northeast Arkansas. He is a mem- 

\ 



ber of both the A. F. & A. M. and the I. O. O. F.. 
and he and his wife are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. He is a leader of the Demo- 
cratic party, as a lawyer is an able and fluent 
speaker, and as a business man his career has been 
one of unusual success. 

J. G. Bryant, a leading merchant at Ridge, 
Craighead County, was born in Madison County, 
Ga. , September 20, 1843, and is the son of J ason and 
Elizabeth (Berryman) Bryant, both natives of the 
same State. They came to Craighead County 
December 25, 1857, locating in Big Bay Bottom, 
where they remained until their deaths. The 
father died September 8, 1858, the mother De- 
cember 22, 1868. They were the parents of 
three children, the two surviving being residents 
of this county: John G., the subject of this 
sketch, and Elizabeth, wife of J. T. Dudley. The 
father was a quiet, industrious man, and the 
mother a devoted Christian and member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. John G. was reared 
on a farm in Big Bay Bottom, and has been a 
farmer all his life. In 1885 he bought of Burst 
& Stills a stock of goods, at Big Bay Siding, and 
carried on a mercantile business at that point until 
January 5, 1889, when he removed his stock of 
goods to Ridge. By industry and integrity he has 
established a good and successful business in gen- 
eral merchandise. He has two farms in Greenfield 
Township, one of eighty acres, thirty-three under 
cultivation, and the other of 160 acres, with sev- 
enty-six under cultivation. He was married No- 
vember 29, 1868, to Mary H. McGown. daugh- 
ter of Sam and Sarah (Tannehill) McGown, early 
settlers of this county. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant are 
the parents of eight children, three deceased: John 
D. and two infants. Those surviving are Sarah 
E., wife of J. R. Fuller; Nancy O., Charlie A\. 
and Thomas A. Mrs. Bryant possesses many true 
womanly virtues, and is a consistent member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. During the Civil War 
Mr. Bryant was a member of Company I, in 
McNieFs battalion, serving under Price. He was 
in active service from June, 1862, until the sur- 
render, participating in several engagements in both 
Louisiana and Arkansas. He has never sought 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



office, but is a strong Democrat and an influential 
citizen. 

Hon. VV. H. Gate. The origin of this family 
in the United States dates from 1752, when three 
brothers of that name emigrated from Wales an<l 
located in America. One of the brothers took up 
his residence in New England, and but little is 
known of him or his descendants; while the other 
two settled in the South, and from this branch of 
the family the subject of this sketch ia descended. 
That they took an active part in the struggle for 
independence is well known, and after the war 
they became tillers of the soil in the South, prob- 
ably in North Carolina, as the paternal grand- 
father was a native of that State. He was a pio- 
neer settler of Jefferson County, Tenn. , and it was 
here that his son Noah, the father of W. H. , was 
born. Few men were better or more favorably 
known in Tennessee than the Rev. Noah Gate. 
He married Mrs. Margaret M. Lee, a widow whose 
maiden name was Henderson, a native of the 
famous Shenandoah Valley, Va. ; he was for forty 
years a minister of the Baptist Church, and a 
faithful worker in his Master's vineyard. In 1865 
lie came to Jonesboi'o, Ark. , and it was largely 
through his efforts that the present Baptist Church 
at that place was built. His was an active, zeal- 
ous, consistent Christian life, and one well worthy 
of emulation. He died at Jonesboro, October 23, 
1871, and his wife at Peirce City, Mo., in March, 
1876. Only two of the children born to these 
parents survive them: W. H., tiie subject of this 
memoir, and a daughter, Mrs. J. N. Patrick, a 
resident of p]ast Tennessee. The maternal grand- 
father of W. H. Gate was a native of Scotland, 
and was killed at the battle of Bladensburg. Two 
uncles served as soldiers under Jackson, and other 
members of the family in the same and later wars, 
some of them winning distinction by their zeal and 
bravery. M'. H. Gate was born in Rutherford 
County, Tenn., being reared in Sullivan and Haw- 
kins Counties, when he attended the common 
school in his early youth, later entering an acad- 
emy at Abingdon, Ya. , for some time, and also one 
at Rogersville, Tenn.. and at the early age of 
eighteen years graduatetl from the State Univer- 



sity at Knoxville, Tenn. His father, like most 
ministers, had but limited means, and could assist 
l>ut little in defraying his son's expenses whili' at 
school. After graduating he began teaching school, 
and at the same time took up the study of law. 
While thus engaged, the war Ijroke out, anddro]>- 
ping his studies, he espoused the Southern cause. 
The year the war closed he located at Jonesboro, 
and resumed (he study of law, so abruptly yet 
cheerfully dropped live years previous. In ISfUi 
he was admitted to the bar, and was soon enjoying 
a good practice. He hiis now practically ietir"d 
from practice, but was for years one of the leading 
attorneys of Northeast Arkansas. In March, 1884, 
he was appointed judge of the Second judicial dis- 
trict, and the following September was elected to the 
same position. In 1887 he organized the Bank of 
Jonesboro, and was its first president. He was 
for some years attorney for the St. Louis, Arkan- 
sas & Texas, and the Iron Mountain & South- 
ern Railroads. He is a large land owner, and has 
been at times extensively engaged in farming. In 
the fall of 1888, after a hard and exciting contest, 
he was chosen to represent the people of the First 
district in Congress. In 1808 Miss Virginia E. 
Warner, a native of Dresden, Tenn., became his 
wife. They have one child, William W., a prom- 
ising young man, and a student at Bryant and 
Stratton's College, St. Louis. It can be truly said 
of W. H. Gate that he is in the fullest acceptation 
of the term, a self-made man. As the son of a 
poor minister, he worked his way through college, 
graduating with honors at the age of eighteen 
years: while yet a boy, lie was found bravely risk 
ing his life for a cause he believed to be right, and 
before the period of his service had closed, hold- 
ing a captain's commission; a few years later a 
leading attorney of Northeast Arkansas, he was 
elected to the legislature in 1871 and re-elected in 
1873; in 1878 elected pnjsecuting attorney of the 
second district, judge of the Second judicial dis- 
trict. j)resident of a bank, and attorney for two 
large railroad companies. Besides the above, he 
has held many otlier positions of honor and trust, 
and has always acted in such a way as to maintain 
the res]iect and coulidence of the public. In poli 



^1 



324 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tics he has always been a Democrat, but has broad, 
liberal, conservative views, which have gained for 
him the respect and friendship of men of all par- 
ties. He is a man of a pleasant, genial type of 
character, and has the happy faculty of inspiring 
those around him with his own bright and sunny 
life. He and wife are members of the church, 
leading and popular members of society, and pos- 
sess social qualities of a high order. 

J. G. Christian, retired farmer, of Jonesboro 
Township, was born in Hickman County, Tenn., 
about seventy-five years ago. His parents, Jesse 
G. and Nancy (Higginbotham) Christian, were both 
natives of Georgia. They were among the pioneer 
settlers of Middle Tennessee, and when the subject 
of this sketch was six years of age moved to Mon- 
roe County, Miss., where a few years later the 
father died. A short time after the husband's 
death the mother moved with the family to Tish- 
omingo County, Miss., and in 1S87 from there to 
Greene (now Craighead) County, Ark. Here the 
mother died about 1841. J. G. Christian was 
brought u]) on a farm, and from early boyhood was 
accustomed to hard work. His educational ad- 
vantages were very limited, as after the father's 
death much of the responsibility of caring for the 
family devolved upon him. This responsibility, 
like all others encountered during his long and 
eventful lifetime, was met and overcome. In 1844 
at the old homestead he was united in marriage 
with Susan Mackey, who when a child came with 
her brother, Elias, from McNairy County, Tenn., 
to Arkansas. To this union were born the follow- 
ing children: Nancy, wife of Lewis Simonds, a 
farmer of Jonesboro Township; William W., resid- 
ing near his father; Tersey, who married A. J. 
Wilson and died about seven years ago; Jesse, who 
grew to manhood, married Etta Graham, and died 
in September, 1887, aged twenty- four years; Polly, 
Rebecca, John and Tom, at home, and two others 
who died in childhood. Mrs. Simonds is a mem- 
ber of the Baptist Church. At her death Mrs. 
Wilson left four children, whom the grandfather is 
now rearing. Mrs. Christian died March 8, 1887, 
aged sixty-five years. Mr. Christian has always 
been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and at pres- 



ent owns a well -improved plantation of 185 acres. 
He is a Democrat in politics, unassuming but 
courteous in his manner, and one of the most use- 
ful and progressive citizens of Craighead County. 
James R. Claunch, M. D. , was born in Bedford 
County, Tenn., in 1833, and is now one of the 
eminently successful farmers of Lester Township, 
possessing a thorough and practical knowledge of 
medicine. His parents, James H. and Charlotte 
(Bearden) Claunch, were natives, respectively, of 
Kentuck}' and .South Carolina. They were both 
greatly respected as citizens, and were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The 
father came with his father to Tennessee, and there 
grew to manhood and followed the occupation of 
farming. He was born in 1810, and is still living, 
aged seventy-nine years. The mother was born in 
1815, and died in Tennessee April 7, 1882. To 
them had been born nine children, six of whom are 
still living. Dr. Claunch was the oldest child, and 
was reared and educated in Tennessee, coming to 
Arkansas in ISSB. He settled in Poinsett County, 
where he engaged in farming and studied medicine 
with Dr. Todd W. Beecher, of Harrisburg, who is 
a graduate from the Ohio Medical College, at Cin 
cinnati. He began practice in that county. Jan- 
uary 6, 1860, he was united in marriage with Miss 
Martha J. Crook, a native of South Carolina, and 
daughter of Martin Crook. She came with her 
father to Mississippi in 1854, and to this State in 
1859. Her mother died in 1846, and her father in 
1858. To Dr. and Mrs. Claunch have been born the 
following family of children: Thomas M. , Lottie 
L., Annie B. , Charles, William, Mahalia C. , John 
B. and Albert M. , living, and Laura and Harriet 
A. G., deceased. They also have with them one 
granddaughter, Estella Davis. In the War of the 
Rebellion Dr. Claunch saw much active service. 
He was in Col. Adams' regiment, and was assistant 
surgeon with Price on his raid through Missouri. 
At the close of the war he returned to his farm, and 
two years later resumed his practice. He came to 
his present location in Craighead County in 1872, 
and has since engaged in farming and the practice 
of medicine. He has a splendid farm of 300 acres, 
100 under cultivation, and has a good residence. 



-^ 



orchard iiud outbuildings. He is a member of the 
Masonic order, is very successful in his practice, 
being one of the leading physicians of the county, 
and greatly respected as a citizen. 

George W. Clements, a well-to-do farmer, 
stock raiser and cotton-ginner of Cane Island, was 
born in Tennessee in 1834. His father, William 
Clements, was a native of Alabama, and married 
Miss Melinda Mooney, a native of Georgia. In 
1840 they came to Mississippi County, Ark., and a 
year later settled on a tract of land on Big Lake, 
renting for about four years, and then moved to 
Little lUver neighborhood. Soon after they located 
in what is now Craighead County, in the Varner 
settlement. Mrs. Clements died in 1845 and was 
followed four years later by her husband. They 
were among the pioneer settlers of Craighead 
County, and were in all ways most worthy and ex- 
emplary citizens. George Clements was reared 
among the rude siUTOundings of those days, receiv- 
ing but a meager education. He was a gallant 
Confederate soldier and participated in several en- 
gagements. He located where he now resides in 
18*')8, and has since been occupied in farming and 
cotton-ginning. His present gin is one of the best 
in the county. In 1887 he ginned ninety-eight 
bales of cotton, and the year following 146 bales. 
He owns 100 acres of good land, a portion of 
which is under a high state of cultivation. Mr. 
Clements has been married four times. His first 
wife was Sarah McDaniel, who died in 1805, and 
was the mother of one child, James F. Elizabeth 
O'Conley liecame his second wife and one son, 
George, was born to this union. He married for 
his third wife Mrs. Susan (Folks) Roberts His 
present wife was Mrs. Luanna Smith, who is a 
daughter of Thomas Slocum; she was born in Madi- 
son County, Tenn., but left there when a child ten 
years of age. Mrs. Clements was the mother of a 
son by her former husband, but it died in child- 
hood. Mr. and Mrs. Clements are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and are useful and in- 
fluential members of societj*. They interest them- 
selves in moral and educational matters and liber- 
ally contribute to all worthy enterprises. 

Rev. J. D. -C. Cobb, pastor of the Cumberland 



Presbyterian Church, and eibtor of the Jonesboro 
Times, was born in Dyer Comity, Tenn., Julv 2'\ 
1838. His parents, Christian S. and Juditli 
(Clapp) Cobb, were natives of Guilford County, N. 
C, and in 1830 moved to Tennessee, where the 
father died. He was a farmer of sterling character 
and worth and was greatly res]>ected by all who 
knew him. The mother afterward went to Texas 
and there died. They reared a family of five chil- 
dren, three now living: Jackson D. C. Lucinda 
S. (wife of Elder E. P. Minton), and Elizabeth S. 
(wife of Luke Summers). Rev. J. D. C. Cobb 
was reared and educated in Dyer County, Tenn., 
remaining on the farm until twenty years of 
age, and then taught and attended school. When 
twenty-three years of age he entered the mini.stry 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and was 
licensed to preach, but was not ordained until 
1807. During the late war he was chaplain of the 
Fifteenth Tennessee Cavalry. The war over he re- 
turned to his duties, and in 1871 moved to Dunklin 
County, Mo., and located at Clarkton, where he 
was pastor until 1874, and then went to Gaines- 
ville, Ark., where he remaiiie<l until 1870, when 
he came to Jonesboro, where he has since resided. 
In 1874 he estal)lished the Gainesville Times, and 
two years later moved the paper to Jonesboro, 
where it has since been a leading and widely circu- 
lating joiu-nal. In the lire of 1889 the office was 
burned, but w-as soon in operation again. The 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, too, was burned, 
and now efforts are being made to build a large 
l>rick edifice. Mr. Cobb organized the Cumberlaml 
Presbyterian Church at Jonesboro in 1870. and ha?- 
been its pastor since its organization. Miss Ann E. 
Kirk, a native of the "Old Dominion." liecame 
his wife in 1861, and they are the parents of two 
childi'eu: William D. and Mary J. Mr. Cobb is 
a ])rominent citizen and one of the leading spirits 
of Jonesboro. 

George W. Cook, a prominent and well-to-do 
farmer of Big Creek Township, is the sou of James 
and Elizabeth Cook, natives of Tennessee. The 
father was for many years a farmer of that State. 
which occupation he followed until his death, in 
1857. The mother was a member of the Method- 



±1 



:«6 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ist Church, and both she and her husband -were 
worthy of the respect shown them. Eight children 
were born to this union, only three of whom are 
now living. George W. is accounted br all one 
of the prominent farmers of Craighead County, 
having a large, well-cultivated farm, splendidly 
stocked with horses, cattle and fine hogs. His 
marriage to Miss Sarah J. Kitchens was consum- 
mated in 1865, and to their vinion have been born 
twelve children, seven of whom are living. One 
daughter is married to James Coward, and the 
youngest is two years old. Mr. Cook is a man of 
sterling worth iu the community. He belongs to 
both the Masonic order and the Eastern Star, is a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church, and 
gives freely of his means for the promotion of 
progressive movements. 

James F. Cross is a substantial and public- 
spirited citizen of Craighead County, and has a 
large, well improved farm of 120 acres, about 
three miles from Jonesboro. He was born in 
Shelby County, Tena., July 29, 1840, and is the 
son of B. F. Cross, a native of Giles County, 
Tenn. , and a substantial farmer of that State. In 
184-1 the father came to Craighead County (then 
Poinsett), and located near Greensboro, where he 
bought eighty acres of land, and engaged in farm- 
ing for several years. Ten or twelve years later 
he came to Jonesboro Township, where he rented 
land until his death, in 1877. He was a member 
of the Sons of Temperance at an early day, and 
was honored by local offices in Powell Township. 
His wife, Mary (Hannah) Cross, was a native of 
North Carolina, and six children blessed their 
union, five sons and one daughter. Of these, 
James F. , J. H. and Benjamin R. are the only 
survivors. The mother died in this township in 
December, 1887, aged about sixty-seven years. 
All his life James F. Cross has been a resident of 
the same settlement in Craighead County, except- 
ing the four years of the late war. In 1861 he 
entered the Confederate service, enlisting in Com- 
pany I, Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry, and served 
four years and seventeen days. After the war he 
bought eighty acres of his farm, and has since 
added forty. April 23, 1869, he married Mary J. 



Higginbotham, a native of Poinsett County, Ark., 
and daughter of Franklin and Nancy (Edwards) 
Higginbotham, residents of this township. Five 
children have been born to this union: William 
Thomas (deceased), John Franklin, Mary Melvina, 
Stephen Lafayette and Jodella. Mr. Cross has 
all his life been an energetic and industrious 
man, and though he received no education in his 
childhood, has been a successful farmer, and ac- 
cumulated a valuable property. He has been a 
member of the Masonic order, and is a Democrat. 
Hon. Thomas D. Oulberhouse, farmer, mer- 
chant and lumber manufacturer, was born in Bed- 
ford County, Tenn., March 10, 1836, and is a son 
of MOses Culberhouse, a native of North Carolina, 
and a grandson of Thomas Culberhouse, who was 
born in Berkshire, England. Moses Culberhouse 
was an extensive farmer and stock dealer in his na- 
tive State, and there married Parthenia Roberts, a 
native of North Carolina, and in 1834, emigrated 
to Tennessee. Eighteen years later they came to 
Greene (now Craighead) County, and here Moses 
Culberhouse died in 1871 or 1872. His wife is still 
living, and resides with her son, George, of Jones- 
boro. She is now seventy-four years of age. They 
were the parents of nine children, four now living: 
Thomas D., Nancy J. (wife of William Puryear), 
Angeline (wife of James Haynes), and George W. 
Thomas D. was reared in Tennessee, and received 
but a common-school education. In 1852 he came 
with his parents to this county, and until 1859 fol- 
lowed farming: he then engaged in the grocery 
business, which he continued until the spring of 
1862. In February of that year he enlisted in 
Company I, Twenty-third Arkansas Infantry, served 
two months as a private, and was then sent home 
on furlough. He came home and raised a company 
with Capt. Adair, and was made first lieutenant 
of Col. Hart's regiment, McCray's brigade. He 
served with them until about November, 1863, 
after the battles of Helena, Little Rock and Prairie 
Grove, when, retreating toward Arkadelphia, he 
was sent home on recruiting service. He raised 
another company, which became Company I, Twen- 
ty-third Arkansas Cavalry. Mr. Culberhouse was 
made a scout, and served as such until the surren- 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



>?- 



der at Wittshaii^. After the war he retm-ned home 
and made crops in 1805 and 18()(), and then en 
Imaged in mercantile pursuits, and has since Ix-cn 
engaged in merchandising, farming, saw-milling 
and stock-raising. About 1886 he located the town 
of Culhorhonse. on the Kansas City, Springfield 
& Memphis Kailroad, and now has a general store 
there, also has a saw-mill, cotton-mill and shingle- 
machine. The postoffice was established in 18S7, 
and named in honor of our subject. Mr. Culber- 
house is a large landholder, owning about 6,000 
acres of comliined farm and timber-land, and has 
almost 1,000 under cultivation. He also gives a 
great deal of attention to raising line breeds of 
stock — Norman horses, Poland China and Berk- 
shire hogs and Durham cattle. He imported his 
cattle from Kentucky, and in 187'.) bought an im- 
ported Norman horse, pure breed, which has about 
800 descendants in Craighead and adjoining coun- 
ties. He has taken the premium at each fair where 
exhibited, and some of his horses are quite speedy, 
having taken premiums at the last Paragonld fair. 
July 0, 1854, he was united in marriage with 
Sarah Elizabeth Coleman, a native of Tennessee, 
and a daughter of Chastine A. Coleman. There are 
six survivors of the ten children born to this union: 
Sarah Jane (wife of Sam. A. Warner, Jr., president 
of the Bank of Jonesboro), W. D. (farmer and 
merchant). Virginia A. (wife of Thomas Elder, of 
Jonesboro), R. S. (merchant of Jonesboro, who 
married Mrs. Willie Wooten, of Mississipj^i), Katie 
(wife of Mr. Pace, a merchant of Jonesboro), and 
Thomas (at home). Mrs. Culberliouse was a mem- 
l)er of the Methodist Church, and died in that 
faith in 1882. Mr. Culberhouse was again mar- 
ried June 10, 1884, this time selecting Miss Pattie 
Wooten, of Mississippi. Mrs. Culberhouse is a 
member of the Ba^itist Church, and possesses social 
(jualities of a high order. Mr. Culberhouse is a 
prominent Mason, belonging to the Blue Lodge, 
Chapter and Commandery, and is also connected 
with the Knights of Honor. Ho is a Democrat in 
politics, and in the session of 1885-86 repre.sented 
Craighead County in the State legislature. 

John H. Darr, a prominent farmer of Jones- 
boro Township, is a native of the county in which 



he resides, his birth occurring January 1. 1849. 
His parents, Hiram and Elizabeth (McGown) 
Darr, were natives of Tennessee, although tlieir mar- 
riage occurred in Arkansas, and a portion of their 
yotith was spent there. Mr. Darr was a prominent 
Democrat, and a zealous member of the Masonic 
fraternity. He held local positions of honor and 
trust, and had the respect and confidence of all 
who knew him. To him and wife were born the 
following family of children: A. J., a resident of 
Jonesboro Township; Sarah, wife of T. H. Porter; 
ElizalwthE.. wife of G. W. Wilkerson (both resi- 
dents of Craighead County); Stephen S., and the 
subject of this sketch. Hiram Darr died February 
11, 1860, and his wife October 11, 1872. John 
H. Darr was roared upon a farm and has always 
been engaged in farming and stock raising, being 
measurably successful at both. He received but a 
meager education, as his services wore recjuired at 
home on the plantation. He owns 100 acres of 
land, sixty of which are imder a good state of cul- 
tivation. November 22, 1871, he was united in 
marriage to Maiy, daughter of Abraham and Mar- 
tha J. (Cary) McDani(>l, early and favorably known 
citizens of Craighead County. To this union have 
been born eight children: Martha E., Mary A., 
Sallie J., John W., Abraham and James G., liv- 
ing; Hiram S. and William D., decea.sed. In 
national politics Mr. Darr votes with the Republi- 
can party, but in State and local elections he sup- 
ports men and measures and not party. He is a 
reader of cun-ent literature, is well informed, but 
has never aspired to any political prcfortuont. He 
is Past Master and a member of Jonesboro Lodge 
No. 129, A. F. & A. M., and liberally contributes 
to all worthy enterprises. 

William A.. Davis, a prominent merchant of 
Bay Siding, is a native of Georgia, born Septem- 
ber 7, 184.3, and is a son of John and Margaret 
(Lewis) Davis, natives of South Carolina. The 
parents passed their youth in their native State, 
and soon after their marriage moved to (ieorgia, 
and there reared their famil}-. The father engaged 
very successfully in farming until his death, in 
1857. His wife died about eighteen months later. 
W. A. Davis, the immediate sul>ject of this skotcli. 




attained his majority in Georgia, and became famil- 
iar in his boyhood home with iutelliirent farming. 
In 1 873 he came to Craighead County. Ark. , and 
located on Crowley's Ridge, where he engaged in 
farming until 1888. He then moved to Bay Sid- 
ing, purchased a lot, erected a building and en- 
gaged in merchandising. He keeps a good stock 
of general merchandise, and by (lolite attention, 
energy and fair dealing, has established a good 
custom, doing an annual bxisiness of about $12,- 
000. In the fall of 1888 he was married in this 
county to Miss Jane Tyler, born and reared in this 
State. She died eighteen months later leaving one 
child, Henry, now a lad of seven years. In 1884 
he selected as his second wife, Laura Martin, a 
native of Arkansas, and this union has been blessed 
by two children: Josephine and Lura. Mrs. Davis 
is a member of the Baptist Church, and is active 
and zealous in all church work. 

Nathan A. Davis is a native of Craighead Coun- 
ty, and is one of its younger and more progressive 
farmers. His parents, James and Nellie (Lowery) 
Davis, were natives of Alabama, and about 1851 
came to Craighead County, locating on Crowley's 
Ridge: but .some time later moved to the western 
portion of the State, where they remained only a 
short time, then returning to Craighead County, 
and both died soon after. To them were born the 
following family of children: John, Jacob, and 
Nathan A., living; and Jefferson, Nancy, Mary 
and Taylor, deceased. The death of the parents 
left the family in somewhat straitened circum- 
stances, and young Nathan, as a boy, had but few 
advantages and underwent many hardships. He 
has always been energetic and frugal, and by his 
thrift and industry, is now the possessor of eighty 
acres of well improved land, and a larger tract un- 
improved. He married Miss Lizzie Gatlin, a na- 
tive of Craighead County, who was the daughter 
of Lee Gatlin, now deceased, but at one time a 
well known citizen of the county. Mr. and Mrs. 
Davis have one child, Nancy Ellen. Mr. Davis 
has held the offices of magistrate and constaljle, 
acquitting himself with honor, and with benefit 
to those for whom he labored. He is one of the 
county's useful and progressive citizens; 



Joseph Dixon, farmer, stock dealer and lum- 
berman, was born in England. October 26. 1842, 
and is a son of John and Eliza Dixon, of English 
bii-th, who came to America in 1842, and located 
in New York City, where they both died in 1849. 
John Dixon was a butcher by occupation, and he 
and wife were parents of two children. Joseph 
Dixon was left an orphan when seven years of age, 
and until fourteen years old. worked for his board 
and clothes. He received such education as he 
could afford. He learned the trade of a machin- 
ist, and for some time fired an engine on the 
Chicago & Rock Island Railroad. Coming to 
('hicago in ISoS, he was soon made an engineer, 
and for nine years followed that occupation. He 
then went to Freeport. and later to Pecatonica, 
III., in both of which places he engaged in mercan- 
tile pursirits. He came in 1882 to Jonesboro, and 
engaged in saw-milling, which he has since fol- 
lowed. In 1883 he built a large three-story hotel, 
of which he was proprietor until the disastrous fire 
of 1889, when it was entirely lost, with all his 
household effects — total loss. $5,000, without insur- 
ance. Mr. Dixon is a large land owner, owning a 
great deal of property in Jonesboro, and about 340 
acres of farm land, with 200 acres under cultiva- 
tion. Miss Jane A. Clark became his wife in 1866, 
and they have one child, Carrie, wife of J. M. 
Bennett, of Pine Bluff, Ark. Mr. Dixon began 
life a poor boy, but by industry, economy and 
thrift, he has conquered adversity, and has made 
himself one of the leading and influential citizens 
of the community in which he lives. He is a prom- 
inent member of the Masonic order, and is a 
Knight Templar. 

Allen Dodds was born in Georgia, in 1827. 
His father. James Dodds, also a native of that 
State, was born in Elbert County, in 1785, and 
there grew to manhood and married Sarah Thorn- 
ason, who lived but a short time after her mar 
riage. He chose for his second wife Winnie Ber- 
den, also a Georgian, whose grandfather Penn 
was an officer in the Revolutionary army. James 
Dodds gave his entire time to agricultural pursuits. 
Both he and wife were members of the Baptist 
Church, and thev reared a family of twelve chil- 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



329 



dren, six boys and six girls. Allen Dodds was 
reared on his father's farm, receiving his educa- 
tion at the county schools. He married Julia 
Suye, who was born in Georgia in 1826, and 
moved to Arkansas in 1N55. Of this union six 
children have been the issue. Mr. Dodds entered 
the Confederate service in 1861, his first engage- 
ment, which lasted almost a day, being at Belmont, 
Mo. There he was slightly wounded in the left 
arm, and afterward in the right shoulder. He 
was discharged from Jacksonport, in 1865, and 
then returned home and began teaching school. 
Later he turned his attention to farming, at which 
he has made a decided success. He owns about 
318 acres of land, and 100 acres are in a good 
state of cultivation. He has also, in connection 
with his farm, a grist-mill and a cotton gin. Polit- 
ically he is a Democrat, and fraternally a Mason. 
Both he and his wife are members of the Method- 
ist Church, of which denomination he is also a 
minister. 

Francis Marion Douglas was born in Hender- 
son County, Tenn., December 7, 1847, and is a son 
of Thomas Logan Douglas, a native of the same 
State, who went to Missouri in 1857, and, after 
the surrender, came to Craighead County, and 
located in Big Creek Township. He is still a res- 
ident of the State. His wife's maiden name was 
Catherine Ignite, and she was also a native of 
Tennessee. They are the parents of five children, 
and of the four living three reside in this county. 
The mother died in January, 1875, and was about 
forty-two years of age. Francis M. was ten years 
old when he removed with his father to Missouri, 
and at the beginning of the late war enlisted in the 
Tenth Tennessee Cavalry, under Gen. FoiTest, and 
served as a private under him until the surrender. 
A year later he came to Craighead County, where 
he rented property for some time, but has for 
many years cultivated his own farm, now con- 
sisting of forty acres, most of which is well im- 
proved and beai's many evidences of prosjierity. 
His marriage with Fannie Wade, a daughter of 
Noah J. NN'ade, of this township, was consum- 
mated September 19, IS72, and four children have 
been born to this union: Blanche, Noah, Inez and 

21 



Hazel. Mr. Douglas is a member of the Forest 
Home Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and, 
politically, is a Democrat. He is a director of 
school district No. 2'), and belongs to both the 
Agricultural Wheel and the Farmer's Allianc-. 

James T. Dudley, a prosperous merchant, and 
postmaster at Bay, also interested in agricultural 
pursuits, is a native of Madison County, Ga., 
born Decemlier 2"), 1852. His parents were 
Lemuel and Nancy S. (House) Dudley, both na- 
tives of Georgia. After liis marriage, Lemuel 
Dudley engaged in farming, blacksmithing and 
wagon building in Madison (.'ounty, and left his 
farm to enlist in the Confederate service. He 
served throughout the entire war, and in 1865 
died of small-pox in Atlanta, Ga. Mrs. Dudley 
moved with her family to Arkansas, and in Octo- 
ber of 1867, located in Crsighead County, where 
she died October 1 4, 1883. James T. grew to man- 
hood in this county and is mainly self-educated, 
having devoted much time to study since arriving 
at years of maturity. January 11, 1878, he was 
united in marriage with Elizabeth Bryant, a native 
of Georgia, but reared and educated in Craighead 
County. She is a charitable lady and is a member 
of the Baptist Church. Mr. Dudley followed 
farming until 1882, when he began merchandising 
eight miles west of the Bay. He there sold dry 
goods, groceries and general merchandise for two 
years, and in 1844 moved to Big Bay, where he 
has since continued in l)usiness, with the exce|)tion 
of seven months, while running a saloon in Mem. 
phis in 1887. He owns a fine farm adjoining the 
town, and has thirty-five acres of it in a fine state 
of cultivation and the same amount in timbered 
land. He has four fair residences on the place 
wliich bears evidence of thrift and industry. He 
has l)uilt and owns four- business houses in Bay, 
and as a merchant has a good trade. In 1884 ho 
was appointed postmaster, which [losition he has 
held since that time. 

Robert Y. Duncan, an active and jirogressive 
farmer, and proprietor of a cotton-gin and gri.st 
mill, was liorn in Perry County, Ala., Jiily 23, 
1844. His father was Samuel A. Duncan, a native 
of South Carolina, who located in .\labHmR when 



A 



330 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



about eighteen years of age. He was a plauter uutil 
thirty-five years old, when .he began contracting 
and building railroad bridges and houses. In 
December, of 1880, he was working on a dwelling 
in Birmingham, Ala., and fell from a scaffold, liv- 
ing only three hours afterward. He was married 
to Mary Ann Roberts, also a native of South 
Carolina, and they were the parents of fourteen 
children. Nine of them are still living, Ijut only 
Robert Y. is in Arkansas. The mother is si.xty seven 
years of age, and still resides in Alabama. Rob- 
ert Y. was reared in his native State, and coming 
to Arkansas with some friends when twenty-four 
years of age, arrived at Jonesboro November 17, 
1868. In the spring, he rented a farm and worked 
it for one year. In August, 1869, he was mar- 
ried to Matilda R. Lynch, daughter of Aden and 
Susan Lynch. In the fall of 1871 he bought 
eighty acres of his present farm and built his home. 
He subsequently bought forty acres of adjoining 
land, making a farm of 120 acres, forty of which 
are cultivated. In 1879 he built a good cotton- 
gin, and in 1886 opened a grist-mill in connec- 
tion, and these have proved successful. To Mr. 
and Mrs. Duncan have been born nine children: 
Ruby A. J. (deceased), Samuel A., John J., 
Thomas M., Essie B., Effie Y., Robert M.. Taylor 
A. and Rufus Elbert. Mr. Duncan is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, Jonesboro Lodge No. 
129, and has been president of Pine View Wheel 
No. 881. since its organization in 1886. He was 
in Company A, Fifty-third Regiment, Twenty- 
fourth Alabama Battalion, and during his eighteen 
months' service was mostly in Alabama, Georgia 
and Tennessee. He and his wife, oldest daughter 
and two oldest sons are active members of the 
New Salem Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Martin V. Echols, a successful farmer of Jones- 
boro Township, was born in Georgia, December 1, 
1838, and is the son of Jabal and Frances (Davis) 
Echols. Jabal Echols was born February 15, 1803. 
and Frances (Davis) Echols was born May 20, 1807, 
both in Franklin County, Ga. , where they were 
married, subsequently removing from that county 
to Habersham County, of the same State. Jabal 
Echols was a farmer and school teacher. He was 



also sheriff of that county for a number of years. 
He died at the early age of forty years, October 3. 
1843, honored and respected by his countrymen. 
Mrs. Francis (Davis) Echols died at the old home- 
.stead on September 8, 1869. She was a devoted 
member of the Baptist Church and a true Chris- 
tian woman. An older brother of M. V. Echols 
(the subject of this sketch), L. M. Echols, was a 
private in the Fifty- second Georgia Infantry. 
Confederate States Army, and died a prisoner of 
war at Rock Island, 111. Two younger brothers 
were in the Confederate service. Jackson L. was 
killed at the battle of Resaca, Ga. Jabal D. 
Echols died of sickness at Vicksburg during the 
siege of that place. M. V. Echols, the subject of 
this sketch, was a soldier in Wharton's Texas 
Cavalry, Confederate States Army. He saw hard 
service and went through some of the bloodiest 
V)attles of the war. He was taken prisoner at 
Dalton, Ga. , and from there sent to Johnson's 
Island, where he was kept till the end of the war. 
Of a family of twelve children, eight of whom are 
now living, Martin is the only one residing in 
Craighead County. He was reared on a farm in 
Georgia and received a very fair education. He 
farmed for several years in his native State, and 
in 1869 came to Craighead County, Ark., and 
studied photography with George Cooper, of 
Jonesboro, subsequently removing to Paris, Tex. , 
where he followed that art for several years. 
When he returned to Jonesboro he bought eighty 
acres of land, and has forty of it well improved. 
November 30, 1876, he married Miss Mattie Bird, 
whose parents were John and Barbara (McCarty) 
Bird. Mr. and Mrs. Echols are the parents of 
seven children, five of whom are living, viz. : 
Frances Cora, Lawrence Stanley, Lulu May, The- 
ora Myrtle and Lena Jewell. Mr. Echols and 
wife are active meml)ers of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South. 

George W. Evans, a prominent citizen of 
Craighead County, was born in Gibson County, 
Tenn. , January -t, 1849. His parents were Mal- 
achi, and Sarah (.Scarberry) Evans, natives of 
Alabama. The mother died in Tennessee in 1859. 
aged about forty- two years, and in 1867 the father 



•<* 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



m\ 



removed to Craifrbead County, Aik. Several 
years later he went to Izard County, wliere he died 
v?hen about sixty-five years of age. He was a 
farmer by occupation, and much respected by all 
who knew him. There were twelve children, 
eight of whom are living, and two, George W. and 
Harriet McGavock, are residents of Jonesboro 
Township. George W. was reared on a farm; and 
the war breaking out when he was but a boy, he 
had meager school advantages. He came with his 
father to this State, locating near Harrisburg, in 
Poinsett County. He afterward came to Craig- 
head County, and was for one year in the employ 
of Dr. Wadkins, and after his death, remained in 
the employ of his widow for three years. Decem- 
ber 28, 187^^, he was married to Nancy Stotts, a 
daughter of John and Melinda (Darr) Stotts, old 
residents of the county. To them seven chil- 
dren were born: Sarah Virginia, Mary Jane (de- 
ceased), Lucy Belle, William Thomas, Cassie, Effie 
and Cleo. After his marriage, Mr. Evans located on 
the farm on which he now resides, which then con- 
tained but thirty acres. He now owns 178 acres. 
Seventy-five acres are under splendid cultivation, 
and two acres were sold to the Hope school. He 
is greatly interested in education. Mrs. Evans is 
a member of the Christian Church, and the family 
attend the Hope Church of that denomination. 

George \V. Finch, a farmer and stock raiser of 
Buffalo Island, was born in Campbell County, 
Georgia, Feliruary 20, 1 S49, and is the son of 
Willis and Elizabeth (Harrison) Finch, both na- 
tives of South Carolina. They moved to Georgia 
and later to Alabama, where the father died in 
1Sf)8. George W. was reared mainly in Alabama, 
and began farming for himself when eighteen 
years of age, and in 18f)9 he was united in mar- 
riage with Adaline Maith. a native of Alabama. 
In 1880 he came to Arkansas, locating on Buffalo 
Island, where he rented for two years, and then 
bought his present place of residence. He has a 
farm of 400 acres, witii 100 improved. May 26, 
1884, Mrs. Fincli died, leaving rive children: 
Belle (wife of George Hogar), Oscar, Ethel, 
Luther and Itha. Mr. Finch chose a second 
wife, this time selecting Nannie Goss, who lived 



but a short time, dying June 22, 1887. His pres- 
ent wife was Mrs. Skelton, »iee Stoddard, a nativu 
of Alabama; a widow and mother of eight children : 
William, Florence, Joseph. Sarah, Walter, Clin 
ton, Jennie, and James (deceased). Mr. Finch 
is one of the public-spirited and enterprising men 
of the Island, and his wife is a member of the 
Methodist Church. 

James Gordon Frierson was born on Duck 
River, in Maury County, Tenn., November 5, 1838, 
and died in Jonesboro, Ark., March 8, 1884. His 
father was Dr. Charles Curren Frierson, descended 
on the father's side from French Huguenots, who 
settled in South Carolina some time before the 
Revolutionary War; on the mother's side, he 
comes from Scotch-Irish lineage — early emigrants 
to Middle Tennessee. Dr. Charles Frierson mar- 
ried, in 1828 or 1829, Miss Mildred Paj-ne, of West 
Tennessee, of English descent, numbering among 
her progenitors some of the ])ioneers of the State, 
and among her kindred some of the best people of 
Tennessee and Mississij)pi, counting among their 
cherished possessions many relics of the Revolu- 
tionary days, and pointing with pride to the record 
of their family. Among these are the Van Burens, 
the Taylors, the Alexanders, and others. Thomas 
Paine, the noted political and deistic writer of early 
times, was a member of the family and was spoken 
of with mingled feelings, in which pride of race did 
not predominate. Dr. Frierson and wife were the 
parents of eleven children, only five of whom arc 
now living. They removed many years ago, witli 
quite a colony of neighbors and relations, accom- 
panied bj' many colored families who had descended 
to them, to La Fayette County. Miss., where, four 
miles from Oxford, the site of the State University, 
they founded College Hill with a fine Old Presby 
terian Church, and male and female high schools, 
and added much to the culture and refinement of that 
part of the State. Dr. Frierson died at a ripe old 
age in 1879, and his wife the previous year. Both 
were devout members of the Presbyterian Church, 
in which faith their children were all reared. One 
daughter married Rev. Mr. McLamroch, of Her- 
nando, Miss. ; another Hon. Martin L. Clardy, of 
St. Francois (bounty, Mo. ; a third, Ben. G. Peers. 



-^rv*" 



^-VM 



332 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of Farmington, Mo. ; still another, a Mr. Hm-t, of 
Germantown, Tenn. Tho remainder of the family 
still reside at the old homestead at College Hill, 
Miss. James Gordon Frierson was the second son. 
At the age of twelve or fourteen years he was taken 
fi-om the home of his birth, near old Zion Church, 
in Maury Countj', Tenn., to Mississippi, the State 
of his adoption. He was educated at Oxford, 
graduating with honor, and numbering among his 
professors the distinguished Dr. F. A. P. Barnard, 
Dr. John Waddill, Justice Lamar, Judge Long- 
street, and others of less note. Mr. Frierson vol- 
unteered at the age of twenty-three in an infantry 
regiment, in the Confederate service, serving as 
captain under the noted Gen. Walthall, in the Ai-my 
of Tennessee, and was in many of the fiercest bat- 
tles fought in that section— Corinth, luka, Frank 
lin, Perryville, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge 
and Lookout Mountain. Here above the clouds 
he was captured by some of Hooker's men, taken 
to Johnson's Island, held a prisoner for nineteen 
months, being released at the close of the war, with 
health shattered by hardships and privations and 
exposure he was poorly fitted by nature to en- 
dure. Soon after the war (in January, 1861)) 
he with his brother in-law, Maj. M. L. Olardy, 
located at the little village of Cleburne, Cross 
County, then the county seat of the county, to 
practice law. November 12, of the same year, he 
was married to Miss Emma G. Davis, the oldest 
daughter of Dr. N. A. Davis, formerly of Ozark, 
Christian County, Mo. In 1870 he was elected to 
the State Senate of Arkansas, held this office two 
terms (four years), and was president of the senate 
during the Brooks -Baxter war. Mr. Frierson, as- 
sisted by the Hon. James Berry, who was then 
speaker of the house, drew up a bill the next day 
calling for a constitutional convention. The bill 
passed immediately. He was then elected a mem- 
ber of the convention, and took a leading part in 
its deliberations. In 1882 he was elected judge 
of the Second judicial district, consisting of the 
counties of Cross, Craighead, Clay, Randolph. 
Greene, Mississippi, Poinsett and Crittenden. He 
held this office to the entire satisfaction of all 
parties, by his pure life and varied learning win- 



ning the respect and affection of the people. He 
possessed, in an eminent degree, those virtues 
which adorn the bench, and that law knowledge 
which makes the safe and wise jurist a unity of 
purity and integrity. He was kindly, true and 
patriotic, a zealous Christian, and as legislator, 
patriot or jurist, his merit was only exceeded by 
his modesty. He died at the age of forty-six at 
his home in Jonesboro, Ark. , leaving a wife and 
three children: Gordon, Camille and Charles Davis 
Frierson. Mrs. Frierson established and con- 
ducted a high school, which flourished for several 
years until superseded by the Jonesboro graded 
schools, in which she at present occupies a position 

i as first assistant. 

William Lewis Gage, a prominent and enter- 
prising farmer of Jonesboro Township, was born 
in Greene County, Ark., November 27, 1845, and 
is the son of Jeremiah and Martha (Hutchinsi 

' Gage, both natives of Tennessee, who were mar- 
ried in that State and emigrated to Arkansas about 
1830. They first located at Gage's Point, on the 
Cache River, and from there went to St. Francis, 
and afterward to Greene County. He was a farmer 
all his life, and during the War of the Rebellion 
served under Gen. Marmaduke of the Trans-Missis- 
sippi department, receiving a wound in a battle in 
Missouri, from the effects of which he died at Cane 
Hill, Washington County, in November of 186-1. 
He was a member of the Missionarj' Baptist Church, 
a devout Christian and strong in his political con- 
victions. They were the parents of eight children, 
four of whom are living and in this county. After 
her husband's death Mrs. Gage married Larkin 
Johnson, of Greene County. She died in 186S, 
aged forty years. W. L. Gage was reared in 
Greene County, receiving a moderate education. 
In the spring of 1863 he enlisted in Col. Cooper's 
company and surrendered at Shreveport, La. , June 
9, 1865. In 1870 he moved to Craighead County, 
locating on his present farm, and having been very 
successful in farming operations at present owns 
1,620 acres in Greene and Craighead Counties. 
He devotes much time to stock raising and takes 
great interest in obtaining better breeds of stock. 
Mr. Gage was married October 22, 1868, to Maria 



* -iAs: 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



333 



Elizabeth Paramore, a native of Missouri, and 
daugbter of Robert P. and Nancy Caroline (Man- 
sese) Paramore. The fruits of this marriage are 
six children, one deceased: Ona Kate. Martha 
Caroline, Ethel Paramore, Grace Truman, Mary 
Ella and Maud Aimer. Mr. Gage is a member of 
the I. O. O. F. and Knights of Honor fraternities, 
and he and wife and three oldest daughters are 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church at 
Jonesboro, and he is one of the executive board 
of the Mt. Zion Association of that denomination. 
A. Thomas Gatlin, a successful self-made 
farmer of Craighead County, was born in Tennes- 
see December IC), 1849, and is the son of Hardy 
and Mary (Gullett) Gatlin, the former a native of 
Virginia, the latter of Mississippi. The father 
moved to Tennessee when a young man and there 
man'ied and remained for several years; then, 
about 1856, came to Arkansas, locating near Jones- 
boro, where he remained until his death, in 1860. 
After his father's death Mi-. Gatlin went to Ken- 
tucky with his mother, who is still living, and re- 
mained there until after the Rebellion. In 1873 
he returned to Craighead County, this time select- 
ing a location on Cane Island, where, by the fruits 
of his own labor, he has become the foremost 
farmer. The land was covered with heavy timber, 
but now he has 120 acres cleared and under culti- 
vation and sixty acres yet timbered. In connection 
with his farm he is owner and proprietor of a cot- 
ton gin, which he built in 1885, and with which 
in 1887 he ginned over 200 bales of cotton. In 
1868 was consummated his marriage with Amanda 
Gibson (now deceased), who bore him three chil- 
dren: Riley, Hardy and Lovenia. Mr. Gatlin 
married his present wife on this Island in July of 
1878. She was a daughter of William Bennett 
(her maiden name Sallie Bennett), and a native of 
Alabama. Mr. Gatlin is noted as one of the most 
energetic and industrious farmers of the county. 
He is a member of the Masonic order and is mas- 
ter of the lodge at Lake City. 

Needam Harvey Grady, M. D. . a successful 
medical practitioner on Buffalo Island, also en- 
gaged in merchandising and farming, was born in 
Gibson Countv, Tenn., March 5, 1852. He is the 



son of William Giady. a native of North Carolina, 
who was reared and married in that State. Hi- 
moved to Tennessee and engaged in farming for 
several years, and when our subject was about ten 
years old, went to Pomi.scot County, Mo., where 
the father and mother both died. Dr. Grady, 
then a boy of fourteen, returned to his old home 
in Tennessee, where he remained until he was 
twenty- five years of age. He had superior educa- 
tional advantages, and has taught school sttveral 
terms. In his profession he is well posted, Ijegan 
the study of medicine with Dr. James, of Gibson 
County, Tenn., and has attended lectures at Vioth 
St. Louis and Louisville, Ky. Hci practiced in 
Butler County for three years, then in Independ- 
ence County, Ark., and after trying Greene County. 
Ark., and Dunklin County, Mo., settled in Craig- 
head County, Ai-k., in the fall of 1884. In 1886 
he began merchandising, keeping a general stock, 
and at this has been (juite .successful. He owns 
several good farms, aggregating 600 acres, with 
over 200 under cultivation. In October, 1872, he 
was imited in marriage with Nancy A. Keith, a 
native of Indiana, and daughter of Isom Keith, 
an early settler of Missouri. During the five 
years Dr. Grady has been on Buffalo Island, he 
has built up a wide practice, and has won the es- 
teem and confidence of the people. 

Henry M. Griftin (deceased) was born in Cal- 
houn County, Ala., December 4, 1842. His father 
was Benjamin Griffin, a farmer of that county, who 
died in 1856, and his mother was Mary (Moody) 
Grifttn, a native of South Carolina, who died in 
1873. Henry Griffin toiled faithfully and dili- 
gently on the farm through his youth, receiving 
but a limited education. He was a youth seventeen 
years of age, attending school at Selma, when the 
war broke out, but he immediately enlisted in the 
Tenth Alabama Regiment, and served gallantly 
for four years. When mustered out, he was cap 
tain of a company of fifty sharp shooters. He 
made a crop in 1S66, and February 3, 1867, mar- 
' ried Rachel A. Bennett, a daughter of Thomas 
Bennett, a native farmer of Alabama. Mr. Ben 
nettcame to Craighead County in the latter part of 
1866, and located in Jonesboro Township, where 



334 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



he passed the remainder of his life. His widow, 
Martha (Rollins) Bennett, a native of Georgia, 
now resides with Mrs. Griffin. The seven surviv- 
ors of their eleven children are all residents of 
Craighead County. In 1807 Mr. Griffin located 
in Greenfield Township, about one mile east of 
Dee Station, where he remained but one year. 
After trying two other farms he bought forty acres 
of his present place, and subsequently adding 120 
acres, later had a farm of 160 acres, and much 
of it is improved. He was a member of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, and also of the Agricul- 
tural Wheel. After a life of patient toil and sterl- 
ing integrity, he died, January 27, 1888. Mr. 
and Mrs. Griffin were the parents of seven children ; 
those now living are: John Henry, Benjamin, 
Jiramie, Belle and Ruthie. Mrs. Griffin is a pious 
and charitable lady, and she and her oldest son are 
members of the Baptist Church. 

Christopher C. Hale, an energetic and worthy 
citizen of Buffalo Island, is one of the leading 
farmers and stock raisers of the community in 
which he lives. He was born in Shelby County, 
Tenn., in March, 1835, and is the son of Edward 
D. Hale, of Middle Tennessee, who married Hettie 
Fleetwood, a native of North Carolina. They set- 
tled on a farm in Shelby County, Tenn., where 
she died in 1865), and he in 1872. To them were 
born four children, one son and three daughters. 
Christopher C. attained his majority in Tennessee, 
and joined the Confederate army in 1862, serving 
until the spring of 1864, when he went home on 
furlough, having participated in several minor 
engagements. Being sick and unable to return to 
the field, he hired a substitute. He engaged in 
farming in his native State until 1871, when he 
came to Poinsett County, Ark. ; there he remained 
several years, and, in 1879, came to Craighead 
County, where he has since resided. He pur- 
chased 160 acres of wild, timbered land, and soon 
had 100 acres of it cleared and under cultivation. 
He has two good residences, good outbuildings and 
a nice young orchard. He has in all 200 acres of 
good land. He was married in Tennessee Janu- 
ary 20, 1861, to Martha A. Carr, a native of that 
State, who died in 1877. They had four children: 



John B., George D., Mary E., wife of W. A. Wil- 
kin, and Hettie, wife of P. Foster. Mr. Hale 
chose as his second wife Mrs. Mary A. McDonald, a 
daughtei' of Larkin Majors. She was the mother 
of two children: Alexander and James. To Mr. 
and Mrs. Hale has been born one child: Luna Z. 

Joseph W. HaiTell, postmaster at Macey, and 
a farmer of sterling worth in Buffalo Township, 
is a native of Arkansas, born in White County, 
February 6, 1846. His father, Jethro Harrell, 
was a native of South Carolina, where he was 
reared and married Mildi-ed Htint. In 1840 they 
came to Arkansas, where Mrs. Harrell died, in 
1846. After his wife's death he was unsettled 
until 1851, when he located in St. Francis County, 
where he remained for several years. He after- 
ward came to Craighead County, and died Febru- 
ary 7, 1866. He was an active member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, greatly respected by 
all who knew him. His second wife, whose maiden 
name was Elizabeth Morrow, survived her husband 
several years, dying in Alabama in 1883. By his 
first wife Mr. Harrell had five children, Joseph W. 
being the only one who grew to manhood; and by 
his second wife four sons and two daughters, who 
reached mature years. Joseph W. Harrell was 
reared and educated in Poinsett and Craighead 
Counties. In the late war he enlisted in the Con- 
federate service, and participated in several en- 
gagements during Price's raid in Missouri and 
Kansas, and at last surrendered at Wittslnirg, May 
25, 1865. He returned to Poinsett County, and 
remained there until his father' s death. He was 
married in this county, February 16, 1873, to 
Frances E. Hunton, a native of Georgia. She 
died February 20, 1887. To this union were born 
seven children: Charles J., Martha Jane, Mary F., 
Macy A. , Lucy A. , William J. and Joseph E. Mr. 
Harrell went to Dunklin County, Mo., in 1872, 
and farmed there for two years, after which he 
located in this townshi^a, where he has since re- 
sided. He bought timbered land, ;ind has cleared 
100 acres, and liuilt a comfortal)le home and five 
tenant houses. He has married Amanda Carson, 
a native of Lauderdale County, Tenn., where she 
was reared. She is a zealous member of the Meth- 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



385 



odist Church. Mr. Harrell was the first postmas- 
ter at Macey, appointed in 1882. He is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and takes active interest 
in the promotion of the educational interests of his 
neighborliood. 

Benjamin J. Harrison. Few farmers and stock 
raisers of Lake City Township have been more 
universally successful than the subject of this 
sketch, who is a native of Marshall County, Tenn., 
born November 27, 1844. He is a son of J. W. 
Harrison, born and reared in Virginia, who, when 
a young man, moved to Tennessee, and there mar- 
ried Lucy Emeline Culberhouse, a native of North 
Carolina. He then located on a farm in Marshall 
County, and there engaged for several years in 
agricultural pursuits. In 1856 he came to what is 
now Craighead County, Ark., where he resided 
until his death, in 1881, his wife having previously 
died, in 1871. Benjamin J. was but twelve years 
of age when he came with his father to this State, 
and he grew to manhood and was educated in 
Craighead County, remaining with his father un- 
til his marriage. In 1863 he enlisted in the Con- 
federate service. Fourteenth Tennessee Cavalry, 
and served until near the close of the war, be- 
ing at home on a furlough at the time of the 
surrender. He was second sergeant, was once 
captured, and participated in a number of engage- 
ments. Returning home, he engaged in farming 
until 1881, when, in June, he bought a building 
in Lake City, put in a stock of general merchan- 
dise, and followed mercantile business for throe 
years. December 25 following, he lost everything 
by tire, having no insurance, his loss is estimated at 
.^lO.OOO. The following fall he rebuilt the store 
and rented it, himself moving to a farm near the 
village, where he has since resided. He has a 
comfortalile home, witli 125 acres of good laud in 
a splendid state of cultivation, and a large orchard 
of 1,200 trees, mostly apple, and all choice fruits, 
some just beginning to bear. March 25, 1868, ho 
married Miss MaiT E. Lewis, a native of this 
county, who died in 1877, leaving two sons. Mr. 
Harrison chose a second wife, and February 14, 
1871), was united in marriage with Victoria Eveline 
Grayson, born, roared and educated in this coun- 



ty, and a daughter of Col. Adam D. Grayson, a 
colonel in the Confederate army, killed at the bat- 
tle of Shiloh. Mrs. Grayson died March 5, 1889. 
Mr. and Mrs. Harrison have also two sons, the 
four children being John A., George T., James 
and Walter S. Mrs. Harrison is a member of the 
Methodist Church. Mr. Harrison owns, in con- 
nection with his farm, a cotton-gin and grist-mill, 
possessing also hotel property in Lake City. He 
is one of the leading spirits of the community. 

James H. Houston was born in Sholl)y County, 
Tenn., October 1, 1849, and is now a farmer of 
Greenfield Township, residing about six miles 
south of Jonesboro. His father was William Bird 
Houston, a prominent and highly esteemed citizen 
of Poinsett County. He was a native of Tennessee, 
and came with his family to Arkansas, about 
December, 1856, locating in the northern part of 
Poinsett County, where he engaged extensively in 
farming and stock raising. He was a Democrat, 
belonged to the Masonic fraternity, and was a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Church. When about twenty- 
five years of age he was married, in his native State, 
to Harriot Jane Steelman, also a native of Tennes- 
see. To them were born thirteen children, the 
four surviving making their home in Arkansas. 
They are: James H. (the subject of this sketch), 
Melinda (widow of S. HaiTis, son of Capt. Harris, 
who has several times represented Poinsett County 
in the State Senate), John F. (married to Emma 
J. Allen, deceased), and William Bird, Jr. (mar- 
ried to Elizabeth Kelsoe, deceased). The father 
died in 1872, the mother in 1867. James H. was 
seven years old when his parents came to this 
State, but he retvu-ned to Tennessee to school after 
the war. He owns 130 acres of land in Poinsett 
Coimty, much of it under fence. He moved to 
Craighead County in August of 1887, locating at 
his present residence — the old ;McCarty homestead. 
February 15, 1880, Mr. Houston was married to 
Lucinda J. Stephens. To them were born three 
children, all deceased: Cora M., Lorenzo B. H. 
and John H. Mrs. Houston died August 22. 188(5. 
and he was married again August 4, 18S7, to Me- 
linda Josephine McCarty, a dnughlor of Michael 
and Melinda (Weor) Mcf'sirtv . th.- r.nin.'r h i.:itiv.' 



336 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of Ohio, the latter of North Carolina; the former is 
deceased, but the latter is still living, aged seventy- 
one years. Mr. and Mrs. Houston have had one 
child, a daughter, now deceased. Mr. Houston is a 
member of the Methodist Church, has taken great 
interest in Sunday-school and church work, and is 
a leading member of the denomination to which he 
belongs. He is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and a prominent and enterprising citizen. 

Philip T. Hudson was born in Madison County, 
Tenn. , and is the only surviving son of Baker Hud- 
son, a native of Mecklenburg County, Va., born 
May 18, 1783. Baker Hudson was reared and ed- 
ucated in Virginia, and engaged in farming all his 
life. He married Jane Fletcher, whose birth oc- 
curred in Louisa County, of the same State, No- 
vember 17, 1798, and to this union were born nine 
children, only two of whom, Mrs. Elizabeth Peebles 
and Philip T., are now living. Mr. Hudson died 
May 2^, 1850, in Fayette County, Tenn., and his 
widow in the same county, May 7, 1878. They 
were both active and consistent members of the 
Methodist Church. The marriage of Philip T. 
Hudson and Mary E. Perkins was consummated in 
Fayette County, Tenn., May 9, 1866. In that 
county, near Somerville, he had spent his boyhood, 
and received his education. To this union have 
been born five children : Sallie S. , Philip B. . Will- 
iam H. , Tillie andCuthbert L. Mr. Hudson came 
to Arkansas in 1870, and since that time has been 
engaged in farming. He owns 160 acres of good 
land, and has about eighty acres under cultivation. 
He has cleared most of this himself. For six years 
he served as justice of the peace in Craighead 
County, is a member of the Agricultural Wheel, 
and both be and his wife are members of the Pres- 
byterian Church. Having the public interest al- 
ways in view, he is one of the class of citizens who 
exert a marked influence for good in the com- 
munity. 

William Huggaus was bora in Hall County, 
Ga. , in 1821, and is a son of David and Elizabeth 
(Irbel) Huggans, natives of Georgia and South 
Carolina, respectively. The mother went to Geor- 
gia when quite a girl, was there married, and re- 
sided until her death in 1849. Her husband died 



in 1882. They were the parents of one son and 
three daughters, our subject being the only surviv- 
ing child. Though only a boy, he went to Florida 
during the Seminole War, enlisting as a soldier. 
He returned home in 1839, and in the fall of the 
same year moved to Alabama, where he remained 
until 1854, when he came to Arkansas, locating 
near Greensboro, in Greene (now Craighead) Coun- 
ty. He entered some land in Greene County, and 
rented for several years, and had improved a num- 
cer of farms before coming to his present location. 
He is a wide-awake and energetic farmer, and al- 
though he only came to this place in 1887, he now 
i has in a state of splendid cultivation seventy-five 
acres of choice farming land. December 8, 1839, 
he was married to Miss Mary Anthony, who was 
born and reared in South Carolina, and to this un- 
ion have been born two children : John J. and Mrs. 
Elizabeth Steward, both now deceased. The son, 
John J. , had married, and to him and wife had been 
born two children, one of whom grew to woman- 
hood and married. She had one child, AVilliam T. 
Manerd, who is now living with Mr. Huggans. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Huggans are active and char- 
itable members of the community in which they 
live, and the latter is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

Ivy S. Hughs, proprietor of the Hughs House 
of Jonesboro, Ark. , was born in the Pickens Dis- 
trict, S. C, March 5, 1829, and is the son of 
George and Margaret (Tannery) Hughs, both na- 
tives of the same State. His father was a farmer 
and brick mason by occupation, and died about 
1847, aged fifty-five years. His mother's parents 
were Zopher and Mary (Minturn) Tannery. Of 
the thirteen children born to this union, only eight 
are now living — Ivy S. being the only one in Ar- 
kansas. In October, 1887, Mrs. Hughs came on 
a visit to her son and died in the Hughs House, 
March 25, 1888, aged ninety-one years. I. S. 
Hughs left South Carolina with his father's family, 
when fifteen years of age, and located in Chero- 
kee County, Ga. , where he resided until after he 
was of age. In 1856 he came to Arkansas, select- 
ing a site within a mile of what is now Jonesboro, 
but then a wild timbered country. Mr. Hughs 



% 




entored eighty acres of laud, remained on it but 
a short time, and then engaged in merchandising 
for two years. Then he returned to the farm and 
was at the same time proprietor of a grocery store, 
where he remained until the beginning of the late 
war. He enlisted in the Confederate service, 
Company I, Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry, com- 
manded by Col. Tappan. He served until the sur- 
render, was promoted from private to captain, and 
was mustered out as the latter. He returned to 
Jonesboro, and after clerking for two years in the i 
dry goods store of Burk & Chisenhall, went into 
business for himself, but was burned out. There 
being no hotel here for the accommodation of the | 
public, he began keeping boarders, and as business 
increased, he erected the old part of the present 
Hughs House in 1881. Additions have been made 
until now it has thirty-three sleeping apartments, 
and is one of the largest hotels in this part of the 
State, and is located on two acres of hotel property. 
Mr. Hughs has also several farms scattered over 
the county, amounting in all to about 6-tS acres. 
October 28, 1858, he married Martha I. Kellar, 
a daughter of Uriah and Julia Kellar, residents of 
this county. To this union were born five chil- 
dren, only three of whom are now living: W. J., a 
merchant of St. Louis, married Belle Hughes; 
Ben. and I. O. Hughs. Mr. and Mrs. Hughs 
spare no pains in their efforts to make their gue.sts 
as comfortable as possible. Mr. Hughs was ap- 
pointed deputj' under Sheriff Thorn, and served 
four years in that capacity, also holding the same 
position under Sheriff Lane for one term. He is 
a Democrat in politics, and a charter member of 
the Masonic order. 

James C. Johnson, a substantial farmer of Buf- 
falo Island, was born in Newt<m County, Ga.. in 
1834, and is a son of John and Sarah (Lacy) John- 
son, natives of Georgia. The father followed 
farming in both Georgia and Mississippi, in the 
latter of which States he died in 1850, aged fifty 
years. The mother came to Arkansas in 1880, 
and died here in 1884. They were members of 
the Baptist Church. To them were born nine 
children, eight of whom grew to manhood, and 
four are still living. James C. Johnson was the 



fifth child, and was reared, educated and married 
in Mississippi. He was married in 185(i to Mary 
Q. McLemore, a native of Tennessee, where she 
lived until eight ytars of age, when her parents 
moved to Mississippi, and there she grew to woman 
hood. The fruits of this union have been nine 
children, three of whom are living: Mary Ann 
(wife of William Lamb), Sarah C. (wife of Ed. 
Goss), and Charles T. William J. died at sixteen 
years of age, and James F. at eight years; the 
others died in infancy. They have also reared an 
orphan boy, Albert T. Graham, whom they took 
when four years of age. Mr. Johnson followed 
farming in Mississippi until 1855), when he started 
for Arkansas, locating in Poinsett County in 18f5(t, 
and in 1865 in Craighead County, near where he 
now resides. He moved to his present location 
in 1875. He entered the Confederate army in 
1862 — Twenty-third Arkansas Infantry under Col. 
Adams. He was in the siege of Port Hudson, and 
returning home, remained one year, when he re- 
enlisted and served until the close of the war. He 
then resumed the cultivation of his farm, which 
though small, is well improved, and his home is 
comfortable. He is a Democrat in politics and a 
member of the Agricultural Wheel, and both he 
and Mrs. Johnson are meuil)ers of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Johnson's parents 
were natives of South Carolina and Kentucky, re- 
spectively, the former removing when a young 
man to the "Blue Grass State," whence, after 
several years, he went to Tennessee. In 1 838 he 
became located in Mississippi. They were mar- 
ried in Tennessee, and had nine sons and two 
daughters born to them; one son died at the age 
of eighteen months.- and two others died six hours 
apart, one in his eighteenth year and another in his 
sixteenth year. The other chikb-en married and 
reared families. Before their deaths the parents 
came to Arkansas, the father dying when about 
ninety years of age, and his wife when seventy. 
They were members of the Methodist Church. 

Dr. Roderick Joyner, a successful medical 
practitioner of Jonesboro, was born in Limestone 
County, Ala., July 22, 1833. and is a son of Rod- 
erick and Emily (Williams) Joyner, hotii natives 



\ 



338 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of the " Old Dominion. " The father was a soldier 
in the War of 1812, and in 1818 moved to Ala- 
bama, where he was a successful farmer in early 
life, and later engaged in mercantile business. In 
1859 he immigrated to Poinsett County, Ark., lo- 
cating five miles south of Harrisburg. He died in 
Harrisburg in 1866, his wife having previously 
died in 1860. They were the jiarentsof eight chil- 
dren, four now living: Elizabeth (wife of G. B. 
Parker, residing in Florida), Emily V. (wife of 
Judge John A. Tinnon, of Nashville, Tenn.), Mary 
P. (wife of S. O. Nelson, of Montgomery, Ala.), 
and Roderick, who is the youngest living member 
of the family. Dr. Joyner was reared and educated 
in Limestone County, Ala., and when fourteen 
years of age engaged in the drug business, and 
when twenty years old began the study of med- 
icine. He practiced some in Memphis, where he 
was a di'uggist a number of years, and in 1859 
came to Poinsett County, Ark. , where he continued 
the practice of his profession. He also dealt in 
general merchandise for several years, and in 1872 
was elected to the State legislature; in 1874 was 
elected a member of the State constitutional con- 
vention, and in 1878 was reelected to the State 
legislature. In 1884 he came to Jonesboro, and 
the following year went into the drug business 
and during the five years he has been in Jonesboro 
he has built up a splendid custom and a wide prac- 
tice, and has won the esteem and confidence of the 
people. Being a physician of extraordinary abil- 
ity, and possessing the rare gift of bringing social 
sunshine as well as medical skill into the sick- 
room, he stands high among medical practitioners 
of his section of the State. In the late war he 
served in the Twenty-third Arkansas Regiment 
until after the surrender. In 1860 he was mar- 
ried to Mary E. Bradshaw, who bore him ten chil- 
dren, four now living: Thomas W., Augustus G., 
Elisha B. and MaryE. Mrs. Joyner died in 1883, 
and the following year Dr. Joyner was again mar- 
ried, to Mrs. Martha A. (Knight) Moberly. He is 
a member of the Baptist Church, and she of the 
Methodist. Dr. Joyner is a Democrat in politics, 
and is a Royal Arch Mason. 

W. D. Kirksey, a prominent agriculturist of 



Jonesboro Township, is a native of Georgia, bom 
in Monroe County, twenty-five miles above Macon, 
February 2, 1832. He is the son of William and 
Martha (White) Kirksey, the former a native of 
Abbeville District, S. C, the latter of Virginia. 
The father moved to Georgia, when twenty years 
of age, and in the fall of 1871, when eighty years 
of age, he came to Craighead County, Ark., with 
his son W. D. The mother went from Virginia 
to Georgia, when yet a child and died in this coun- 
ty in 1878, aged seventy-six or seventy-seven years. 
They were the parents of nine children, five of 
whom are living, four being residents of this 
county. W. D. K irkse y spent his childhood on 
the farm, and when twenty years of age, went 
into the saw-mill and lumber business, at which he 
was engaged for twenty yeai's. He also si)ent 
four yeers in a machiae shop in Atlanta. He 
came to Craighead County in the latter part of 
1871, and purchased 300 acres of laud, which 
with seventy-five under cultivation make a good 
farm. In November, 1857, he married Mary E. 
Bishop, a native of Georgia, and daughter of 
Jones and Margaret (Holland) Bishop. Mr. 
Bishop is dead, and his widow resides in this 
township with her eldest son, Joe. Ten children 
have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Kirksey, eight of 
whom are now living, viz. : Mary Jane (wife of 
John Stidman), \V. J. (married Ella Sillman). 
Sarah Ann (wife of Thomas Barker), Emma Lee 
(wife of Willis Ironton), Andrew J., Alice, Ella 
and Lewis R. Mr. Kirksey is a Democrat in 
politics, and is active in the promotion of educa- 
tional interests. He and his wife and most of 
their children are members of the Missionary Bap- 
tist Church, and contribute liberally to the u])- 
building of all charitable and praiseworthy enter- 
prises. 

Herman Koehler, a well-known farmer, stock 
raiser and carpenter of Buifalo Island, was born 
in Hanover, Germany, May 1, 1826. His father, 
John Henry Koehler, was also a Hanoverian by 
birth, and stood high in the estimation of those 
who knew him. Herman, like all German boys, 
received a good common-school education, and also 
served a four years' apprenticeship at the car- 




MiaSISBIPPI CaUNTY,ARKAMSAS. 



>^ 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



m\> 



penter's trade. In 1848, thinking to better his 
condition, he emigrated to the United States; and 
after working at his trade in New Orleans for live 
years, he went to St. Louis and to Iowa, where for 
some time he worked at carpentering and build 
ing, and then went to Memphis, Tenu. , where he 
resided working at his trade for nineteen years. 
Here he formed tlie accjuaintance of Miss Ann M. 
Meyer, who became his wife July *J, 1854. This 
lady was a native of Germany, but was reared in 
Cincinnati, Ohio. To this union have been born 
two children: Adaline and John August. In 1877 
Mr. Koehler moved to Mississippi County, Ark., 
where he farmed and worked at his trade some 
three years, and then moved to his present loca- 
tion on Buffalo Island, which has since been his 
home. He at first purchased forty acres of un- 
improved land, to which he has since added until 
he now owns 184 acres, 100 of it being under a 
good state of cultivation. He also owns valuable 
property in Florida and California. Like most of 
his countrymen, Mr. Koehler is frugal and indus- 
trious, and has made what he has by his own exer- 
tions. He is unassuming in his manner, charital)le 
and honest in his thoughts and dealings with his 
fellow men, and is one of Craighead County's 
mo.st substantial citizens. His wife and children 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
W. T. Lane, sheriff and collector of Craighead 
County, was born in Greene (now Craighead) 
County, December 30, 1850, and is a son of Thomas 
J. and Mary (Hughes) Lane, the father a native 
of Illinois, and the mother of Tennessee. Thomas 
Lane emigrated with his father, William Lane, to 
Arkansas about 1840, and located ten miles south 
of the present site of Jonesboro. They were among 
the first settlers of this section. William Lane 
engaged in mercantile business, and in rafting 
on the St. Francis Kiver, in both of which he was 
very successful. He never returned fi'om his last 
trip on the raft, and the cause of his death is un- 
certain. The body was recovered almost two years 
later, /sind was identified by his suspender buckles 
and raft auger. While a resident of Illinois, he 
was a colonel of a regiment of State militia, and 
held a commission as lieutenant under Gen. 



Jackson. His son, Thomas J. Lane, was a stock 
dealer and general trader, owning also a small 
farm. He died in 1858, and his wife in 18(50. 
Both were estimable and gi-eatly respected citizens. 
They were the parents of but one child, W. T. 
Lane, the immediate subject of this sketch, who, 
left an orphan in infancy, was reared by his 
grandmothiM- Lane, now in her eighty-sixth year. 
He received a common-school education, and so 
far as his means would allow, became engaged in 
farming and stock dealing. He made his home 
with his grandmother imtil 1880, when he was 
elected sheriff and collector, to which office he has 
been re-elected each ensuing election. At Sum- 
merville, Tenn., in December, of 1887, he was 
united in marriage with Miss Mattie Thurman, a 
native of that State, and to them has been l)orn 
one child, now deceased. Mr. Lane possesses ex- 
traordinary stability of character and perseverance, 
and l)eing eminently (jualified for the position 
which he holds, tilK it ■satisfactorily to his con- 
stituents. 

W. Stanford Lane is a native of Arkansas, 
having been born and reared in the State which 
has always been his home. His father, W. Q. 
Lane, was born in Tennessee, and moved to this 
State about IS32. His mother, Caroline (Harris) 
Lane, was a native of South Carolina. Of this 
union, seven children were the issue, and the four 
survivors are all residents of Craighead County. 
The father was an honest, hard working farmer, 
who achieved success through earnest endeavor. 
He was a worthy member of the Masonic order. 
Stanford Lane is one of the enterprising farmers 
of Craighead County, and owns 700 acres of land, 
of which about 100 acres are well improved. By 
patient toil and industry he has made his farm one 
of the best in the county. He was united in mar- 
riage with Elnora Carter, a native of Tennessee, 
who came with her father to this State in 1850. 
This union has been blessed with three children: 
Jarvis Q., Harry B. and Daisy E. Mrs. Lane is a 
devoted wife and mother, a zealous Christian, and 
a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Lane is 
a stanch Democrat, but prefers rather to serve his 
party than receive official favors. It may be truly 



^ 



a 1^ 



340 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



said of him that h« is one of the progressive cit- 
izens of the county. 

B. Frank Lee, a native of Jonesboro Town- 
ship, has lived in this county over forty-five years. 
He vpas born August 5, 1844, and is the son of Dr. 
Charles Lee, an early settler and pioneer physician 
of this county, who attended to the physical needs 
of the citizens of his time until his death. He 
married Mrs. Eliza (Pierce) Cook, widow of Will- 
iam Cook. Charles Lee and wife became the par- 
ents of three children, one daughter, deceased, and 
two sons, B. F. and Claiborne N. The mother 
died about ten years ago. Frank Lee was reared 
in this township, and has been all his life a farmer, 
but did not have school opportunities when a bov. 
His half-brother, Thomas Cook, entered eighty 
acres of laud, and at his mother's death it descended 
to Mr. Lee by inheritance. It is a good farm, with 
about forty acres of rich bottom land under culti- 
vation. Mr. Lee was married, October 7, ISHQ, to 
Mary, a daughter of Albert and Rebecca Pierce, 
residents of this township. Of the eleven children 
born to this union, ten are living. They are: Cal- 
vin, Susan, Charlie, Nancy, John, Harriet, Re- 
becca, Eliza, Josie, and a baby boy, Harrison Col- 
umbus Lee. Mr. Lee is a man of decided politi- 
cal and religious convictions, and supports all 
charitable and progressive enterprises. He is a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church, and is 
a Republican in politics. 

Aris R. Lunsford, though but recently a resi- 
dent of Buffalo Island, has already attained a posi- 
tion among its leading farmers. He was born in 
Lauderdale County, Tenn., January 23, 1844, and 
is the fifth of a family of eight children, five of 
whom are still living, His father, William Luns- 
ford, a native of North Carolina, was married in 
that State, and later moved to Tennessee. There 
his first wife died, and he married Marcie Norris, 
the mother of A. R. The father was a prominent 
farmer and trustee of the county for several years, 
and remained in Tennessee until his death, April 
27, 1884, aged seventy -seven years. The mother 
is still living. Aris R. Lunsford was reared in 
Tennessee, receiving such education as the county 
schools of the time afforded. He enlisted in the 



Confederate army, in October, 1861, participating 
in several engagements, and saw much active ser- 
vice. He was corporal of his company, and was 
several times captured, paroled and exchanged, 
being last taken at Ripley, Tenn., where he was 
held until the close of the war. He then returned 
to his home, where he remained until 1886. Jan- 
uary 15, 1863, he was united in marriage with 
Margaret Brimm, a native of Tennessee, and 
daughter of Thomas Brimm. Eight children have 
been the fruits of this union: William G., Sarah 
M. (wife of William Markham), James R., So- 
phronia (wife of N. S. Tucker), John S., Mary A., 
Jason H. and Maggie L. In 1886 Mr. Lunsford 
sold out in Tennessee and came to Arkansas, locat- 
ing where he now lives. He has cleared seventy 
acres of land, and has a good residence, stables 
and orchard, all bearing evidence of thrift and 
success. In 1876 he was elected jitstice of the 
peace in Tennessee, and held that office until he 
removed to Arkansas, where he has been elected 
justice of the peace of Buffalo Township. He is 
president of the district and local Agricultural 
Wheel. Both he and wife are members of the 
Methodist Church. 

L. A. Lynch, an active, enterjsrising farmer of 
Jonesboro, living five miles south of the city, was 
born in Marshall County, Miss., August 14, 1850. 
His father was Aden Lynch, a native of Middle 
Tennessee, who was a mechanic by trade and a 
farmer by occiipation, working at both. In 1 855 
,he moved to Poinsett (now Craighead) County. 
Ark., and bought a claim of 160 acres, living 
thereon one year. Then obtaining the contract to 
build the court-house of Poinsett County, at Har- 
risburg, he removed his family there; but after two 
or three years returned to Jonesboro, having se- 
cured the contract to build the first court-house in 
Craighead County. In the winter of 1867 he 
removed to the farm where he still resides, one 
mile south of Jonesboro. He has been twice mar- 
ried. His first union, with Susan Lynch, was 
blessed with nine children, only three of whom are 
now living: J. J., a farmer of Jonesboro Township: 
Matilda (Mrs. Robert Y. Duncan), also of Jones- 
boro Township; and Lewis A., the subject of this 



Ll£ 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



:!H 



sketch. After his wife's detath, in 1854, Mr. 
Lynch was again married to Mary Martin. Mr. 
Lynch is a member of the Methodist Church and 
is a Mason. He has been honored with various 
positions of trust, having been for several years 
justice of the peace in Marshall County, Miss., 
and after coming to Craighead County, served sev- 
eral years as county clerk, was elected county 
probate judge, and was subsequently appointed by 
Gov. Baxter one of three county supervisors. He 
was also the first mayor of the city of Jonesboro. 
Lewis Aden Lynch was reared in Craighead 
County, receiving the best education the district 
afforded. At eighteen years of age he began 
farming for himself and for others, homesteaded 
120 acres, moving on it in 1877. His father gave 
him forty acres, completing the quarter-section. 
About thirty- five acres of this are in a splendid 
state of cultivation. MJr. Lynch was married, Feb- 
ruary 4, 1S77. to Eliza J., daughter of Calvin and 
Sallie (Shaw) Shores. To them have been born 
four children: Albert Clifton, Henry Ollie, Eddie 
Omer and Dixie May. Mrs. Lynch is a member 
of the Christian Church and a charitable lady. 
Mr. Lynch has always been a Democrat and served 
one term as justice of the peace of Jonesboro 
Township. He has resided on his present })lace 
since 1877, and has needed a physician for him- 
self or family but once in all that time. He is a 
member of the Agricultural Wheel, and at present 
occupies the position of school director of district 
29. He takes quite an interest in all educational 
matters. 

John J. McBroom, an influential farmer, and 
proprietor of the Lake City ferry, was born in 
Orange County, Ind., December 27, 1825, and is 
a son of Jesse and Susan (Sowards) McBroom, the 
former a native of Virginia, the latter of Kentucky. 
The father was reared in Virginia and Kentucky, 
was married in Indiana, and in that State engaged 
in farming for a number of yeai's. In the winter 
of 1837 he came to Arkansas, locating in Phillips 
County, where he engaged in farming and reared 
his family, residing there twenty-one years. He 
then removed to Lawrence County, and remained 
until his death. His wife survived him several 



years, and died in 1884. J. J. McBroom carae 
with his father to this State when a lad twelve 
years of age, and grew to manhood on the farm in 
Phillips County, receiving his education at the 
county schools. In 1850 he went to Independence 
County, where he engaged for four years in steam - 
boating on the Black and White Rivers. He has 
seen much war service, having been actively oc- 
cupied in both the Mexican and the late war. The 
former he entered in 1846, enlisting in the First 
Arkansas Cavalry. Col. Yell's regiment, and par 
ticipated in several skirmishes and the battle of 
Buena Vista. When discharged he returned to 
Philli])s County. In 1861 he entered the Confed 
erate service, McGee's battalion, Col. Dobbin" ^ 
regiment. He was in many prominent engage 
ments. and served until the close of the war, when 
he settled in Craighead County, and has since been 
steamboating. He is an engineer, but has also 
served as pilot, and has always been an active, 
energetic business man. He was first married in 
Phillips County, in 1849, to I. H. Metcalf, who 
was born and reared in Kentucky, and died May 
29, 1884. There are three chihlren living of this 
union: Willdie, wife of J. E. Mattax; Adora, 
wife of Chancy Gillum, and J. J. McBroom, Jr. 
J. R. died in 1887. aged twenty- nine years. Jan 
uary 10, 1886, Mr. McBroom married Mrs. (Twad 
dell) Stroud, a native of New York City, reared in 
the city and on Long Island. Her first husband 
was a native of Canada, and after their marriage 
they resided theie three years, and then returned 
to Long Island. In 1861 they came west to Cm- 
cinnati, Ohio, and remained there two years, then 
removed to Memphis, where they resided three 
years, and in 1806 settled in Craighead County, 
Ark. Here Mr. Twaddell died, December 25. 
1878. Mrs. Twaddell subsequent]}' married Henry 
Stroud, September 16, 1881, wh'o died March 1. 
1885. Two children, Charles P. and Ostram, died 
after reaching mature years. Mr. McBroom has 
a good farm on Cane Island, and his wife one on 
Buffalo Island. For three years he has operated 
the Lake City ferry. His wife is a meml)er of the 
Methodist and he of the Christian Church. He is 
a Mason, and is Junior Warden of his lodge. 



h 



^J^ 



342 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Lucian T. McDaniel, merchaat and postmaster 
at Gilkerson, is one of the prominent and enterpris- 
ing business men of Jonesboro Township. His 
father, Solomon McDaniel, one of the oldest set- 
tlers and leading citizens of Craighead County, 
was born in Wilson County, Tenn., July 12, 1820. 
His paternal grandfather was John F. McDaniel, 
a native of Randolph County, N. C. , who removed 
to Tennessee after his marriage to Mary Horn, by 
whom he had several children. After her death he 
was again married, to Mrs. Mary (Reaves) Thomas, 
a native of Tennessee. These two were the parents 
of seven children, two of whom are now living, 
viz. : Mary, widow of William Paultin, and Solo- 
mon. Mrs. McDaniel died in Hardin County, 
Tenn., and her husband subsequently married 
again and removed to Arkansas in 1839. He lo- 
cated several miles below the old farm, and after a 
few years removed to Missouri, where he died. 
His father, Abraham McDaniel (the paternal great- 
grandfather of the subject of this sketch), fought 
through the Revolutionary War, and John F. was 
almost old enoiigh to be mustered into service. 
Solomon McDaniel was a boy when he came to this 
county, and has lived on his present farm thirty- 
one years. He has been engaged principally in 
farming, but is al.so a blacksmith and gunsmith. 
He has a tine farm of 170 acres about five miles 
south of Jonesboro, and 100 acres are in a splendid 
state of cultivation. He was married A])ril 6, 
1848, to Juliet White, a native of Craighead Coun- 
ty, and daughter of Thomas and Liicy (Trigg) 
White, residents of this county. To their union 
were born thirteen children, seven living, as fol- 
lows: John T. (married Margaret Porter, now 
deceased), Margaret King, William F. (married 
Sarah Kellar), Lucian T. (married Matilda Shel- 
ton), Andrew J. and three girls. Mr. McDaniel 
is a Republican in politics, and was a Union man 
during the war. He has been a member of the 
Christian Church for about fifteen years, and his 
wife, two sons and two daughters are members of 
the same denomination — all connected with the 
Christian Valley Church. Lucian T. McDaniel 
was born on the old homestead, August 14, 1859, 
and was reared on the farm, receiving a fair dis- 



' trict school education. When twenty-two years of 
age he engaged as a clerk for B. C. Shiery, a 
grocer of Jonesboro, and five months later moved to 
Wiener, Poinsett County, becoming a merchant of 
that place. Four months after, when the Cotton 
Belt Railroad was opened, he removed to Gilkerson 
and engaged in mercantile business. In June, 
1887, W. M. Robertson, of Jonesboro, liecame a 
member of the firm now known as Robertson & 
McDaniel. They keep a stock of general mer- 
chandise and have a very good trade; also operate 
a saw-mill (capacity, 6,000 feet per day), and a 
cotton-gin, and grist-mill (capacity, 200 bushels 
per day), and are agents for the Cotton Belt Rail- 
road and Southern Express Company. Mr. Mc- 
Daniel was married January 17. 1883, to Matilda 
J. Shelton, daughter of Stephen and Mahala 

; Shelton, residents of this township. Their union 
has been blessed with four children: Maggie Lee, 
James Garland, Stephen Andrew and Angle Belle. 
Mrs. McDaniel is a pious and charitable lady, and 
a member of the Christian Valley Church, of the 
Christian denomination. 

Abraham McDaniel (deceased) was one of the 
prosperous and esteemed farmers of Craighead 
County. He was a native of Tennessee, his par- 
ents, John and Mary McDaniel, having been resi- 
dents of that State. After his mother's death, 
his father came to Poinsett (now Craighead) 
County, Ark., locating near the present home of 

' his son's widow, but he afterward removed to Mis- 
souri, where he died. His children. Abraham. 
Mar)', Nicholas and Charlie, returned to Arkansas. 
There were six children, only two of whom, Solo- 
mon N. , and Mary, widow of William Pauldin, 
are now living. Abraham was about grown when 

, he came to this county, and has engaged in farm- 
ing all his life. He settled on the homestead 
farm in September. 1852, entering a half section of 
land. Having given to his sons, John B. and 
James N., sixty and sixty-three acres of land, re- 
spectively, the homestead now contains 183 acres. 
He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
in 1865 was ordained to preach in the Christian 
denomination, and devoted the greater part of his 
life to his Master's cause. He died March 7, 1879, 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



34,5 



aged tiftythree years. He was married October 
1 20, 1S47, to Jane Cary, a daiightpr of Benjamin 
' and Sallie (Stotts) Carj', residents of this county. 
Mrs. McDaniel was born in Carroll County, Tenn. , 
October 31, 1832. In 1839 Mr. Cary removed 
with his family to Poinsett County, Ark., where 
he died in 1843, his wife having died two years 
previously Mr. and Mrs. McDaniel were the par- 
ents of ten children, three deceased: Rebecca, 
Sally and an infant boy; and seven living: John 
B., married to Mintie McGown. James N., married 
to Mary Hendrix; Mary, wife of John H. Darr; 
Nancy Ann, wife of Louis Sowells ; Elizabeth, wife 
i)f William Fuller, and Martha Jane and A. B. , at 
home. Mrs. McDaniel has been a devout and in- 
fluential member of the Christian Church for 
about nineteen years, and four of her children are 
also members. 

A. L. Malone. insurance agent, and a member 
of the firm of Malone & Bell, dealers in books, sta- 
tionery, etc., was born in Fayette County, Tenn., 
September 29, 1853. His parents, William C. 
and Elizabeth M. (Gardner) Malone, natives re- 
spectively of Orange County, N. C, and Powhatan 
County, Va. , were married in Fayette County, 
Tenn., where they resided until December, 1853, 
when they came to Northeast Arkansas, locating 
in Poinsett County. He was a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and also followed 
farming. He devoted much time to his Master's 
cause, and organized many churches in this part 
of the State. His latter years were spent in Cross 
County, Ark., where he died in November, ]88f5. 
His wife still resides in Cross County. To 
them were born eight children, only three now 
living: Alvis L., John K. and Blanche. A. L. 
Malone was an infant when his parents came to 
this State, and received his education in the 
common schools of Poinsett County. He remained 
on the farm until eighteen years of age, then 
entered a store as a clerk, and later engaged in 
the mercantile busine.ss for him.self. in Wittsburg, 
Cross County. He came to Jonesboro in the fall 
of 1883, and since that time has been occupied in 
his present business. He represents the following 
Insurance Companies: Phoenix, Hartford and Orient 



of Hartford, American of Philadelphia, Union and 
Anglo Nevada of California, and other leading 
and noted companies. He is assistant postmaster, 
and has held that office for four years. He and 
partner keep a large stock of books, stationery, 
etc., located in the postoflSce building. In 1879 
he was married to Miss Florence McFerrin, and of 
this union four children have Ijeen the issue, three 
living and one deceased. Those living are, Lil- 
lian, James W. and Mary. The one deceased was 
Charles M. Both paients are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Malone be- 
longs to the Knights, and Knights and Ladies 
of Honor. He was elected in April, 1880, and 
served one term as city recorder of Jonesboro. 
Politically he is a Democrat, is an energetic and 
thoroughgoing business man, and has the confi- 
dence and respect of all who know him. 

Isaac N. Mangrum is a native of Maury Coun- 
ty, Tenn., his birth occiUTing Noveralier 28, 1836. 
His parents, L. B. and Stacy Mangrum, were both 
natives of the " Old Volunteer State." where they 
were married and resided a number of years, and 
then moved to Shelby County, Tenn. They came 
to Craighead County, Ai'k. , prior to the War of 
the Rebellion, and located on a farm near Jones- 
boro, which was their home until their respective 
deaths. They were the parents of nine children, 
and had the respect and confidence of all who knew 
them. Isaac N. was reared upon a farm, and re- 
ceived but meager educational advantages. He 
came with his parents to Arkansas in 1854, and a 
year later was united in marriage with Miss Talii- 
tha Blackstone, and from then until entering the 
Confederate service, he followed farming in Craig- 
head County with varied success. His war exper- 
ience was eventful, and he saw much active service 
and underwent many iiardships and privations. 
After the war, he returned to his home and family, 
and resumed his agricultural labors, locating where 
he now resides. The place at that time was almost 
wholly unimproved, but by hard work, intelligent 
and business-like management, Mr. Mangrum has 
improved and added to it, until he is now one of 
the leading planters and owns one of the best im- 
proved farms in the county. His improvements 






344 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



are all good, and upon his place are two cotton- 
gins, which do a thriving business. By his first 
marriage there were two children, both of whom 
are worthy citizens, and are married and reside 
near the home place. Mrs. Mangrum died in 1866. 
Miss Susan Sage, a native of Craighead County, 
became the second wife of Mr. Mangrum in 1866. 
Ten children are the fruits of this union, of whom 
these are now living: Stacy, James, Robert, 
George and Ettie. Some of the children died in 
infancy. Stacy is the wife of Mr. James Stotts. 
Mr. Mangrum is, in the fullest sense of the term, 
a self-made man. He is progressive in his ideas, 
and liberally contributes to all worthy objects. He 
is a member of the Masonic order, and is one of 
Craighead County's most esteemed citizens. 

Nicholas P. Mangrum was born in Maury 
County, Tenn. , in 1S46. His father, James Man- 
grum, was a native of Virginia, and when a child 
six years of age came with his parents to Maury 
County, Tenn. Here he was reared, and married 
to Ann Craig, a native of Maury County. In 1858 
he moved with his family to Poinsett County, Ark., 
remaining three years, when he moved to Dyer 
County, Tenn., and remained for some eight years; 
thence to Butler County, Mo. , for one year, later 
to Dunklin County, Mo., for one year, when he 
returned to Craighead County, Ark. , where he died 
in February, 1887, aged sixty-seven years. He 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and much respected by all who knew him. The 
mother died in Maury County, Tenn.-, in 1846, 
when Nicholas P. was but six months of age, leav- 
ing five children, all of whom lived to maturity. 
Only two of them are now living: Mrs. Martha 
Todd, now living in Texas, and our subject. Those 
deceased are William, Robert and James. James 
Mangrum was married a second time, and had a fam- 
ily of seven children, two of whom are now living: 
George and Sophrouia, the latter residing with our 
subject. George is deputy sherifif of this county, 
and resides at Lake City. Nicholas P. Mangrum 
was reared in Tennessee, receiving his ediication 
at the county schools. He was married, in 1871, 
to Amanda Stotts. a daughter of Arnold Stotts, 
and began farming for himself on this Island near 



where he now resides. He came to his present 
place in 1874, purchasing wild land, with only 
seven acres cleared. Now he has cleared, and has 
in cultivation, eighty acres, and is one of the most 
thriving and prosperous farmers on the Island. 
He is a wide-awake and public -spirited citizen, and 
is a consistent Christian, and member of the Meth- 
odist Church. 

aohn H. Mangrum, clerk of the circuit court, 
exofficio clerk of the county and i^robate courts, 
and recorder, is a native of Cross County, Ark. , born 
July 29. 1855. His parents, L. B. and Eustatia 
(Lovell) Mangrum, the former a native of Vir- 
ginia, the latter of Tennessee, were married in the 
" Old Volunteer State," and emigrated to Arkansas 
in 1852, locating in Cross County. There the 
father cleared a good farm and engaged in agricul- 
tural pursuits until January of 1861, when he 
moved to Craighead County, and located one half 
mile northwest of Jonesboro, where he resided 
until his death, which occurred January 4, 1883, 
his wife having previously died July 25, 1881. 
They were the parents of thirteen children, five of 
whom are now living John H. Mangrum, the 
youngest child, was reared on a farm, receiving 
his education at the common schools of the county. 
He followed farming and school teaching in his 
early life, acquitting himself with personal credit 
and to the benefit of those for whom he labored. In 
188() he was elected to his present office, and was 
re-elected m 1888, now serving his second term. 
In November of 1881, he was united in marriage 
with Miss Jeannette Culberhouse, a daughter of 
G. T. Culberhouse. Mrs. Mangrum is an estima- 
ble lady, and a member of the Presbyterian 
Church. Mr. Mangrum belongs to the Masonic 
and Knights of Honor fraternities, is a Democrat 
in politics, and is an active member of his party 
in this coutity, meriting by his untiring services, 
the honorable recognition which he has received. 

Z. T. Matthews, of the firm of Matthews, Pet- 
er.son & Pace, merchants of Jonesboro, is a native 
of Paulding County, Ga , born February 2, 1848. 
His ])arents, L. M. and Mary Ann Matthews, were 
natives of Virginia and Georgia, respectively, and 
were the parents of ten children; Z. T. and a sister. 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



■ur 



Louisa, in Paulding County, Ga. , being the only 
survivors. The mother died in Georgia, and, by 
his second marriage, Mr. Matthews became the 
father of three children, all deceased. He was by 
occupation an agriculturist, and in the winter of 
1857 came to what is now Craighead County, Ark., 
and located about one and one- half miles from the 
present site of Jonesboro. When, two years later, 
the town of Jonesboro was laid out, he was living 
on the present town site, and had his field planted 
with cotton. Some years later he moved to Poin- 
sett County, where he died during the war. Z. T. 
Matthews was but eight years of age when he came 
with his parents to Arkansas, and here grew to 
manhood, receiving such education as the schools of 
that day afforded. He went to the first log school- 
house built in the town, attended private schools 
and also the old academy. He was reared mainly 
on a farm, but, in 1808, began clerking at $r2.r)0 
per month, and retained that position for two 
years, and then entered into partnershij) with W. 
J. Witt, continuing but a short time. He then 
entered into a partnership with William Puryear, 
which lasted for about four years. Selling out 
to Mr. Puryear, he formed a partnership with 
J. C. Knight, with whom he continued eleven 
years, and then formed his present partnership. 
The firm has a large stock of dry goods, clothing, 
gent's furnishing goods, boots and shoes, etc., 
and, by strictly fair and honest business princi- 
ples, have established a splendid custom. Mr. 
Matthews is also a partner of Johnson, Berger & 
Co., dealers in groceries, furniture and hardware, 
owning both store buildings, which are large two- 
story bricks. In 1864 he was married to Miss C. 
J. Witt, and of this union four children have been 
the issue: Waughlie, Gordon, Eva, and Willie, 
who died when seven months old. Mr. and Mrs. 
Matthews are members of the Baptist Church. 
Mr. Matthews' business career has been one of 
unusual success; starting as a clerk on a small sal- 
ary, he soon engaged in business for himself; was 
during Grant's administration appointed postmas- 
ter of Jonesboro, which position he held for about 
s(>ven years, resigning in favor of J. D. C. Cobb, 
and now is a leading and successful citizen. 



James D. Mead, an energetic and successful 
agriculturist of Lake City Township, was born in 
Madi.son County. Ga., in 1822, and is the son of 
John and Elizabeth (Hall) Mead, the former a na- 
tive of Georgia, the latter of South Carolina. 
His grandfather. Miner M. Mead, was of English 
descent, and was born in Virginia, where his par- 
ents had settled a few years previous. He served 
in the Revolutionary War, and was afterward a 
pensioner for services rendered. His wife, Mary 
Mead, lived to be one hundred and five years of 
age, and drew a pension after her husband's death. 
She died in Carroll County, Ga., having lived a 
devoted Christian life as a member of the Baptist 
Church. They were the parents of thirteen chil- 
dren, John, the father of our subject, being the 
oldest child. John Mead served in the War of 
1812, and aft,er a life of success and usefulness, 
died in Georgia, when fifty seven years of age. 
The mother died in Craighead County, at the home 
of her son, James, in 1807. To them were born 
nine children, James D. being the third child, and 
he and two sisters, Mary and Sarah, are the only 
survivors, and all live in this county. Mr. Mead 
was reared and educated in Georgia, where he re- 
sided until the spring of 1857, when, with his 
family, consisting of his wife and five children, 
he came to Arkansas, locating on what is now Bay 
Siding. There he followed farming for sixteen 
years, and in 1872 moved to his present location. 
Since coming to Arkansas he has put in cultivation 
over 200 acres of land, and now owns 480 acres, 
and has under good cultivation 125 acres. April 
6, 1848, he was united in marriage with Miss 
Thessa Moon, born in Georgia, in 1820, who died 
in this county, in 1807. Their union was lilessed 
by nine children, only two of whom are now liv- 
ing: Mrs. Nancy S. McLean and James W. Mr. 
Mead was married a second time, ia 1872, this 
time selecting Mrs. Elizabeth Farmer, nee Lewis, 
who. by her former marriage was the mother of 
three children: Mrs. Mary Gatlin, Mrs. Sarah Bag 
well and Mrs. Nellie Wilson. Mr. Mead's family 
have always been Whigs, and he is now a stanch 
Republican. 

James W. Mead, a leading planter of tln' 



^ ''^ r » > 



346 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



county and also mail contractor, is a native of 
Georgia, born in Madison County, January '22, 
1850. His parents were James D. and Thessa 
(Moon) Mead [see sketch], both natives of Georgia. 
He came with his father to this State and county 
when a boy seven years of age, and was reared on 
his father's farm, receiving his education at the 
county schools. He chose as his life companion, 
Jane Beaty, a native of Arkansas, reared in this 
county, and December 24, 1868, they were united 
in marriage. He engaged in farming for several 
years after this event, and in 1880 opened a 
saloon at Lake City, and was engaged in the saloon 
business for six years. In 1883 he was appointed 
deputy sheriff, and served in that capacity until 
November, 1888. Since that time he has been 
farming. Mr. and Mrs. Mead have two children, 
Nora and Otto, and lost three in early child- 
hood. Mr. Mead has been quite prominent in 
local afPairs, is a Republican in politics, and has 
been postmaster, serving in that capacity for sev- 
eral years. He is a Knight of Honor and also a 
Mason. 

J. A . Meek, attorney at law at Jonesboro, Ark. , 
was born in Lincoln County, Tenn., April 8, 1830, 
and is the only son of Urban E. and Nancy (Dean) 
Meek, who were natives of the "Old Volunteer 
State." The paternal grandfather, Alexander 
Meek, a native of Virginia, emigrated to Tennes- 
see at an early day, and was among its pioneer 
settlers. Moving later to Marshall County, Miss., 
he was among the early settlers of that State, 
which was still largely inhabited by Indians. 
Though at the time but sixteen years of age, he 
was a soldier of the Revolution, participating in 
the battles at King's Mountain and at Cowpens. 
He was with four bi-others and two uncles during 
his military service. After the war he was a pen- 
sioner for service rendered; and returning to his 
farm resumed his occupation. He died in 1858, 
at that time one hundred years of age. The 
maternal grandfather, too, lived to be almost a 
centenarian. Urban E. Meek built the first house 
in Chulahoma, Marshall County. Miss., and re- 
sided there until his death in 1847. He was a 
farmer by occupation, and was a prominent man 



in the county, having held several oflBces of honor 
and trust. His wife died in 1848. They were 
the parents of two children: Joseph A. and 
Minerva E., wife of James H. Wilburn, of De Soto 
County, Miss. Joseph A. Meek was reared in 
Holly Springs, Miss., and there received his edu- 
cation. His parents having died when he was 
about fifteen years of age, he worked his war 
through school until able to teach; and while 
teaching school, studied medicine under Rev. 
Stark Depree, of De Soto County, Miss. In 1857 
he entered McDowell Medical College of St. Louis, 
and at the beginning of the late war enlisted as 
assistant sui-geon, and served in that capacity until 

I the close of hostilities. He then returned to Har- 
risburg, Poinsett County, where he had gone in 
1858, and resumed his practice, remaining there 
until 1873. During that time he was twice'elected 
to the legislature, first in 1866, and afterward in 
1871. He entered the Atlanta Medical College in 
1871, and graduated in September of that year. 
In 1873 he came to Jonesboro, where he practiced 
his jjrofession until 1883, when he gave up the 

I medical profession and began the practice of law, 
having been admitted to the bar in Poinsett County. 
The circumstances attending his admission are 

I interesting and unique. Once, in 1858, being on 
trial, he defended himself, showing such unusual 
tact and ability that he was admitted by a petition 

i from the bar, and without examination. In 1881 
he was elected to the legislature from Craighead 
County, and was re-elected in 1883 and 1888. He 
was first married November 19, 1856, to Miss 
Madella Russell, of De Soto County, Miss., who 
bore him two children. One of them is now de- 
ceased, and the other, Jodella, is the wife of W. 
M. Robertson. Mrs. Meek died August 12, 1860, 
and June 7, of the following year, Mr. Meek was 
united in marriage with Miss Caroline F. Parker, 
a native of North Carolina, and a graduate of 
Chawan College. He has been for years a leader 
of his party in both Poinsett and Craighead 
Counties, untiring in his labors, and deserving the 
honors bestowed upon him. He is a member of 

I the I. O. O. F., and he and wife are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 






— » 9 



^ 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



34'; 



Joseph W. Moss, a, leading farmer and stock 
dealer of Craighead County, whose parents, Willis 
and Sarah (Mnllinax) Moss, were both natives of 
South Carolina, was born in that State August 25, 
182U. His father died in his native State, his mother 
in Tennessee. He was reared on a farm, and had 
l)ut limited educational advantages. When, in 
1851, his brother Barnett came on a prospecting 
tour to Arkansas, and located in Poinsett (now 
Craighead) County, Joseph W. came with him, and 
for a while made his brother's house his home. 
He at first bought fifty-two acres, and has since 
added to it. until he now owns about 1,000 acres, 
mostly woodland. He began $60 in debt, but by 
industry, economy and thrift, he has cancelled 
this indebtedness and accumulated a competency, 
which he has from time to time invested in land 
and stock. He lost fifty fine horses in the disas- 
trous overflow of 1882. He was married, in 1853, 
to Mary Simonds, a native of Illinois, and to this 
union was born one child, Henry, married to Mat- 
tie Wilson. His first wife died, and Mr. Moss 
was married again, in 1861, to Lousina Kelsoe, a 
native of Tennessee. This union was blessed with 
nine children, all living: John R. (married to 
Florence Stotts). Sarah (wife of Morgan Denham), 
Joseph L. (married to Jane Patterson), Mary (wife 
of Theodore Johnson), Carroll, Barnett, Hettie, 
Newton B. and Wallace. Mrs. Moss died in 1880, 
and Ml-. Moss married Mrs. Martha Patterson, a 
native of the county, and daughter of Andrew 
Stotts (now deceased), an early settler of the coun- 
ty. Mr. Moss is a Democrat in politics, has held 
various oflSces, and takes great interest in educa- 
tional matters. 

A. S. Nash, merchant at Jonesboro, was born 
in Bedford County, Tenn., July 23, 1829, and is 
a son of Travis and Joanna (Miller) Nash who 
came fi-om Virginia to Tennessee early in the his- 
tory of that State. The Nash family are of Irish 
and the Miller family of French descent. Travis 
Nash was a farmer by occupation, and in the War 
of 1812, wasacaptain. He was a successful farmctr 
and a brave and gallant soldier, and died at Shel- 
by ville, Tenn., April 7, 1844. The mother moved 
with her family to Texas, where she died in 1862. 



Of the family of fifteen children, only two are now 
living, Mary, widow of John McGimsey, and Au- 
gustus S. Two brothers, Thomas and Franklin, 
who went from Texas, were killed in the war, and 
two others, Lafayette and Granderson M. died in 
Texas at the close of the war. Augustus S. Nash 
was reared in Shelby ville, Tenn., remained on the 
farm until fourteen years of age, when he was aj)- 
prenticed to learn the saddler's trade. He fol- 
lowed saddlery for several years, then engaged 
for several years in farming, and in 1860 moved to 
Jackson Coimty. Ala. While living in Tennessee, 
he was lieutenant of militia under the old muster 
law, and in 1S61, at the outbreaking of the Civil 
War, he enlisted in Company G, Fourth Alabama 
Cavalry, and during the war saw much active ser- 
vice. He was in the battles of Fort Donelson, 
Murfreesboro, Resaca, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, 
Franklin, Knoxville, Tenn., and several others. 
He was with Gen. Wilson from Alabama to Co- 
lumbus, Ga., where they surrendered. He was 
not seriously wounded, but had his left ear shot 
off at Chickamauga. At the close of the war, he 
returned to Nashville, where he took the oath, and 
then returned to his farm in Alabama. In 1 870 
he moved to Jonesboro, Ark., where for six years 
he engaged very successfully in farming, and in 
1876, he began merchandising, which he has since 
followed. He was married in 1849 to Margara 
Atkins, and they are the parents of seven living 
children: Thomas, William, Charles, Leander. 
Richard, Wiley and Victoria. The father and 
mother are both members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Ml-. Nash belongs to the Masonic 
fraternity; he owns a great deal of property in 
Jonesboro, and as a lousiness man has been very 
successful. In 1 880 he was elected county treas- 
urer, which ofiice he filled satisfactorily to his con- 
stituents. He is one of the leading business men 
of the town. 

Francis M. Newcom and Robert T. Wallace 
are both natives of Kentucky, the former boril in 
Crittenden County, October 15, 1855, the latter 
in what is now Webster County. August 27, 1847. 
They are now prosperous and representative farm- 
ers of Craighead County, Ai-k. Francis M. Newcom 



348 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



is a son of W. D. and M. E. (Heath) Newcom, na- 
tives of Kentucky, who later settled in Webster 
County, where both parents died. Francis M. 
came to Arkansas in 1882, and three years later to 
his present residence. He has cleared and now 
has under cultivation seventy-live acres of good 
land. October 1'2, 1882, he was united in mar- 
riage with Eliza Wallace, born and reared in Ken- 
tucky, and to this union have been born foiir chil- 
dren: Ivy Lillie, Nannie D. , Lee E., and Rosa 
Belle (deceased). Mr. Newcom is a prominent 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church. Rob- 
ert T. Wallace is the eldest of the six children 
born to the union of Col. Benjamin P. Wallace and 
Eliza Bruce, natives of Kentucky. The father was 
a farmer in his native State, and in the Civil War 
enlisted in the Confederate service, in which he was 
colonel. He died July 12, 1870, the mother hav- 
ing previously died July 10, 1869. Robert T. was 
reared in Kentucky, and lived with his father until 
his death, when he bought the old homestead, 
on which he resided until he came to Arkansas, in 
1882. He had been deputy sheriff for one year, 
and sheriff for two. Since 1882 be has resided in 
Arkansas, except one year spent in Howell Couuty, 
Mo. , and he moved to his present location Christ- 
mas of 1887. He owns several tracts of land, and 
has a well-cultivated farm. July 17, 1875, he 
married Annie Moore, also a native of Kentucky, 
and a daughter of Allen Moore. They had grown 
up together in the same county. The fruits of this 
union have been foiu- children, only one living, 
Maude. Those deceased are Florence, died in 
1885, at the age of nine years; Molly, died when 
five years of age, and Willie, who died at three 
years of age. The parents are both consistent 
Christians, the father a member of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church, and the mother of the Meth- 
odist Church. Mr. Wallace is a member of the 
I. O. O. F. 

Rev. William J. Newton, one of the leading 
citizens of Buffalo Island, was born on the place 
where he now lives, March 3, 1849, and is the son 
of John Newton, who was born in Tennessee, and 
reared near Nashville. To better his fortune, he 
came to Arkansas in 1841, and here married Cather- 



ine Lamb, the mother of our immediate subject. 
The father died in 1857. William J. attained his 
majority on the Island where he had always lived, 
and served for seven months in the Confederate 
ranks. He lost his right limb in New Madrid, 
Mo., in 1805. In September, 1880, he and 
Martha L. Towers were married. She was a na- 
tive of Arkansas, born on Crowley's Ridge, this 
county. The fruits of this union have been si.\. 
children: Minerva A., Bertha, Charles J., Gert- 
rude, William J. and John R. Mr. Newton has 
a farm of 200 acres, with 124 under cultivation, 
is an energetic man and has cleared all but eight 
acres of this himself. In 1874 he professed 
religion, in 1876 was licensed to preach, and in 
1880 was ordained a minister of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. At first he had charge of a 
circuit for two years, 1880 to 1882; but since that 
time has been stationed, and has labored zealously 
in the cause of Christ, doing much good through- 
out this section. By his kindness to the poor, and 
generosity to his fellow-men, as well as by his fer- 
vent piety, he has attained an enviable popularity. 
W. W. Nisbett, lumber dealer and manufact- 
urer of brick, etc., is a native of Lancaster County, 
S. C. , born October 14, 1836. His parents, James 
and Jane Y. (Rogers) Nisbett, natives of South 
Carolina, were of Irish descent, the grandfather, a 
native of Ireland, having been an early immigrant 
to South Carolina. The paternal grandfather, Jo- 
siah Nisbett, was a soldier of the Revolution, and 
he and all the grandparents lived and died in South 
Carolina. James Nisbett emigrated with his fam- 
ily to Coffee County, Tenn. , in 1844, and three 
years later to Monroe County, Miss., thence to 
Memphis, Tenn., in 1850, and in 1852 came to 
what is now Craighead County, Ark., locating 
where Jonesboro now stands. He was a farmer 
and mechanic, and followed both occupations for 
several years; made the first improvements and 
built the first frame house in Jonesboro. He then 
kept a hotel in Jonesboro for some time, and in 
1867 moved to Pike County, where he resided for 
five years, then returned to this county, where he 
remained until his death in 1884. The mother 
died three years later. They were the parents of 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



349 



r 



six children, live now living, four sons and one 
daughter: William W., John G. R., Benjamin F., 
Joseph A. and Sarah, widow of P. H. Winke. 
William W. was but eight years of age when he 
left his native State, and, school advantages being 
very poor, his education was necessarily very lim- 
ited. However, since arriving at maturer years, 
he has closely applied himself to study, and is now 
a self educated man. He was eighteen years of 
age when he came with his parents to Craighead 
County, and had learned from bis father the car- 
penter' 8 trade, and intelligent farming. His early 
life was devoted mainly to mercantile business un- 
til the late war, and after the surrender, he was 
for many years a furniture dealer and undertaker. 
While in business, he was three times burned out, 
but was by no means discouraged by his misfor- 
tunes. After the fire of 1886, he closed out what 
remained of his stock, and turned his attention to 
his milling business. He has been for twenty years 
engaged in the milling and lumber business, also 
handling grain, and is now engaged in the man- 
ufacture of brick, making from 35,000 to 40,000 
per day. Having a nice farm in the suburbs of 
Jonesboro, be also gives some attention to agricult- 
ural pursuits. In 1882, he began the study of law, 
and in 1884 was admitted to the bar, and has since 
been engaged in the practice of his profession. He 
has been the leader of the Republican party since 
the war, and has been identified with all its meet- 
ings and important moves. He was elected sheriff 
of Craighead County in 1866, and served until 
18T'2; was also sheriff in 1865 under military order. 
He has held the offices of county supervisor, presi- 
dent of the board of supervi.sors, county assessor, 
sheriff, collector, postmaster, assessor of internal 
revenue, and deputy United States marshal. In 
1858 he was united in marriage with Mary Mattix, 
and they are the parents of ten children, seven of 
whom are living: Elizabeth (wife of J. R. Smith), 
Mattie (wife of H. H. Houghton), William S., 
Alice, Delia A., Minnie M. and George E. Mr. 
Nisbett is a member of the Masonic fraternity, is 
Master of the Blue Lodge, and High Priest of 
the Chapter. He belongs to the I. O. O. F., and 
also to the Eastern Star. 



William O'Guinn. Among the pioneer settlers 
of Craighead Coimty, none are more worthy of 
special mention than the subject of this sketch, 
who came with his parents to this State in 1836, 
whim, before the encroachment of civilization, wild 
game was plentiful. H(> was a great hunter in his 
youth, making this sjwrt the means of his support. 
He was born in Perry (now Decatur) County, Tenn. , 
May 17, 1827, and is a son of Daniel and Mar- 
garet (Anderson) O'Guinn, natives of the "Old 
Volunteer State," who were reared and married 
in that State, and in 1836 came with their three 
sons and daughter and grandfather Anderson and 
a part of his family, to Arkansas. All located first 
on Crowley's Ridge in Greene (now Craighead) 
County, and Daniel O'Guinn opened up a splen- 
did farm in the timber, near where Jonesboro is 
now situated, where he reared his family and died 
in 1859. His wife followed him in 1872. Both 
were very worthy citizens and members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. They were the par- 
ents of thirteen children, ten of whom lived to be 
grown, but only two, William, the oldest child, 
and the youngest child, Martha, now the wife of 
Henry Haze, are now living. Willaim O'Guinn 
began life on his own responsibility when nineteen 
years of age, married and settled on a timbered 
jjlace near the old homestead. He cleared a small 
farm, but kept eighteen or twenty hunting dogs, 
and spent most of his time hunting, often spend- 
ing the whole night in this occupation, sometimes 
with the Indians as companions. Four years later 
he sold his farm, and improved another which two 
years later he likewise sold ; then bought a small 
partly improved farm, afterward clearing forty 
additional acres, and here he resided until the 
breaking out of the late war, when he moved with 
his family to Scott County, Mo., remaining there 
until 1866, when he returned to the old home 
place and resumed his farming. In 1869 he came 
to his present place of residence, on Big Bay. 
where he owns 800 acres of land, and has improved 
about 120 acres. His farm is well stocked and 
bears every evidence of prosperity. Mr. O'Guinn 
has been man-ied four times, and is the father of 
twenty-four children, and twelve of them are now 



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^ s>Lv 



350 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



living. He was married to his present wife fCalli- 
donia Coleman) in 1883, and she is the mother of 
four children, two deceased. Mr. O'Guinn is a 
stanch advocate of both church and school, and 
contributes liberally to their support. Both he 
and Mrs. O'Guinn are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

J. W. Owens, Jr., postmaster at Jonesboro, 
Ark., received his appointment in 1885, and has 
been a most courteous, obliging and efficient offi- 
cial. He was born in Rutherford County, Tenn. , 
February 29, 1856, and is a son of J. W. , Sr. , and 
Frances H. (Tune) Owens, the father a native of 
Kentucky, and the mother of Virginia. They were 
married in Rutherford County, Tenn. , where their 
parents had immigrated in an early day. J. W. 
Owens, Sr. , a blacksmith by trade, came to Craig- 
head County in 1870, and located in Jonesboro, 
where he followed his calling until 1874, when he 
went to Southern Illinois, where he died in 1879. 
The mother died in 1859. She was the mother of 
seven children, J. W. being the only one now liv- 
ing. The father had married three times. By 
his second wife he had one child, Robert H., and 
by his third marriage eight children, six living: 
Joseph E., George \\'., Lizzie, Jennie, Willie and 
Lura. J. AY. Owens, Jr., came with his parents 
to Arkansas when thirteen years of age, and was 
reared partly in Tennessee and partly in this 
State, receiving his education in the county schools 
of the former and in the Jonesboro schools. Reared 
to farm life, he followed that occupation until 
1881, and then entered the employ of J. B. Colt 
& Son, railroad contractors, and remained with 
them eighteen months. In October, 1883, he 
went into the Jonesboro postoffice as assistant 
postmaster, where he remained in that capacity 
until he received his appointment as postmaster. 
May 20, 1885, he was united in marriage with 
Miss Nannie E. Hannah, a native of Craighead 
County, and their union has been blessed with two 
children, Mollie and Morris B. Mr. Owens is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Chiirch, and 
belongs to the K. and L. of H. He is energetic 
and industrious, enjoys an enviable popularity, and 
richly deserves the official favor accorded him. 



Alfred Pagan, one of the leading farmers of 
Cane Island, was born in Meade County, Ky. , Feb- 
ruary 8, 1851, and is the son of David and Han- 
nah (Halls) Pagan, the former a native of Vir- 
ginia, the latter of Kentucky. The father was 
reared and educated in Virginia and when a young 
man moved to Kentucky and was there married. 
He remained for several years in Meade County, 
and then removed to Daviess, where he engaged in 
farming until his death in 1864. His wife sur- 
vives him and now resides on Cane Island. All of 
the family of six sons and two daughters reached 
maturity, but one son, who was a soldier in the Con- 
federate service, and who died since the war. One 
brother lives in Kentucky, four brothers and one 
sister on Cane Island, and one sister in Missouri. 
Alfred Pagan was reared in Kentucky and re- 
mained with his mother until his marriage, Feb- 
ruary 17, 1872, with Ellen Martin, a native of 
Daviess County, Ky. , and a daughter of James and 
Jane Martin, who still reside in Daviess County. 
Mr. and Mrs. Pagan are the parents of six chil- 
dren: James, Minnie, Mary, Eva, Alfi-ed and Rosa. 
Two children died in infancy. Mr. Pagan was 
always a farmer in Daviess County until 1881, 
when he came to Arkansas. He remained one 
year at Elmot Landing, Mississippi County, then 
came to Craighead County, selecting the place 
where he now resides. It was then but little im- 
proved; now he has four farms, aggregating 350 
acres, with about KtO acres cleared and improved. 
It is all rich and valuable land and he has on the 
home place two residences and one on each of the 
other farms. Mr. and Mrs. Pagan are members 
of the Missionary Baptist Church, in which Mr. 
Pagan is also a deacon. 

J. M. Penix, whose well-improved farm is sit- 
uated three miles from Jonesboro, is one of the 
progressive, wide-awake citizens of the county. 
He was born in Cherokee CoiTnty, Ala., November 
12, 1836, and is the son of John and Sallie (Roach) 
Penix, the former a native of Alabama, the latter 
of Shelby County, Tenn. After the death of his 
wife and in the first year of the Civil War, Mr. 
Penix came to Arkansas and located in wliat is now 
Powell Township, Craighead County, and there 






f. 



CKAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



351 



resided for three years. In 1805 he moved to 
Louisiana, where he died in 1867. Of the four- 
teen chiklren born to them, only four are now 
living — our immediate subject being the only one 
iu Craighead County. He was reared on a farm, 
and in 1857 came to Arkansas, and in 1860 married 
Elizabeth Albright, a native of Tennessee, whose 
parents were Simpson and Hulda (Snodderly) Al- 
bright — the former is deceased, the latter resides 
with Mr. Penix. In the war of the Rebellion, he 
gave his support to the Confederate cause, serving 
in the Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry for about 
eight months, when he Vifas discharged on account 
of sickness. He re-enlisted in the Trans-Missis- 
sippi department at Little Rock and served another 
twelve months. At the close of the war he re- 
turned to Craighead County and bought eighty acres 
of his present farm of 100 acres, forty of which are 
splendidly improved. Mr. and Mrs. Penix are the 
parents of nine children: Wiley E., William T. 
S. and an infant (deceased), and Eli Thomas (mar- 
ried to Lucinda Raines), Mary Magdalene. James 
Cornelius, Midas Ludella, Samuel Elbert and Scott 
Hinman. Mr. Penix is a Democrat, has been 
school director for five years, and has given one- 
half acre of his farm for a school-house site. He 
and his wife and oldest son and daughter are active 
members of the Baptist Church. 

David L. Perkins, one of the foremost citizens 
of Craighead County, and a resident of Jonesboro 
Township, was born in Fayette County, Tenn., 
October 17, 1845, and is the son of William H. 
Perkins, a native of Virginia, who emigrated from 
the '"Old Dominion"" to Tennessee in 1826, and 
Sarah (Wrightsell) Perkins, a native of Tennes- 
see. They had six children, four of whom are 
living — three sons and one daughter — and three 
are residents of this coixnty: Mary (wife of P. T. 
Hudson), D. L. and John W. Mr. Perkins made 
a visit to this State in 1871, but returned to the 
old homestead in Fayette County, Tenn., where 
he and his w'ife still reside, aged seventy-nine and 
sixty four years, respectively. David L. spent his 
boyhood on the farm, and received a fair education 
in the common schools of the county. He came 
with his father to this State in 1871, and selected 



it as the place of his permanent residence. The 
father bought 200 acres of land, and for nine years 
David L. lived on it, but then bought his home- 
stead of 160 acres. He has a well-cultivated farm, 
with about fifty-five acres improved. December 
26, 1872, he wedded Laura Thnrman, a native 
of Fayette County, Tenn. , who died in May, 1887, 
leaving five children: Clarence C, Howard L. , 
William D., Linnie E. and Ernest D. He was 
again married, October 13, 1887, this time choosing 
Mrs. Nannie E. (Fuller) Falls, a resident of this 
county. The result of this union has been one 
boy, Edward Cecil. Mr. Perkins is prominent in 
religiou.s and educational interests, and in politics 
is a stanch Democrat. He is a member of the 
Christian Church, and is an elder of the Hope 
Church of that denomination. Mrs. Perkins is a 
benevolent Christian lady, and also a member of 
the Christian Church at Hope. 

J. D. Phillips was born in Pike County, Oa. , 
December 1, 1S28, and is a son of Thomas G. 
and Mary L. (Sessions) Phillips, both natives of 
South Carolina. They made their residence in 
Georgia, where the father died in 1867. The 
mother's death occurred in 1868, while on her way 
to this State. They had twelve chiklren, six of 
whom are living, but only one, the subject of this 
sketch, in this State. James D. was reared on a 
farm until fifteen years of age, when he learned 
the machinist's trade at Savannah, Ga. , and after 
nine or ten months engaged in the saw and grist- 
mill business in Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. 
He came to Craighead County, Ark., in March of 
1861. and followed blacksmithing until 1871. He 
went to Phillips County, where he remained but 
two years, and then returned to Craighead, and 
has since then been engaged in farming, at which 
he has been very successful. He has been an ex- 
tensive land holder in both this and Poinsett 
Counties, and at present owns a farm of H'20 acres, 
forty of which are under cultivation. He operated 
the first saw-mill in Craighead County, thus in- 
troducing one of the leading industries, and is one 
of the oldest and most experienced mill men in the 
county. He was married, September S), 1852, at 
Chattanooga, Tenn., to Sarah A. McLemore, a 



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352 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



I. 



native of East Tennessee. Their union has been 
blessed with nine children: Josephine, Thomas, 
James A. (was married to Melinda McCarty), 
Henry C, Mary and Alonzo, all deceased, and 
Eliza Virginia, Vestie A. and William R. Mrs. 
Phillips and two daughters are members of the 
Christian Valley Church. Mr. Phillips is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, and is greatly in- 
terested in religious and educational matters. He 
belongs to the Agricultural Wheel, and was among 
the first and is one of the most prominent Wheelers 
in the county. 

Albert Pierce, of Jonesboro Township, is the 
oldest living settler, in point of location, in Craig- 
head County and Northeast Arkansas. He was 
born in Giles County, Tenn., September 12, 1826, 
and is the son of John Pierce, also a native of Ten- 
nessee, who came to Arkansas in 1831, locating in 
Poinsett (now Craighead) County. He was one of 
the first settlers of the county, and took a deep 
and active interest in its early formation. Though 
a farmer by occupation, he hunted much in early 
days, and devoted much time to stock raising. 
He at one time owned 320 acres of land. His wife 
was Nancy Maguire, also a native of Tennessee, 
and of their ten children, seven are now living, 
four daughters and three sons, all residents of this 
coiinty. The father is dead, but the mother is 
still living in full possession of all her mental and 
physical faculties. She is eighty -three years of 
age, and resides with her daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Cacry, widow of John Cacry. Albert Pierce was 
but six years of age when he came with his father 
to this county, and has lived within ten miles of 
his present farm for almost sixty years. He had 
no educational opportunities in childhood, but has 
been an energetic farmer and stock raiser all his 
life, the result of which is a large farm of ISO 
acres, with 100 under cultivation. He is a mem- 
ber of the Agricultural Wheel, and is a Democrat. 
In 1844 he was married to Rebecca Simmons, a 
daughter of Joseph and Sarah Simmons, residents 
of this county. Of the ten children born to them 
nine are yet living. They are Mary, wife of 
Franklin Lee; Franklin, married Caroline Howell; 
David, married Mrs. Emily Smith; Samuel, mar 



ried Jane Lusk; John, married Mrs. Harriet Smith; 
Joseph, married Sarah Smith; Nancy, wife of 
Thomas Sheffield; Calvin and George. Mr. Pierce 
is esteemed for his strict integrity, and has at- 
tained a reputation among his many friends which 
will live after him. 

Robert W. Rains, a leading farmer of Jones- 
boro Township, resides on his well-improved farm 
three miles north of Jonesboro. His parents were 
natives of Tennessee, in which State he was born 
August 27, 1847. His father, Hugh G. Rains, 
came to Craighead County, Ark. in the year 1871, 
locating in Powell Township on a farm of 270 
acres, 100 of which are improved, and resided 
there until his death in 1872. He was a Mason 
and was buried with Masonic honors. In his po- 
litical convictions, he espoused the cause of the 
Democratic party. He was married to Margaret 
A. McCarns, who still resides on the old home- 
stead; and of this union fourteen children were the 
issue, of whom the following reached their majority: 
Sarah, Cathaline, Robert W., John M.. Neal 
B., James F., Alantha C, Margaret E. and Mar- 
garet Ann and Lucinda J. (twins). Robert W. 
Rains was reared in Tennessee, and was there 
married November H, 18fi6, to Margaret E. Stiles, 
a native of Tennessee, whose parents were Evan 
and Polly Stiles, the latter deceased, the former 
still residing in Tennessee. He lived with his 
father for two years, then bought a farm near 
Herndon and remained there for the same period. 
Then he bought eighty acres of land near his moth- 
er, and after three years there, went back to Ten- 
nessee for a year. Returning to Arkansas, he en- 
gaged in the saw and grist-mill business in Powell 
Township for two years. He then bought his 
present farm of 120 acres, and on this and his 
farm of 128 acres has about sixty under cultiva- 
tion. Mr. Rains has been married three times, 
his second wife was Margaret M. Albright, and 
his present wife who is a pious lady and a member 
of the Methodist Church, South, was . Eugenia O. 
Grigsby. Mr. Rains has had five children: Lee 
Etta, Cicero D. , Margaret E., Ida C. (deceased) 
and Kenneth W. He is a Mason, and a member 
of the Missionary Baptist Church, has always 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



353 



been a Democrat ia politics, and was elected in 
1888 justice of the peace of Jonesboro Township. 

Emmet Rodders, editor of the Craighead 
County Sun, is the oldest son of Calvin and Al- 
media Rodgers, and was born in Jonesboro, Ark., 
September 21, 1866. He attended the common 
schools of Jonesboro until thirteen years of age, 
and went the term of 1881-82 to the Judsori Uni- 
versitj'. Until sixteen years of age, he engaged 
in farm work, and assisted his parents in the 
hotel. For three years he was a railroad brake- 
man, and in the winter of 1887-88, engaged as 
clerk in general mercantile business in Florida. 
Returning home in May, he became interested 
with Wrenn & Phelps, in publishing the Craig- 
head County Sun, and Janu^ary 18, 1889, became 
sole proprietor of that paper. He is one of 
Jonesboro' s popular and promising young business 
men, and has the talent and ability to accomplish 
whatever he may undertake. 

H. C. Roy, a prominent and substantial planter 
of Craighead County, Ark., was born in the 
county, and is one of its leading citizens. His 
father, Jesse L. Roy, also a successful farmer, 
was born in Tennessee, in 1828. He married 
Emily C. Courtney, a native of Mississippi. In 
the Mexican War he was a valiant soldier, and in the 
late war was a captain in the Confederate ser- 
vice. He participated in several engagements, 
Helena being the most important. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic Lodge and has occupied many 
of its official chairs, and is also connected with 
the Agricultural Wheel. Both he and his wife are 
highly respected citizens, and are zealous members 
of the Methodist Church. Mr. Roy is a man of 
sterling worth in the community, strong in his 
political views and his convictions of right: and 
as the fruits of his industry has a farm of 100 
acres, about half of which is in a splendid state 
of cultivation. 

W'illiam D. Safley is well known and highly re- 
spected throughout Buffalo Island Township as 
one of its worthy and intelligent citizens, public- 
spirited and of sterling integrity. He was born in 
Staidey County, N. C. , in 1851, and is a son of 
A\illiam B. and Mary Ann (Biles) Satiey, natives 



of North Carolina, where they were reared, edu- 
cated and married. In 1859 they came to East 
Tennessee, locating on a farm in Cocke County, 
where he died, but not until after espousing the 
Southern cause, and serving valiantly in the Con- 
federate army. The mother and family came to 
Craighead County, Ark., in 1869, and located in 
Powell Township, where they remained for several 
years. In 1881 Mrs. Safley started for Oregon, 
where she died the day after reaching Eugene City, 
May 22 of the same year. She was a member of 
the Baptist Church, and well liked by all who 
knew her. Mr. and Mrs. Safley were the paients 
of nine children, all of whom livcul to maturity, 
and eight of whom are still living. They were Mrs. 
Sarah E. Jackson (deceased), Thomas F., Mrs. 
Mary L. Heritage, Alexander W., William D. (the 
immediate subject of this sketch), Julius H., Mrs. 
Rebecca E. Cox, Mrs. Margaret A. Yarlsrough and 
Mrs. Edosia J. Hawthorne. William D. is the 
fifth child, and has made his home in this State 
since 1869. When twenty-four years of ago he 
chose as his life companion Anna E. Stoddard, a 
nativeof this State, who died March 16, 1888, leav- 
ing a family of live children: David E. (deceased), 
Sarah M., Joseph F., Rosa Lee and Lillie May. 
Mr. Safley has since married Mrs. Sarah E. Meach- 
iem, nee Foster, a native of Tennessee, who was 
the mother of two children by her former marriage. 
One of them, Willie, is deceased; the other, James 
E., lives with his parents. Mrs. Satiey is a zeal- 
ous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Mr. Safley made a trij) to Oregon and other points 
in 1888, and has seen a great deal of the world. 

L. J. Salmons, a substantial farmer of Craig- 
head County, was born in Cherokee County, Ala.. 
April 14, 1839. His father. Jeremiah M. Sal- 
mons, who was a native of Franklin County, Ga. , 
and was educated in that State, was a farmer by 
occupation, and had married Lucinda Waters, 
born and reared in Georgia. Jeremiah M. Sal- 
mons had five sons and five daughters, four of 
whom live in this county. In polities he was a 
Whig. L. J. Salmons was educated in Alabama 
at the Lawrence school, and while yet a young 
man came to Arkansas. In 1862 he entered the 



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354 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Confederate service, and was in several engage- 
ments, receiving a number of wounds. He was 
discharged in May of 1865, when he returned 
home to his farm and devoted himself to its im- 
])rovement. December 19, 1867, he was imitedin 
marriage with Nancy Christian, a native of Craig- 
head County, Ark., born December 26, 1846, and 
both he and his wife are zealous members of the 
Baptist Church, and contribute liberally to its sup- 
port. Mr. Salmons has about 1,880 acres of good 
land, about 100 of which is very rich soil and the 
best farming land. He has been justice of the 
peace in Poinsett County, and has been for five 
years a member of the school board of directors. 
He is a prominent member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, of which he was president for one year. 
Having made a thorough study of mineralogy and 
the locating of all kinds of minerals, and having 
made research throughout the State and discovered 
gold and other metals in more or less paying quan- 
tities, he may be considered expert in all such 
matters. 

Anderson M. Self, a young and prosperous 
planter of Craighead County, was born on Crow- 
ley's Ridge in 1856. His father. Noble Self, was 
a native of Alabama, but has been a resident of 
Craighead County since 1840, at which time his 
parents located on ' ' The Ridge, ' ' where he grew 
to manhood and married Miss Emily Mountz, a 
native of Illinois. He was a soldier in the Mexi- 
can War, and served in the Confederate army 
during the War of the Rebellion, seeing consid- 
erable active service in both wars. Three chil- 
dren were born to his union with Miss Mountz: 
Thomas, Anderson M. and one that died in in- 
fancy. Mrs. Self died July 3, 1858, and Mr. 
Self, by a subsequent marriage, is the father of 
ten children. He is still a resident of Craighead 
County, and one of its earliest and best- known 
citizens. Anderson M. was reared upon his 
father's farm, receiving but a rudimentary educa- 
tion. He began life's duties for himself at twen- 
ty-one years of age, with no capital, but plenty of 
energy and native ability. He located on his pres- 
ent place in the fall of 1879, and soon after was 
united in marriage with Miss Rebecca, daughter 



of Allen Smith, and a native of Georgia. To this 
union have been born three children: William. 
Maude and James. Mr. Self owns 234 acres of 
land, with 135 under cultivation. He also owns and 
operates a cotton-gin, which, in 1887, turned out 
124 bales, and, in 1888, 205 bales. He is a push- 
ing, energetic and thrifty farmer and business man, 
and has, for the most part, gained what he has by 
his own endeavors. Mrs. Self is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Stephen Sheltcn, an enterprising farmer and 
influential citizen of Craighead County, Ark. , was 
born in Jackson County, Miss., September 22, 
1826. His parents, Stephen and Matilda (Martin) 
Shelton, both natives of the "Old Dominion," 
were of Welsh and German descent. Stephen 
Shelton, Sr. , a physician by profession, in 1828 
moved his family to Arkansas, and located in St. 
Francis County, but being displeased with the 
locality, removed to Mississippi. Later he came 
again to Arkansas, this time selecting a situation 
at the mouth of Big Bay, near the site of Witts- 
burg. After practicing his profession there for a 
year, he moved fifty miles, near where Harrisburg 
is now located, twenty years later to near the 
southern line of this county, where after two years 
he died. He was one of the earliest and most 
noted physicians of Arkansas, then a Territory, and 
patients from hundreds of miles around were 
brought to him for medical and surgical aid. He 
is the father of seven children, but only one is now 
living, one having died before and five after the 
father's coming to Arkansas. After the husband's 
death, the mother brought her family to Craighead 
County, and here resided until 1863, when trouble 
over the Civil War caused her death. She was about 
seventy years old. Stephen Shelton was mostly 
reared in the Territory and State of Arkansas, his 
widowed mother giving him the best education the 
country afforded. He had no taste for medicine 
or surgery, but was reared on a farm and has been 
engaged in farming all his life. He now owns 197 
acres of land five miles south of Jonesboro, about 
ninety acres of whicti are under cultivation. While 
this section was a portion of Poinsett County, Mr. 
Shelton was deputy internal improvement com- 



17^ 




missioner, was also deputy sherifl and constable, 
and for four years a preacher of the Christian 
douomination. He was once offered license, but 
not deeming himself sufficiently qualified, he 
thought best to decline. Mr. Shelton is and has 
always been a Repul^lican in politics, and has once 
been constable of Jonesboro Township. He mar- 
ried Mahalia McCracken, daughter of Aquilla and 
Nancy (Lane) McCracken, and to them have been 
born the following named children: Matilda J., wife 
of L. T. McDanield, of Gilkerson; Eliza P., wife 
of G. Edgar, residing near Jonesboro; Mary A., 
wife of Prof. Walter E. Dean, educator, of Smith 
County, Tex. : Thomas B. , Nancy J., George W. , 
Louisa, Belle, Stephen A., Francis M. N. and 
William D. Mr. Shelton was quite a noted and 
successful hunter of early times. He is a member 
of the I. O. O. F., a practical and self-made man, 
and one of the county's earliest and most worthy 
citizens. 

William Stephen Shores, a prominent planter 
of Jonesboro Township, was born in Poinsett 
County, January 17, 1842. His father, a retired 
farmer of the same township, and one of the 
oldest settlers in what is now Craighead Coiinty, 
was born in St. Clair County, Ala., March 2, 1815. 
The paternal grandparents were William and Mary 
(Pipes) Shores, natives most probably of Alabama. 
William Shores was a soldier imder Gen. Jackson, 
and fought in the battle of New Orleans, was 
taken sick in that city and died in 1815. His 
widow subsequently removed with the family to 
Wayne County, 111., near the Little Wabash River, 
where she died about 1825. About 18;'0 the family 
came to Arkansas Territory and located in Poinsett 
(now Craighead) County. In those early days 
game was very plentiful, and Calvin — then about 
fifteen years of age — worked hard on the farm and 
had great sport hunting all kinds of wild game. 
Mciiipliis, the nearest trading point, being seventy- 
five miles, they had to grate corn and beat it in 
mortal's to get corn-meal, and were subject to the 
many hardships and priviitions incident to pioneer 
life. When he grew to manhood, he bought 160 
acres of land in Poinsett County, where he lived 
twenty-five years. Just before the Civil War he 



moved to his present location, where he entered 
eighty acres of land and has since added 200 acres. 
The ground was covered with a dense forest, so that 
he and Sol McDaniel took axes and cut a road to 
enable him to move to his home. By energy, 
economy and thrift, he has cleared over 150 acres 
of land and become one of the foremost farmers of 
the county. He now owns 160 acres, having 
given to his boys the remainder. He has lived in 
Arkansas about sixty years, but this last year 
gave up the cultivation of the farm to his youngest 
son, Andrew. He has been married four times, his 
last marriage being with Mrs. Emmaline (Suffell) 
Nelson, a native of Mississippi. Her parents, 
Zachariah and Susannah (Cornelius) Suffell, came 
to Arkansas about thirty-two years ago, locating 
two miles southwest of Jonesboro. The mother 
died February 0, 1884, and the father July 4, 
1871. Mr. Shore has been the father of sixteen 
children: William S. (subject of this sketch), mar- 
ried and living on part of the old homestead; Levi, 
married to Olie Hopkins, living near the home 
stead; Webb, married to Lane Shelton; Mary, wife 
of William McGown; Eliza, wife of Lewis Lynch: 
Alice, wife of Sam Gridsinger: George married 
to Edna Nealy; Thomas and Andrew, living. He 
has thirty grandchildren and two great-grandchil- 
dren (one living). Mrs. Shore was formerly a 
a member of the Methodist Church, but is now a 
member of the Christian Church, of which her 
husband has been a member for about twelve 
years. Williiim Stephen Shores resided with his 
father until his marriage with Aily McGown, who 
died a few years later. H^e then married Fanny 
H. Duke. To them have been born eight children, 
five living: John C, Marshall A., Alivia H. , 
Thomas H. and Laudie L. Mrs. Shores is a 
member of the Baptist Church, a devout Christian 
and a charitable lady. Mr. Shores owns a well- 
imj)roved farm, is a Republican in politics, and 
was a member of Company A, Thirteenth Arkan- 
sas Infantry, serving in Col. Lyle's regiment about 
seventeen months. Having had but limited educa- 
tional advantages themselves, and realizing its 
gi-eat importance, both he and his wife are striving 
to give their cliildren a thorough education. 



^1 



356 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



John M. Sipes. a lumber manufacturer of Buf- 
falo Island, is a native of Missouri, born in Bu- 
chanan County, July 18, 1840. His parents, Eli 
and Christina (Rhynes) Sipes, the former born and 
reared in Pennsylvania, the latter in South Caro- 
lina, were married in Perry County. Mo. Mr. 
Sipes was one of the pioneer settlers of Buchanan 
County, Mo., having gone there in 1830. In 1856 
he moved to Greene County and remained there 
until his death in 1859. John M. grew to manhood 
in Missouri, and resided in Buchanan, Perry, 
Greene, Webster and Barton Counties. He re- 
mained on the home farm until his father's death. 
In 1861 he entered the Confederate service, enlist- 
ing in the Eighth Arkansas Infantry, and served 
until the final surrender. He participated in the 
battles of Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chat- 
tanooga, and many lesser engagements. He was 
never wounded, taken prisoner, nor lost a day from 
service. After the war he remained for a time in 
Arkansas, then went to Missouri. In 1866 he set- 
tled in Craighead County, Ark. , where he has since 
resided. When, in 1868, he bought his jjresent 
farm, it was but little improved; now he has 120 
acres, 112 under fence, with a ver^' good house and 
out buiklings. Mr. Sipes began operating a grist- 
mill and cotton-gin in 1881, which burned down in 
1887. He then put up a steam saw-mill and cot- 
ton-gin, which has proved a very successful enter- 
prise. In the spring of 1865 he married Nancy J. 
Smith, a native of Kentucky, whose parents died 
while she was yet a child. This union has been 
blessed with six children: Joel, Serena, George 
W., Rose Ann, Julia C. and Henry. Mr. Sipes is 
a member of the I. O. O. F., and has held all the 
chairs of the subordinate lodge. 

William S. Skelton was born in Tennessee, 
July 14, 1857, and is now one of the leading 
farmers and stock raisers of Buffalo Island. His 
parents were John M. and A. C. (Stoddard) Skel- 
ton, natives of Alabama. The family came to 
Arkansas in 1860, locating near Wittsburg, where 
they remained for about four years and then came 
to Craighead County, locating first on Cane Island 
and later on BufPalo Island. Here Mr. Skelton 
died in 1882, and his wife, since married to G. W. 



Finch, still resides on the old homestead. William 
S. Skelton is the second of the family of twelve 
children, seven of whom are now living, three hav- 
ing died in infancy and the others after reaching 
maturity. He grew up in Craighead County and 
began farming on his own responsibility when 
nineteen years of age, when, July 6, 1876, he mar- 
ried Dora A. Goss, a native of this State, who died 
the next year, 1877. He farmed on the homestead 
some time and in 1879 settled on his present farm, 
then in heavy timber. Now he has under cultiva- 
tion forty-eight acres of splendid land, and has 
built him a good home. He also owns one-quar- 
ter interest in the Lumsford & Co. cotton-gin. 
For his second wife he chose Rebecca E. Richard- 
son, and their union has been blessed with four 
children: Jodella, Jonathan N. , James T. and 
Paul W. Mr. Skelton is progressive and influential, 
and his wife is a member of the Methodist Church. 
Allen Springer, merchant and postmaster at 
Lake City, and a prominent farmer of Buffalo 
Island, is a native of Indiana, born in Crawford 
County, of that State, January 4, 1843. His 
parents, Elihu and Mahulda (Pearson) Springer, 
both natives of Indiana, were reared and married 
in that State, and there resided until the death of 
the former in 1852. Mrs. Springer still survives 
her husband, who was a prominent farmer and 
esteemed by all as a worthy citizen of the county. 
Allen Springer, at his father's death a boy nine 
years of age, grew to manhood in his native county, 
receiving his education at the county schools; and 
in July of 1861 enlisted in the Indiana Infantr}-, 
and served until mustered out at Indianapolis, 
July 29, 1865. He participated in many engage- 
ments, among them Shiloh, Champion's Hill, siege 
and surrender of Vicksburg, siege and surrender 
of Atlanta, was with Sherman in his memorable 
march to the sea, and his last engagement at 
Goldsboro. During his entire service he received 
but one slight wound, at the siege of Vicks- 
burg. He participated in the grand review at 
Washington, and when peace was restored re- 
turned to Indiana, and engaged in boating on the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers until 1870, when he 
came to Arkansas. He located in Lee Countv and 



^ 



-* e> 



CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



357 



there engaged in milling for two years, then went 
to Howard County, Kas. , and farmed one year, then 
came to Craighead County, Ark., locating on Buf- 
falo Island. Here he followed farming until 1880, 
when he moved to Lake City, where he continued 
the same occupation. In 1885 he purchased an 
established mercantile business, and keeps a good 
stock of dry goods, clothing, boots, shoes, hats, 
caps, implements, etc. At merchandising he has 
been very successful, doing an annual business of 
$15,000. He was appointed postma.ster in 1888. 
June 7, 1867, he was united in marriage with 
Nancy Ellen Walker, a native of Indiana, born and 
reared in Crawford County. She died in 1880, 
leaving two children, Samuel E. and Percy, both 
promising young men. Mr. Springer married his 
present wife, whose maiden name was Emily Cum- 
mings, in December, 1887, in Kearney County, 
Kas. She is a native of Indiana, and was in child- 
hood a schoolmate of Mr. Springer. She is a con- 
sistent member of the Methodist Church. Mr. 
Springer owns one farm of 240 acres on Buffalo 
Island, with 125 acres cleared, and in his home 
place has 235 acres, with about eighty under cul- 
tivation. He has also 200 acres of timbered land. 
All this property and all that he has, he owes to his 
own perseverance, industry and excellent manage- 
ment. He is a lloyal Arch Mason, and is Master 
of the Lake City lodge. 

John H. Stephens is a substantial farmer of 
Craighead County, and was born in Bedford Coun- 
ty, Tenn., June 7, 1826. His father, Wiley Steph- 
ens, was a native of North Carolina, and a vei-y 
successful farmer until his death in 1873. His 
mother, Mildred (Carlisle) Stephens, was also a na- 
tive of North Carolina, and both .she and her hus- 
band lived consistent Christian lives, and were 
members of the Baptist Church. After her hus- 
band's death, she was married to H. Smith, and 
died in 1886. J. H. Stephens was the eldest of 
eight children, only two others, William S. and 
Leander, the youngest, now living. He has 2it5 
acres of land, half of which is very rich farming 
land, and of this he has cleared about eighty acres. 
He also gives much attention to stock raising, and 
owns many tine horses, mules, and Poland-China 



hogs. He is a Mason, and a member of the Grange, 
and is popular among his many friends. Both 
he and his wife, who is a meml)er of the Methodist 
Church, are liberal to all progressive enterprises. 

Arnold Stotts. Joshua and Rebecca (Thomas) 
Stotts, the paternal grandparents of our subject, 
were natives of Virginia and North Carolina, re- 
spectively, and after their marriage remained some 
time in Virginia, and in 1810 went to AVilson 
County, Tenn., and in 1827 went farther west to 
Perry County, where the husband died the same 
year. Mrs. Stotts married a second time, and 
about 1850 came to Arkansas, locating near Jones- 
boro, now Craighead County, where she died about 
1853 at the age of ninety-eight years. Of the 
nine children born to this union only one is now 
living, William Stotts, one of the oldest and most 
highly respected citizens of the island. He was 
born in Wythe County, Va., in 1802, and, being 
but a child when his parents moved to Tennessee, 
grew to manhood in Tennessee. In 1S43, he came 
by wagon to Arkansas, and located in what is now 
Craighead County, below Jonesboro, where he re- 
mained till 1878, when he moved to Buffalo Island, 
where he has since resided. He was first married 
in 1830 to Frances Thomason, a native of North 
Carolina, who died February 12, 1877, aged fifty- 
three years. By this union there were nine chil- 
dren, four of whom are still living: Arnold, Eliz- 
abeth (widow of John Garrett), Wiley and Mrs. 
Sarah Itandson. Those deceased are William, 
Rebecca A., John and two infants. Mr. Stotts' 
second wife was Mrs. Tempie Cannon, nee Morgan, 
and both of them are members of the Baptist 
Church. Mr. Stotts has a small farm of forty 
acres, with twenty-eight under cultivation, which 
he cultivates himself and uj)on which ho makes his 
living and clears about .f500 per year. Arnold 
Stotts, the oldest child of William, and the imme- 
diate subject of this sketch, is a merchant and 
farmer of Stottsville and also owner and proprietor 
of a cotton-gin and saw and grist-mill. He was 
born in Perry County, Tenn., in October, 1N31. 
and was but twelve years of age when his parents 
came to this State. July 18. 1851, he was united in 
marriage with Cynthia Mattox, l)orn near (iaiiies 



A 



o *^ 



-« — ^'i 



358 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ville, Ark. . and daughter of Edward Mattox. This 
union has been blessed with five childi-en: Mary 
Ann (wife of J. Tonson), James, Amanda (wife of 
Richard Mangrum). "William and Alabama (wife of 
Walter Skelton). All are married and live around 
the home place. After his marriage Mr. Stotts lo- 
cated near Jonesboro, and in 1863 moved to Buffalo 
Island, and in 1881 to his present place. He owns 
580 acres of land, and on his home place 320 acres, 
with 100 under cultivation. In 1874 he began 
merchandising, and in 1876 put up a cotton gin, a 
year later adding a saw and grist-mill. He has 
also a blacksmith shop. When he located on the 
island there were but four families residing on it, 
and he has killed deer and bears in numbers. He 
raised the first cotton crop ever made on the island, 
and the first year he built his gin, ginned sixty-five 
bales of cotton, and in 1888 ginned 378 bales. He 
is one of the leading citizens of the community, and 
is eminently a self-made man. Mrs. Stotts is a 
charitable lady and a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. 

J. M. Stotts. postmaster of Dee, and a farmer 
of Greenfield Township, is a native of Craighead 
County, born December '28, 1842. His parents, 
Andrew J. and Mary Ann (Crowder) Stotts, wore 
among the first settlers of Craighead County, com- 
ing from Tennessee, their native State, in 1836. 
The father died in 1852, the mother five or six 
years later. These parents had nine children, five 
living and residents of this county: William, mar- 
ried to Caroline Pierce; Martha, wife of Abner 
Patterson; A. J. Stotts, married to Mila Ann 
Rickles; Thomas, married to Lena Freeman, and 
J. M. Stotts, the subject of this sketch. Mi-. 
Stotts was reared in this county, and received a 
fair common-school education, the war breaking 
out when he was yet a boy. When about seven- 
teen years of age he entered the Confederate army, 
Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry, and served two 
years. On Christmas day, 1865, he was united in 
marriage with Sarah Ann Bishop, a daughter of 
Jones and Margaret (Holland) Bishop, both of 
whom are natives of Georgia, and came to Arkan- 
sas in the spring of 1861. The father is deceased, 
but the mother is still living, and is about fifty 



years of age. To Mr. and Mrs. Stotts were born 
nine children, four of whom are deceased; Abra- 
ham, Hiram. Andy J. and Mary Ann. The living 
are William Levi, James Warner. Sarah Ann. 
Marietta and Hattie. Since his marriage Mr. 
Stotts has been engaged in farming, and now owns 
a well-improved farm of fifty acres, mostly under 
cultivation. He was for four years a merchant of 
Dee, and in November, 1882, was appointed post- 
master, which office he has since held. He is a 
member of Harrisburg Lodge No. 77, I. O. O. F., 
and both he and his wife are members of the 
Christian Valley Church. 

Albert F. Taylor, one of the most extensive 
farmers and stock dealers of Craighead County, 
was born in Henderson County, Tenn., in 1824. 
His parents, Abner and Mary (Baker) Taylor, 
were natives of East Tennessee, where the father 
was a prosperous and successful farmer. About 
1820 they moved to Western Tennessee, where, 
being owner of a number of slaves, he engaged ex- 
tensively in farming. The father died in the 
"Old Volunteer State," and the mother came with 
her family to Arkansas, where she died a few years 
thereafter. They were the parents of four chil- 
dren, Albert F. being the second child, and the 
only one now living. He came with his mother to 
Arkansas in 1838. and located on Crowley's Ridge, 
now in this county, where he remained for six 
years, and then moved to Maumelle Prairie, near 
where he is now living. There he purchased and 
improved a large farm, and remained on it for six- 
teen years, and then came to his present location. 
Since coming to this county he has put in cultiva- 
tion over 600 acres of land, and now owns over 3, 000 
acres, with about 500 on the home place, where 
there are forty acres in clover and timothy meadow, 
good residence, tenant house, orchards and barns. 
He has 150 head of cattle, and in connection with 
his farm operates a cotton-gin. He was married 
in 1852 to Elizabeth Snodderly, born in Tennessee, 
who is the mother of seven childi'en, one, Jennie, 
deceased. Those living are Alanson L., Fer- 
gus W., William, Albert F., Jr., John P. and 
Thomas W. Mr. Taylor is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. , is a Democrat in politics, and in the late 



"71 



war served eighteen months in the Confederate 
army. 

D. H. Thorn, of Jonesboro, a prouiinent and 
prosperous farmer of Craighead County, was horn 
in York District, S. C, September 1, 1836. His 
parents, Jesse and Frances (Miller) Thorn, were 
both natives of South Carolina. The paternal 
grandfather, Hezekiah Thorn, also a native of 
' ' The Palmetto State, " ' was a farmer by occupa- 
tion, and died in the State of his nativity. The 
maternal grandfather, Jacob Miller, also a farmer, 
went from South Carolina to Kentucky, in an 
early day and there died. Jesse Thorn went to 
Calloway County, Ky., about 1838, and in 1844 
came to Craighead (then Poinsett) County, Ark., 
and located twelve miles south of the present site 
of Jonesboro. There he remained until 1850, 
when he removed to what is known as East Bot- 
tom, where he settled in the woods, building a lit- 
tle log cabin with clapboard roof and door, and 
puncheon floor. They were subjected to all the 
privations and hardships incident to pioneer life, 
using all manner of crude contrivances for making 
lueal, wearing bome-spun and home-made cloth- 
ing, and, with Memphis as the nearest market, 
hauling there all produce with wagons and ox- 
teams. Jesse Thorn was the first school teacher 
in the county, would make his croji and then teach 
a subscription school for the remainder of the 
year. He taught for several years, and died in 
this county in 1873, his wife having died two 
years previously. They were the parents of thir- 
teen children, only six of whom are now living: 
John N. , Alsey S. , Dawson H. , Martha (wife of 
G. W. Hubbs), Sarah (wife of Abraham Brown), 
Caledonia (wife of William Guinn). One brother, 
M'illiam, was killed during the war. D. H. 
Thorn was l)ut ten years of age when he came 
with his parents to Arkansas, and, until his mar- 
riage, remained with his father assisting in clear- 
ing the farm, and then settled near the old home- 
stead where he resided until 1869. He then 
moved to Jonesboro, where he is now living in his 
second house in Arkansas. In 1874 he was elected 
sheriff of Craighead County, and was re-elected 
each successive election until 188(1. He has served 



four years as deputy sheriff, has been constable 
and justice of the peace, and has been thirteen 
times a candidate for minor offices, and been each 
time elected. He is one of the most extensive land 
owners in the county, and has about 2,000 acres 
of land with 500 under cultivation, and has also a 
large stock farm known as the Miller Mounds. 
His especial attention is now given to the raising 
of fine stock. For twelve years he has been en- 
gaged in the manufacture of lumber, owning two 
fine large saw-mills. He was first married in 1858 
to Eliza Ford, a native of Teimessee, and they are 
the parents of three children, all married: Will- 
iam T., Dawson H. and John N. He was again 
married in 1876, to Cora Henson, also a native of 
Tennessee, a consistent Christian and member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Thorn is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and a leading 
citizen of the county. Having l)een a pioneer 
citizen, he has witnessed the rapid gi-owth and de- 
velopment of the county, the change from a cane 
brake to the thriving little city of Jonesboro. By 
industry, thrift and economy, he has accumulated 
a competency, and can now enjoy the fruits of his 
toil. 

L. G. Thornton, a fariner of Jonesboro Town- 
ship, has been a resident of Craighead County for 
twenty-five years. He was born in Wayne Coimty, 
Tenn., October 17, 1827. His parents, Hosea and 
Catherine (Hendrix) Thornton, were both natives 
of the old ' ' Volunteer State. ' ' They were the 
parents of five children, foiir sons and one daugh- 
ter, L. G. l)eing the second child. The father died 
of consumjition when the sul)ject of this sketch was 
nine years of age, and the mother was married 
again, to John Baker. They moved to Arkansas 
just before the War of the Kebellion, and located 
in Izard County. Mr. Baker gave his life for the 
Confederate cause, was taken prisoner, and died 
in prison at Little Rock. The mother died in 
Izard County, in 1881, aged seventy-nine years. 
L. G. Thornton was reared on a farm, grew to 
manhood there, and was married Xovemlier 7, 
1844, to Cynthia Ballard, a native of Hardin Coun- 
ty, Tenn. Her parents were Williford and Cath- 
erine (Carr) Ballard; the former died in Tennessee, 



360 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and Mrs. Ballard subsequently removed to Izard 
County, -where she died in 1855. They were the 
parents of four children, three daughters and one 
son. Mr. Thornton removed to this State in 1 849, 
coming by wagon and water, and settled on a farm 
of 160 acres in Izard County, at that time nearly 
all timbered, cleared it up, and lived in that set- 
tlement until 1865. He served bravely as a Con- 
federate soldier, being a member of Col. Freeman's 
regiment, and Capt. Meadows" company. In 
December of 1864 he started for Craighead County, 
arriving January 1, 1865: rented for one year, 
then bought his present farm of ISO acres, on 
which he has since lived. By dint of hard work 
and perseverance he has cleared about 100 acres, 
most of which he rents, himself at present farming 
only forty acres. Mr. and Mrs. Thornton are the 
parents of ten children, four of them living: Mar- 
tha Ann, Henry C. (married to Amanda Garrett, and 
living in Jonesboro), James M. (married to Mary 
Travis, and lives on the old homestead), Lewis S. 
(married to Mary Wood, and is a prominent physi- 
cian of Big Bay Station). Those deceased were 
Mary, Sparling, William, Lucy and two daughters 
who died in infancy. At the time of his death, 
April 18, 1880, Sparling was a prominent young 
man of twenty five, and at that time county clerk 
of Cross County. While a citizen of Izard County 
Mr. Thornton was justice of the peace and consta- 
ble. He is a Democrat, has held local positions of 
honor and trust, and is a practical farmer and pro- 
gressive citizen. 

Francis H. Varner, whose extensive farm is 
second to but one on Buffalo Island, was born in 
Dunklin County, Mo., September 6, 1842, and is 
the son of Thomas Varner, a native of Georgia. 
The father's first wife lived but a short time, and 
he was afterward married to Susan Moore, a na- 
tive of Virginia. . They were married in Dunklin 
County and there engaged in farming for several 
years, but soon after the birth of Francis H. 
moved to Buffalo Island, in 1844. Here the 
father engaged in farming, besides practicing 
his profession as physician and surgeon until his 
death, July 3, 1876. His wife survived him sev- 
eral years, dying January 30, 1SS5.. Francis H. 



is the oldest of the family of seven children — five 
boys and two girls — all of whom are now living 
and residents of this island. He was actively em- 
ployed on the farm until after his father's death, 
and educational advantages being at that time very 
limited received but a meager education. He has 
improved several large farms and of 800 acres has 
about 175 cleared, and has also a good residence 
and outbuildings. In connection with his farm he 
has a cotton-gin and grist mill. In the latter part 
of the late war he entered the Confederate service, 
and surrendered at Wittsburg, Ark. April 13, 
1867, he married Tennie C. Lambert, who was a 
native of Tennessee, but was reared in Arkansas. 
She died June 10, 1883, leaving the following chil- 
dren: Mary Ann (wife of Dawson Brooks), born 
January 30, 1868; William T., born January 25, 
1870; Corintha J., born October 23, 1873; Tabi- 
tha E., born July 28, 1876, and Ava V., born Au- 
gust 9, 1879. Two children died in infancy. De- 
cember 24, 1885, he was married to Margaret Arm- 
strong, nee Privett, who is a native of Alabama and 
the widow of W. J. Armstrong. She is the daugh- 
ter of A. R. Privett, who was born in North Caro- 
lina March 19, 1806. and died in Union County, 
Miss., December 24, 1877. Mr. Varner is a mem- 
ber of the Christian Church and his wife of the 
Methodist Episcopal. 

S. A. Warner, president of the Bank of Jones- 
boro, is a native of Obion County, Tenn., born 
December 17, 1848. His father, S. A. Warner, 
was born in North Carolina, March 26, 1800, and 
in early life moved to Tennessee, where in 1828 
he was united in marriage with Miss Martha A. 
Mosley, a native of Charlotte County, Va. They 
then resided for several years at Dresden, Weak- 
ley County, Tenn., where the father was an attor- 
ney in early life, and was popular and successful 
in his profession. After retiring from his profes 
sion, he engaged extensively in agricultural pur- 
suits. In ]8r)9 he came to Craighead County, 
Ark., locating about three and one half miles from' 
Jonesboro. Here he purchased a vast amount of 
land, and at his death in October, 1887, owned 
several hundred acres. He served with distinc- 
tion as a soldier under Jackson, and was a major 



yz 






CRAIGHEAD COUNTY. 



361 



ill his ar uy. Mrs. Warner died January 15, 1884. 
They w(Te the parents of ten children, live of 
whom a;e now living: Martha A. (widow of Dr. 
J. D. Hdlis), Mary S. (widow of W. A. Brevard, 
of Hickman, Ky.), Hiilda A., (widow of T. J. Rat- 
cliffe), "^'irginia E. (wife of \\. H. Cate) and Sam- 
uel A. One son, John Robert, a soldier in the 
late wai', over-exerted himself during the evacua- 
tion of Memphis, and died while in service. Sam- 
uel A. vas but nine years of age when his parents 
came to Craighead County, and here he grew to 
manhood, i^^ceiving a good education in the Jones- 
boro schools. When twenty years of age, he be- 
gan the study of law, attended the St. Louis law 
school, and in 1870 was admitted to the bar. He 
entered a partnership with W. H. Cate, and began 
the practice of his profession. This partnership 
continued until 1S82, when it was dissolved, and 
Mr. Warner continued the practice alone. Though 
for many years a successful lawyer, he has now 
practically retired from his profession, and has 
turned his attention to commercial pursuits. He 
rypreseuts R. G. Dun & Cos.' Commercial Agen- 
cy of all the large cities, Wilbur Commercial 
jigency of Chicago, and Northwestern of New 
York. He was elected in 1879 to represent his 
county in the State legislature, serving one term. 
Mr. Warner is a large property holder, and has 
been extensively engaged in agricultural pursuits, 
and now has about 300 acres of good land under 
cultivation. He has valuable town property, his 
residence, a magnificent brick, being the finest in 
the city. It was built at a cost of $15,000, and 
has all modern improvements, heated by steam, 
lighted by gas, furnished with hot and cold water, 
etc. In 1874 Miss Sarah J. Culberhouse became 
his wife, and two children are the fruits of this 
.icion: Samuel A. and Thomas D. Mr. and Mrs. 
Warner are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and are prominent and popular 
members of society. Having the public interest 
in view, Mr. Warner is foremost in the support of 
charitable, progressive and praiseworthy enter- 
prises. 

Rev. William Y. M. Wilkerson, a minister of 
the Christian denomination, and deputy clerk of 



Craighead County, wiis born in Lawrence (now 
Sharp) County, Ark., in 1844, and is a son of 
Purvey Wilkerson, a native of North Carolina. 
The father was reared in Illinois, but came to Ar- 
kansas in 18:^(), and married while here, returning 
the same j'ear to Illinois, where he remained for 
.six years. He then returned to Arkansas, locating 
in what is now Sharp County, where he improved 
a large farm, on which he resided until 1863, when 
he again returned to Illinois. Three years later 
he started to return to his home in Arkansas, but, 
before reaching here, died in Perry County, Mo., 
November 24, 1866. He was devoted to the cause 
of his Master, and was a deacon in the Baptist 
Chnrch. The mother is an estimable lady, and 
still resides in Sharp County, of which she is a 
native, born in 1821. Our subject and Benjamin 
W. are the only survivors of the family of seven 
children. William Y. M. has spent all but tive 
years of his life in this State, and in his youth 
attended school and assisted on the farm. In the 
War of the Rebellion he served in the Union army, 
enlisting first in the Third Missouri Militia, and 
later in the Fourteentli Missouri Volunteers. He 
saw much active service, and was slightly wounded 
at Licking, Mo. After the surrender he went to 
Franklin County, 111., and attended high school 
one year, when he returned to Arkansas, and fol- 
lowed farming and school teaching until 1884, 
when he was elected deputy clerk, to which office 
he has since been three times elected. He is a 
Republican in politics, but stands so high in pop- 
ular favor that he has l)een four times elected in a 
county where there are twenty Democrats to one 
Republican. Mr. Wilkerson was married in 1876 
to Miss Morrilla T. Herren, a native of Alabama, 
and to this union have been born five children: 
Rebecca E. , Henry M., William A. W., James B. 
P. and Clarkie G. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkerson are 
members of the Christian Church, and he has V)een 
an ordained minister of that denomination since 
November 20, 1870. He professed religion in 
1800, and since that time has given twenty years 
to the ministry of the Gospel. He located in this 
county in 1880, and, through his kindness to the 
poor, thoughtful consideration of his fellow men. 



•f* 



362 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fervent piety and devotion to his Master's cause, 
he has won an enviable and lasting popularity. 

Jacoli ^Villiams, a thrifty, self-made farmer of 
Buffalo Island, was born in Cumberland County, 
Tenn., in 1829. and is the fifth child of Caleb and 
Lucy (Jones) Williams, natives of Virginia. The 
father was born in 1797, and when a young man 
moved to Kentucky, where he engaged in farming 
for several ypars. His wife died aliont the close 
of the war, but he, though quite helpless, is still 
living. They had eleven children, and all but 
two lived to be grown. Jacob Williams was 
reared on a farm, and had but limited educational 
advantages, but through wide practical knowl- 
edge, has made himself what he is. When twen- 
ty-one years of age, he began farming for him- 
self in Cumberland Coimty, where he remained 
until 185(5, when he moved to West Tennessee. 
In 1867, he came to Arkansas, locating on Buffalo 
Island. From heavy woodland, he has cleared 
100 acres, and now owns 200, all of which, by his 
own industry, thrift and economy, he has made 
since coming to this State. In 1849 he was united 
in marriage with Mary Smith, a native of Virginia, 
and thoy are the parents of two sons. Dr. Joseph 
M. and Clarence W. They are highly esteemed 
in the community in which they live for their 
strict piety and sterling worth. Mr. Williams and 
family are members of the Methodist Church. 

George W. Wilson is a native of Craighead 
County. Ark. , where he still resides, and occupies 
a prominent position among its farmers. His fa- 
ther, also George W. Wilson, was liorn in South 
Carolina, July 30, 1829, was educated in that 
State, and followed farming very successfully. 
November 12. 1854, he married Martha Loftis, 
born in South Carolina, and daughter of Morris 
and Priscilla (Cantrel) Loftis, who are the parents 
of eleven children, seven of whom are living in 
this State. He was a member of the Baptist 
Church, and died September 7. 1859. George 
W. Wilson, the immediate subject of this sketch, 
received his education in Jonosboro, Ark., and 
married Sarah Stroud, a native of Tennessee, 
and daughter of Anderson and Sarah Stroud, na- 
tives of the same State, who ''ame to Arkansas in 



1859. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are the parents of 
three children: Alvan D., Levi T. nnd Varina G. 
Mr. Wilson has a large, well-stocked farm of 140 
acres, with about 100 acres under cultivation. He 
is a member of both the Masonic fraternity and of 
the Agricultural Wheel, in both of which organiza- 
tions he has occupied oflieial chairs. He manife.sts 
a great deal of pride in the county's development 
and progress, and is one of the kind that make^ it 
thrifty community. Both he and his wife arc 
members of the Baptist Church. 

W. J. Witt, of Jonesboro, was born in Jeffer- 
son County, Tenn., December 2, 1831, is a son of 
Joseph M. and Cynthia (Lawrence) Witt, natives 
of Tennessee, and is one of the prominent, pro 
gressive farmers of the county. Joseph M. Witt 
was a farmer by occupation, was successful in that 
pursuit, and was greatly esteemed by his many 
friends. About 1S4(I he moved to eastern Ala- 
bama, where both parents resided until their 
deaths. They had eight children, four of whom 
are now living: William J.. James L. , Nancv and 
Thomas H. William J. AVitt was reared and edu 
cated in Alabama, and in 1800 moved to Craighead 
County, Ark., locating on a farm about nine miles 
west of Jonesboro, and remained there until the 
close of the war. He served in the Confederate 
army about eighteen months, and at the close of 
the war moved to Jonesboro, that his children 
might have advantage of the Jonesboro schools. 
He owns eighty five acres of laud, with about one- 
half well improved. lu 1849 he was married to 
Matilda A. Shirey, aud thev were the [larents of 
four children, two now living. They are Martha 
C, wife of A. \V. Sparks, and Cynthia J., wife of 
Z. T. Matthews, a leading merchant of Jonesboro. 
Mr. Witt was again married, in 1878, selecting 
Sidda Mangrum. She is the mother of three chil- 
dren. Mr. Witt has strong convictions of right, 
and is a man of sterling worth in the community. 
Both he and Mrs. Witt are members of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Chiu-ch. of which he is a deacon. 

Joel G. Wood (deceased). William H. and 
Elmira (Lane) Wood, both natives of Alal-anui. 
were the [)arent8 of nine children, all of whoui 
moved to Arkansas. Two .still live in Craighead 




ii -T^- l.i^ 




o 



Independence Cqunty^Arkansas. 




County: Greene, on Maixmelle prairie, and Fran- 
cis, two and a half miles north of Jonesboro. Joel 
G. was born in Cherokee County, Ala.. , October 7, 
1829, and was reared on the farm, receiving a fair 
"district school' ' education. January 29, 1854, he 
was married to Maria Evans, daughter of Jesse 
and Caroline (Anderson) Evans, parents of eight 
living children. Both Mr. and Mrs. Evans met 
an untimely death in a destructive cyclone which 
passed over Northern Alabama about 1884. The 
father was sixty and the mother about fifty years 
of age. Mr. Wood farmed in Alabama for two 
years after his marriage, then moved to Greene 
County, Ark. , and two years later came to Craig- 
head County and purchased sixty acres of land 
one and one-fourth mile south of Jonesboro, where 
he resided until the time of his death. He was a 
successful farmer, a grocery merchant of Jones- 
boro, also a butcher and did some freighting from 
Wittsburg, Walnut Ridge, and Memphis to Jones- 
boro. He served with credit one term as sheriff 



of Craighead County, and filled the offices of 
justice of the peace and constable in Cherokee 
County, Ala. He was a prominent citizen and a 
Democrat, meriting the honors bestowed upon him. 
He died from an accident November 10, 1882. To 
Mr. and Mrs. Wood were born twelve children, 
eight of whom are living: Alice V., wife of Napo- 
leon Keller, a farmer of White County, Ark. ; 
James Buchanan, married to Elizabeth Cox, and 
residing in Craighead County; Mary, wife of Dr. 
Lewis S. Thornton, a leading physician of Big 
Bay Station, Ark. ; Joel G., who lives with his wife 
in Conway County; Albert Pike, married to Laura 
Rackley, and living near the old homestead; Will 
iam P., Starling W., and Dora Lee, at home. 
The deceased are Josephine and three infants. 
Mrs. Wood resides on the old homestead, and con 
ducts the farm in a successful and thrifty manner. 
She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and a lady of social and moral worth. 




364 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



/BimI^'ImK. xix. 



« > * < 



Randolph County— The Pioneers— The County Formed and Organized— Seat of Justice— Build- 
ings — Local Officers— Elections— Natural History— Water-courses— Minerals, 
Soil, etc.- Wood Supply— Vegetable and Other Products— Statistics— 
Taxables— The Census— Public Highways— The Great War- 
Law AND Lawyers— Instruction— Morals— Towns 
AND Villages— Selected Biography. 




Ye pioneers, it is to you 

The debt of gratitude is due ; 

Ye builded wiser than ye knew 

The broad foundation 

On which our superstructure stands. - 



-Peiirre. 



'lONEER SETTLERS of 
any community are deserv- 
ing of more than ordinary 
mention for the important 
part they occupied in its 
earliest development. The 
first settler of the territory 
' '' embraced within Randolph County 
was John Janes, a survivor of the Rev- 
olutionary War, who was wounded in 
the battle of Yorktown, and who, 
about the year 1800, emigrated from 
Virginia to Missouri, and thence, in 
1809, to this county, locating on 
Janes Creek on the farm now owned 
by William Bridges. Other very early 
comers to this creek were the Rick- 
mans, Bakers and Davises. On the other streams 
the first settlers were as follows : On Spring River, 
James Campbell, on the farm now owned by John 
Miller, Sr. ; the Stubl)lefields and Loneys, on 
Eleven Point River; Samuel McElroy, who was a 
iiatter by trade and supplied the country for fifty 
miles around; Edward Mattix, Robert M. Revvel 



and Thomas Holderby ; On Fourche Dumas River, 
the Fletchers, Fosters, Swezy, Jarrett and Plott; 
on Current River, Frank Hix, Peyton R. Pittman 
(the first county judge), Duckworth, Pyburn and 
Ingram; on Black River, Caspar Schmick chose a 
residence two miles below Pocahontas, and in 18'28 
Gov. Thomas S. Drew and R. S. Bettis located on 
the site of Pocahontas. James Russell, at whose 
house the tir.st courts were held, made a home on 
the uplands eight miles north of Pocahontas on 
the farm now known as the Foster place. Mathias 
Mock was an early settler on Mud Creek. In 1815 
David Black, formerly of South Carolina, the 
grandfather of John P., David C, Rufus H. and 
William A. Black, all of whom are living, settled 
at Black's Ferry, on Eleven Points River. 

The DeMunns, two or three brothers, refugees 
from the French Revolution, highly respected, 
intelligent and liberal Frenchmen, became resi- 
dents on Black River, some two miles below the 
site of Pocahontas, where they built the first water- 
power grist and saw-mill in the county, about the 
year 1822. Prior to this John Janes had erected 
a horse-power grist-mill at his residence. All of 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



365 



these settlers mentioned, except the DeMunns and, 
perhaps, one or two others, have left within the 
county a numerous progeny. The first immigrants 
were from Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and 
Tennessee; later they were mostly from the latter 
State, and for a time before and up to tlie Civil 
War there was a large influx from Indiana and 
Kentucky. Recently the immigration has been | 
from various States, both north and south. It is 
said that when the war came those individuals 
fi'om Indiana sympathized with the Southern 
cause, while the Kentuckians generally remained 
loyal and refugeed from the county. 

The county of Randolph was organized in ac- 
cordance with an act of the legislature of Arkan- 
sas Territory, approved October 29, 1835. As orig- 
inally constituted, it included all the territory 
lying west of Cache River, in what is now Clay 
and Greene Counties. By a subsequent legislative 
act, approved January 18,1861, a portion of Law- 
rence County, about twenty-five square miles, was 
cut off and attached to Randolph. 

Under the act creating the county, commis- 
sioners were appointed to select two separate 
places, either of which would be suitable for the 
location of the county seat. It was further pro- 
vided that the people should decide, at an election 
to be held for the purpose, at which of these points 
the county seat should be fixed. Accordingly the 
commissioners selected the site of Pocahontas, and 
another place at some noted springs in the woods, 
about eight miles north. At that time Thomas S. 
Drew (afterward governor) and R. S. Bettis owned 
the present location of Pocahontas. The larger 
portion of the settlers had gathered in the northern 
part of the county, and felt confident that the 
people would select the place at the springs for 
the seat of justice. The election was held in the 
summer or fall of 1S3G, on which occasion Messrs. 
Drew and Bettis gave a free barbecue at the site of 
Pocahontas, and, as men could then vote at any vot- 
ing place in the county, the barbecue proved a suf- 
ficient inducement to draw voters enough to secure 
a small majority in favor of locating the seat of 
justice at the latter place. Here it was accord- 
ingly placed, and has since remained. The pro- 



prietors of the site donated the public square to 
the county. Soon after a contract was entered into 
between the county and Thomas O. Marr, for the 
construction of a two-story brick court-house, 4(lx 
40 feet in size, with the court room below and the 
offices above. The contractor agreed to complete 
the building for $2,400, but it was several years be- 
fore it was finished and accepted. This house 
stood until about the year 1870, when on account 
of its improper construction it fell down. A Mr. 
McKay secured the contract for the construction of 
the present courthouse, for the sum of ?4r),0()0. 
and the material of the old building. Afterward, 
in 1874, when the local administration changed 
hands, and before the contractor had received his 
pay, it was discovered or believed that some fraud 
had been connected with the contract, which led to 
litigation, whereupon a compromise was made with 
the contractor by confessing judgment in his favor 
for 128,000, which, together with costs and inter- 
est, amounted b_Y the time it was all i)aid to about 
135,000. The court-house is a substantial and 
fairly handsome two-story brick structure, on a 
rock foundation, with a fire- proof vault for the 
records attached, and with offices below and court- 
room above. 

A double-walled, squared-log jail, with stone 
filling between the walls, and two stories in height, 
was erected about 1840, and was used until 1870; 
then a frame jail, with an iron cell was erected 
and used until 1886, when the present one, a frame 
with an iron cell, metal roof and siding, was con- 
structed at a cost of a little over ?4,000. These 
constitute all the county buildings, there being no 
poor farm or poor asylum. 

The following list includes the names of the 
officers of this county, together with their terms 
of service, from its organization to the present. 

Judges: P. R. Pittman, 1835-42; James Mar 
tin, 1S42-46; B. J. Wiley. 1846-50: James :^Iai 
tin. 1850-52; B. J. Wiley, 1852-54; J. P. In- 
gram, 1854-60; William Thompson, 1860-62; H. 
Cockran, 1862-68; C. V. Cory, 1868-72; com- 
missioners, 1872-74; Isham Russell, 1874-76; J. 
H. Purkins, 1876-78; S. J. Johnson. 1878-82; 
J. H. Richardson, 1882-86; Daniel Wyatt, 1886 - 



' 



^ 



® l^ 



366 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



88; A. J. Witt, present incumbent, elected in 
1888. 

Clerks: B. J. Wiley, 1835-42; J. H. Imbo- 
den, 1842-44; T. O. Marr, 1844-49; Alex. 
Smith, 1849-50; L. F. Johnson, 1850-52; J. C. 
Walker, 1852-54; E. L. Urmston, 1854-58; J. B. 
Kelsey, 1858-64; C. C. Elder, 1864-68; E. Rock- 
well, 1868-72; J. T. Robinson, 1872-76; J. 
Schoonover, 1876-82; J. T. Robinson, 1882-86; 
W. T. Bispham, present incumbent, first elected 
in 1886. 

SherifPs: Wm. Black, 1835-40; J. H. Imbo- 
den, 1840-42; J. Spikes, 1842-49; John Chand- 
ler, 1849-52; W. G. Murphy, 1852-58; D. C. 
Black, 1858-62; M. McNabb, 1862-64; S. M. 
Truly, 1864-65; D. C. Black, 1865-68; G. A. 
Eaton, 1868-72; J. T. Fisher, 1872-74; J. F. 
Spikes, 1874-76; D. C. Black, 1876-78; W. Con- 
ner, 1878-82; A. J. Witt, 1882-86; B. F. Spikes, 
present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Treasui-ers: B. M. Simpson, 1836-38; J. New- 
land, 1838-46; W. L. Rice. 1846-52; J. D. 
Cross, 1852-57; W. W. Douthit, 1857-64; Thom- 
as Foster, 1864-68; A. J. Pack, 1868-72; J. 
Hufstedler, 1872-74; T. S. Bennett, 1874-76; 
J. W. Slayton, 1876-78; A. H. Kibler, 1878-86; 
J. R. Chambers, present incumbent, first elected 
in 1886. 

Surveyors: J. M. Cooper, 1835-38; John John- 
son, Sr., 1838-40; J. Vanbibber, 1840-42; I. L. 
Garrett, 1842-44; William McLain, 1844-54; 
T. S. Swingington, 1854-56; I. L. Garrett, 1856- 
66; N. C. Dodson, 1866-68; I. L. Garrett, 1868- 
72; N. C. Dodson, 1872-82: J. H. Skaggs, 1882- 
84; N. C. Dodson, 1884-88; G. B. Smith, present 
incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: L. F. Johnson, 1862-68; D. C. 
Downey, 1868-72; J. D. Wyatt, 1872-74; S. W. 
Thompson, 1874-76; J. H. Richardson, 1876-82; 
W. H. Johnson, 1882-84; M. D. Bowers, 1884- 
88; Gideon Thompson, present incumbent, elected 
in 1888. 

Representatives in constitutional conventions: 
1836, none; 1861, J. W. Crenshaw; 1864, none; 
1868, Ham. W. EatclifFe; 1874, none. 

The first representatives of Randolph County 



in the lower house of the legislature of 1837-38 
were W. Piboum and J. Anthony. 

The first State senator of the county was Rob- 
ert Smith, who represented this and Lawrence 
County. 

At the last election for President, Randolph 
gave Cleveland 1,606 votes, Harrison, 249, Street- 
er, 45, and Fisk, 6. 

Randolph County is in Northeast Arkansas, and 
is bounded north by Oregon and Ripley Counties, 
in Missouri, east by Clay and Greene Counties in 
Arkansas, south by Lawrence, and west by Sharp 
Counties, and contains about 640 square miles, of 
which only about one-fifth is improved. 

Its boundary lines are as follows: Beginning 
on the State line between Missouri and Arkansas, 
it crosses the line between Ranges 2 and 3 east; 
thence, south on the range line to the line dividing 
Townships 20 and 21 north; thence, east on said 
line to the northeast corner of Section 4, Township 
20 north, Range 3 east; thence, south on the sec- 
tion lines to the middle of Black River; thence, 
down the middle of Black River to the line divid- 
ing Ranges 2 and 3 east; thence, south on the 
range line to the line between Townships 17 and 
18 north; thence, west on the township line to the 
middle of Black River; thence, downstream to the 
mouth of Spring River; thence, up Spring River 
to the line dividing Ranges 2 and 3 west; thence, 
north to the northeast corner of Township 18 
north. Range 3 west; thence, west to the south- 
west corner of Section 36, Townshija 19, Range 
3 ; thence, north to the northeast corner of Section 
23, same township and range; thence, west to the 
northwest corner of that section; thence, north to 
the northwest corner of Section 26, Township 20, 
Range 3; thence, northwesterly to a point on the 
State line near the northwest corner of Township 
21, Range 4 west; thence, east on the State line to 
the place of beginning.* 

Black River enters the coiinty from the east, 
south of the center of its eastern boundary, and 
runs in a southwesterly direction to its juiiction 
with Spring River, where it passes out. Current 

*Tlie northern portion of the western boundary of the 
county has never been definitely located and described. 







River enters from the northeast, in Section 4, 
Township 20 north, Range 3 east, and flows thence 
southwesterly to its junction with Black River, in 
Section HO, Township I'J north, Range "1 east. 
Black River is navigable for boats of fair size, to 
the mouth of Current, and the latter is navigable 
up to Shoemaker's Ferry, near the eastern bound- 
ary of the county. Both are navigable farther up 
for smaller vessels. Fourche Dumas — originally 
Fourche a Thomas — enters from Missouri in the 
eastern part of Range 1 east, and flows in a south- 
erly direction to its confluence with Black River, a 
mile above Pocahontas. Eleven Points River first 
touches the county from the north, near the mid- 
tUe of Range 2 west, and flows southward, bearintr 
slightly to the east, and empties into Spring River, 
near the southern boundary. Janes Creek rises ! 
in the county's extreme northwest corner and flows 
southeasterly to its junction with Spring River, in 
Section 7, Township 18 north. Range 2 west. ' 
Spring River flows in a southeasterly direction, 
forming the boundary between Randolph and Law- 
rence Counties, and empties into Black River at 
the extreme southern point of the former. These 
streams have many tributaries, and together form 
a beautiful "river system " for the county. The 
surplus water of the county flows into Black River, 
and all the streams named, with the exception of 
•lanes Creek, have their source in Missouri. Their 
miited direction resembles a fan or a tree with a 
spreading top, the lower Black River being the 
handle of the fan or the trunk of the tree. The 
natural drainage of the county is good. Fish are 
abundant in all the streams. 

About one-half of the lands of Randolph 
County are level river bottoms, and the remainder 
hill or uplands, the latter being mostly in the 
western portion. Its location is such that nearly 
all is fit for cultivation. 

There are large (juantities of Government land 
subject to sale at $1.25 per acre, or that can be 
taken as a homestead by heads of families, in tracts 
of 100 acres each, also a large area of State lands, 
Ui be had at 50 cents per acre, or that can be do- 
nated at a cost of 4^15 for Ifil) acres, to actual set- 
tlers. Much land has already been taken np by 



"homesteaders." There are indications of met 
als beneath the surface, such as lead, zinc and 
copper, but mines have not yet been of)ened. 

In addition to the many streams mentioned, 
numerous springs abound, especially in the hilly 
portions of the county, two of which, "Warm 
Springs" and " Ravenden Springs " have ol)tained 
more than a local reputation for their curative 
properties. Each of these springs is provided with 
a commodious hotel for the accommodation' of 
pleasure and health-seekers. An abundance of 
well water can be ol)tained throughout the county 
at a moderate depth, and at reasonable cost. Cis- 
terns, constructed at a small expense, are in general 
use. These various sources furnish an abundant 
water supply. 

About four-fifths of the whole area of the coun- 
ty is covered with a dense forest of fine timber, 
consisting of white, black, red and swamp, or cow, 
oaks, white and black hickory, white and black ash, 
cypress, sweet gum, cedar, birch, cherry, and some 
walnut and sassafras. The higher or hilly lands 
abound with oak and hickory, the more valuable 
timber being generally in the bottoms or level 
lands. 

The soil here is generally good, and with proper 
cultivation is well adapted to the production 
of corn, cotton, oats, wheat, clover, the tame 
grasses, tobacco, vegetables, and all fruits common 
to this latitude. It varies in quality from the 
poorer to the richest, the latter being the alluvial 
soils of the bottom lands. 

Among the many resources of this section is 
the seemingly inexhaustible supply of timber, 
though only about six saw-mills are found; conse- 
(piently the timber now being cut is mo.stly rafted 
down the streams in the log to Black River, and 
thence to Black Rock and other points below where 
it is sawed. The land owners receive a large in- 
come from the sale of the timber in the log, or on 
the stump, and enough is sold fiom many tracts to 
pay for them. Besides timber, agricultural pur- 
suits and the raising of live stock are excellent 
sources of income. According to the I'uited States 
Census of 1880, there were 1,471) farms within the 
couutv, and ."15,138 acres (about one eighth of the 



368 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



entire area) improved, and the vegetable produc- 
tions for the previous year were: Corn, 782,403 
bushels; oats, 33,137 bushels; wheat, 31,244 bush- 
els; hay, 275 tons; cotton, 6,248 bales; Irish po- 
tatoes, 6,696 Vnishels; sweet potatoes, 5,570 bush- 
els; tobacco, 13,348 pounds. In the amount of 
tobacco produced, it ranked as the tenth county in 
the State. These figures show that corn and cotton 
were then, as now, the staple products of the 
farmers. A good supply of grist-mills and cotton- 
gins convert the raw material into marketable con- 
dition. The same census shows the following num- 
ber of head of live stock: Horses, 3,021; mules 
and asses, 1,216; neat cattle, 10,720; sheep, 6,334; 
hogs, 33, 184. The assessment rolls of the taxable 
personal property for 1888 showed: Horses, 
3,594; mules and asses, 1,610; neat cattle, 17,481: 
sheep, 6,673; hogs, 19,915 — a large increase in all 
except hogs. 

In 1880 real estate was assessed for taxation at 
$384,141, and personal property at $285,597, 
making a total of $669,720; the total amount of 
taxes charged was $26,513. In 1888 the real 
estate assessment amounted to $690,677, and per- 
sonal property, $671,202, making a total $1,361,- 
879, taxes on which were $20,795.59. By com- 
paring these figures it will be observed that since 
1880 the taxable wealth of the county has a little 
more than doubled, while the taxes have become 
less. The recent immigration and the more rapid 
development of all resources account for this in- 
crease in values. The county's public debt is about 
$15,000, and its scrij) is, at this writing, worth 
from 75 to 85 cents on the dollar. 

The aggregate population of Randolph since 
its organization has been as follows: 1840, 2,196; 
1850, 3,275; 1860, 6,261; 1870, 7,466: 1880, 
11,724. The colored population in 1860 was 359, 
in 1870, 357, and in 1880, 627. The census of 
1890 will probably give the aggregate population 
at about 15,000. On each occasion when the 
census was taken prior to 1880, the area of the 
county was about 40 per cent larger than at the 
present time. 

About two miles of the main line of the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad run 



across the southeast portion of the county, and 
1,046 feet of the main line of the Kansas City, Ft. 
Scott & Memphis Railroad run near Ravenden. 
O'Kean, on the former line, is the only railroad 
station within the county limits. 

At the beginning of the Civil War in the 
spring of 1861, the people of Randolph County, 
with V)ut few individual exceptions, were in favor 
of the proposed Confederacy, and did all in their 
power to help establish it. At least eight com- 
panies of soldiers, commanded, respectively, by 
Capts. Joseph Martin, T. J. Mellon, Albert Kelsey, 
Eli Hufstedler, Mahlon McNabb, William A. Black, 
Isaac Schmick and John Mitchell, were raised 
here for the Southern army. With these com- 
mands, and recruits that joined others, both in 
Arkansas and Missouri, it is estimated that the 
county furnished over 1,000, perhaps 1,200, sol- 
diers. Nearly eveiy able-bodied man — including 
boys over fifteen years of age (save a few who 
refugeed) were in the Confederate army. For a 
long time early in the war period, Gen. Hardee 
had his headquarters at Pocahontas while he or- 
ganized an army of about 10,000 men, consisting 
of Hindman's Legion, a battery, and several 
Arkansas regiments, all of whom were camped at 
different points along Black River. 

No command or commands were raised within 
the county for the Federal army. In the summer 
of 1862, after Hardee's army had moved away, 
Gen. Steele, with a division of Federal troops, 
occupied Pocahontas for several weeks, and to his 
honor it can be said that the citizens of the place 
and vicinity found no fault with his treatment, 
and that they still remember him with kindness. In 
September, 1863, a portion of Col. Reeves' regi- 
ment of Confederates concealed themselves in am- 
bush on tlie Herrou farm on Current River, from 
which they fired upon and killed and wounded a 
few men of Col. Leeper's regiment of Federal 
troops as it passed along. Aside from this there 
were only a few shots exchanged within the county 
between the contending parties. There was no 
"bushwhacking" between its citizens, but a few 
men were killed by transient scouting parties. Hav- 
ing graciously accepted the result of the war the peo- 



EANDOLPH COUNTY. 



non 



pie are generally pleased that the Union was [)re- 
served, and now extend a hearty welcome to immi- 
grants. Sectional animosity long ago disappeared. 

The records of the sessions of the several courts 
held within this Territory prior to the admission 
of Arkansas as a State have not been preserved. 
Upon the county's organization, courts were held 
at the house of James G. Eussell, eight miles north 
of Pocahontas, on the farm now known as the Fos- 
ter place, and until the county-seat was located. 
The records show that a county court convened as 
early as July, 1836, but it is probable that one or 
two sessions were held prior to that date. The 
first recorded session of this court was in Pocahon- 
tas, in July, 1837, when there were present Peyton 
K. Pittman, judge, and William L. Rice and Jo- 
seph Spike, associate justices. Court now con- 
venes on the first Mondays of January, April, July 
and October of each year, and the probate court 
convenes on the second Mondays of the same 
months. The first session of the circuit court was 
held at the house of Mr. Russell in August, 1836, 
and was presided over by Judge Archibald Yell. 
The first term held at Pocahontas, as appears of 
record, began on the fifth IMonday after the fourth 
Monday of April, 1887, Judge Lewis B. Tully pre- 
siding. The circuit court of the county now con- 
venes in regular session twice a year, beginning 
on the first Mondays of February and August. 

The legal bar of Randolph County is composed 
of men who have demonstrated themselves to be 
possessed of ability and thorough knowledge of the 
legal profession. The following named attor- 
neys are located here: Rufus H. Black, John P. 
Black, R. D. Brown, J. T. Lomax, George T. 
Black, M. F. Collier and S. A. D. Eaton. 

Randolph, like all the other counties, has had 
its share of suffering on account of criminal offend- 
ers. But few cai)ital offenses, however, were 
committed prior to the war period. The first exe- 
cution, in its present boundary, was that of a slave 
who killed his mistress, in 1830, and was hung in 
1831, at old Jackson, then the county-seat of the 
mother county, Lawrence. Nothing now remains 
of this old town. In 1850 two men. Miner and 
McGee, waylaid a stranger, a Kentuckian, who 



was passing through the county. One struck him 
from his horse with a gun, dragged him from the 
road into the woods, and there left him for dead. 
His horse, and saddle-bags containing some money, 
were then taken, after which the assailants at- 
tempted to escape. The stranger recovered suffi 
ciently to give an alarm. The offenders were 
caught by the citizens, and, upon being identified 
by the injured man. were tried and hanged for tlie 
offense. The victim died from the effects of his 
wounds. About the close of the Civil War two 
men, Brainard and Turpin, broke into a store and 
killed the keeper, for which offense they were tried 
and hanged. Later, during the reconstruction per 
iod, when chaos reigned, a number of murders 
were committed, and the offenders went unpun- 
ished. In 1877 Marcus A. Whitley killed Duke 
Summers, and subsequently was tri(>d and hanged. 
In 1884 Milliam H. Harper killed John Sellers. 
He was tried in Greene County, on a change of 
venue, found guilty, and there executed. A few 
individuals have been compelled to take the lives of 
antagonists in defense of their own. Ever since 
the reconstruction period law and order have pre- 
vailed here, and a safer or more [leaceable com- 
munity cannot now be found. 

Education is not at a stand.still in this section, 
as the following from the report of Mr. C. E. 
Witt, county examiner, amply indicates: There 
was within the county in 1888, a scholastic popula 
tion of 4,804 white, and 180 colored children, 
making a total of 4,993. Of these, only 1,300 
white, and eighty-.six colored, making a total of 
1,302, were enrolled in the public schools. But the 
latter — owing to the failure of directors to make 
reports — is not a true representation, as the at- 
tendance is only given for the number of schools 
reported, and thus the system does not receive 
credit for its actual work. 

The following letter bearing so directly to the 
point is worthy of insertion: 

P()r.\iiONTAS. AiiK.. Skpt. 25, 1888. 
Hon. W. E. Thompson, Little Rock. -Vrk. 

Dear Sir:— You will find enclosed the iinnuiil report 
of the public schools of this eouiily. Il is not u correct 
report by a great deal. Il is untrustworthy in every par- 
ticular; nearlv seventy-five percent of llie districts failcil 



371) 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



to report anything except the number of persons between ' 
the ages of six and twenty-one years, and four districts 
did not report anything at all. The public schools of this | 
county are more popular with the natives than any 
other class of people, but not appreciated like they should 
be, taking into consideration the iramense amount of ' 
good they are doing. Yours truly, 

C. E. Witt, Cnunty Examiner. 

Other county examiners complain oi the failure 
of the district directors to make reports as re- 
quired by law. There are seventy-five school dis- 
tricts in the county, and for the year ending June 
30, 1888, there was expended on account of the 
jjublic schools the sum of 18,822.63. The aver- 
age monthly wages paid teachers with first-grade 
certificates was: Males, $37.50; females, $35. 

The Roman Catholic Marienstine Institute, 
located at Pocahontas, is under the management 
of the Sisters. This is an institution of great ex- 
cellence, and wields considerable influence in edu- 
cational circles. 

The religious denominations of Randolph 
County are: Methodist Episcopal. South, Baptist, 
Christian and Roman Catholic. The former two 
were the pioneer Christian workers, having organ- 
ized the first religious societies in the county. Of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, there are 
three circuits and a mission. The Pocahontas 
Circuit, consisting of Pocahontas, Clearview Chapel, 
Oak Grove and Mount Pisgah, with Rev. R. H. 
Grissett, pastor, has a membership of 301. The 
Siloam Circuit containing several appointments in 
the northeast part of the county. Rev. J. S. Best, 
pastor, has a membership of 368. The Walni;t Hill 
Circuit, covering several points in the northwestern 
portion. Rev. J. F. Armstrong, pastor, has a 
membership of 215. The Warm Springs Mission 
in the central part. Rev. J. G. Miller, pastor, has 
a membership of seventy-two. 

Belonging to the Baptist Churches are Witt's 
Chapel, Pleasant Grove, Oak Grove, Mount Pleas- 
ant, Little Vine, Shiloh, Spring Hill, Macedonia, 
Antioch, Mud Creek, Dry Creek, James School- 
house, Vandergriff School house, Reyno and a few 
others, all with an average membership of from 
forty to fifty. Some of these are attached to the 
State Line Association of Missionary Baptists, 



and some to the Spring River Baptist Association. 
Among the Baptist ministers of the county are 
elders I. H. Witt, D. A. Pressley, J. B. Roach, 
M. D. Bowers, Isham Looney, John A. Giles and 
A. W. James. 

The Christian Churches are represented by 
Stony Point, Dry Creek, Maynard. Union, 
Liberty, Warm Springs and one near Noland 
postoffice. Elder B. F. Hollowell is pastor of the 
first three named. Two elders by the name of 
Lemon also preach to the people. 

The Roman Catholics have one church, St. 
Paul's, with a large membership, located at Poca- 
hontas. Rev. Father J. Eugene Weibel is the pas- 
tor. The Marienstine Institute, before mentioned, 
is located by and connected with this church. 

All these denominations, except the latter, main- 
tain Sunday, schools in the most thickly settled 
neighborhoods, and all according to their several 
creeds are actively engaged in the advancement 
of Christianity. 

Randolph County is not without its towns. Al- 
bertha, twelve miles northeast of Pocahontas, con- 
tains a postoffice, store, grocery, and church and 
school-house combined. 

Daltou, a post hamlet on Eleven Point River, 
is composed of two stores, and a water-power grist- 
mill. 

Elm Store is a postoffice near Eleven Points 
River, on the north line of the county. 

Ingram is a post hamlet near the mouth of Mud 
Creek. 

Kingsville, in the western part, contains two 
general and one drug store, and a church and 
schoolhouse combined. 

Lima, a postoffice, is ten miles northwest of 
Pocahontas. 

Maynard, fourteen miles northeast of Pocahon- 
tas, comprises a postoffice, two stores, a hotel, grist 
and saw-mill, cotton-gin, a church and school 
house. 

Middlebrook, on Fourche Dumas, has a post- 
office, two stores, a cotton-gin, and church, school 
house and Masonic lodge combined. 

Noland is a postoffice in the south central iiart 
of the county. 



EANDOLPH COUNTY. 



O'Kean, a station on the St. Louis, Iron Mouut- 
aiu & Southern Raih'oad, in tlie southeast corner, 
contains a general store, drug store, hotel and liv- 
ery stable. 

Peru has a postoffice and store in the southeast 
part. 

Pocahontas, the county seat, situated on the 
right bank of Black River, a little southeast of the 
center, had its origin with the organization of the 
county in 1 8;i6, when it was selected as the site for 
the seat of justice. The first merchant of the place 
was W. R. Hunter. The business increased and 
the town prospered until it was known as the lead- 
ing trading point in Northeast Arkansas. Being 
about the head of navigation, it became the whole- 
sale distributing point for a large tract of country 
hereabouts, even to Southeast Missouri, and reached 
its highest success from 185(^ to lS(iO. Ju.st before 
the Civil War its commercial business was indeed 
extensive. Natural prostration resulted during 
this period, but it partially recovered afterward, 
and continued excellent until 1872-73, when towns 
sprang up along the Kansas City & Memphis Rail- 
road, then being completed, and Pocahontas lost 
its former prosperity. It now contains the coiuity 
liuildings, postoiiiice, five general stores, three gro- 
ceries, two drug stores, two saloons, one livery sta- 
ble, three hotels, two newspapers, a saw-mill, three 
cotton-gins, a number of shojss, three churches — 
Methodist, African Methodist and Roman Catholic 
— a public school -house, a Roman Catholic institute, 
a complement of professional men and agents, two 
Masonic lodges — white and colored — a lodgi^ of 
Odd Fellows, and two lodges of Knights of Honor, 
one being composed of Catholics only. The pop- 
ulation is about r)00. The press includes the 
Randolph Herald, now in its eighth volume, pub- 
lished by J. N. Bolen, and the Pocahontas Free 
Press (first volume), published hy B. B. ^Morton. 
Both of the papers are ably edited, and advocate 
Democratic principles. They are published week- 
ly, and are bright, spicy and full of promise. 

Eavenden Springs, a summer resort in the west- 
ern part of the county, contains a i)ostoffice, two 
genera] stores, one drug store, a first-class hotel, a 
church and a school house. 



Reyno, in the eastern extremity, contains a 
postoffice, four general stores, one drug store, two 
saloons, one millinery store, one livery stable, one 
hotel, a saw- and grist-mill, a church and school- 
house. 

Supply, northeast of the center, consists of a 
l)ostoflfice, a general store and a cotton-gin. 

Warm Sjirings, in the northern part of the 
county, contains noted springs, a postofSce, two 
general stores, one drug store, two cotton gins, and 
a school-house and church combined. 

Water Valley is a postoffice on Eleven Points, 
northwest of Pocahontas. 



H. W. Ball, farmer and stock raiser, Dalton, 
Ark. In reviewing the contents of this volume 
no adetjuate idea of the agricultural affairs of 
Davidson Townshij>, or of its sul)Btautial citizens 
could be obtained which failed to make mention of 
Mr. Ball or the excellent estate which he owns. 
He was born in Independence Coimty, Ark., on the 
15th of December, 1840, and is the son of Benja- 
min F. and Elizabeth (Dillard) Ball, both natives 
of Virginia. Benjamin F. Ball came to Arkansas 
about 1825, and settled in Independence County. 
He was twice married, first to Miss Elizabeth Dil- 
lard, who bore him thirteen children, those now 
living being C. M. , in Independence County ; W. G. , 
also in that county: H. W. : \V. S.. in Independ 
ence County; Elizabeth, and Arvilla, widow of Rob- 
ert Wann. Mrs. Ball died in 1848. She was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. 
Ball's second marriage was with Mrs. Minerva 
Baker, nee Muskgrove, and by her he became the 
father of four children, only one now living, G. B., 
who lives in Independence County. The second 
Mrs. Ball died in 1876, and Mr. Ball died on the 
24th of June, 188'.). He was born in 1800: ha.1 
been justice of the peace of his township for a 
number of terms, was a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church for forty years, and was a mem 
ber of the Masonic fraternity for thirty-six years. 
In his politics he aflfiliated with the Republican 
party, and was a man universally respected for his 
honesty, integrity and lil)erality. He was among 



>» 
7 



J^l 



372 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



the lirst settlers of his county, and his first crop 
was put in with a wooden plow, as no iron had been 
shipped into that country at that time. At the end 
of his second year's residence there, a small keel- 
boat was pulled by hand up to Batesville, and 
brought some iron. The first few years of his life 
were spent in opening his farm. He was, up to the 
late war, a great stock raiser. The greater part of 
the first two years his meat was obtained in the for- 
est by killing bears, deer and wild turkey. Mr. 
Ball had very little propei'ty when he went to Arkan- 
sas, but at the time of his death he owned about 
500 acres of land, and was one of the leading 
farmers of that part of the county. He was the 
owner of the first threshing machine brought to 
that section of country (old fashioned ground-hog 
thresher). H. W. Ball received but a limited edu- 
cation, attending only the subscription schools of 
his section, and at the age of eighteen engaged in 
driving a hack from Batesville to Smithville. He 
only followed this business a short time when he 
engaged in boating on the Black River, from 
Jackson Port to Pocahontas. Subsequently he en- 
gaged in agricultixral pursuits, and this continued 
until 1802. when he joined the Confederate army 
under Col. McCarver, and served twelve months. He 
then returned home, and there remained until 
1864, when he assisted in raising a company for 
the Unites States forces, and served for eleven 
months. After being disbanded Mr. Ball moved 
to Illinois (Union County), and after a residence 
there of two years came back to Arkansas, where 
he again engaged in farming, in Black River 
Bottom. The first crop he made was with a steer, 
bnt the second year he bought a yoke of steers, 
with which he made his second crop. He cleared 
twenty acres of land, and all his hauling was done 
with the oxen. For a wagon he used wooden 
trucks. He first purchased eighty acres, bvit at the 
end of four years sold this for $800, and moved to 
Sharp County, where he purchased a farm for 
1900, and there remained for ten years. He then 
.sold out for the same amount, and moved on his 
present property in 1880. There were 240 acres 
in this, and he paid 1750 for it. Since then he 
has added eighty acres. He has been twice mar- 



ried; first, to Miss Mildred K. Baker, daughter of 
Harrison Baker, who represented Independence 
County in the legislature two terms, and by her 
became the father of nine children, six now living: 
Ulysses R., wife of J. H. Moore, living in Ran- 
dolph County; Harriet A., a teacher; James C, 
Eunice A. , Franklin H. and Callie R. Mr. Ball 
served two terms as justice of the peace in Sharp 
County, Ark., and was elected to the third term, 
but did not serve. After coming to this county he 
was elected justice one term, and has also been 
school director a number of terms. His first wife 
died on the 6th of April, 1881. She was a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church and East- 
era Star Chapter, and was an excellent woman. 
Mr. Ball was married, the second time, to Miss 
Cynthia J. Jones, of Sharp Coiinty, who is a mem- 
] ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and an 
active worker in the same. Mr. Ball is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, is treasurer of his lodge, 
has also served as Worshipful Master, and has 
filled all the principal stations in the lodge. In 
politics he affiliates with the Republican party. 

John W. Bennett, one of Randolph County's 
substantial and enterprising citizens, was born in 
Jefferson County, 111., December 16, 1865, being a 
son of Thomas S. and Elmira E. Bennett. His 
father was born in Tennessee in 1834 and his 
mother in St. Francois County, Mo., and they 
were married in Ripley County, that State. They 
afterward located in St. Francois County and 
moved from there to the State of Illinois near 
Rome, Jefferson County, coming thence to Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., in 1868, where, after fanning 
for some time, Mr. Bennett became collecting 
agent for Hecht & Co. , of Pocahontas. He served 
as treasurer of Randolph County two terms, and he 
and his wife were members of the Methodist Epis- j 
copal Church. He was a Democrat in his political 
views, and while in Missouri he enlisted in the 
Southern service, being promoted to the rank of 
lieutenant. He participated, with credit to himself, 
in many a hard-fought battle. He was a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and died December 25, 
1885, at the age of fifty -one years. His widow still 
survives him and remains in Randolph County. 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



Of the nine children born to their union, six are 
now living: Wesley C, a farmer of the county; 
John W., J. S., Mary C, Thomas S. and Emily. 
The early scholastic training of Jolin \V. Bennett 
was received in the common schools near his home, 
and he aftervyard finished his education in the 
schools of Pocahontas. He remained with his 
mother until 1887, then entered the employ of 
William T. Mcllroy at Dalton, with whom he 
remained as salesman for eight months, after which 
he sold goods in Pocahontas for Snowtree, remain- 
ing in this place for eight months also. Since that 
time he has devoted his attention to agriculture, 
and is a farmer of this county, having 400 acres 
of land. He is a Democrat, and he and his wife, 
whose maiden name was Annie Foster, and whom 
he married February 14, 1889, are members of tlie 
Methodist Episcopal Church. January 3, 1867, 
his wife was born. She was reared in Randoli)h 
County, Ark., and is a daughter of Thomas Foster, 
who was a very prominent resident of the county, 
and here spent his life, dying January 22, 1S8U, 
at the age of sixty-six years. He was one of the 
most extensive real estate holders in the county, 
and owned 2,200 acres of land. His name will 
long be remembered by the residents of the coun- 
ty, for he was public spirited and enterprising, and 
was ever the friend of the poor. During his long 
residence in the county he held some responsible 
positions. He was also a member of the Masonic 
fraternity. 

William R. Bigger is a native resident of Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., and was born on the farm 
where he now lives January 1, 1850, and was the 
eleventh of thirteen children, three now living, 
born to the marriage of James N. Bigger and Lu- 
cretia Parrish, who were born in the State of Mis- 
souri in 181() and 1812, and died in Randolph 
County. Ark., in 1872 and 1874, respectively. 
Their marriage was consummated in Missouri, and 
they afterward came to this State and settled on 
the farm on which their son. William K., is now 
living, which they made their home until their 
death. They were members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. South, and were well-to-do residents 
of the county. Their children who are living are 



Chesterfield, who is a farmer of the county: Caro- 
line, wife of Arthur Barm, also a farmer of the 
county, and William R. The latter remained 
with his parents until their demise, and at that 
time he and his brother took charge of the home 
farm, which then consisted of 400 acres of land, 
and by industry and good management have added 
considerable more land to the original amount. 
Laura McKee, who was born in North Carolina in 
185"), a daughter of John McKee, became his 
wife in 1879. She is an earnest member of the 
Methodi.st Episcopal Church, South, and he is a 
stanch Democrat in politics. He is an energetic 
and successful agriculturist, and has vastly im- 
proved the property left him by his parents. 

B. F. Bigger has been the X3i'oi>i"ietor of the 
Bigger' s House, one of the first-class hotels of the 
county, ever since 18S1, but previous to that time, 
his attention had been given to directing the plow 
and in attending to the duties of farm life. He is 
a native-born resident of Randolph County, Ark., 
his birth occurring in 1851, and he is principally 
self-educated, his knowledge of business affairs 
being acquired mainly by contact with the world. 
At the age of twenty two years, he was married to 
Miss Ida Simington, who was also born in Ran- 
dolph County, and of the seven children born to 
their union, four are living: Thomas, Lute, Kate 
and George. The other children died in infancy. 
From the date of his marriage up to 1881, he was 
engaged in farming fur himself, but since that 
time he has been keeping a hotel in Pocahontas, 
and by good management, hospitality and fair 
dealing, he has succeeded in gaining an excellent 
patronage, and his earnest endeavors to see that 
the wants and needs of his patrons are satisfied, 
have tended to make his estal)lishment a favoritt- 
resort for the traveling public. He also manages 
a livery stable, the only one in the place, and has 
some excellent vehicles and animals ready for use. 
He owns two excellent farms, one com]>risiug 'lOO 
acres and the other 400 acres, and although one 
place is rented to tenants, it is under his super 
vision, and he manages the other farm himself, de- 
voting it to the raising of stock, grain and hay. 
He owns his hotel and stalile. and is one of the 



^ 



374 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



wealthy citizens of the county. His parents, J. G. 
and Catherine (Lewis) Bigger, were born and reared 
in Randolph County, the father being engaged in 
farming. J. G. was a soldier in the Confederate 
army, and died in 1863. His father was a Ken- 
tuckian, who emigrated to Randolph County, Ark. , 
with his parents when a child, the country at that 
time being a Territory. Mr. Bigger is a Democrat 
and a member of the A. F. & A. M. 

W. T. Bispham. circuit clerk, Pocahontas, Ark. 
The subject of this sketch needs no introduction 
to the people of Randolph County, for a long resi- 
dence, and, above all, a career of usefulness and 
prominence, have given him an acquaintance which 
shall last for many years. He is a native of West- 
moreland County, Va., born in IS-tl, and is the son 
of John F. and Martha C. (Templeman) Bispham, 
both of whom were born in the same county in 
Virginia. The paternal grandfather, "William 
Bispham, was a native of Lancaster, England, and 
came to America with an older brother, when a 
child. He was a successful agriculturist, and 
died in Richmond County, Va., about 185"2. The 
maternal grandfather, Samuel Templeman, was a 
native of Virginia, a minister in the Baptist Church, 
and was in the Home Guards during the War of 
1812. He was one of the early settlers of Vir- 
ginia. John F. Bispham was a successful agricultur- 
ist and followed this occupation until his death in 
1872 at the age of tifty-two years. The mother 
died in 1870, at about fifty -four years of age. 
Both were members of the Baptist Church, and 
the father was for many years a deacon in the same. 
Both took a great interest in church work. They 
reared to maturity a family of five children, W. T. 
Bispham being the eldest. John H. was a soldier 
in the Ninth Virginia, Confederate army, and was 
killed at the battle of Hatch's Run; Robert A. is 
a carpenter in Washington, D. C. ; Samuel T. is a 
coach maker by trade, and resides in the District of 
Columbia; Emma died in 1875, and Lou H. mar- 
ried James May, and resides in Washington, D. C. 
W. T. Bispham remained on the farm until sixteen 
years of age, and received his education in the 
private schools. At that age his father engaged 
in merchandising and W. T. acted in the capacity 



of clerk, continuing as such until the breaking out 
of the war. In April, 1861, he enlisted in Com- 
pany C, Montrose Guards, attached to the Forty - 
seventh Virginia Regiment, Confederate Ai-mv. 
and served until the close of the war. He partic- 
ipated in the battle of Seven Oaks, and was in the 
entire Richmond Campaign, at Cedar Run, Fred- 
ericksburg, Chancellorsville. and was appointed 
commissary of his regiment after the last mentioned 
battle. After the war he returned to merchandis- 
ing in Virginia. His father was at that time sher- 
iff of Westmoreland County, which office he held 
a number of terms, and W. T. was made deputy 
sheriff, tilling this position for about a year. In 
March, 1867, he moved to Brownsville, Tenn. , and 
entered the employ of Yancey, Wilder & Co., 
merchants, as salesman. In January, 1868, he ac- 
cepted the agency of the Carolina Life Insurance 
Company, and finally located in Randoljih County. 
Ark., and engaged in teaching school, after which 
he became salesman in a store for Levi Hecht, of 
Pocahontas and continued in this capacity for a few 
months, when he engaged as book-keeper for E. B. 
Burr & Co. This position he held until July, 1869, 
when he again resumed the position as local agent 
for the insurance business, and continued that about 
a year. He then engaged as book-keeper for J. P. 
Black & Co. In 1872 he went to Walnut Ridge, 
Ark., and kept books until the fall of 1873, when 
he returned to his native State and remained there 
and taught in the public schools until the fall of 
1877; then returning to Pocahontas, he kept books 
for R. N. Hamil, merchant, until 1885, when he en- 
gaged with L. E. Imboden in the same capacity, 
and remained in that position until 1886. He was 
then elected clerk and recorder of Randolph Coun- 
ty, Ark., and has held that office ever since, being 
re-elected without opposition by the people of his 
county in 1888. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, a Royal Arch Mason and member of the 
Knights of Honor. He is unmarried. 

John P. Black, attorney at law, Pocahontas, 
Ark. What is usually termed genius has little to 
do with the success of men in general. Keen 
perception, sound judgment and a determined 
will, supported by persevering and continuous ef- 



^ 



fort, are essential elements to success in any call- 
ing, and their possession is sure to accomplish the 
aims hoped for in the days of our youth. The 
juris})rudonce of a commonwealth is the most ! 
necessary factor toward its growth and permanence, 
for without a thorough knowledge and administra- 
tion of the law, no form of popular government 
coald long exist. Mr. Black was born at Black's 
Ferry, Randolph County, Ark., on the 1st of Oc- 
tober, 1822. He is the son of William Black 
the grandson of David Black, and the great-grand- 
son of David Black, who was a native of Amster- 
dam, Holland. The elder David Black came to 
America when a boy, settling at Charleston, S. C, 
and there learned the blacksmith trade. .He died 
in that State. David Black, Jr., was a native of 
South Carolina, and was a farmer by occupation. 
He emigrated to Kentucky at a verj' early day, 
settling near Hopkinsvillo, where he lived many 
years, and in 1815 moved to Randolph County, 
Ark. He settled at Black's Ferry, and lived there 
many years, but died at Davidsonville. Lawrence 
County, Ark. , at the age of sixty years. The father 
of the subject of this sketch, William Black, passed 
his j'outh on his father's farm in Kentucky, and 
moved to Randolph County, Ark., with his -par- 
ents, in 1815. After reaching manhood he mar- 
ried Miss Elizabeth Jones (who became the mother 
of John P. Black), in 1820, and lived at Black's 
Ferry until his death in Febraary, 1852, at the 
age of fifty four years. The mother died in July, 
1851, at the age of forty-nine years. She was a 
devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. The father was a leading and prominent 
man in this part of the State; was the first sheriff 
of Randoli)h County, served in that office two 
terms, and in 1840 was elected to the State Senate 
of Arkansas. He served in that body two terms, 
and during that time acquired a State rejnitation 
as a general worker, and an influential man in that 
august body. He was noted far and near for his 
liberality and hosjiitality, especially to new settlers. 
He was ever public spirited and always ready and 
willing to do all he could to promote any and all 
enterprises for the good of the county and State. 
He and his wife reared a family of seven children. 



five sous and two daughters, all of wiioui are 
highly respected men and women. The maternal 
grandfather of John P. Black, John Janes, was 
a native of Virginia, was a soldier in the Revolu- 
tionary War, and was wounded at the battle of 
Yorktown. His wife, whose maiden name was 
Margaret Arming, was also a native of Virginia, 
and in 1800 they came down the Ohio River in ca- 
noes, settled on Merrimac River, near St. Louis, 
and there remained imlil 1801), on a Spanish grant 
of land. They then emigrated to Randolph 
County. Ark., settled on Janes' Creek, and there 
remained until the death of the father in I82f>, at 
the age of eighty two years. John P. Black as- 
sisted his father on the farm in Randolph County, 
and received his education in the county schools, 
that is, a part of his education, for the most of it 
was obtained by his own application at home. He 
began managing a farm at the age of eighteen 
years, and this continued until twenty-two, when he 
went to work for a New Orleans house at I'owhat- 
an, where he remained until 1811), after which he 
came to Pocahontas. He there engaged in mer- 
cantile pursuits, which he carried on until 1873. 
excepting a period during the war, when he served 
two years in Fagan's command. Confederate 
army. He returned to the farm in 1872, remained 
there a few years and then came again to Poca- 
hontas, where he entered the law office of Thomas 
Ratliff, as a student. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1875, and has been actively engaged in the 
practice ever since. He was first married in 1855, 
to Miss Isabella Waddel, a native of Arkansas. 
In 1859 he was again married, taking for his 
second wife Miss Claude Inman, a native of In- 
diana. In 1868 he married Miss Lottie Inman. 
and in 1875 was united in marriage with Miss 
Flora Kebler. a native of Arkansas, who bore him 
six children: Charley, Guy, Hattie, Irene, Lulu 
and Blanche. 

R. H. Black, attorney, Pocahontas. Ark. As 
a leading citizen of Pocahontas in its profes 
sional, business and social life, lending eminent 
strength to her bar, tone to her finance and grace 
to her society, Mr. Black commands attention from 
the pen of the historian who would wish to do this 



P^ 



376 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



city justice. He owes his nativity to Randolph 
County, Ark., and is a son of Williara Bhick, whose 
sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. He grew 
to manhood on his father's farm at Black's Ferry, 
in Randolph County, securing his education in the 
private schools of the county and at Shelbyville, 
Ky. He was admitted to the bar in 1860, and has 
been actively engaged in the i)ractice ever since. 
He has been for two terms presiding attorney of 
the Second Judicial District of Arkansas, and in 
1879 he represented Randolph County in the Gen- 
eral Assembly, one term. Iii 1861, when the war- 
cloud hung heavy over the United States, Mr. 
Black enlisted in the First Arkansas Cavalry, C. S. 
A., commanded by ex- Gov. Churchill, as private, 
and was made lieutenant after the second year. 
He served until May 14, 1864, when, at the bat- 
tle of Besaca, Ga. , he had the misfortune to lose 
his right arm by a gun-shot wound, which dis- 
abled him from further service. He participated 
in the battles of Chickamauga, Murfreesboro and 
Richmond, Ky. and numerous othi r battles. After 
being discharged he came back to Pocahontas, be- 
gan the study of law, was afterward admitted to 
the bar and opened office here. His marriage 
with Miss Virginia L. Criddle, a native of Jackson, 
Cape Girardeau County, Mo. , occurred on Novem- 
ber 14, 1867, and to them were born five chil- 
dren: Edward, Marvin, ^Valdo, Blanche and Ina. 
Mrs. Black died on the 26th of December, 1880, 
in full faith with the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Mr. Black is a member of the I. O. O. F. 
and is not only a pleasant gentleman in the social 
walks of life, but is also among the first in his pro- 
fession. He and his children are the owners of 
about 1,000 acres of land. 

William F. Blackwell. Among the business 
men of Randolph County, Ark., who have won dis- 
tinction as successful merchants, and who have, 
by personal industry and genuine business ability, 
succeeded in establishing a desirable trade, may 
be mentioned Mr. Blackwell, whose name heads 
this brief biography. He was l)orn in Lawrence 
County, Ark., December 20, 1S51, and is a son of 
James and Parnesia Jane (Smith) Blackwell, the for- 
mer being a native of Virginia. He died while 



our subject was two years old. while on his way 
home from New Orleans, whither he had been on 
business, he having been a merchant and stock 
dealer at the time of his death. After removing 
from his native State, he first came to Tennessee, 
and afterward to Arkansas. His wife was born in 
Lawrence County, this State, in 1828, and after 
his death she married a Mr. Ellison, who left her 
again a widow some time after, and she next 
wedded Bennett Holder, who is also dead. She is 
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; 
she became the mother of four children, two 
being now dead. Those living are Isabella, wife 
of Frank M. Baker, and William F., who was 
educated in the schools of Lawrence County, and 
from boyhood up has been familiar with mer- 
cantile life, having acted in t'ne capacity of .sales- 
man at Powhatan, Smithville, Walnut Ridge, 
Delaplaiiie. Lauratown. and then in his jiresont 
location. One year after coming to Randolph 
County, he engaged in business for himself, form- 
ing a partnership with W. W. Tanner, the firm be- 
ing known as Tanner Sc Blackwell. This part- 
nership lasted until 1883, and since that time Mr. 
Blackwell has been in business alone. The first 
money he earned for himself was at picking cotton, 
and in all the enterprises in which he has been en- 
gaged, his labors have lieen attended with good re- 
sults. He was so unfortunate as to be burned out in 
February, 1888, but he has since retrieved his for- 
tunes to some extent, and, in connection with his 
business, is engaged in farming. He received his 
last appointment as postmaster in 1888. February 
10, 1S78, he was married to Miss Mollie F. Tanner, 
daughter of W. W. Tanner, and by her he is the 
father of four children: Jennie May, Pearl Grace 
and William Harry. James Marvin, the eldest child, 
died in bis third year. Mrs. Blackwell was born 
in Obion County, Tenn., and is a member of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and her hus- 
band belongs to the Methodist Epi.scopal Church, 
South. He is a Democrat. His career has placed 
him before the public as a successful financier, 
and his reputation has been obtained by tireless 
industry, a keen foresight of events, and a judicious 
use of his means. 



!L> 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



377 



Capt. J. N. Bolen, editor of the Herald, Po- 
cahontas, Ark. The enviable position which the 
town of Pocahontas occupies to-day as an industrial 
and mercantile center is due to the enerify, enter- 
prise and ability of the inhabitants, and to the 
wise and judicious government of the local authori- 
ties. Prominent among those who have made an 
impress on the history of the town, in more re. 
spects than one, is Capt. J. N. Bolen, editor and 
publisher of the Herald. Mr. Bolen owes his na 
tivity to Fayette County, Penn. , where his birth oc- 
curred in the year 1881 . and he is the son of Reuben 
and Nancy (Walters) Bolen, natives of Virginia 
and Pennsylvania, respectively. The father was 
born in Powhatan County, Va., in the year 1790, 
was a soldier in the War of 1S12-14, removed to 
the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1820, and 
soon thereafter was married to Miss Nancy Wal- 
ters, only dau^ghter of Abraham Walters, and there 
he continued to reside until his death, which oc- 
curred in the year 1840, the mother surviving the 
father until 187<). in which year she died at the 
home of her son. J. N. Bolen, at Murray, Callo- 
way County. Ky. . in the seventy-sixth year of her 
age. They were members of the old School Pres- 
liyterian and Methodist Church, respectively. 
The father was active in political affairs, always 
voting the Democratic ticket, having been three 
times elected sheriff of his county as the nominee 
of that party. The paternal grandfather of J. N. 
Bolen. Powhatan Bolen. was a native of Powhat- 
an County. Va. . and was a Revolutionary soldier. 
The maternal grandfather. Abraham Walters, was 
a native of Fayette County, Penn. , and also a sol- 
dier of the Revolutionary War. J. N. Bolen was 
early trained to the arduous duties of the farm 
and this continued until eighteen years of age 
when he left the parental roof and served an ap- 
prenticeship at the tailor's trade at Brownsville, 
continuing at this for ten years. He then learned 
dentistry, located at Murray. Ky. , where he estab- 
lished the Murray (Tazette, and ran the same for 
six years as a Democratic paper. He then came 
to Randolph County, Ark. , and bought the Her- 
ald, of Pocahontas, which he has ably edited ever 
since. In June, 18(')1. he enlisted in the war and 



armed and equip|)ed. at his own expense, a com 
pany of cavalry which was attached to the 
Seventh Kentucky Regiment, Col. Forrest com 
raanding, and served until the close of the war 
with the command of captain, until the last two 
years, when he was promoted to the rank of major 
and commanded the battalion until the close of 
the war. He participated in the following battles: 
Fort Henry. Fort Donelson, Jackson, Raymond, 
Baker's Creek, Paducah, and in numerous skir- 
mishes. By his marriage, which occurred in 1858 
with Miss Carrie Allbntton. a native of Calloway 
County, Ky.. one child was born, Ella, wife of 
Jacob Schoonover, of Pocahontas. 

William B. Bridges (deceased) was a man well 
known to the early settlers of Randolph (bounty. 
Ark., and was respected for his straightforward 
course through life, and for his noble. Christian 
qualities of mind and heart. He was born in 
North Carolina in 1810, and was a son of Benjamin 
Bridges, who was also born in that State, and was 
a soldier in the War of 1812. He was a black- 
smith by trade, and William B. , like the majority of 
sons, followed in his father's footsteps and liecanie 
a blacksmith also. He was the eldest of sixteen chil- 
dren, and in his youth was taken by his parents to 
Tennessee, where he grew to manhood. When eight 
een years of age he was married to Miss Rebecca 
Sherrel, a native of Wilson County, that State, 
and after residing there the eight years following 
his marriage he emigrated to Arkansas, locating at 
Pittman's Ferry, but one year later removed to Poca- 
hontas, having been identified with the interests of 
this place for many years. His death, however, 
occurred in Gainesville, Greene County, Ark., in 
1868, at the age of tifty- eight years, his widow dy- 
ing June 9, 1882. Both were members of many 
years' standing of the Baptist Church, and were 
earnest and devoted Christians. Mr. Bridges was 
a well-posted man, and was a leader in the church 
of which he was a member, as well as in public af- 
fairs, and was an eloquent and fluent speaker. He 
was very popular in the community in which he 
resided, and for many years held the office of jus- 
tice of the peace, and socially was a member of the 
k. F. & A. M. Of his large familv of children six 



:^ 



IS k. 



878 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



grew to maturity, the only surviving member Ijniiig 
A. M. Bridges, who is a leading farmer of Wiley 
Township. At the age of nine years he accom- 
panied his father to Randolph County, Ark. , and 
his youth was spent in learning the intricacies of 
farm work and blaeksmithing, he also acquiring a 
fair education in the common schools of his adopted 
county. ITpon the breaking out of the Rebellion 
in 1801 he joined the Seventh Arkansas Cavalry, 
Confederate States Army, took a stirring part 
in the battle of Corinth, and was in numerous 
skirmishes. At the second battle of Corinth he 
was one out of eight of his company to escape un- 
hurt, and at the close of the war he went to the city 
of St. Louis, and served a three-years' apprentice- 
ship at the machinist's trade under G. H. Timons; 
then came to Randolph County and purchased 100 
acres of land, on which he now lives. The prop- 
erty at that time was raw timber land, but he has 
made valuable improvements in the way of build- 
ing, fences and clearing, and has added to his 
original purchase until he now has a fine tract of 
land embracing 4GU acres, of which 175 are under 
cultivation. He has been married four times and has 
four living children: Susan, wife of Paul S. Leonard, 
of Randolph County; Martha, wife of John Ball, 
also of this county; VV. B. . at home, and one other. 
Mr. Bridges has Iseen the architect of his own 
fortune, and through his own exertions has ac- 
quired his present property which is one of the 
finest farms in the county. For the last few years 
in connection with his farm work he has also con- 
ducted a blacksmith shop on his farm, and is con- 
sidered a skillful mechanic. 

William Bridges. In any worthy history of 
the county the name that heads this sketch will 
always be given an enviable place among the lead- 
ing citizens of the county, and its self made agri- 
culturists. Mr. Bridges is a native of Randolph 
County, having been born here November 18, 1S27. 
and is the seventh of ten children, three of whom 
are now living, the other two being Martha, wife 
of William Fry, a farmer of this county, and 
Nancy, born to the marriage of John Bridges and 
Cynthia Spivey. Both parents were born in the 
"Old North State," and the father died in Ran- 



dolph County, Ark., when alujut forty-four years 
of age, the mother dying in Fulton, while on a visit 
several years after the war. After their marriage, 
which occurred in their native State, fhey came to 
this pari of Arkansas, it being then a Territory, 
and engaged in farming, which occupation proved 
quite successful. Game of all kinds was quite 
plentiful at that time, and Indians were also 
numerous, but they never molested the Bridges 
family, although many of the other settlers suffered 
severely at their hands. Jfr. Bridges was a life- 
long Democrat, and he and wife were members of 
the Presbyterian Church. William Bridges re- 
mained with his parents until their deaths, and has 
been a farmer all his life. In ISOl his farming 
operations being interrupted by the opening of 
the Rebellion, he laid down his farming imple 
ments to take up the weapons of warfare, and eu 
listed in Capt. Wright's company, Col. William 
Patterson's infantry. Confederate States Army, and 
' served until the close of the war, his regiment be- 
ing the first to cross the Mississip{)i River. He 
was at the battles of Shiloh and Perryville, and 
also participated in a number of skirmishes. Since 
returning home from the army he has been en- 
gaged in farming and stock raising, and from 
starting in life with not so much as a good suit of 
clothes, he has become one of the heaviest tax payers 
in the county, and now owns 778 acres of some of 
the best land of which the county can boast. He 
has long been a Democrat, and is one of the enter 
prising citizens of the county. His marriage with 
Elizabeth Wells took place July 21, 1804, she hav- 
ing been born in Randolph County, Ark., a daugh- 
ter of Hugh Wells. To them were born five chil- 
dren, now living: Elizabeth, William W., Margaret, 
Hugh and Nevada. John died March 10, 1889, 
at the age of twenty-one years; George died De- 
cember 30, 1888, in his seventeenth year; Emily 
died December 15, 1888, when twenty-four years 
of age, the wife of George Wells: Hugh died when 
thirteen years old; Samuel when three years of 
age, and two infant daughters are deceased. Mr. 
Bridges, like his father, is a Democrat, and he and 
wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. 



y]'. 



A. W. W. Brooks, one of the most oxteusive 
laud owners and cotton growers of Randolph 
County, Wcas boru ia Davidson County, Tonn., in 
the year 1882. His parents were liichard P. and 
Mary N. Brooks, the former a prominent citizen 
of that portion of Tennessee, and for several years 
sheriff of Jackson County, liichard F. Brooks 
was a member of the legislature for a great 
many years, and at the age of seventy -four was 
elected a ' ' Hoater, ' ' or in other words, a repre- 
sentative from more than one county. He died at 
the age of seventy-five years, after an honorable 
and brilliant career. His son, A. W. W. Brooks, 
was reared and received his education in Jackson 
County, Tenn. He seemed to be imbued with 
the spirit that characterized his father, and fol- 
lowed closely in his footsteps early in life. When 
war was announced between the North and South, 
he occupied the clerkship of Jackson County cir- 
cuit court, and at the outset of the National excite- 
ment he was the first to organize a company in 
Jackson County. He held the rank of lieutenant, 
and, when the conscript act was enforced, returned 
to that county and organized another company, of 
which he was lieutenant. During an engagement 
with an overwhelming force the captain was killed 
and the company disorganized, many of the men 
being captured. Lieut. Brooks was among the 
prisoners, and after fifteen months' confinement he 
returned and collected the shattered fragments of 
his company, of which he was the captain until 
the spring of 1865, the time of the surrender. At 
the close of the war he returned to Jackson County, 
in the same State, like many a chivalrous spirit 
who had cast his fortune with the Confederacy — 
penniless. He soon started, however, at the task of 
regaining at least a portion of what he had lost, 
and, leaving the old home behind him, traveled 
further west. He settled in Lawrence County, 
Ark., and remained there two years, but thinking 
that Randolph County would be a more desirable 
location, he moved to that place. On his arrival 
there, all his worldly possessions consisted of a 
pair of steers and a very meager outfit, but if his 
riches were small his heart was large, and accom- 
panied by a spirit too proud to be east down by 



the prospects before him. In the first year of his 
arrival he succeeded in getting some one to rent 
him a portion of land, upon which lie began farm 
i°g' paying them with a portion of the crop he 
raised. He finally became the owner of a piece of 
land, which his ingenuity and foresight put him 
in possession of, and from that time to the present 
he has been successful in his financial enterprises. 
His wealth has grown to massive proportions, and 
at one time he was the owner of 8,000 acres of 
land, but donated some 4,000 acres to his childi-en. 
Mr. Brooks is widely known for his shrewdness in 
commercial transactions, and many people, not thor- 
oughly acquainted with him, would perhaps think 
he was a man of very stern principles, but to see him 
once in the family circle away from the cares and 
perplexities of his busy life, that impression would 
be quickly dispelled. He is generous, almost to a 
fault; ready to give aid wherever it is really 
needed, and is a man whose word will carry weight 
whenever it comes from his mouth. He has never 
practiced as a regular attorney, but his knowledge 
of the law is considerable, and that fact alone has 
given him a greater advantage than the average 
man, especially in some of his extensive land deals. 
Like almost all other successful and prominent 
men, Mr. Brooks' accumulation of great wealth 
has gained for him many enemies, people who 
started with him in the race through life and were 
outstripped long before the three -([uarter stretch 
was reached; but his friends, and their name is 
legion, knowing how to appreciate the true man, 
are filled with admiration at his wonderful success. 
Mr. Brooks was first married in ]8r)r), in the State 
of Tennessee, to Miss Julia J. Richmond. The 
result of this hap])y union was four children: 
Ellen, wife of J. P. Rogers; William P. Brooks, 
whose sketch immediately follows this one; Alice, 
widow of Robert Surridge; and Maggie, wife 
of David Feneter, This, his first wife, and the 
companion of his earlier manhood, after having 
proven herself a kindly and faithful wife ami 
worthy mother, was calhnl to eternity and away 
from her family in 1874. Some years after this 
Mr. Brooks contracted a second marriage with JL-s. 
Mcllrov, a cliarmin<j widow of Randolph C^ountv, 



I* 



1' 



M 



9 W. 



380 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



by whom he has had one child, Fannie A. This 
last maiTiago, unlike most second marriages, was a 
happy one. Whether this was due to the qualities 
of the lady or to the tact of Mr. Brooks in turning 
all things to good account, is a matter of conjec- 
ture, but judging from results, each one must be 
entitled to an equal amount of credit. Mrs. 
Brooks was almost the equal of her husband in 
business transactions, and during her lifetime 
was his only counselor. This faithful woman has 
also been called away by the hand of death. 

W. P. Brooks is a successful young farmer of 
Randolph County, Ark. , and it is, perhaps, not to 
be wondered at that he should devote himself to 
agricultural pursuits, for, in looking back over the 
careers of his ancestors, we find that the majority 
of them were honest tillers of the soil. He is a 
native-born resident of the county, his birth oc- 
curring in 1858, and in his youth he succeeded in 
acquiring a good, practical education, and from the 
very first was taught the I'udiments of farm labor 
by his father, a shrewd, practical agriculturist. 
He has made that his chief calling throughout life, 
and although a young man is well fixed financially, 
being the owner of 546 acres of land, of which 
264 are in Lawrence County. At the present time 
he is residing on his father's extensive estate of 
which he is general manager and overseer, and also 
acts as bookkeeper for his father. His marriage, 
which occuiTed when he was twenty-two years of 
age, was with Miss Birdie Surridge, who was born 
and reared in the State of Arkansas. They have 
two bright and interesting children named James 
A. and Essie P. In his political views Mr. Brooks 
has always been a Democrat, and being a young 
man of pluck and energy he is bound to succeed in 
whatever calling he may undertake. [For parents' 
history see -sketch of A. W. W. Brooks.] 

Richard D. Brown is a member of the law firm 
of Brown & Black, one of the leading and most 
influential at the bar of Pocahontas and is a native 
of Calloway County, Ky. , born in the year 1832. 
He has that ease of manner and force of character 
which make the sons of the Blue Grass State influ- 
ential wherever they go. Reared to the mysteries 
of farm life from earlv vouth. he began for himself 



in this pursuit at the age of seventeen years, and 
continued until twenty-seven years of age. when 
he entered the ofiice of Lem Boyd, and there studied 
law. He was admitted to the bar in October, 1859. 
at Miu-ray, Ky., and in 1860 went to Metropolis 
City, 111. , where he located and practiced law for 
one year. At the breaking out of hostilities he 
moved back to his native county, and during the 
war was engaged in contraband trade. When 
peace was declared he settled in Murray, Ky. , and 
practiced his profession until 1876, when he moved 
to Randolph County, Ark. Here he has been suc- 
cessfully engaged in the practice of his profession 
ever since. He was first married in 1850 to Miss 
America Foster, a native of Kentucky (Christian 
County), and one child was born to this union, 
Almedia, who is the wife of C. C. Marshal, of 
Murray, Ky. Mrs. Brown died in April, 1859, at 
the age of twenty-one years. She was a devoted 
member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Brown was 
married the second time, in 1860, to Miss Anna E. 
Trill, a native of Montgomery County, Tenn. , and 
this union was blessed by the birth of three chil- 
dren: Sallie S. , Mary E. and Ruth. Mrs. Brown 
is a member of the. Baptist Church. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fi'aternity, and both are much 
esteemed citizens. Mr. Brown owns about 4,500 
acres of land, and is largely interested in the lum- 
ber business. He employs from twenty to fifty 
men, and is doing well at this. He is a Democrat, 
a leading lawyer and a first-class business man. 
His parents, Edward S. and Sallie (Card) Brown, 
were natives of Culpeper County, Va. The 
father was educated for a surveyor, but finding agri- 
cultural pursuits more suited to his tastes, he fol- 
lowed that occupation the principal part of his life. 
He was reared in Hopkinsville, Ky. , and in 1831 
emigrated to Western Kentucky, where he settled 
in Calloway County. There he received his final 
summons in 1850, at the age of fifty years. The 
mother died in 1886, at the age of seventy-five 
years. Both were esteemed members of the Bap- 
ti.st Church. The father was a Whig in politics, 
and was considered a leader of his party in West- 
ern Kentucky. He was a very prominent man. 
They were the parents of twelve children, six now 



^'' 



KANDOLPH COUNTY. 



881 



living: Edmond, a farmer, now living iu Callo- 
way County, Ky. ; Mary J., wife of Cyrus Oweu, 
also in Calloway County; Fannie, wife of W. S. 
Sled, of the same county ; Richard D. ; Jano, wife 
of William H. Daily, of Calloway County, and 
Sophronia, wife of ^^'. C. Clements, also of that 
county. The paternal grandfather, Thomas Brown, 
was a native of Culpeper County, Va. , and was a 
successful tiller of the soil. He settled in Ken- 
tucky later iu life, and founded the town of Hop- 
kinsville, Ky., in 1812. The maternal grandfather 
was Edmond Card, who was also a native of Cul- 
peper County, Va. He was a wealthy farmer 
and a soldier in the War of 1812; was quite active 
in politics, and was receiver of the land office of 
Western Kentucky for a number of years. He 
was also a minister in the Baptist Church. 

W. M. Burrow, merchant, Warm Springs, Ark. 
This enterprising and thorough-going business- 
man was born on the 21st of December, 1827, in 
Tennessee, and his father, Philip Burrow, was a 
native of the same State. The elder Burrow was 
a farmer by occupation, and when a young man 
was united in marriage to Miss Minta Lacy, also a 
native of Tennessee. They moved to Arkansas in 
1843. and settled in Randolph County, where the 
father tilled the soil, on rented land, until his 
death, which occurred in 1844. He was thrown 
from a wagon and killed. After his death Mrs. 
Burrow purchased land, and reared the nine chil- 
dren hi)rn to her union with Mr. Burrow (seven 
of whom are now living): Jeremiah (deceased); 
William M. , G. W. (deceased), James W., living 
in Fulton County; Villa, widow of (ireorge Ivoty, 
in Fulton County, Ark. ; Jane, also in Fulton 
County; Josiah, Robert and Tindrel. In 1879 
Mrs. Burrow sold her farm and moved to Fulton 
County, Ark. In 1846 she maiTied for her second 
husliand Tindrel Burrow, a distant relative of her 
first husband. Mi'. Burrow died in 1870, V)ut his 
•widow still survives him, and resides in Fulton 
County. She was Ijorn in 1814, is now in her sev- 
enty-tifth year, does her own housework, and is 
enjoying very good health. In his early youth W. 
M. Burrow had a poor chance for an education, 
but since, by close application and study, he has 



acquired a good business education, antl is a man 
well informed on the current topics of the day. At 
the age of twenty-six he wedded Miss Luviria 
Baily, of Missouri, and then began his career as a 
farmer. He first purchased 160 acres of land, ini 
proved the same and cultivated the .soil until 1877. 
when he engaged iu merchandising at Warm 
Springs, and has continued successfully ever since. 
His annual business amounts to about §10,00(1 or 
$12,000. In 1885 he erected a lino llouring-mill. 
with cotton-gin combined, which cost him about 
$5,000, and with which he does a good business. 
He furnishes considerable flour to the surrounding 
merchants and all the farmers of the northern part 
of the county, also a portion of Oregon and Ripley 
Counties, Mo. Aside from this he is the owner of 
about fifty acres of land close to town. His mar- 
riage occurred in 1853, and he and wife have reared 
a family of seven children (five now living) ; Moses, 
Jane (wife of P. Carter), Jerry, Nancy (wife of 
James Jarrett), Martha (deceased), Mary T. (de- 
ceased), and Alice (wife of Lee JaiTett). On com- 
mencing for himself Mr. Burrow had no help, and 
has made all by the sweat of his brow. In 1802 
he joined the Confederate army, under Capt. B17- 
ant, and served three years and eight months in 
the Trans - Mississippi department. He partici- 
pated in the battles of Cane Hill, Richmond, 
Helena and Red River, was with Gen. Price on 
his raid through Missouri, in 18G4, and ])articipated 
in all the battles of importance during that raid. 
He was slightly wounded at Ash Station, while un- 
der Gen. Joe Shelby, and surrendered at Jackson- 
port, Ark., on the 5th of June, 1805. He then 
came home and engaged in tilling the soil. He 
has never held an office iu his life; was elected at 
one time school director, but paid a tine of $10 and 
saved himself from filling that office. Mr. and 
Mrs. Burrow are members of the Predestinariaii 
Baptist Church, and he in politics affiliates with 
the Democratic party. He is public spirited, is in 
favor of all enterprises for the good of the county, 
is an earnest advocate of schools, and a liberal 
donor to all enterprises of a beneficial character. 
The paternal grandfather was a captain in the 
Revolutionary War, and served during the entire 



J^l 



382 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



time. He had only been married about four 
months when he enlisted. His wife, the paternal 
grandmother of our subject, lived to be one hun- 
dred and fifteen years old, and had been a widow 
sixty-two years. She was born about 1735, and 
died about 1850. Her sister, Mrs. Patterson, died 
at the age of one hundred and nine years, and was 
buried with the honors of war. Her husband was 
a soldier in the Revolutionary War. 

J. J. Garner, another prominent stock raiser of 
Warm Springs Township, has followed this occu- 
pation, in connection with farming, the principal 
part of his life, and has been very successful. To 
the Blue Grass State he owes his nativity, having 
been born there on the 25th of August, 1835. His 
parents, Joel and Nancy (Sigler) Garner, were na- 
tives, respectively, of North Garoliua and Tennes- 
see. The father came to Kentucky at a very early 
day. and the mother made her first appearance in 
that State in 1819. They were married there in 
1823, and there the father followed tilling the soil 
for about fourteen years. He then removed to 
Posey Gounty, Ind., and in 1837 entered eighty 
acres of land, which he improved, and farmed un- 
til his death, in 1839. To this marriage were born 
the following children: Peggie A., wife of Miles 
B. Frence; Elizabeth J., wife of W. H. Lane: 
Malinda J., wife of John D. Morehead; P. W., who 
lives in Ripley County, Mo., and is a farmer; J. J., 
and J. N., who lives in Fulton Gounty, Ark., and 
is a minister and farmer. After the death of her 
husband Mrs. Garner was united in marriage to 
Mr. Joel Short, in 1843, in Union Gounty, Ky., 
whither she had moved in 1839. She was born in 
1808, and died on the 9th of April. 1880. Mr. 
Short died in September, 1853. J. J. Garner 
commenced work for himself at the age of nine- 
teen, and in 1877 moved to this State, settling in 
this county on the 25th of November. He imme- 
diately engaged in farming, which occupation he 
has continued up to the present. In 1882 he en- 
tered lOOj^Sj^ acres of land in Randolph Gounty, 
and now has about seventy-live acres under fence, 
and fifty or sixty acres under cultivation, with fair 
houses and good outbuildings, etc. Mr. Garner 
selected for his life companion Miss Nancy J. 



Ramsey, and was wedded to her in 1855. They 
had nine children (seven of whom are now living): 
T. T., living in this county: Nancy E.. wife of 
John Bloodworth, living in Rijiley Gounty, Mo. ; 
J. J., Jr., in Randolph Gounty: J. N., Jr., in 

j the same county: Sarah (deceased), Mary O. (de- 
ceased). Malinda A., Laura B. and Barba. Mrs. 
Garner was born on the 19th of September, 1836, 
and is a daughter of James A. and Elizabeth (James) 
Ramsey. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey wei'e the parents 
of the following children: T. (J., living in Webster 
Gounty, Ky. ; Robert (deceased), John M., James 
A., Jr., and N. J. Mr. Ramsey died about 1844, 
and Mrs. Ramsey was married again, to Mr. James 
Riggs, in 1848. Three children were born to this 
union: George W., Sylvester and Stanford Y. Mr. 
Riggs died in 1870, and Mrs. Riggs in 1875. The 
latter was a member of the Baptist Ghurch. J. J. 
Carnei-'s uncle on the mother's side was in the War 
of 1812, under Gen. Jackson, and participated in 
the battle of New Orleans. J. J. Garner was 
school director in Kentucky for eight years, and 
has filled the same office in this coiinty one term. 
Politically his preference is with the Republican 
.party. He is a member of the Wheel, and he 
and wife are members of the Free Will Baptist 
Ghurch, as are James J.. Jr., Malinda A. and 
Laura B. 

William Garrens, M. D. The profession of 
the physician is one which operates effectively in 
time of need in arresting and alleviating the most 
acute pains and ailments to which the human body 

I is heir, and therefore deserves the most apprecia- 
tive consideration on the part of the pul)]ic. In 
this profession the gratitude of hundreds are dtxe 

i to the talent and skill of Dr. Garrens. who has 
been an active practicing physician of the county 

I since 1884. He was bom in the State of Illinois, 
September 7, 1849, and received his early educa- 
tion in the graded school at Glinton. -He attended 
one course of lectures in the Eclectic Medical In- 
stitute of Cincinnati, Ohio, his tuition being paid 
with means obtained by teaching school after he had 
reached the age of nineteen years. For fourteen 
years he wielded the ferule successively in Illinois, 
Missouri and Arkansas, and since 1884 has been 






:>£ 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



383 



one of the active practicing physicians of Randolph 
County. He was married Novoiuhpr 18, 1868, to 
Miss Martlia E. Brothers, and by her he became 
the father of three children: Harriett A., born 
August 7. 18(19, the wife of Thomas Phillips; Ida 
J., born February 25, 1872, and is the wife of 
Frank Steward, and J. W., born July 2, 1874, re- 
siding at home. The Doctor's wife died PVb- 
ruary 14, 1876, an earnest member of the Baptist 
Church; she was a daughter of John and Nancy 
Brothers, whose family consisted of six children: 
William, George, Harriett, Sarah, Robert and 
Martha E. Miss Lucy Spinks became the second 
wife of Dr. Carrens, Decem))er 14, 1876, and of 
their seven children four died in infancy and 
three are now living: James S., born May 30, 
1879; Eva M., born July 20, 1881, and Bertha, 
born August 25, 1888. Presley and Elizabeth 
(Ozment) Spinks were native Tennesseeans, who 
moved to Illinois at a very early day, and there 
reared a family of seven children: James J., 
Sarah (Harris), Eliza (Biskins), Tennessee (Odam), 
John A., Lucy (Carrens) and Martha. Mrs. 
Spinks was a member of the Baptist Church and 
died April 7, 1874, her husband afterward marry- 
ing Harriet Doughty, of Illinois, in 1874. Dr. 
Carrens was hrst a member of the Free Will Bap- 
tist Church, but he and wife are now attendants 
and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
which church they joined in 1877. The Doctor is 
a member of the A. F. & A. M. and is a Repiibli- 
can politically. His parents, Elisha and Mary E. 
(Hester) Carrens, were Tennesseeans. and were 
bom, reared and married there, the latter event 
taking place in 1848. They died in their native 
State in 1855, and both were members of the Bap- 
tist Church. They were the parents of three 
ciiildrcn: William, J. A., who is a farmer of 
Claiborne County, Ark., and Elizabeth (deceased). 
R. J. Carter, cotton grower and stock raiser, 
Pocahontas, Ark. Mr. Carter is one of those wide- 
awake, thorough -going gentlemen who are bound 
to make their way in the world with very little 
liclp from outsiders. He is the son of ^linatree 
and Matilda (Mock) Carter, the former a native of 
South Carolina, and one of the early pioneers of 



Northeast Arkansas, where he died in 1857, at 
the age of fifty-five or fifty-six years. The 
mother was also a native of South Carolina, and 
died when about fifty-three years of age. She was 
partly of German descent. Of the nine children 
born to their marriage, three are now living, and 
R. J. Carter was the fifth in order of birth. He 
was born in Randolph County, Ark., in 1833, and 
grew to manhood in that and Greene Counties. 
He made his start in life by following the occupa- 
tion to which he had been trained in early life, 
farming, and in 1861 was united in marriage to 
Miss Mary D. Kuykendall. To this union were 
born three children, only one, Min., who is twenty- 
seven years of age, now li ving. Those deceased are 
Florence and Norah. In 1862 Mr. Carter entered 
the Confederate service, and was on duty for three 
years. He was at the battles of Jenkins' Fen-y, 
Pleasant Hill, Camden and Helena. He returned 
to his family at the close of the war and continued 
tilling the soil in Greene County, Ark., for fifteen 
years. He then came to Randolph County, settled 
on 500 acres and engaged in farming and stock 
raising. He is also the owner of 240 acres in Clay 
County . He is a Democrat in politics, a member 
of the Masonic fraternity. Master Mason and 
a Knight of Honor. He is also a member of the 
Baptist Church. Min. Carter, son of R. J. Car- 
ter, was born in Clay County, Ark., in 1862. was 
reared on the farm until sixteen years of age, 
when he entered the State University at Fayette- 
ville, Ark., where he attended one year. He then 
entered Batesville College, where he graduatetl 
in 1884 with the degree of B. S. Retiu-ning to 
Pocahontas, he engaged as a salesman in the store 
of R. N. Hamil for two years. He then embarked 
in tlie drug business for himself, and this continued 
until April, 1889. He was married in November, 
1888. to Miss Mazie Esselman. a daughter of Dr. 
Esselman, of Pocahontas. Both are members of 
the Roman Catholic Church. 

Henry A. Clark, merchant and farmer. Elm 
Store, Ark. This gentleman owes his nativity to 
Boone County. Ark., where his birth occurred on 
the 26th of December. 1.S52. and is the son of G. 
W. and Fannie (Arnold) Clark, natives of Virginia 



384 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and Teniiessee, respectively. The elder Mr. Clark 
came to Arkansas in 1850, settling in Carroll 
County, but after a residence there of about four 
years, moved to Marion County, where he bought 
200 acres of land. He tilled the soil there until 
1865, when he moved to Independence County, 
Ark. , and settled close to Batesville. He remained 
there only two years, and then moved to Ran- 
dolph County, where he bought wild land on Janes 
Creek. He moved from there in 1878 to Elm 
Store, where he died on the 30th of October, 1886, 
at the age of seventy-seven years. He was mar- 
ried in 1834 to Miss Arnold, who bore him ten 
children, seven now living: James, Annie, wife 
of W. M. Campbell, of Oregon County, Mo. ; 
Sarah, wife of T. M. Brown, of Marion County, 
Ark.; E. B., H. A., R. B. and G. W. Mrs. 
Clark died on the 27th of April, 1887, at the age 
of sixty-nine years. Both were members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Clark 
was a successful farmer, and in his political views 
affiliated with the Democratic party. The pater- 
nal grandfather of our subject came from England 
with his brother when quite a young man. They 
both accepted positions as overseers on plantations 
in Virginia. The brother was killed by negroes 
and thrown into a log heap to burn, but was found 
in time and taken out. The grandfather moved 
from Virginia to Tennessee, and thence to Alabama, 
and was one of the earliest settlers of Jackson 
County. The maternal grandfather was akso an 
early settler of Jackson County, Ala. , and was one 
of the wealthiest men there during his time. He 
was originally from the State of Tennessee, but 
died in Alabama about 1858. H. A. Clark's early 
opportunities for an education were rather meager, 
and he attended his lirst school in 1866. He then 
attended the free schools of his section from 1868 
to 1875, and obtained a good practical education at 
Thomasville Academy, Oregon County, Mo. • After 
leaving school, and on the 23d of August, 1875, 
he came to his present place, and engaged in mer- 
chandising, which he has continued ever since in a 
very successful manner . In connection with this he 
also operates a farm of 250 acres on Eleven Points 
River. Mr. Clark's wife, to whom he was mar- 



ried on the 28th of February, 1877, was formerly 
Miss Ellendar A. Kirkpatrick, of this county, and 
they are the parents of four children, three now 
living: C. Newton, Adolphus G. and Elmer. The 
one deceased was named Henry Perry. At the com- 
mencement of his business career, Mr. Clark had 
but very little to commence with, but by close 
application to business, and by his honorable, up- 
right course, he has attained an enviable position, 
and is now one of the leading business men in the 
county. At present he is the owner of 700 acres 
of land and a fine residence where he now lives, 
also owns his store, and his annual sales amount 
to about $15,000. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, is a Democrat in politics, and he and 
his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. 

M. F. Collier, of the law firm of Lomax & Col- 
lier, is one of the prominent men who make up the 
strength of the Arkansas bar. He is a native of 
Ohio County, Ky. , born in the year 1849, and is 
the son of H. H. Collier and Susan F. (Allmon) 
Collier, also natives of the Blue Grass State. The 
father was a shoemaker in early life, but later fol- 
lowed agricultural pursuits, and is now engaged 
in merchandising at Prairie Grove, Ark. Heemi-' 
grated to this county in i860, settling in the north- 
ern part of the same, where he remained until 
1881, and then moved to his present home. He 
was appointed United States census taker of Ran- 
dolph County, and is quite a prominent man. He 
and his wife are worthy members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. M. F. Collier was reared on 
a farm in the county, and there remained until 
nineteen years of age, when he came to Pocahon- 
tas. He was there engaged in a packing house 
as a laborer, and later was made hostler for the 
firm. Some time after this he was employed as 
salesman in the store of Mr. Hecht, where he con- 
tinued three years. He was made book keeper for 
the same man at Jacksonport, Ark. , remained with 
him two years, and then returned to Pocahontas, 
where he took charge of the books in the main 
store. At the end of four years' service in that 
capacity, he took an interest in the real e.state 
business, and studied law. He was admitted to 



tb<< bar in February, 1886, and formed a partner- 
ship with Mr. Lomax, with whom he has remained 
up to the present time. He commands the confi- 
dence of the people and the respect of his law 
brethren, and is an acquisition to Pocahontas. He 
selected Miss Sophia E. Richter, a native of 
Louisiana, for his wife, and was wedded to her in 
187(5. They have an interesting family of live 
childi'en: Eugene L., Alma, Beryl, Thomas and 
Laurane. Mr. and Mrs. Collier are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in which he is 
Sunday-school superintendent, and takes an ac- 
tive interest in church and Sunday-school work. 
He is a member of the Masonic frateriiit)'. Chap- 
ter and Council, also of the Eastern Star, and 
the K. of H. He is also a member of the I. O. 
O. F. He owns some town property, and consid- 
erable land. The firm makes a specialty of real- 
estate business, and their extensive practice is but 
a natural result of their individual and confederate 
action. 

Captain Wibb Conner, Pocahontas, Ark. A 
glance at the lives of many representative men 
whose names appear in this volume will reveal 
sketches of some honored and influential citizens, 
who have resided many years in this county, but 
among them none are more worthy or deserving of 
mention than Capt. Wibb Conner. On his father's 
side he is of Irish descent, while his mother was of 
Scotch-Irish origin. Capt. Conner was originally 
from Wayne County, Mo., where his birth occurred 
on the ]3th of December, 1837, and is the son of 
John B. and Jane H. (Robinson) Conner, the 
father a native of Virginia, and the mother of 
North Carolina. The grandfather Conner was a 
native of Ireland, but came to America and settled 
in Virginia, and afterward on Green River, Ky., 
in 180fi. He followed the occupation of a farmer, 
also wielded the ferule for some time, and was a 
brave and gallant soldier in the Revolutionary 
War. The maternal grandfather, David Robinson, 
was a native of North Carolina, and was an early 
settler of the Duck River Country, now in Ten- 
nessee. John B. Conner (father of the subject of 
this sketch) was reared on a farm, but at an early 
age went as an apprentice to the gun and black- 



smith trade, which he learned of Col. Wooly, who. 
in 1815, organized an exploring expedition to go 
down the Mississippi River, and up the Red 

I River. John B. Conner accompanied him, and 
while on the Red River all sickened and died ex- 
cept Mr. Conner and one companion. They 
started on foot to come through to Kentucky across 

I the country, but while on the way the companion 
died and Mr. Conner was left alone. He got back 

i as far as Greenville, Mo., but stopped there and 

; started a shop in 1816, and passed the remainder 
of his days in Wayne County, in that State. His 
death occurred in September, 1850, at the age 
of fifty-six years. The mother of Cajjt. Conner 

j died in 1845, at the age of forty-seven years, and 
was a worthy member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. The father was a man who took a 

' great interest in politics, and was prominent in 
public affairs. He held the office of sheriff of 
Wayne County, Mo., for four years, and served in 
the General Assembly two terms. They reared a 
family of children: Benjamin F., died in AVayne 
County, Mo., leaving two children; Frances M. . 
wife of John O. Bettis, of Wayne County, Mo.; 
Phili]) A. (deceased), left a family of three chil- 
dren; Samuel W., died at the age of twenty-one 
years; Wibb, and Rachel E. (deceased), wife of 
Noel Estes, of Wayne County. Capt. Wibb Con- 
ner, when nine years of age. was left motherless, 
and when thirteen years of age his father died. 
He remained on the home place with his brothers 
until eighteen years of age, when he went to 
Greenville, Mo. , and engaged as a clerk in a store. 
At the age of twenty he embarked in business for 
himself in general merchandising, and continued 
this until the war broke out. In 1862 he enlisted 
in Reeves' company, and was attached to the 
Second Missouri Cavalry, serving in the Confeder- 
ate army until the 25th of May, 1865. He en- 
tered the ranks as a private, and came out as a cap- 
tain of Company H, Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry. 
After the war he came to Randolph County, Aik. , 
settled on a farm five miles north of Pocahontas, 
and there carried on farming and milling until 
1867. He then moved to Pocahontas and was 
there engaged as clerk in a store for some time. 



386 



mSTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



In March. 1867, he moved to St. Louis, commencing 
in the hotel business, but a few months later re- 
turned to Pocahontas, and again engaged in the 
mill business, whicli he ran until 1S75. The mill 
was burned down, and Capt. Conner came to Poca- 
hontas and acted as salesman in a store until 1 878. 
He then was elected sheriff and collector, and 
served in that capacity for four years, after which 
he engaged in the real estate business for two years. 
In 1886 he was appointed, under President Cleve- 
land, special agent of a general land office, and 
assigned to duty in Florida, where he remained 
until the 1st of April, 1889. He then returned to 
Pocahontas, where he now lives, retired. He was 
first taarried in October, 1S61. to Miss Eliza Bol- 
linger, a native of. Randolph County, and to them 
was born one child living, Samuel A., who now re- 
sides at Cressview, Fla. , and is a telegraph oper- 
ator. Mrs. Conner died in February, 1868, and 
Capt. Conner took for his second wife, on the loth 
of Decemljer, 1868, Miss V. Ellen Martin, a native 
of Randolph County, Ark., by whom be has six 
children: Kate W., Carl, Philip A., EWeda, P. 
Mabel and Jennie Ellen. He and wife are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is 
a member of the Masonic fraternity and K. of H. 
He is the owner of 500 acres of land, besides town 
property here and in Florida. He is a temperance 
man, and is active in church and educational 
matters. 

Eli Creason, farmer and stock raiser. Warm 
Springs, Ark. On the 15th of August, 1840, there 
was born to Henry and Elizabeth (Smith) Creason 
a son, Eli Creason, whom we now take as the sub- 
ject of this sketch. His birth occurred in Marshall 
County. Ky. , and although his educational advan- 
tages were not of the Ijest, still he had a fair 
showing with the other coiiutry boys of his day. By 
reading and observation in later years, he became 
faij'ly well educated, and is well posted on the 
leading topics of the day. His parents were na- 
tives, respectively, of North Carolina and Illinois, 
were married in 1839, and reared a family of nine 
childi-en (seven now living): Eli, Nancy (wife of 
R. H. Southerland). Elizabeth (deceased), Will- 
iam, James (deceased), Milas, R. H. , John W., 



Adaline (wife of Hicks Mathews). One child died 
very young. Heni-y Creason was born in 1820. 
and has always followed agricultural j)ursuits, in 
which he has been very successful. He and wife 
reside in Kentucky, and are sixty-nine and seventy 
years of age, respectively, and are in the enjoy- 
ment of exceptionally good health. They are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
Mr. Creason is a Democrat, although indeed he 
takes very little interest in politics. Eli Creason 
was employed on his father's farm up to the age 
of twenty, after which be commenced farming for 
himself, on rented land in Kentucky. He made 
but one crop in that State, and then, in 1860, 
moved to Arkansas, and settled in Izard County. 
Five years later he returned to Kentucky, but dur- 
ing that time he spent about three years in the 
Confederate army, and was wounded in a skirmish 
at Augusta, Ark. He participated in the lighting 
in and around Little Rock before and after the 
evacuation of the Confederates, and finally surren- 
dered at Jacksonport, Ark., June 5, 1865. He 
then returned home, and moved, in December, to 
Kentucky, where he remained seven years. He 
then came to Randolph County, Ark., entered 
land, and remained on the same until 1881, when 
he sold out and purchased his present property, 
consisting of 172 acres, with about 100 acres under 
cultivation. He has an excellent frame house on 
the same, has good barns, out-buildings, etc. When 
he returned from the war, Mr. Creason was out 
of money, had no property, and was ' ' dead 
broke" generally. Notwithstanding all this, he 
went to work, and by industry and perseverance, 
coupled with a determined spirit, has become one 
of the leading farmers in this jiortion of the coun- 
ty, all the result of his own labor. Previous to 
the war, he was united in marriage in 1859, to 
Miss Nancy Gibson, of Graves County, Ky., and 
they are the parents of five children (three now 
living): W. H. , born November 16, 18()(), and now 
resides in Warm Springs Township; Eli M., born 
September 27, 1862, and died July 19, 1881; 
George W., born April 7, 1865, and now resides in 
Warm Springs Township; James A., born October 
15, 1868, and also a resident of Warm Springs 



:\^ 



EANDOLVH COUNTY. 



:!S7 



Township, aiul Robert L. . bom October 6, 1881; 
and died November 8, of the same year. The 
mother of these children was born May 28, 1841 ; 
she was a daiij^hter of Emanuel and Martha (Per- 
kins) Gibson, both natives of Kentucky, of which 
State they were early settlers. Thoy reared a 
family of eleven children, ten now living: Marion, 
Caroline (wife of John Prevet), Nancy (the wife of 
the subject of this sketch), Martha (wife of Job 
Thompson), G. W., Daniel. Harriet (wife of Simp- 
son Hammons), Jackson, John and Louisa (wife of 
Franklin Smith). Mrs. Gibson died in 1878 or 
1879. Mr. Gibson had been married previously, 
and was the father of two children: Elizabeth, wife 
of Elijah Gibson, and Ehoda, deceased wife of 
David Sullivan. Mr. Gibson died in 1877; his 
wife was a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. 
and Mrs. Creason are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and he is a Democrat in his 
political preference. 

Hon. Patrick Henry Crenshaw, attorney, Po- 
cahontas, Ark. Mr. Crens^haw by virttie of his 
ability as a lawyer, and his victories at the bar, is 
eminently worthy of a place in our record of suc- 
cessful men, and the history of his life is an im- 
portant part of that of his State and country. 
He was born near Athens, in Limestone County, 
Ala., on the 8th of May, 1S49, and is the son of 
James W. and Elvira (Winston) Crenshaw. The 
father was born in North Carolina, but when a 
child moved with his parents to Alabama, and 
settled near where the town of Athens is now situ- 
ated. At the age of fourteen, he enlisted in the 
army and served as a private, under Gen. Andrew 
Jackson, in his campaign against the Creek Indi- 
ans, taking part in the battles of Talladega, 
Emuckfau and Tohopeka. or the Horse-shoe Bend, 
on the Tallapoosa River. In the last named bat- 
tle the company to which he belonged was the 
front of the assaulting column, and his captain 
the tirst man to mount the works. After the close 
of the War of 1812. he went as a naval cadet to 
Annapolis; and after the close of his term there 
served some time in the United States navy, after 
which he resigned, and after traveling over the 
greater portion of North and South America, set- 



tled in Missouri, but after his marriage with Elvira 
Winston he returned to Alabama, moving thence 
to Memphis, Tenn., about 18r)2. In aliout 1854. 
while in Boonville, Mo., with her daughters, who 
were going to school there, Elvira Crenshaw was 
taken sick, and went for a time up in Coldrieck 
County, but died in a short time. James W. 
Crenshaw continued to live in Memphis until 
185R, when he married Susan A. Harris, in North 
Carolina; and the pioneer spirit again taking pos- 
session of him, he in the last named year, wjth 
his family, consisting of three daughters, and the 
subject of this sketch, his eldest daughter, Vir- 
ginia, having previously married James W . 
Harper, of Boonville. Mo. , moved to Arkansas 
and settled in Lawrence County, about six miles 
east of Powhatan, bringing with him about forty 
slaves; but the health of l)oth whites and blacks 
being bad in the river bottoms, he moved into the 
hills, on Eleven Points River, in Randolph County, 
about nine miles southwest of Pocahontas. Then 
the troubles of 1861 came, and James \\'. Cren- 
shaw was elected as the delegate to the State 
convention from Randolph County, and was a 
member of that body when the State seceded; he 
voting against secession, but being an earnest 
believer in State's rights, when his State seceded 
he then adhered to the Southern cause; thimgh he 
was too old to bear arms in its behalf. In Feb- 
ruary, 1803, he was arrested by the Federal 
troops, on a charge of carrying mail for the Con- 
federate forces, and was treated with great harsh- 
ness, and cast into an old jail at Pocahontas, 
where he was compelled to remain for several days 
without either fire or blankets; after which some 
of the soldiers, who had been detailed to guard 
him, conceiving a friendshij) for the old man. pre 
vailed on their oHieers to take him to their head 
quarters, where he was treated with great kind 
ness: and shortly after, finding that the accusa 
tions were false, and had been made solely for the 
pui-pose of making ca])ital for the accuser, he 
was discharged, and allowed to return to his home. 
The kind treatment, however, came too Inte. for 
the first exposure brought on a violent cold, which 
resulted in ])neumonia, and on the 4th of March 




(hifi birth day), be died at his home in Randolph 
County. Freeman Crenshaw, the paternal grand- 
father of our subject, was born in Virginia, but 
emigrated early to North Carolina, thence to Ala- 
bama, where he was one of the pioneer settlers. 
He also served in the army, under Jackson, in the 
same company with his son, participating in the 
same battles; and after the troops were mustered 
out of service returned to his farm iti Alabama, 
where he lived until his death, which occurred a 
few years before the Civil War. Freeman Cren- 
shaw, though a farmer by preference, was also a 
skillful mechanic, and on one occasion, while in 
the army, at the request of Lieut. Jackson, fixed 
his favorite pistol so as to make it sure fire, the 
repairs he did being to case-harden the fi'izen and 
fix the hammer, so as to go back farther when 
cocked, thereby to give the mainspring additional 
strength. Gen. Jackson, after he had thoroughly 
tested it, speaking of the last named change re- 
marked, ' ' She goes to hell for fire, but she brings 
back a blank full. " Mrs. Dorothea Winston, the 
maternal grandmother of Patrick Henry Crenshaw, 
was a daughter of Patrick Henry, making the 
subject of our sketch the great-grandson of the 
renowned patriot and orator. Mrs. Winston 
named our subject after her father. During the 
latter years of her life Mrs. Winston, being left a 
widow, lived with her son-in-law, James W. Cren- 
shaw, and died at his house in Memphis, Tenn. , 
and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, of that city. 
Our subject, Patrick Henry Crenshaw, received 
the greater portion of his education at home, and 
in private schools, going one year to the Cooper 
Institute in Boonville, Mo. He had always at- 
tended the Methodist Church, though a member 
of none until he began to study earnestly the 
foundation and origin of the various churches. 
This investigation led him to join the Roman 
Catholic Church, into which he was baptized by 
Rev. Father James S. Okean, at Pocahontas, in 
February, 1869, and confirmed by Bishop Edward 
Fitzgerald, of Little Rock. Like all boys of the 
South, who were large enough to shoulder a gun, 
he served some time in the Confederate army. 
After leaving school, he began life bs a clerk in a 



store, but through the influence of his friends, he 
was prevailed upon to read law, and studied with 
the law firm of Baber & Henderson, of Pocahon- 
tas, and in 1872 was admitted to the bar by Hon. 
Elisha Baxter, who was then a circuit judge, and 
afterward governor of Arkansas. In June, 1873, 
he moved to Clay County, and practiced his pro- 
fession there with good success until 1886, when 
he returned to Pocahontas, the home of his boy- 
hood. In 1879 he was man-ied to Miss Sula 
Mack, eldest daughter of Hon. L. L. Mack, of 
Greene County. Of this union there has been 
born four daughters: Felicia Mary, Elvira Serena, 
Inez Alphonsus and Nona Paula. In 1881 Mr. 
Crenshaw represented Clay County in the house 
of representatives, but since that time has not 
been an aspirant for political office himself, 
though he takes a lively interest in the welfare of 
his country ; and when occasion demands it, is ever 
ready to assist in canvassing his part of the State 
in behalf of the Democratic party, to which lie 
has been a life-long adherent. He is a man well 
versed in English literature in general, of which 
he is quite fond, is a shrewd practitioner, a for- 
cible and eloquent speaker, and an irreproachable 
man — "a man in whom there is no guile." 
Among his many friends he is known as an ardent 
lover of all kinds of field sports especially the 
Southern amusement of fox hunting. He says 
he came by these last named traits honestly, as all 
the Crenshaws, Henrys and Winstons were given 
to like weaknesses, as is shown by the number of 
pioneers among them. In his native State, three 
counties, Henry, Winston and Crenshaw, are 
named for his ancestors. 

G. W. Crosby, M. D. Pocahontas and vicinity 
have a number of physicians among whom prom- 
inently stands Dr. G. W. Crosby, a native of Will- 
iamson County, Tenn. He was born in lS3f), and 
received a liberal education in that State. He read 
medicine under a regular physician, and later en- 
tered the Memphis Medical School, where he at- 
tended one course of lectures. About this time the 
war broke out, and he then joined the medical de 
partment of the Ninth Tennessee (Confederate) In- 
fantry, where he remained during the whole war. 



^ c 



^■^ «) 



-^ — "t^ 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



3R'.t 



He snrrenderod at Greensboro, N. C, in 1865, hav- 
ing participatpd in tbe following battles: Shiloh 
and Perry ville, Ky., where he was captured with 
the wonnded of his regiment; being exchanged 
after a sojourn in prison of six months was also in 
the battle of Chickamauga, and in all the engage- 
ments of the Northern Georgia campaign in which 
his regiment participated. Returning to his home 
in Memphis, Tenn. , to remain, however, only a 
short time, he then moved to Greene County, Ark., 
where he continued in the active practice of medi- 
cine until ISOy. In the fall and winter session of 
1869-70 he attended his second course of medical 
lectures at the Missouri Medical College, graduating 
at the end of the term. He resumed practice in 
Greene County, and there remained for two years 
longer, subsequently moving to Cross County, Ark., 
where he lived three years. In 1874 he moved to 
Pocahontas, Ark. , where be has been in the regular 
practice of medicine ever since. By his marriage 
with Miss Hattie Kibler, which occurred in 1808 in 
Randolph County, Ai'k., he became the father of 
seven children : Edward, William, May, Alice, 
Camille, John and Ouida. The Doctor is of 
Scotch Irish descent, and the son of Levi and 
Martha (Barnes) Crosby. The father, a native of 
South Carolina, was a pioneer of Tennessee, and 
died in Williamson County, of that State. Grand- 
father Barnes was born in North Carolina, and was 
a farmer by occupation. He also died in William- 
son County. He participated in the War of 1812, 
and was in the battle of New Orleans. The mother 
of our subject was born in North Carolina, and to 
her marriage were born seven children, the Doctor 
being next to the youngest. He is a Democrat in 
his political views. 

E. Dalton is a successful merchant of Warm 
Springs, Ark., and was born in Ripley County, 
Mo., October "28, 1829, being a son of David and 
Priscilla (Demis) Dalton, who were born in Ken- 
tucky and Missouri, respectively. The father re- 
moved to Madison County. Mo., in 1812, and after 
his marriage, which occurred there in 1826, he 
located in Ripley County and settled on Govern- 
ment land where he remained until his death in 
18r)9, his wife's death preceding his by two years. 



He was a Democrat, a member of the A. F. & 
A. M., and he and wife were the parents of the 
following children; Sarah, the deceased wife of G, 
W. Matney, our subject, Susanna, wife of William 
Cross, John (deceased), Nancy, wife of H. Davis, 
Ruth, the deceased wife of James Parker, Pris- 
cilla, the deceased wife of J. Bond, and David, 
who resides in this county. The last two chil- 
dren were twins. E. Dalton, our subject, only at 
tended the common subscription schools for a short 
time during his youth, but this deficiency he ira 
proved in later years, and is now a well educated 
business man. In 1864 he was forced into the 
Confederate army, and was with Price on his raid 
through Arkansas and Missouri. He surrendered 
at Jacksonport, Ark., on the 5th of June, 1865. 
He has be(<n established in business at his present 
stand since 1879, but from 1872 up to that date 
he had been engaged in that business in connec 
tion with farming. He manages his establishment 
in partnership with his sons, and they do an annual 
business of about 110,000. He was married in 
1857 to Miss Grace J. Head, a native of Missouri, 
the following family being born to them: John C, 
Nancy J., wife of W. T. Stubblelield, C. J.. Mary 
P., wife of W. T. McElroy, Sarah M., wife of W. 
A. Holt, E. A. and Rufus C. At the time of his 
marriage Mr. Dalton was not the possessor of a 
great deal of property, but he now owns 500 acres 
of land in this State, and 800 acres in Ripley 
County, Mo. Besides this he owns property in 
Warm Springs. He is in every respect a self- 
made man, and his property has been acquired 
through unremitting toil. He is public spirited, 
a Democrat politically, and is one of the substan- 
tial men of the county. Mrs. Dalton is a daugh 
ter of Alex, and Elizabeth (Club) Head, of Wayne 
County, Mo. Of sixteen children born to them, 
nine lived to be gi'own, and four are now living: 
J. A., of Piedmont, Mo. : Emanuel, of Butler Coun 
ty. Mo. : Grace J. (Mrs. Dalton). and Melvina. 
wife of Isaac Pollice, of Kansas. The father and 
mother died in 1859 and 1860 or 1861, respective- 
Iv, their demise occurring in Wayne ('ouiity. Mo. 
Lewis Dalton, merchant, miller and fanner, 
Dalton, Ark. Some of the most energetic and 



390 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



enterprising business men of the thrifty little town 
of Dalton are identified with the growth and pros- 
perity of the same, and none more so than Mr. 
Dalton. He is an energetic and thorough man of 
business, and has acquired a wide reputation for 
general business ability and for honorable dealings. 
Aside from this he is also one of the most exten- 
sive land owners in the county. He was born in 
Ripley County, Mo., in 1835, received his educa- 
tion in the subscription schools of those days, and 
only attended one school where grammar was 
taught. At the age of twenty-five years he com- 
menced farming, and this continued one year. In 
1862 he joined the Confederate army, Company 
I, under Col. Adams, but served only a short time 
when he was discharged on account of disability. 
He then returned home and resumed agricultural 
pursuits which he has followed all his life, and in 
1874, engaged in the milling business, erecting a 
cotton-gin and mill on the Eleven Points River. 
Previous to the war, January 4, 1860, he married 
Miss Sarah A. Stubblefield, and two children were 
born to this union: Acenith, who was born De- 
cember 13, 1861, and Elijah who was born Novem- 
ber 1, 1863, and is a merchant at Dalton. At the 
time of his marriage Mr. Dalton had cultivated his 
father's farm, and in 1868 be purchased 287 acres 
of land. Since then he has added to the original 
amount until he now owns 1,100 acres, all in one 
tract, except forty acres. At the close of the war 
he had very little property, and his father had noth- 
ing left except his land. Now our subject is worth 
at least $30,000, all of which he has made by his 
own hard work and good business management, 
besides placing a good income in the hands of his 
two children. Mr. Dalton is a member of the 
Masonic order, and is Democratic in politics. He 
is the son of Elijah and Zillah (Gains) Dalton, na- 
tives of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively. 
Elijah Dalton was born in 1807, and came with his 
parents to Madison County, Mo., in 1809. He 
was principally reared in that county, and early in 
life learned the brick mason trade, but did not fol- 
low this after his marriage in 1832. He com- 
menced farming in Ripley County, Mo., and con- 
tinued this occupation there until his death, which 



occurred in 1884. In connection with tilling the 
soil he also operated a water-mill. To him and 
wife were born seven children (two now living); 
James M. (deceased), William M. (deceased), 
Lewis, Elijah (deceased), Zimriah (deceased), Zyl- 
phia (deceased) and Levi, who is now residing 
in Ripley County, Mo. Levi was assessor for that 
county for six years, was also collector for four 
years, and is one of the representative men. He 
follows merchandising in connection with farming, 
and resides west of Doniphan, Mo. When Elijah 
Dalton commenced life for himself, he was not 
possessed of a great amount of this world's goods, 
but he entered a farm on a strip of land between 
Missouri and Arkansas, that never belonged to 
either of the States, untU about the breaking out 
of the late war. Mr. Dalton improved this farm 
and resided on it the remainer of his days. At 
the time of his death he was worth about $5,000. 
He lost his wife in 1852. She was a worthy and 
consistent member of the Christian Church. Mr. 
Dalton took ■ for his second wife Miss Elizabeth 
Stubblefield, whom he married in 1862. By this 
union one child was born, Joseph, who lives on 
the old homestead in Ripley County, Mo. Mrs. 
Dalton died in 1865, and Mr. Dalton was married, 
the third time, to Mrs. Margaret Johnson, nee Mc- 
Kinnie of Ripley County. She still survives him 
and is now married to A. J. Ponder of Doniphan. 
Mo. Mr. Dalton was a Democrat in his political 
views, and was a member of the Masonic fraternity. 
The paternal grandfather of Lewis Dalton was a 
native of South Carolina, and came to Missouri in 
1809. He was a minister in the Baptist Church. 
The maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Gains, was 
born in Culpeper County, Va. , in 1765, and died 
in 1849. He was a cousin of Gen. Gains, of Revo 
lutionary fame. His father was a great friend of 
Gen. George Washington. 

Jesse R. Davis enjoys the reputation of being 
a substantial and progressive farmer and an intelli- 
gent and thoroughly posted man in all public affairs. 
He was born on the farm on which he is now re- 
siding, December 9, 1846, and is one of three sur- 
viving members of a family of seven children born 
to Joseph H. and Mary (Foster) Davis, both of 






RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



:W1 



\vlii>m were l)orii in liaudolph Uounty. Ark., his 
birth occurring November '29, 1822, and hers on 
the 22d of September, 1824. She died here on 
the 18th of FebruiUT, 1854, and after her demise 
Mr. Davis wedded Caadace R. (Lane) Chandler, 
widow of John Chandler, an ex-sheriff of Ran- 
dolph County. She was born in the State of Illi- 
nois, on the 11th of November, 1855, and died 
in this county on the 7th of March, 1857. Mr. 
Davis followed husbandry through life, and became 
t)uite wealthy in that calling. He died March 19, 
1870. The children born to his first union are 
Thomas M. , J. F. and Jesse R., all farmers by 
occupation. Two childi-en were born to his second 
union, Margenia being the only one now living. 
His third wife was Miss Fanny Staggs, a Tennes- 
seean by birth, born January 1, 1848, and died in 
1884. This union resulted in the birth of seven 
children, of whom only two are now living: James 
M. and Louisa. Jesse R. Davis has always re- 
sided in his native county, and here, of course, re- 
ceived his early schooling. At the age of seven- 
teen he began for himself, and by good manage- 
ment and industrj' has become the owner of 360 
acres of as good laud as there is in the county. 
He is noted for his liberality, and owing to his 
many admirable traits has won the respect and 
esteem of all. October 12, 1871, his marriage with 
Miss Frances Stump was consummated. She was 
a daughter of George Stump, and was born in 
Hardin County, Ky. , September 25, 1850, and 
died in Randolph County, Ark., August 28, 1872. 
Mrs. Melissa (Thomas) Rider became his second 
wife March 12, 1874. She was born March 31, 
1851, also in Hardin County, Ky. The following 
are their children: Jacob T., Harry, Rufus A., 
Laura M. and an infant son. Mary E. was born 
February 8, 1875,' and died March 19, 1880. The 
family worship in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and Mr. Davis is a Democrat. 

William DeClerk is an example of the indus- 
trious and progressive farmer, and like all his coun- 
trymen he is ])rudeut and frugal. He was born in 
Prussia, Germany, in 1850, and at the age of six 
years he was put to school and was kept at his 
books until he attained his sixteenth year. In his 



youth he learned the intricacies of farm life from 
his father, a shrewd, practical tiller of the soil, 
but also gave a consideral)le portion of his attention 
to the miller's trade, with which he becanip thor 
oughly familiar. He was married in his native 
laud to Miss Mary C. Frenken, whose birth oc 
currod in 1852, and their union has been blessed in 
the birth of two children: Joseph, and Mary, who 
died at the age of seven mouths. In 1880, with 
the intention of bettering his position, he emi- 
grated to the United Stares, lauding at New York 
City, and came directly to Pocahontas, and, as he 
had a comfortable sum of money with which to 
start in life in a new country, he jiurchased a farm 
comprising 200 acres of land, which he is putting 
iu good shape for farming. His parents, Joseph 
and Agnes (Mechels) DeClerk, were bom in the 
Kingdom of Prussia, and of their two children our 
subject is the elder. Grandfather DeClerk is a 
farmer of Germany. The father served in the 
regular army, and he and his wife died in their 
native land. The grandfather was a Frenchman, 
and the maternal grandfather was a miller by trade 
as were his ancestors as far back as they can l)e 
traced. 

J. P. Dunklin, Jr., is a young man who is rap- 
idly making his way to the front in the business 
circles of Randolph County, and in his general 
mercantile establishment, which he has been con- 
ducting since 1888, he is building up a large and 
daily increasing patronage. He was born iu Wash- 
ington County, Mo., and is a son of J. P. and H. 
W. (Jones) Dunklin, who were also born in that 
county and State. The father served as clerk of 
that county several years, and is now residing in 
Ste. Genevieve County, Mo. J. P. Dunklin moved 
to Mississippi County, Ark., in 1809, and made his 
home with an uncle, a Mr. Hunter, for some time, 
after which he came to Raudol]ih County, and first 
worked as a book-keeper iu the town of Pocahon- 
tas. He next clerked in a drug store until 1885, 
after which he came to Reyno. where he has lived 
ever since. He took for his companion in life Miss 
F. A. Allaire, of Pocahontas, and their union has 
resulted in the birth of three chililreu: William M. , 
Onida and James E. He is a member of the K. 



:r>: 



392 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of H., and for two y.<ars filleil tbe office of deputy 
sheriff of the county, and was marshal of Pocahon- 
tas foui' years. In 1864 he enlisted in the Third 
Missouri Cavalry, and acted as orderly for Gen. 
Greene, and during his service took an active part 
in the battles of Pilot Knob, Pleasanton. Kas., 
and others. His f^reat-uncle was a member of 
Congress from Iowa, and was the first man arrested 
as a secessionist during the Civil War. 

S. A. D. Eaton is a successsul attorney at law 
of Randolph (,'ounty, Ark., and although quite 
young in years he has already won an honorable 
place among the legal fraternity of the county. 
He was born in Pulaski County, Ind. , in 1860, and 
there remained attending the public schools until 
nineteen years of age, at which time he came to 
Arkansas. Ho remained here until the spring of 
1885, when he returned to Indiana and entered the 
Northern Indiana Normal School and Business In- 
stitute at Valparaiso, which institution he attended 
during the summer of 1885-86. At the end of this 
time he again returned to Arkansas, and has taught 
nine terms of school in Randolph and Clay Coun- 
ties, and during his career as an educator he dili- 
gentlv pursued the study of law, and was admitted 
to the bar on the 14th of February, 1889, under 
Judge J. W. Butler. He began his practice in 
Reyno on the 5th of March following his admis- 
sion, has opened with a good practice, and starts 
out with bright prospects for the future. He is 
also notary piiblic, and is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. His father, J. W. C. Eaton, M. D., was 
born in the ' ' Buckeye State. ' ' was a graduate 
of the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute, and 
was a successful practitioner in Pulaski and How- 
ard Counties, Ind. , for many years, and obtained 
considerable reputation as a successful physician. 
He came to Arkansas in 1879 and died in 1881, in 
Randolph County. His father was born in Penn- 
sylvania, and died in Ohio of wounds received in 
the War of 1812, while commanding a privateer. 
The gi'eat-grandfather, Anthony Eaton, was a 
wealthy resident of Philadelphia and was, as far 
as known, a son of Gen. Theophilus Eaton. 

J. C. Esselman. M. D. , one of the oldest and 
an eminently successful physician of Randolph 



County, is a native of Nashville, Tenn., bom in 
1841, and is the son of J. C. Esselman, a native 
Tennesseean. The elder Esselman. after reaching 
manhood, was united in marriage to Miss Mary 
Kiukaid, a native of Missouri. He was a Whig in 
politics, was a great admirer of Henry Clay and 
was very active in political affairs. The paternal 
grandfather, John N. Esselman, was a captain in 
the British army during the Revolutionary War, 
was a native of Scotland and a descendant of the 
Campbell clan. He was an agriculturist. The 
maternal grandfather, Samuel Kinkaid, was a na- 
tive of Kentucky, and a painter by occn})ation. 
Dr. J. C. Esselman was left motherless at the age 
of four years, and when seven years of age his 
father also died, so he was indeed left an orphan. 
He was reared by an uncle. Dr. John N. Esselman, 
of Nashville, Tenn. He studied medicine with his 
uncle until the breaking out of the war, when he 
flung aside his books and joined the Twelfth 
Missouri Infantry, Confederate army, as lieuten- 
ant of Company D. Later he was promoted to 
the rank of captain, and served in that capacity un- 
til the close of the war. He was in the batt'is of 
Fredericktown, Prairie Grove, Little Rock, Helena, 
Mansfield and the entire Banks' campaign. He 
was at Jenkins' Ferry, and was with Gen. Price in 
his raid as far as Union City, Ark. When the war 
closed Dr. Esselman returned to Tennessee and 
completed his medical studies, graduating at the 
University of Nashville in 1866. and the same year 
located at Pocahontas, where he has been actively 
engaged in the practice ever since. Miss Eliza R. 
Perkins, formerly from Virginia, became his wife 
in 1864, and this union was blessed by the birth of 
four children: Kate (a school-teacher and also 
music instructor), Mazie R. (wife of M. M. Carter, 
of Pocahontas). Emma R. (deceased) and Tarn. 0. 
Dr. Esselman is u member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity and Knights of Honor, and has held various 
local offices. The family are members of the Catho- 
lic Church. The Doctor has a large practice 
through Randolph, Clay, Greene and Lawrence 
Counties, and no obstacle which human exertion 
could overcome has prevented him from visiting 
the bedside of the sick and afflicted to administer 



y:. 




to them wliatevcr relief a skilled and faithful pliy 
sician could afford. He keeps well posted in all 
the medical literature of the day, and in his library 
may be found the latest standard works relative to 
the science of medicine. 

Joseph H. Clamel has attained considojahle 
prominence in the material affairs of Randolph 
County, for he is a man of excellent parts, and has 
shown good judgment and tact in the management 
of his mercantile business, and nets a fair annual 
income from his sales, his stock of goods being 
valued at $2,500. He was born in Walker County, 
Ga., March 26, 1852, and is one of four living mem- 
bers of a family of six children, of whom he was the 
second, born to Anthony C. and Caroline (Gellon) 
Gamel, who were born in Tennessee and Georgia, 
respectively. In 1856 the family came to Arkan- 
sas, and the father has since been a resident of 
Randolph County. His wife died in 1862, when 
about forty years of age. He served for three 
years in the Confederate army during the war. all 
this time being west of the Mississippi River, and 
was a faithful soldier to the Southern cause. At 
the age of twenty one years Joseph H. Gamel 
went to Cedarville and was engaged in mercantile 
business as salesman for eight years. Since 1881 
he has been engaged in business at his present 
stand, and is also connected with a mercantile 
establishment at Mayuard, the firm name being 
Gamel & Mock. Mr. Gamel is a successful finan- 
cier, and by his honesty and fair dealing with his 
customers he commands a large and paying patron- 
age. In connection with this he also owns a fer 
tile farm, which he conducts, and for the success 
which has attended his efforts he deserves the 
respect and admiration of all, for he commenced 
life for himself without means, and is now doing 
exceptionally well. Miss Jane Mock, a daughter 
of Isham Mock, of Randolph County, became his 
wife February 3, 1876. She was born in the 
county on the 15th of May, 1854, and is now the 
mother of four children living: Hattie M., Nel- 
lie G., Joseph O. and Thomas T. William P. and 
Fred, died in infancy. Mr. Gamel is a Democrat 
and he and his wife are members of the Chris- 
tian Church. An elder Ijrother of Mr. Game], 



^^ . A., served in the Confederate army during 
the wai-. 

Peter Goetz, a farmer and cotton gi'ower, of 
Randolph County, Ark., was born in New Orleans, 
October 17, 1829, and received his education in a 
German Lutheran school of that city. He worked 
in his father's wood yard in New Orleans while 
young, and afterward operated a saw-mill in Ken- 
tucky, and for seven years shipped lumber to his 
native city. He then sold out and moved to the 
"Hoosier State," and, after operating a mill on 
Anderson Creek for about two years, he sold out 
and returned to New Orleans, where for two sub- 
sequent years he was engaged in managing a gro- 
cery store. He next spent two years as foreman in 
a still -house, then filled the same position in Mo- 
i)ile, Ala., for a year and a half. He then resided 
successively in New Orleans, Kentucky (where he 
built a saw-mill, but sold it soon after), Kansas, 
where he became the owner of consideralile land, 
and remained seven years; then traded his property 
there for a section and a half of land in Randolph 
County, Ark. He afterward sold the whole sec- 
tion and a half for $25, and then rented a saw mill, 
which he operated two years, accumulating suffi- 
cient money thereby to purchase his present land, 
paying for it $12 per acre. It embraced 162 acres, 
and he has 110 acres under fence, and is as rapidly 
as possible improving it and putting it in a good 
farming condition. AVhen the war broke out he 
joined the Confederate forces, and served in the 
Twenty-fourth K(>ntupky Cavalry, for three years, 
under Morgan. He was in numerous battles and 
skirmishes, and served until the close of the war, 
when he returned home. He was married in 
Louisville, Ky,, to Miss Agnes Rarick, and four 
children blessed their union: Peter, Maggie (wife 
of Oscar Garber), Lizzie F. and Charley. Mr. 
Goetz is a Democrat and a member of the I. O. O. 
F. He is a son of Nichols and Elizabeth (Scblos- 
ser) Goetz, both natives of the Kingdom of Prus 
sia, Germany. They were married in New Orleans, 
and died there. The father kept a store and lum 
ber yard. The great-grandfather was a native 
German, and was foreman of some iron works. 
He lived to be over one hundred and ten years old 



A 



394 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Jesse G. Hanj. M. D. Among the widely 
known and most successful physicians of this 
county is Dr. Ham, who was born in Gibson Coun- 
ty, Tenn., in 183-4, and was reared and educated 
in Trenton, Tenn., being a faithful student in 
Andi'ew College, of the latter place, for some time. 
At the early age of sixteen years he began clerking 
in a drug store, and there acquired a taste for the 
science of medicine. He commenced his studies 
under Drs. Tulafro and Leaster, and after making 
a thorough preparation and devoting his energies 
to this study for some time, he began attending 
lectures in the Nashville Medical College, and 
graduated from McDowell's Medical College, in 
St. Louis, Mo. , in 1857. He decided to commence 
his professional career in the ' ' Blue Grass State, ' ' 
and accordingly located at Birmingham, but moved 
shortly afterward to Memphis. Tenn. , and entered 
upon an active and jarosperous career there, in 
partnership with his uncle. Dr. Tom Peyton, who 
was one of the leading members of the medical 
fraternity in West Tennessee. After dissolving 
partnership with his uncle he went to the Indian 
Territory, and after remaining for some time in 
Maryville, he again made a change of residence, 
this time taking up his abode in the "Lone Star 
State." Fi'om this point he moved to Matamoras, 
and after a short period spent in that place he re- 
turned to Texas, tirst to Dallas, then to Johnston 
Station, back again to Dallas, and then to Fort 
Worth. In this place he remained until May, 
1801. when he and Mr. De Eldrige, of Virginia, 
raised a company of soldiers, and Dr. Ham was 
made its captain. They went to Louisiana, but, 
as, according to the law no organized body of men 
could be received from Texas, the battalion was 
disbanded at New Orleans. After this Dr. Ham 
joined the Fifth Louisiana Regiment, Crescent 
City Guards, commanded by Judge Hunt, which 
was the third regiment of men that landed at 
Yorktown, where Coruwallis surrendered. After 
the first tight near the coast the command ffll 
back to Williamsburg, where Washington's old 
barracks were still standing, and Dr. Ham was in 
the house in which Patrick Henry lived. Dr. Ham 
was there requested to go before the medical 



board, and was made assistant- surgeon of the Reg- 
ular Confederate States armj% and was assigned to 
duty at Chiborago Hospital, Ya. He remained in 
the medical department until the tinal surrender, 
then returned to the State of Tennessee, and moved 
from there to Woodruff County, Ark., where he 
recommenced the practice of medicine. From 
that time until 1880 he practiced in Jackson and 
Lawrence Counties, after which he came to Cher- 
okee Bay, and here has since resided. He was 
first married to Miss Lizzie A. McKee, of Missis- 
sippi, and took for his second wife Miss Lizzie A. 
Thorne, who was a native of New Jersey. Dr. 
Ham is a Democrat, and a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. He is a son of James and Martha (Peyton) 
Ham, the former of whom was a Virginian. Mr. 
Ham moved to Tennessee when about twenty-five 
years old, and had acquired a large fortune in the 
gold mines of Georgia. He held a number of 
local offices, and was tirst constable, then deputy 
sheriff, and finally sheriff of the covmty in which 
he resided. He was also clerk of Gibson County, 
Tenn. He is now deceased. His father was a 
native of Virginia, and was a son of a native 
Frenchman. 

R. N. Hamil, merchant, Pocahontas, Ark. In 
preparation of this brief outline of the history of 
one of the representative men of Randolph County, 
appear facts which are greatly to his credit. His 
intelligence, enterprise, integritj', and many esti- 
mable qualities have acquired for him a popularity 
not derived from factitious circumstance, but a 
j)ermauent and spontaneous tribute to his merit. 
He established his business in Pocahontas in 1875, 
and has about the large.st general store in the 
county. His birth occurred in Jeffersonville, Ind., 
in 1847, and he is the sou of William A. Hamil, a 
native of Tennessee. The maiden name of his 
mother was Miss Sarah E. Cre|)[)s, a native of 
Virginia, Ijut she had miirried a Mr. Waddell pre- 
vious to her maiTiage to Mr. Hamil. R. N. Hamil 
moved with his mother to Arkansas on the 18th of 
February. 184VI. and was reared and educated in 
Pocahontas. When but sixteen years of age he 
enlisted in the Forty-Fifth Arkansas, and served 
until the close of the war. He' then returned to 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



395 






Pocahontas and enga^red in the grocery business, 
which he followed a few years. He then com- 
menced clerking for L. Hecht & Co., remaining 
with them until 1875, when he established his 
present business, which he has continued ever 
since. He employs five men in the store, and car- 
ries a large stock. He was married in Pocahontas 
in 1873 to Miss Gertrude Kibler, a native of Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., and one child has been the 
result of this union: Lelia. Mrs. Hamil died in 
1875, and Mr. Hamil took for his second wife 
Miss Blanche Kibler, a sister of his first wife, and 
and two childi'en were born to this union: Earle 
and Nell. Mr. Hamil is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, and also of the Knights of Honor. He 
has been a member of the board of aldermen of 
the city for a number of years, and takes an active 
])art in politics. He owns 2,0(10 acres of land, also 
a farm near town, and aside from his mercantile 
business he also runs a cotton-gin, and is a leading 
business man. 

A. H. Hatley is one of the representative busi- 
ness men of the county and was born in North 
Carolina on the 10th of July, 1832, being a son of 
Redin and Delphia (Kelley) Hatley, who were of 
English and Irish parentage and were born 
in the State of North Carolina. The Hatley family 
emigrated to the United States about 1770, as near 
as can be ascertained, and settled in North Caro- 
lina, from which State the paternal grandfather 
and his brothers are supposed to have enlisted in 
the Revolutionary War, being members of the 
American army. Redin Hatley was born in 1800, 
his wife two years later, and their deaths occurred 
in 1863 and 1842, respectively. The former was 
justice of the peace for many years in North Caro- 
lina, and although not an active politician he voted 
the Whig ticket. His wife was a member of the 
Christian Chnrch, and of seven sous born to their 
marriage two are now livinj': A. H. and Hender- 
son, who is a resident of this county. A. H. Hat- 
ley became the architect of his own fortune in 
iS51 aiul although his father was quite a wealthy 
man, being the owner of a number of slaves, he 
failed to educate any of his children, and as a con- 
sequence A. H. was obliged to earn his living as 



be.sthe could. On the 22d of December, 1852, lie 
landed in Randolph County, Ark., and four years 
later he made his first purchase of land, which em- 
braced KjQ acres, and on this farm he has since 
made his home, it now amounting to 173 acres. In 
addition to this he owns 120 acres of land on the 
Current River bottom and a one-half interest in 
eighty acres on the bay at Peru; also a one-half in- 
terest in a general mercantile establishment, which 
nets from $8,0J0 to §10,000 per annum, the stock 
of goods amounting to about $3,000. In 1888 he 
erected a fine cotton-gin at Maynard, and owns one- 
half of a gin in the bottoms, which annually turns 
out about 500 bales. In this enterprise he is one 
of the leading men in this section of the State, being 
also one of the largest property -holders. At the 
time of his arrival here he owned nothing, and has 
made his property by energy and shrewd manage- 
ment. He has been married twice, the first time 
to Miss Nancy Mitchell, by whom he became the 
father of two children: Julia A., who was born 
August 25, 1853, and James H., who was born 
October 14, 1855. Mrs. Hatley died August 25, 
1858, six years after her marriage, and after liv 
ing a widower one year Mr. Hatley married, 
September 18, Miss Mahulda Abbott. Elen L. 
(wife of Gus Reynolds, of Reno), born January 
3, 18(54: Mandy H., born October 15, 1800, died 
November 7, 18()8; Naomi H., born November 29, 
1869; Eli H., born October 2, 1872; August A. H.. 
born July 18, 1875; Atlas H., born July IS, 
1878, and Ivy H., born October 28, 1886, and 
three who died in infanc_v were their children. 
Mrs. Hatley was born in 1841. Mi-. Hatley joineil 
the Confederate army in September, 1802, enlist- 
ing in Company A, and was captured in Jarmary, 
1863, at Van Buren, Ark. , but was paroled after a 
short time and returned home. After remaining at 
home for about six mouths he was again forced 
into the service, and was with Price on his raid 
through Missouri and Arkansas. Since that time 
he has been engaged in the occupations named 
above, and is now one of the wealthy men of the 
county. He is a Democrat, and a member of the 
A. F. & A. M. ; his wife belongs to the Christian 
Chnrch. 



396 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



William E. Hibbard is a leading and enterpris- 
intr merchant of Randolph County, Ark., and is a 
member of the firm of Hibbai-d & Weatherford, 
who do a general business at Gravesville. He was 
born in the State of Mississippi, May 10, 1850, 
and is a son of Joseph and Delilah (Walker) Hib- 
bard, the former a native of Mississippi, and the 
latter of Tennessee. They were married in Ten- 
nessee, but made their home in Mississippi until 
their son, William E., was a small lad, at which 
time they moved to Independence County, Ark., 
from there to Fulton County, and in 1865, came to 
Randolph County, where the widow and her chil- 
dren have since lived, the father having died in St. 
Louis, in 1862. He was a teacher and a farmer by 
occupation, a Democrat in politics, and while a res- 
ident of Fulton County, Ark. , served several years 
as justice of the peace. The mother is a member 
of the MissionaiT Baptist Church, and she and Mr. 
Hibbard became the parents of nine children 
(William E. being the fourth), and live of them are 
now living: George W., a farmer of Randolph 
County; Naocy, wife of Abijah McDaniel, also of 
this county, Emily, wife of James McDaniel; 
Sarah, wife of Robert Ballew, they also being 
agriculturists of this county, and William E., 
who acquired a good education through his own 
exertions, and when only a small boy began to as 
sist his mother and brother to make a living for 
the balance of the family, as they had been left 
in destitute circumstances by the war. He worked 
by the day and month until twenty- one years of 
age, when he man-ied Miss Martha Collier, and 
began for himself. His wife was a daughter of 
Robert and Sarah Collier, and was born on the 29th 
of January, 1851. Their family now consists of 
eight children: Delilah, William H., Emma, Jo- 
seph, Adar and Ida (twins), Martha and Thomas. 
After his marriage Mr. Hibbard made one crop in 
Woodruff County, but the following year went to 
Fulton County, and rented land of Mrs. Sanders, 
but after making one crop there he returned to 
Randolph County, purchased a 120- acre farm 
on credit, and has since increased his acreage to 
250, all of it being tine land, the result of indus- 
try and good business ability. In March, 1887, 



he formed a partnership with Vincent Seagraves, 
in the general mercantile business, and the follow- 
ing year bought out Mr. Seagraves, and conducted 
the business alone until within a few months, 
when he and W. J. Weatherford became associated. 
He is a Mason and a Democrat, and is one of the 
most enterprising men of which the county can 
boast. 

Isaac Hirst keeps a general grocery at Poca 
hontas. Ark. , and was born in Greece in 1 844. He 
was brought to the United States by his uncle when 
a child and grew to manhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, 
and at Pocahontas, Ark., also receiving his educa- 
tion in the public schools of these places. After 
reaching a suitable age he worked as collector for 
different firms for some time, and in 1868 embarked 
in business for himself. Prior to this, however, 
during the war he espoused the cause of the Con- 
federacy and served until he was severely wounded 
in 1864 on Saline River, in Arkansas. He was at 
Greenville, Mo., Shreveport, Pleasant Hill, La., 
Prairie Grove, Jenkins' Ferry and Helena, Ark., 
and was a participant in many skirmishes. After 
the close of the war he resided in Memphis, Tenn., 
for three years, then returned to Pocahontas and 
as above stated entered business for himself, in 
which he has siaccessfully continued ever since. 
His efforts to acquire a competency have more 
than realized his expectations and he now owns 
some valuable town property. In bis political 
views Mr. Hirst is a Democrat, and he is a 
Master Mason, a member of the I. O. O. F. and 
K. of H. His people are of Hebrew faith, but he 
belongs to no church. He was married May 1, 
1877, to Miss Nora Hubble, by whom he has two 
little daughters: Lena and Edith. His parents, 
Jacob and Theresa (Hanauer) Hirst, were native 
Germans, but after their marriage removed to 
Greece and still later to America, the former's 
death occurring in Philadelphia, Penn., and the 
latter' s in Cincinnati, Ohio. Our subject has an 
uncle who resides in Memphis, Tenn., and is a 
member of the mercantile firm of Schollfield. 
Hanauer & Co. 

Dr. Martin Hogan was born on Blue Grass soil 
November 16, 1833, and inherits Virginia blood 




W. K.Harrison. 

Gdloen Lake^Mississippi County, Arkansas. 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



397 



from his fatbor and mother, William and Mary 
(Wallace) Hogau. The father removed to Ken- 
tucky in 1808, and was married in Logan County, 
of that State, in 1812, and there reared a family 
of four sons and two daughters: Mary A., wife of 
Dr. Joseph Stewart, died in Arkansas; James B. 
(deceased), William, who died in Kentucky; John, 
who died in Randolph County ; Maria L. (deceased) 
and Martin. The father was drafted in the War 
of 1812, but secured a substitute. He died in Lo- 
gan County, Ky., in IS^tO, followed by his wife in 
1870, in Livingston County, Ky. , both being con- 
sistent members of the Christian Church at the 
time of their death. The youthful days of our 
subject, Martin Hogan, were spent in laboring on 
his father's farm, and his early opportunities for 
acquiring an education were of the most meager 
description. After reaching the age of twenty-one 
years, he entered a graded school with the deter- 
mination to secure a good education, and after at- 
tending for some time at Allensville, he entered 
the Oakland Institute, and afterward the Franklin 
Institute in Christian County, Ky., where he fin- 
ished his literary education, his career in these 
institutions of learning being marked by close ap- 
plication to his books and able scholarship. Dur- 
ing the winter of 1857-58, he attended lectures in 
the Nashville Medical College, and in the winter 
of 18o8-59, he was a diligent student in the 
Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, from which 
institution he was graduated as an M. D. in 1859. 
He commenced immediately the practice of his 
chosen profession in Logan County, Ky. , and after 
practicing in Livingston and Marshall Conn- 
ties of that State until 1871, he landed in this 
county, where he has been engaged in farming in 
connection with his practice, since about 1873. 
The Doctor takes but little interest in politics, but 
devotes all his time to his profession; when he 
does vote, however, he sujjports the principles of 
the Democratic party. He is a member of the 
I. 0. O. F. , and he, wife and eldest daughter are 
members of the C^hristian Church. November 13, 
I860, he man-ied Miss Mary S. White, in Lyon 
County, Ky. , her birth having occurred in that 
State on the 17th of July, 1840. The following 



were their children: Mary C, who was born March 
10, 1862, and is now deceased; William M., Ixjrn 
December 17, 1863; Mary R., born January 1. 
1807; Lou, born March 15, 186U; John E. , born 
March 21, 1871, and is now deceased; John, born 
October 20, 1872; Birdie, born March IS. 1874; 
Lizzie M. , born May 5, J 876 ; Lina W. , born April 
21, 1879; and Madison B., born February 14, 
1884. Mrs. Hogan is a daughter of George and 
Catherine (Martin) White, to whom were born the 
following family: Mary S. and Samuel, Eliza A. 
and George M. (deceased), Elizabeth H. , John 
E., Sarah (deceased), Sol. M. , and Edna M. , wife 
of Charles Sexton, of Kentucky. 

B. F. Hollowell, M. D. Few. if any, indus- 
trial or professional pursuits have within the la.st 
few years made such rapid strides as that of the 
profession of medicine, and among the leading 
physicians of Randolph County, Ark., who have 
availed themselves of all new ideas and put them in 
practice, may be mentioned Dr. Hollowell. He was 
born in North Carolina in 1823 and was the eldest 
of seven children, three now living, born to Silas 
and Sarah (Farmer) Hollowell, who were North 
Carolinians. They moved to the State of Tennes- 
see in 1828, and in 1832 located in Mississippi, 
where they died in 1867 and 1809, respectively, 
both aged sixty-seven years. Silas Hollowell was 
an active politician in his day, and was also deeply 
interested in the cause of religion. Their children, 
who are living, are Martha A., wife of John Porter, 
of the State of Mississippi; Julia, wife of D. ). 
Rogers, of Marshall County, Miss., and Dr. B. 
F. The paternal grandfather, Edward Thomas 
Hollowell, was born in the "Emerald Isle," and 
was an enterprising tiller of the soil. Dr. Hollowell 
was given the rearing and education which is ac 
corded the majority of farmers' boys, but this work 
was not suited to his tastes, and he early formed 
a desire to study medicine. At the age of twenty 
, years he left home and entered upon his medical 
studies under a preceptor in Marshall County, 
Miss., and after two years of faithful and diligent 
study he entered Oxford Institute, fiom which 
institution he graduated iu 1847. The following 
year he moved to Izard County. Ark., where he 



r 



:^ 



<S ^L_ 



398 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was actively engaged in tlie practice of his profes- 
sion until the breaking out of the Rebellion, when 
he enlisted as a Federal spy, and to the best of his 
ability kept the Union forces posted as to the 
doings of the enemy. During this time he con- 
tinued the practice of his profession as a blind, 
but in 1863 he openly joined the Federal forces as 
a scout, serving in this capacity until the close of 
the war. From that time until 1870 he was a 
practicing physician of Greene County, Mo., after 
which he returmul to Izard County, Ark., and was 
actively engaged in the practice of his profession 
for two years. The two succeeding years were 
spent in Ash Flat, Sharp County, Ark., and the 
following year he was appointed deputy collector 
of this district, which position he held in a very 
efficient manner until 1877, at which date he was 
appointed United States commissioner for the 
Eastern district of Arkansas, and still continues to 
discharge the duties of this position to the satisfac- 
tion of all concerned. Since the year 1878 he has 
resided on his present farm. He was first married 
in 1843 to Miss Frances C. Box, who was born in 
Alabama and died in 1858, having borne two chil- 
dren: Sarah P., wife of James Robinson, and 
Stephen E. Margaret Heard, a native of Alabama, 
became his second wife in 1859. Eugenia, wife 
of John Wood; Ann Eliza, wife of John Mc- 
Cracken, and Joseph are the extent of their family. 
Dr. Hollowell was called upon to mourn the loss 
of his second wife in 1874; she had been an ear- 
nest member of the Christian Church for many 
years. His first wife was a Methodist and an 
earnest worker for the cause of Christianity. The 
Doctor was married at Ash Flat, in June, 1875, 
to Miss E. B. Goodwin, a native of Tennessee, an 
estimable lady whose education and general infor- 
mation well qualify her for a minister's wife. She 
is a member of the Christian Church and an active, 
zealous worker. Two childi-en are the result of 
this union: Walter Ctillen, in his thirteenth year, 
and Hubert Clayton, in his eleventh; both bright, 
active lads, who promise much in the way of com- 
fort to their parents. Dr. Hollowell was ordained 
a minister of the Christian Church, October 28, 
18()8, and much of his time and attention has 



been devoted to expounding the Gospel, and his 
efports in saving souls have met with good results. 
He has always been a stanch Republican in his 
political views, and he has shown his approval of 
secret organizations by becoming a member of the 
A. F. & A. M. 

William L. Holt, justice of the peace. Warm 
Springs, Ark. To the person who closely applies 
himself to any occupation which he has chosen as 
his calling through life there can be but one re- 
sult — that of success. The above mi-ntioned 
gentleman has been an agriculturist the princi- 
pal part of his life, and success has marked his 
efforts. He has a farm of 240 acres, 100 being 
under cultivation, has a good house and barn, and 
over his broad acres may be seen many horses 
and cattle, for he is also a prominent stock farmer. 
He has received assistance from no one, but is 
simply the architect of his own fortune. His 
birth occurred in Randolph County, Ark., Janu- 
ary 1, 1842, and he is the son of John and Mary 
(Barrett) Holt, natives of Missouri and Alabama, 
respectively. The parents were married in 1839. 
The elder Mr. Holt was born in May. 1814, and 
died January 12, 1862. He came to Arkansas 
with his father when only seven years of age, and 
was reared in this county. He received but a 
limited education, and tilling the soil was his prin- 
cipal occupation during life. His wife was born 
in May, 1818, and died March 4, 1884. She was 
a member of the Christian Church. Mr. Holt was 
quite active in politics, and cast his last vote for 
Stephen A. Douglass. Although a Democrat he 
opposed the Rebellion. The maternal grandfather 
of our subject was in the War of 1812, served 
under Gen. Jackson, and was at the battle of New 
Orleans. The paternal grandfather was one of the 
pioneers of Missouri, and during his early life in 
Washington County, of that State, had many 
fights with the Indians. He came to Randolph 
County, Ark., as early as 1821, and many interest- 
ing and exciting times did he have with the In- 
dians in this section. Buffaloes and many wild 
animals were also very plentiful. He was a hatter 
by trade, a prominent Mason, and was one of the 
leading men of the county. William L. Holt was 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



mm 



reared in bis native county, and hud only limited 
educational advantages, but these he improved, 
and is now one of the best posted m(Hi to be found 
in the county. He was married October 18, 18f)2, 
to Miss Nancy G. Philips, a native of Tennessee, 
and they liave two children, W. A., engaged in 
merchandising at Warm Springs, married to Miss 
Melissa Dalton, of Warm Springs, in November, 
1886. and has one child, John R. . living at Doni- 
phan, Mo. , and is clerking in a store. He has 
been attending school for some time at that place. 
Our subject, W. L. Holt, was in the Confederate 
army, enlisting in 1862, and surrendering at 
Jacksonport, Ark., June 5, 1865. He was on Gen. 
Price's raid through Missouri, and took part in 
numerous engagements. He returned to his home 
at the close of the war, and engaged in farming 
and stock raising, which he has carried on in a very 
successful manner ever since. In 1878 he was 
elected justice of the peace, and served two terms. 
He was re elected in 1884, and has held the posi- 
tion since, this making bis fifth term. In 1888 
he was a member of the Democratic State Conven- 
tion, has been school director several terms, and 
has held many minor offices. At the time of his 
marriage be was not possessed of a great amount of 
this world's goods, but be has been successful in 
all his undertakings, and is now prepared to enjoy 
life. He is Democratic in bis politics. Mrs. Holt 
is a member of the Baptist Church, and he also 
holds to this faith. 

Joseph Hufstedler, who represents the milling 
interests of Randolph County, Ark. , is a Tennes- 
seean by birth and bringing up, and inherits the 
principles of the better class of citizens of that 
State. He was born in 1843, and as soon as a 
suitable age was reached be was placed in school, 
but after attaining his eleventh year his education 
was received in Randol[)h County, Ark. In 18(51 
be entered the Confederate army, and served until 
February 20, 1864, when be left the field and came 
home. He was at Sbilob, Perryville, Murfrees- 
boro, Chickamauga and in other engagements, and 
was wounded twice diiring his service. After bis 
return home he engaged in farming, and in I860 
was a])pointed sheriff and collector of the county 



for four years, and ;U. the iMid of that time was 
elected treasurer on the Republican ticket, and ably 
discharged the duties of that office for two years. 
He has also tilled the office of deputy United States 
marshal of Northern Arkansas for several years. 
For some fifteen years he has \)cci\ engaged in the 
milling business, and his establishment is fitted up 
in good style, consequently the product which he 
has turned out has proved to be eminently satis- 
factory. Besides bis mill he owns four and one- 
half acres of land on which is bis residence, and 
also a farm of 200 acres. Ho was first married to 
Miss Mary Hufstedler, and after her death he 
wedded Miss Huldab Hufstedler, and by her has 
had a family of nine children: Birdie, Ella, 
Blanche, Lizzie D. and Kate, living, and Lydia, 
who died at the age of nineteen months: Earl, 
when one and one half years old. and two children 
who died in infancy. Our subject and wife are 
members of the Christian Church; he is a Royal 
Arch Mason, and belongs to the K. of H. He is a 
sou of Joseph and Lydia (Chandler) Hufstedler, 
and is the youngest of their five children, three of 
whom are living. The father died when our subject 
was a small lad. He was a farmer. The paternal 
grandfather, Jacob Hufstedler, was a soldier in 
the War of 1812, and removed from his native 
State to Arkansas in lSr)4, where he died live 
years later. His father was a native German, and 
came to the United States at an early day, and first 
settled in North Carolina and afterward in Ten 
nessee. 

Simon Peter Hurn. Among those who deser- 
vedly rank among the progressive and rising agri 
culturists of Randolph County, Ark. , is the above 
mentioned gentleman who has resided here since 
1S50, and is now the owner of 400 acres of as good 
land as there is in the county. He is one of ten 
children, and was born in ilonroe County. Ga. , 
April 25. 1829, and is a son of Randall and Nancy 
(Dunn) Hurn, natives of North Carolina and Geor- 
gia, respectively. The father removed to Georgia 
when a young man, was married there, and there 
resided until 1850, when be moved to Arkansas, 
and located in Randolph County, where be died 
in Mav. \HoH, when sixty six years of age, followed 



400 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



by his widow two years later when aged about 
fifty six years. She was a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and he was a Baptist until 
a few years before his death, when he became 
Methodist in belief . He was a life-long Democrat, 
a farmer by occupation, and after a lifetime of hard 
labor he became a wealthy citizen. His father, 
Jame.>4 Hurn, who was of Irish birth, served in the 
Colonial army during the Revolutionary War and 
was a participant in many battles, beiug at York- 
town when Cornwallis surrendered. He died in 
North Carolina. The maternal grandfather, James 
Dunn, was born in North Carolina, and also served 
in the American army during the Revolution. The 
children born to Randall and Nancy Hurn are as 
follows: James and Simon Peter, farmers of Ran- 
dolph County; Paul R., a farmer of Washington 
County, Ark., Mark, a farmer of Clay County, 
Ark. : Ezekiel, a minister of the Washington Coun- 
ty Primitive Baptist Church; Permelia E., wife of 
James Sammonds of Randolph County; Nancy J., 
wife of Ben F. Tyler, a farmer of this county, and 
Leah S. , wife of William Kirk of this county. 
Those deceased are John and Matthew, who was 
a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, in Randolph County. At the age of twenty- 
one years, Simon Peter Hurn, our subject, began 
life for himself as a farmer, but afterward learned 
the butcher's and stone mason's trades, at which he 
worked for many years. He started without any 
means whatever, but by the help of his wife, who 
was a strict economist and an excellent manager, 
he has become one of the wealthy men of the 
county. In 1861 he enlisted in Capt. Connor's 
company, Adams' regiment of the Confederate 
States army, and during his four years' service 
he was in the battles of Saline, Pilot Knob, 
Big Bhie and others. He was a heavy loser 
by the war. but afterward managed to make 
his losses good. Sarah Jane Alexander, a daugh- 
ter of John W. and Mary T. (Mostice) Alexander, 
became his wife November 21, 1850. She is a na- 
tive of the county and was born August 31, 1830, 
becoming by Mr. Hurn the mother of eight chil- 
ren: Matilda E., Mary L., John W., Emily J., 
Luther D., Peter M., Eliza Ann, Leslie B. and 



Thomas F. Peter M. died when six years of age. 
Mr. Hurn and his wife have been members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Chui-ch, South, for the past 

! forty years, and he has served the most of this 

I time as steward. Politically he is a Democrat. 

J. W. Ingram is a substantial farmer and miller 
of the county, and as such deserves honorable men- 
tion in these pages. As he was born in this county, 
May 8, 1839, the people have had every opportun- 
ity to judge of his character, and he has won the 
confidence and esteem of all. He is a son of James 

! P. and Rebecca (Mansker) Ingram, the former hav- 
ing been born in Virginia, February a, 1800, and 
the latter in Tennessee, March 0, 1811. James P. 
Ingram was removed by his father to Kentucky in 
1805, and there remained until 1824, when he re- 
moved to Randolph County, Ark., and settled on 
what is now known as the Old Ingram Farm, on 
the old military road, six miles southwest of Pit- 
man's Ferry. Here he lived from 1834 until he 
died, August 12, 1874, at the age of seventy four 
years. His widow resided on this farm for fifty- 
three years, and died on the 27th of June, 1888, at 
the age of seventy-seven years, three months and 
twenty-one days. She came with her parents to 
this State in 1817, and lacked only a short time 
of having lived here seventy years. Mr. Ingram 
was an industrious agriculturist, and accumulated 
property to the amount of 1,000 acres of land. He 
served as constable eight years, justice of the peace 
six years, and county judge four years. He was 
married on the 12th of Aiuil, 1825, his wife being 
only a little over fourteen years of age at that 

t time. Their family consisted of eleven children, 
the following being those who are now living: G. 
H. , a farmer of this (iounty; Leddie B. , wife of H. 
H. Hatley, and J. AV. Those deceased are Lurana. 
wife of W. P. G. Johnston, and Hannah E., who 
died at the age of twenty years; the rest died in 
childhood or infancy. J. W. Ingram commenced 
life for himself at the age of eighteen years, and 
was married then to Miss Rebecca M. Mansker. 
their union taking place on the 12th of A]>ril, and 
to them the following children have been born: M. 
E., wife of W. C. Smith, of this county; Martha 
R., wife of William Jollv, of this countv; W. G. 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



401 



C. ; Sarah L. , wife of Robert G. Jolmson, being 
those living; and L. V. J., the deceased wife of 
Benjamin Phipps, and Mary L., who is also de- 
ceased, having been the wife of F. M. Ezell. Mrs. 
Ingram was born October 18, 1839, and is now 
no more, having passed to her long home April 
25, 1870. Our subject's second union took 
place October 9, 1870, his wife's maiden name 
being Josie C. Mock, of this county. Five of 
their children died when small, and three are 
now living: R. G. C, who was born September 2, 
1883; T. F., born May 17, 1875, and J. R., born 
March 22, 1877. The mother of these children 
died on the 28th of December, 1883, having been 
a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and her husband espoused his third 
wife, Mrs. Mary P. (Kerley) Tilley, on the 10th of 
April, 1884, Laura Dean, who was born on the 
10th of April, 1885, being the only one of their 
three children who is now living. Mrs. Ingram's 
first union took place on the 2d of July, 1871, and 
she bore her husband three childi-en: Sarah L., 
born December 10, 1872, and Thomas J. , born 
August 3, 1877, being the only ones living. Mr. 
Tilley was born in Tennessee, and died on the 
12th of February, 1882, having been a member of 
the Missionary Baptist Church. While serving in 
the Confederate army he lost all the fingers of one 
of his hands, and was discharged from the service. 
Mr. Ingram, the subject of this sketch, also served 
in the Confederate army, joining Company I, Sha- 
ver's regiment, on the 8th of August, 1863. He 
surrendered at Jacksonport, Ark., June 5, 1865, 
having been with Price on his raid in Missouri. 
During this time he lost all his property except 
his land; but this he returned to, and began to 
improve, erecting in 1869 a cotton-gin, which 
he continued to operate until 1878, when it was 
burned to the ground. The loss is estimated at 
83,500. On the 17th of January, 1873, he was 
taken ill with erysipelas, and by the 21st of that 
month he had lost his eye sight. He has hud ten 
children he has never seen. He is a wealthy farm- 
er, owning 1,460 acres of land, with some 248 
acres under improvement. He has a steam cotton- 
gin, seventy head of cattle, twelve head of horses 



and mules, and numerous other domestic animals. 
Although blind, this does not deter him fiom 
work, and he can readily bind wheat and oats, feed 
a threshing machine or steam cotton-gin. He is a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. , and is a Democrat. 
He and his wife are church members, he belong- 

I ing to the Methodist and liis wife to the Baptist 
Church. 

A. ^^'. James is a man who has been exception- 
ally successful in his career as a planter, and ow- 
ing to his desire to keep out of the old ruts, and 
to his ready adoption of new and improved meth 
ods, together with energy and shrewd business tac- 

: tics, he has acquired an extensive land area em- 
bracing at least 1,400 acres. Many of his broad 
acres are devoted to the culture of cotton, and his 
plantation is one of the finest in the State. He 
was born in Smith County, Term., Octol)er IS, 
1826, but grew to maturity in the State of Arkan 

j sas (Phillips County), whither his parents moved 
in 1840. At the breaking out of the IMexican War 
he joined the service, and was on active duty for 
one year. He was not wounded while on duty, 
but now receives a pension for his services. In 
1848 his marriasre with Miss Elizaljeth Slaten was 

I consummated. She was born in 1848, and bore 
following children: Bartlett. Mary, Daniel, Laura, 
Martha and Jehu. Mr. James did not side with 
either faction during the late war, but after the 
close of hostilities he settled in Randolph County, 
where he has since made his home. He has al- 

I ways cast his vote witli the Democratic party, and 
for the past thirty years has been a minister in the 
Baptist Chm-ch, but has not preached a great deal 
during the last few years. He is a member of the 
A. F. & A. M. His parents, Alexander and Eliza- 
beth (Brookshire) .lames were born, reared and 
married in North Carolina, and as stated above 
moved to North Carolina in 1840. The father 
served in the War of 1S12, and was a particii>ant 
in the battle of New Orleans. He and wife both 
died in Phillips County, Ark., the latter being 
sixty years of age at the time of her death. Only 
two of their ten children are now living. The pa- 
ternal grandfather was a Nortli Carolinian, who 
died in Smith County, Tenn. 



A 



® >^ 



402 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



W. P. G. Johnston is one of the leading farm- 
ers of this section of the county, and the condition 
of his farm shows the care and attention to details 
which have ever characterized his efforts. He was 
born in Tennessee in 1833, and is a son of Gregory 
and Martha (Burton) Johnston, who were bom in 
North Carolina and Virginia, respectively, were 
married in Tennessee about 1820, and engaged in 
farming in Randolph County, Ark. (whither they 
moved in 1848), until their respective deaths in 
1877 and 1875, when aged seventy-seven and 
seventy-three years. Six of their nine children 
lived to maturity, and five are now living: Rev. L. 
F. ; L. B. ; Aurena, wife of Rev. Jesse Robertson; 
James F. and W. P. G. , all of whom are residents 
of Randolph County. The parents were members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and 
the father was a Democrat in his political views. \ 
W. P. G. Johnston commenced farming for him- 
self at an early day, was married to Miss Lurana 
Ingram in 1852, and by her became the father of 
live boys and one girl, three of whom are living at 
the present time: James L. , George G. and John 
F. Mrs. Johnston died in December, 1865, having 
been a consistent member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South, and Mr. Johnston wedded, in 
1867, Miss Jane E. Ross, of this county, to whom 
were born six children: Robert G., Rufus M. , 
Samuel P., Walter S. and Martha J., living, and 
one deceased Mr. Johnston was called upon 
to mourn the death of his second wife in 1876. she 
having been a devoted member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, and a good and faithful 
wife and mother. Mr. Johnston's third nuptials 
were celebrated on the 3d of March, 1878, the lady 
being a Miss Pernecia J. Lewis. Charles A., 
Horace B., Mary A., Ida B. , Joab and Amanda E. 
are their children. In 1862 he joined the Confed- 
erate service under Col. JefP. Thompson, and oper- 
ated east of the Mississippi River until he was dis- 
charged after the battle of Fort E'illow, on account 
of sickness, and returned home, where he remained 
until he had thoroughly regained his health. In 
1863 he again enlisted, becoming a member of Col. 
Baber's regiment of infantry, and was with him 
until the surrender of Little Rock, at which time he 



was taken prisoner, and was kept in captivity for 
some time. After taking the oath of allegiance he 
was allowed to return home in 1864, and here he 
remained unmolested until the close of the war. 
He engaged in faiming and erected a cotton-gin, 
which was the second gin put up in this section of 
the county. These occupations have since received 
his attention, and he has done well, being now the 
owner of 216 acres of land, with about 100 acres 
under cultivation. He is a Democrat, a Mason, 
and he and his wife belong to the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. 

Mrs. Nancy Green Jones was born in Nash- 
ville, Tenn., in 1829, and is the relict of Green R. 
Jones, and a daughter of Joseph W. and Charlotte 
C. (Ellis) James, both of whom were born in the 
State of Tennessee, the former's birth having oc- 
curred, it is supposed, in Nashville; he died in 
Pocahontas, Ark., when forty-three years old; 
the latter died there at the age of seventy six years. 
The paternal grandfather was born in Scotland, 
and at a very tender age was taken to the United 
States, where, after growing to manhood, he was 
married to a Miss Duke, of Virginia, she being a 
niece of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary 
fame. The maternal grandfather was a nej)hew 
of that general. Mrs. Jones has been married 
three times, her first husband being William Her- 
bert Allaire, who was born and reared at Long 
Branch, N. Y., and was a millwright by trade. He 
died in 1856 at Pocahontas, Ark. His father was 
Alexander B. Allaire, a Frenchman, who at one 
time owned the present site of Ijong Branch, and 
afterward moved to White Plains, becoming a 
wealthy merchant of that place. His father was 
Capt. Allaire, of France, who married the Baroness 
of Breton, Denmark. The coat of arms belonging 
to her family is still in possession of her descend- 
ants in New York City. To our subject and her 
husband, William Herbert Allaire, were born three 
cbildi-en: Fannie C, Flora C. and William Her- 
bert, who was a cadet at West Point, graduating 
in the class of 1882. He is now a lieutenant at 
Fort Wayne, Detroit, Mich. Our subject's second 
husband was William Evans, who was born and 
reared in New York City. During the war he was 



^7 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



4(»:^ 



a Fedpial pnrolling oflScer, and was shot and killed 
in his own house, this act being in retaliation of a 
Confedeiat*' enrolling officer having been killed 
in like uiiuiuor. To Mr. and Mrs. Evans a daugh- 
ter was born named Lucy. His widow was mar- 
ried after the war to Green R. Jones, who died in 
Pocahontas, Ark. Mrs. Jones is an estimable lady 
and for the past thirty-tive years has been an 
earnest and consistent member of the Methodist 
Epi.scopal Church. 

John Jones, a well-known resident of the 
county, was born on the farm where he now le- 
sides, October 27, 1885, and is a son of John and 
Mary (Black) Jones, the former being one of the 
very first settlers of Randolph County, Ark., and 
was the first man to locate on Jones' Creek, which 
took its name from him. Here his death occurred 
in 1842, when al)out sixty years of age. His wife 
also died here in 18^8, about the age of her hus- 
band. He was a professed Christian, and had been 
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 
many years. They were well-to-do citizens, and 
were the owners of a number of slaves besides 
other property, also a large amount of real es 
tate; at the time of his location here the nearest 
postoffice was sixty miles away. Six sons and two 
daughters blessed their union, of which children 
three are now living: John, Andrew and Sarah, 
the latter being the wife of William Sloan. John 
Jones attended the early schools of Randolph 
County, and after his parents' death, which oc- 
curred when he was a small boy, he made his home 
with an elder brother, James, until twenty years 
of age. Although he started in life for himself 
with no means, he has done well, and is now the 
owner of a finely improved and well located farm 
on Jones Creek. When the war cloud, which had 
80 long hovered over our land, burst, Mr. Jones 
showed his willingness to aid the Southern cause, 
and in is:t)l enlisted in Company A, Col. Trum- 
bull's regiment of infantry, and was in many 
battles, among which were Corinth. Richmond, 
Ky., and a number of skirmishes. He afterward 
joined Capt. Mitchell's company. Col. Reeves' 
regiment of Arkansas Cavalry, and was at Inde- 
pendence and Fayotteville, seeing, during his term 



of enlistment, some very hard service, hut was 
neither wounded nor taken prisoner. Mary Wells, 
a daughter of Hutchinson Wells, l)ecame his wife 
February 23, 1859. She was born on the 1 4th of 
January, 1843, and by Mr. Jones became the 
mother of live children: William Irvin; Armitta, 
wife of Charles Tisdell, a farmer of the county; 
Rufus, Elizabeth, and another. After the death 
of his first wife Mr. Jones, in 1884, wedde.l 
Mrs. Mary (Galbraith) Wayland, who was born in 
Anderson Coimty, Tenn., November 5, 1841, and 
by her has one daughter, Ola Aim. When small. 
Mrs. Jones came to Lawrence County, Ark., with 
her parents, and was married there to Jonathan 
Wayland, who is deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Jones 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and politically he is a Democrat. 

Adolphus H. Kibler. This substantial and re]i 
resentafive agriculturist was born in Lincoln 
County, N. C, December 9, 1820, and was edn 
cated in his native State, receiving excellent edu- 
cational opportunities in Lincoln Academy, which 
advantages he did not fail to improve. At the 
early age of twelve years he entered the emj>loy 
of a merchant, with whom he remained as a clerk 
for sixteen years, and then, tiring of the work, he 
turned his attention to farming, which has been 
his chief occupation. He remained in his native 
State until 1857. then emigrated west, and located 
in Randolph County, .\rk. , where he has since 
made his home, and by his own individual labor 
has become the owner of a tine tract of land 
embracing 320 acres. Ho has been honored with 
variotis offices in thi' county, and was fir.st elected 
in 1859 internal revenue commissioner, which 
position he held four years. In 1878 he was 
chosen county treasurer, was re-elected three 
times, serving in all eight years, and discharged 
the duties of this office in a highly creditable man- 
ner, and to the satisfaction of all concerned. In 
1845 he was married to Miss Mary A. McKeraff. 
a daughter of John McKeraff. She was born in 
Burke County. N. C. , in 1824, and her union with 
Mr. Kibler resulted in the birth of six children, 
four of whom are now living: .\ugiista. wife of H. 
H. Woddell, a farmer of Rocahonfas; Mary .Mice. 



104 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



wife of Dr. Wise, of Paragould: Hairiet, wife of 
Dr. G. W. Crosby, of Pocahontas, and George M., 
a farmer of the county. Those dead are Laura 
and Willie. Mr. Kibler and his wife are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; he 
is a Democrat, and has been a Mason for the past 
twenty-live years. In the spring of 1862 he en- 
listed in the Forty-fifth Arkansas Confederate 
Infantry, and was forage master of the regiment 
until the close of the war, when he surrendered at 
Jacksonport, Ark. He is a sou of Michael and 
Catherine (Lorance) Kibler, both of whom were 
born in Lincoln County, N. C, and died in North 
Carolina and Randolph County, Ark., in 1S4S and 
1859, respectively, the latter being sixty-four years 
of age at the time of her death. They were mar- 
ried in their native State, and when a young man, 
the father was engaged in blacksmithing; also 
farmed the latter part of his life, and was very suc- 
cessful in the accumulation of this world's goods. 
He served in the War of 1812, acting as dnim- 
major, and in his jiolitical views he was a Whig. 
He and his wife were members of the Lutheran 
Church, and were the parents of the following 
family: Adolphus H., Mauernia. wife of Jacob 
Dailey, of Benton County, Ala. ; Sophronia, also 
living in that county, and Dr. M. H., who is a 
prominent physician of Northeastern Arkansas, 
and resides near Black's Ferry in Randolph 
County. Miles M. was a captain in the Confeder- 
ate army during the late war, and was killed at 
the battle of Fredericksburg. William was sur- 
geon of a regiment in the Confederate army, was 
wounded at Murfreesboro, and was aid on Gen. 
Claiborne's staff. He afterward resided in Cross 
County, Ala., and there died. The paternal 
grandfather, David Kibler, was a German, who 
came to America about the close of the Revolu- 
tionary War, located in Lincoln County, N. C, 
and after a number of years removed to Iredell 
County, of the same State, where he spent the 
balance of his life. The maternal grandfather, 
Isaac Lorance, was born in England and also 
located in Lincoln County, N. C. 

Marion H. Kibler, M. D. , is one of the leading 
physicians of Randolph County, Ark., and has 



been a practicing physician here since 1853. He 
was born in Catawba County, N. C, January 19, 
1831, and until eighteen years of age passed his 
days in his native State: but at this time a strong 
desire to learn medicine caused him to commence 
its study with Dr. John Scurry, at Cross Plains, 
Ala., and he made such sufficient progress under 
his instruction as to justify him on entering the 
active practice of the profession soon after, in 
partnership with his instructor. While in Ala- 
bama he was the first physician to use chloroform 
in Benton (now Calhoun) County, as an ansesthetic, 
and his experiment proving highly satisfactory, it 
was largely adopted by other physicians. The 
early training which he received in this science 
was by no means sufficient to satisfy a person of 
his inquiring mind, consequently he attended a 
course of lectures at Augusta, Ga. Since 1853 he 
has been a resident of Randolph County, Ark. , and 
his career here as a physician has long been well 
and favorably known to the many who have tested 
his healing ability, and his success is shown by the 
extended territory over which he goes to alleviati> 
the sufferings of the sick. In 1863 and 1804 he- 
was examining surgeon in the Confederate service. 
He was married, in 1S56, to Miss Amanda J. Cain, 
a daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Cain. Mrs. 
Kibler was born in Alabama December 27, 1839, 
and died in Randolph County, Ark., May 30, 
1876, leaving one daughter, Ella S., the wife of 
Dr. G. A. Seals. The Doctor married his present 
wife July 27, 1887, her maiden name being Nan- 
nie M. Hulett, a daughter of A. J. and Anna M. 
Hnlett. By her the Doctor became the father of 
one child, Marion Hulett. Ho has always been a 
Democrat in his political views, and is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity. His parents, Michael 
and Catherine (Lowrance) Kibler, were prominent 
residents of North Carolina, in which State the 
mother was born. The father was born on the 
Atlantic Ocean, while his parents were en route 
from Germany to the United States. They locat- 
ed in Pennsylvania, and afterward in North Caro- 
lina, where Michael grew to manhood and married. 
He spent his life in that State, and died in 1848, 
at the age of fifty-six years. He was a black- 



s' •->. 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



4(1.") 



siuith iiiid a farmer, a Wbig in politics, and in his 
religions views was a Lutheran. Four of bis six 
children are now living: A. H., ex-treasurer of 
Randolph County, Ark. : Minerva, wife of Jacol) 
F. Dailey, a prominent merchant of Piedmont, 
Ala.; Sophronia, at Piedmont, Ala., and Dr. 
Marion H. The two deceased are Miles Michael, 
who was a lieutenant in the Confederate army, and 
was killed at Richmond, Va., and W. R. , who was 
a surgeon in an Arkansas regiment, was wounded 
at Franklin, Tenn., and died from the effects of 
the wound several years after the close of the war. 
Rev. D. N. King, minister and farmer, Warm 
Springs, Ark. Although young in years Mr. King 
has already done much good in the world by ad- 
ministering to the spiritual wants of his fellow- 
men and by living a life of such consistency and 
purity as can not fail to have its effect on the rising 
generation. His birth occurred in Georgia on the 
13th of January, 1852, and he is the son of Car- 
ter and Louisa (Flanigan) King, natives of Geor- 
gia, and of Irish parentage. Carter King was a 
farmer and a tanner by occupation, which he fol- 
lowed in Georgia until ISfiO, wh<>n he moved 
to Tennessee and settled in Roan County. He 
there farmed on rented land until 1869, when he 
came to Randolph County, Ark. , and setth^d in 
Warm Springs Township, where, in 1809, he pur- 
chased eighty acres. This he proceeded to im- 
prove, but one year later sold out and moved into 
a different neighborhood, where he died shortly 
afterward, in March, 1871. He was a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, a member of the Baptist 
Church, and was well respected by all who knew 
liim. He served one year during the latter part 
of the war in the Confederate service, and surren- 
dered in 18(35. Mr. and Mrs. King were the par- 
ents of eleven children, six now living: D. N., 
Rebecca F. (wife of F. M. Thornsberry). James 
M., Sarah E. (wife of H. C. Crogerj, Joseph J. 
and Mary L. (wife of James Hovis). Mrs. King 
then married in 1873 Mr. G. A. Barrett, and by 
him became the mother of two chikb'en, one liv- 
ing. ]\[r. and Mrs. Barrett are still living in this 
county. At the age of twenty years D. N. King 
was married to Miss Mary S. Wooldridge, of Ar- 



kansas, and immediately afterward engaged in 
tilling the soil. He had very little property at the 
time of his marriage (1872), but he is now the 
owner of 100 acres, of which seventy Kve acres are 
under a good state of cultivation and with good 
buildings, etc. He is one of the enter[)rising citi 
zens of this section, and lays a great deal ot his 
success in life to the exertions of his chosen com- 
panion. He was ordain(<d a minister in the gen- 
eral Free Will Bai)tist Church, and began preach- 
ing the Gospel on the 8th of October, 1882. Sine.' 
then he has performed the marriage cenMuony for 
about nine coujJes, and has l)aptized a large num- 
ber of converts. Mr. and Mrs. King became the par- 
ents of seven children: Louisa J., liorn on the 
15th of April, 1873, and died on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, 1874; W. L., born on the 22d of Septem- 
ber, 1870, and died on the Oth of April. 1880: 
John C, born on the 25th of January. 1879: E. E.. 
born on the 8th of November, 1881; Jasper N. , 
born on the 10th of February, 1884; Dora L., 
born on the 23d of August, 1S80, and one who 
died young. Mr. King is a member of the Ma 
sonic fraternity, and has been a school director in 
his district. Mrs. King is a member of tli(> Bap- 
tist Church. 

Dr. J. N. Kirkpatrick, Elm Store, Ark. To 
the people of Randolph, as well as surrounding 
counties, the name that heads this sketch is by no 
means an unfamiliar one, for the owner is ever to 
be found by the bedside of the sick and afflicted, 
and his career as a i)ractitioner and thorough stu 
dent of medicine has won for him no less a reputa- 
tion than have his personal characteristics as a citi- 
zen and neighbor. His parents, E. S. and Annie 
(Woodrome) Kirkpatrick, were both natives of 
Tennessee. The father, who was born Fel)ruary 
22, 1810, came to Arkansas in 1835, settled in 
Big Bottom, on White River, Independence Coun- 
ty, and there remained one year. In 1830, he 
moved to Lawrence County, and settled on Reed" - 
Creek, twenty miles northeast of Batesville. .\rk.. 
where he bought I'lO acres of land, and where he 
reared his family. He was twice married, his first 
wife being Miss Annie Woodrome, ilanghter of 
John Woodrome, whom he wedih-d iti ISHO. To 



406 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



them were born ten children, and seven of these 
lived to be grown: J. N. ; James E., living in Wil- 
mington, Cal. ; W. T., living in Franklin County, 
111. ; A. E. , living in Oregon County, Mo. ; and 
H. C. , in this county; the others are now de- 
ceased. Mrs. Kirkpatrick was born on the 3d of 
March, 1814, and died in 1860. For his second 
wife. Mr. Kirkpatrick selected Mrs. Elizabeth 
(Goacher) Smithee, and to this marriage were born 
four children, only one now living~-Eva J., a 
teacher in Conway County. E. S. Kirkpatrick 
was a brick and stone mason by trade, and some 
of the first houses in Batesville are monuments of 
his handiwork. When he first came to this State, 
he brought with him only a team, but later became 
the owner of considerable property and about 500 
acres of land. Mr. Kirkpatrick was in the Black 
Hawk War, and was in the fight at Kellog's Grove, 
under Maj. Dement, and had his horse killed from 
under him in this tight. He was a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church, and politically he was 
a Democrat. He died in September, 1876. Mrs. 
Kirkpatrick was also a member of the same church. 
The paternal grandfather, John Kirkpatrick, was 
a soldier in the War of 1812, and was in the battle 
of New Orleans. The maternal grandfather, John 
Woodrome, was also in the War of 1812, and was 
also a participant in the battle of New Orleans. 
The paternal great-grandfather served under Gen. 
Greene in the war for independence, and the mater- 
nal great-grandfather was a native of South Caro- 
lina, was in the Revolutionary War also, and 
served under Gen. Gates during the entire term 
of service. Dr. Kirkpatrick was born in Franklin 
County, 111., October 30, 1831, and was educated 
in the subscription schools of the county, attending 
such schools as were available until 1856. Ho then 
entered the St. Louis Medical College, and after- 
ward came back to Arkansas, and settled in Ran- 
dolph County, where he now resides. This was 
in 1857, and he has since lived in the same place, 
practicing over a large territory, often riding thir- 
ty-five miles to relieve some suffering mortal. The 
Doctor resided here at the time of the war, but 
did not enter the service. He was married, in 1 856, 
to Miss Sarah Catherine Wann, a native of Ala- 



bama, and the fi'uits of this union were nine chil- 
dren, these now living: Robert S., Eleanor A. 
(wife of H. A. Clark), Albert N., Hiram T., Charles 
M. and R. F. When the Doctor first commenced 
his practice in this section, he had the modest sum 
of 25 cents in his pocket, and borrowed a horse to 
ride. By clo.se attention to his profession, he has 
accumulated considerable property, and is the 
owner of 366 acres. He has also his town prop- 
erty, consisting of business house and stock of 
drugs, and also a good deal of personal property. 
He is \V. M. of the Masonic lodge, and in poli- 
tics is a Democrat. 

G. B. Kline. As far back as can be traced 
the ancestors of Mr. KJine have been native Ger- 
mans, and in Bavai'ia, Germany, our subject was 
born in 1834. His parents, G. B. (Sr.) and Louisa 
(Wayner) Kline, were well-to-do land holders in 
their native land, and there lived and died. The 
grandfather was also a Bavarian, and the family is 
one of the oldest and wealthiest there. They are 
Lutherans in religious faith. G. B. Kline was 
educated in Germany, and when about eighteen 
years of age he emigi'ated to the United States, 
landing first in the city of New York. He went 
from there to Virginia, where he had an uncle 
living, and made his home with him for several 
years, working at his trade, that of a shoemaker, 
but afterward worked as a section hand on the 
railroad. After some time he went to the " Buck- 
eye State,'' working at his trade two years, then 
lived successively in Virginia and Illinois. AVhile 
in the latter State he heard the speeches of Lin- 
coln and Douglass, who were then opposing can- 
didates for the United States Senate, their speeches 
being delivered in the city of Bloomington. He 
was in Washington, Ohio, when Buchanan ran for 
the presidency. After leaving Illinois he went to 
Memphis, Tenn., and followed his trade for several 
months in that city, then came directly to Pocahon- 
tas from that place. Here he has since made his 
home. During the Civil War he espoused the 
Southern cause, and was in active service for eight 
or ten months. He was taken prisoner at Yellville. 
but was afterward paroled. After the close of 
the war he embarked in the shoemaking business 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



U)-, 



on <juite an extensive scale, and for some time em- 
ployed several journeymen. In addition to this 
work he kept a saloon for some years, and his house 
was always orderly. He is now the owner of some 
valuable town j)roperty, and has 200 acres of good 
land three miles from Pocahontas. He is a Demo- 
crat in his political views, and is a Master Mason, a 
member of the I. O. O. F. and the K. of H. He 
has been married three times, his first wife being 
Miss Angeline Lillard, who died soon after the 
birth of her first child, George. His second wife, 
;(('(' Ann Hubble, also bore him one child, Laura 
C. , and died after about six years of married life. 
His present wife was a Miss Wilmoth B. Gainer, 
and they have one child, Frederick. 

James R. Knotts is a South Carolinian by birth 
and bringing up, having been born in Chesterfield 
District of that State on the 31st of August, 1S27. 
James and Mary J. (Edding) Knotts, his parents, 
were also born in South Carolina, and died in Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., he in 1857, when about fifty- 
seven years of age, and she when about fifty- five 
years old. After the celebration of their nuptials 
in their native State, they removed to Randolph 
County, Ark. (in 1829), and located at Cherokee 
Bay, and about six years later took up their abode 
on a farm in the neighborhood, on which James 
R. , their son, is now residing. From their youth 
they had been members of the Baptist Church, 
and they took a great interest in church work. 
The paternal grandfather, James Knotts, was a 
native of Wales, who came to the United States 
prior to the Revolutionary War, and settled in 
Virginia. He was a commissioned officer in the 
Continental army during that war, being a partic- 
ipant in many battles, and was at Yorktown. He 
afterward moved to South Carolina, and there re- 
sided until his death, in the eighty-sixth year of 
his age. He was always noted for his great phy- 
sical strength up to the time of his death, which 
occun-ed quite suddenly. He was a farmer by oc- 
cupation. James Knotts, father of our subject, was 
a farmer and mechanic, though he never served a 
regular apprenticeship at the trade, but picked it 
up at odd times, having a natural taste for the 
work. He was quite an extensive manufacturer 



of all kinds of implements, such as wagons, axes, 
guns and the like, in connection with which work 
he also conducted his farm in an admirable manner, 
being ably assisted by his wife, who was an ex- 
cellent business manager. Of their largo family 
of children our subject is the eldest, and three are 
now living: Joseph T., a blacksmith and farmer of 
the county; Burton, also a farmer of the county, 
and James R. The latter always made his home 
with his parents, and a few years prior to their 
deaths he engaged in the timber business, making 
several trips to New Orleans, rafting. During this 
time he also made two trips to Texas, and there 
spent one winter and also in the Indian Terri 
tory. After his return home he turned his atten- 
tion to farming and stock raising, and the property 
of which he is now the owner has been acquired 
through his own exertions. Although he was a 
heavy loser during the late war he has retrieved 
his losses, and is now counted among the prosper- 
ous tax payers of the county. He saw some hard 
service during the Rebellion; and although he en- 
listed to join in the Mexican War, he was not 
mustered into the service. He was married to El- 
mira, the daughter of Jesse Walrond. She was 
born in Virginia in 1840, and when a young girl 
was brought to Arkansas by her parents. Eight 
of a large family of children bom to their union 
are living: James J., Harriet W. (wife of Wesley 
Bennett, a farmer of the county^, Joseph L., Vir- 
ginia, Rufus, Essie, Burley and Bm*tou D. Mr. 
Knotts is a Democrat, politically. 

J. T. Lomax, a member of the well-known law 
firm of Lomax & Collier, is a gentleman well 
versed in the usages and intricacies of law. He is 
one of the ablest of jurists, and has few peers in 
his comprehensive knowledge of State and inter- 
national law. His birth occurred in Perry County. 
Tenn., in 1851, and he is the son of James and 
Elizabeth Lomax, and the grandson of Thomas 
Lomax, a native of South C^arolina. The latt-t>r 
was reared to farm life, but for forty-one years he 
was county clerk and nn'order of Perry County, 
Tenn. He is a prominent citizen, and is now re- 
siding in Tyler, Tex., in the enjoyment of compar- 
ative good health, at the age of eighty-six years. 




James Lomax was also reared to the arduous 
duties of the farm, and is still engaged in that 
pursuit. He came to Randolph Connt}% Ark., in 
1857. settled in Roanoke Township, improved a 
good farm, and now resides in the same neighbor- 
hood. J. T. Lomax came with his parents to 
Randolph County, when a child, and remained on 
his father's farm until seventeen years of age, re- 
ceiving his education in the meantime in private 
schools. At the al ove mentioned age he began 
teaching school, and followed this occupation until 
1882. studying law in the meantime. The two 
years following he taught school in Pocahontas, 
and was admitted to the bar in February, 1883, 
after which he established himself in practice at 
this point, and has been actively engaged ever 
since. The lirm hold a large and growing clientage, 
and their co-partnership is a happy and prosperous 
one. They make a specialty of collecting and ab- 
stracting, and have a complete set of abstracts of 
Randolph and Clay Counties. Mr. Lomax was 
married, in 1879, to Miss Josephine V. Mitchell, a 
native of Randolph County. Mr. Lomax is closely 
identified with school matters, and has been one 
term county examiner. He was also mayor of the 
town one term. Aside from his practice Mr. Lo- 
max is also the owner of some town property. He 
is of English descent on his father's side, and 
German on his mother's. 

Erasmus D. Looney, farmer, Dalton, Ark. All 
his life Mr. Looney has followed, with substan- 
tial success, the occupation to which he was reared, 
and in which he is now engaged, farming. One 
of the largest land owners in Davidson Township, 
he is also one of its recognized leading agricultur- 
ists, and as a man, no less than as a citizen, he is 
highly esteemed. His birth occurred May 1, 
1848, and he is the son of W. S. Looney, who was 
also a native of Arkansas, born in 1820. The elder 
Looney received very meager opportunities for 
schooling, but his father, being an educated man. 
taught his children at home, and thus they became 
fairly educated. W. S. Looney was married in 
1834 to Miss Pollie Wells, a native of Tennessee, 
and the result was the birth of two children : one 
who died when small, and Erasmus D., the subject 



of this sketch. Mrs. Looney died in 1851, and 
Mr. Looney was married, the second time, to Miss 
Catherine Garrett, and ten children were born to 
their union, all of whom died young. Mr. Looney 
was forced into the army, but being very unhealthy 
his son Erasmus D. took his place, and the father 
remained at home. When first married the latter 
possessed very little property, but at the time of 
his death he was the owner of about 1,000 acres, 
with about 300 acres improved. He had made 
all this without assistance, and was a self made 
man in every sense of the term. He was a mem- 
ber of the Golden Circle during war times, and in 
his political views affiliated with the Democratic 
party. Previous to the war he owned a dozen 
negroes, besides other personal property, to a 
great extent, horses, cattle, etc. He was one of 
the wealthiest men in the county, but lost all except 
his land during those times. The paternal grand- 
father of our subject was born in Knox County, 
Tenn., and was the first white man that settled on 
Eleven Points, as he came here as early as 1802, 
and entered 1,500 acres of land. He brought three 
negroes with him, and for a number of years was 
obliged to go to Cape Girardeau, Mo., 135 miles 
distant, and be gone for about two weeks, to buy 
his groceries and other necessary articles. Their 
meat was obtained from the forest which abounded 
in l)ears. deer, turkeys, etc. He could not raise 
hogs on account of the bears. Very little farming 
was done in those days, as from six to ten acres 
was considered a good crop, and the horses and 
cattle lived on the cane. A number of years 
elapsed before there were any settlers besides him- 
self and two brothers named Stubblefield, on this 
stream, and it was fifteen to twenty miles to the 
nearest neighbor. He had a fine orchard, and 
made brandy in great quantities, about 1,500 gal- 
lons per year, Erasmus D. Looney early in youth 
learned the mysteries of farm life, and obtained a 
fair education by attending the subscription schools 
of his day. In 1803, he joined the Confederate 
army. Company E, Col. Reeves' regiment of cav- 
alry, and served until June 5, 1805, when he sur- 
rendered at Jacksoni)ort. Ark. He was engaged 
in a nnmVier of battles, notably Prairie Grove, 



KANDOTvPH COUNTY. 



400 



Fredericktowu, Pilot Knol), Jefferson City, Cali- 
fornia, Brownville, Lexington, Glascrow, Inde- 
pendence and quite a number of minor engage- 
ments. After the war Mr. Looney returned home, 
and went immediately to work to repair the losses 
sustained by the war. He commenced farming, 
and continued this occupation until 1867, when he 
engaged in merchandising. Previous to this, in 
March, 186(), he married Mrs. Frances E. Herron, 
nee Overton, of Mississippi County. Mo., and seven 
childi'en blessed this union, five now living: Laura 
B. , wife of Frank Jackson, and born January 
18, 1867: William S., born December 22, 1868: 
Mary A., born November 7, 1872; Caroline, born 
November 27, 1875; Richard (deceased), born 
July 4, 1878; Delia (deceased), born September 
3, 1881; Thomas Estell, born March 5, 1882. 
The two who died were Delia, March 5, 1873, and 
Richard, March 5, 1883. Mrs. Looney was 
born July 8, 1844, and is the daughter of James 
and Mary (Beacham) Overton, natives of Kentucky. 
Mr. and Mrs. Overton came to Missouri at an 
early day. and settled in Mississippi County. 
They were the parents of six children, three ar 
riving at maturity, llichard (deceased), whose 
family resides in Mississippi County, Mo., Charles 
(deceased), and Frances E., wife of our subject. 
Mrs. Looney was first married to Mr. Thomas 
Herren, and by him became the mother of one 
child, James W.. who lives at Cherokee Bay, 
Randolph County. Mr. Herren was in the Con- 
federate army, and was murdered by Leeper's 
men in the last j'ear of the war. Mrs. Looney' s 
father died in 186"), and her mother in 1854. 
Mrs. Looney and her daughter, Laura B. , are 
members of the Methodi.st Episcopal Church. Mr. 
Looney is a Democrat in politics, and is one of 
the enterprising citizens of the county. 

Stephen C. McCrary. The agricultui-al affairs 
of Randolph County, Ark., and particularly of 
Current River Township, are ably represented by 
Mr. McCrary, who comes of an old established 
family of this community. Hugh McCrary, his 
father, a Kentuckian by birth, who was a black- 
smith and a farmer by occu])ation, was one of the 
early pioneers of Phillips County, Ark., and made 



the second cotton scraper ever used in PhillipK 
County. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, 
and took an active part in the battle of New 
Orleans. He died in 1870 at the age of seventy- 
seven years, and his wife, whose maiden name -vas 
Elizabeth Wilson, also died here. When twe ve 
years of age Stephen C. McCrary liegan to tight 
the battle of life for himself and made his home 
with his relatives until August, 1864. when he en 
listed in the Confederate army, and until the close 
of the war was in several hotly contested engage- 
ments. After his return to Phillips County he 
engaged in farming, continuing until 1807, since 
which time he has followed the same occu])ation 
on Current River, in Randolph County. He ini 
proved a small farm, l)ut in 1880 removed to 
Reyno and built a cotton-gin, grist and saw mill 
(the first in the place), which he is still conduct 
ing. The capacity of his saw mill is 8,000 feet 
per day, and gives employment to twelve hands, 
and about one-half the town of Reyno is laid <>nt 
on his land, of which he has 120 acres. In 1806 
he was married to Miss Harriet* Susan Hite, of 
Phillips County, and their family comprised seven 
children, only three of whom are living; SallieC, 
widow of J. S. Reynolds, of Reyno; Blanche, wife 
of James E. Casey, and John, at home. The 
family was called upon to mourn the death of the 
mother in 1879. Two years later Mr. McCraiy 
married Elizabeth Goodwin, whose maiden name 
was Luttrell, and by her he has three children: 
Maude, Helen and Vistor. Mr. McCrary is a 
Mason, and his wife belongs to the Eastern Star 
Lodge. 

Dr. Jonathan M. McGuire is worthy of being 
classed among the substantial residents of Ran 
dolph County, Ark. He was born in Scott Conn 
ty, Va., May 27, 1823, and is a son of John B. and 
Nancy (King) McGuire, who were also Virginian;-, 
the father a farmer and blacksmith by occupation, 
who after coming to Randolph County, Ark., in 
1858, continued to follow these occupations until 
his death, which occurred in 1804, at the age of 
sixty-two years. He was a Mason, a Democrat 
politically, and the last forty years of his life was 
an elder in the Jlethodist Ejiiscoiial Church, and he 



■>[v 



2^ 



2 k. 



410 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was an eloquent expounder of the Christian faith. 
His wife, who was also an earnest member of 
that church, died in 1867. The following are the 
surviving members of their nine children : J. M. , 
whose name heads this sketch; J. F., a farmer, 
residing in St. Clair County, Mo. ; T. B. , a practic- 
ing physician, of Kansas, and David F., a farmer, 
of Ripley County, Mo. Dr. Jonathan M. McGuire 
received a limited education in youth, and at the 
age of nineteen years began the battle of life for 
himself, and from 1824 to 1859 was engaged in 
husbandry in Middle Tennessee. At the latter 
date he moved to Arkansas, and located on his 
present farm of 160 acres, which is well improved, 
with good buildings and orchard. In addition to 
his farm work he is a practicing physician, and is 
well and favorably known throughout Northeast 
Arkansas, having followed this profession for the 
past thirty years. He has held the office of dis- 
trict commissioner for ten years, and is an active 
supporter of all worthy movements in his commun- 
ity. Politically he is a Republican, and cast his 
first vote for William Henry Harrison, for Presi- 
dent, and his last for his grandson, Benjamin F. 
Harrison. He was married on the 13th of Octo- 
ber, 1841. his wife being a native of Middle Ten- 
nessee. She died in 1863, having borne the fol- 
lowing children: James, who died in Arkansas, at 
the age of forty years; Nancy A. (Miller) who also 
died in Arkansas, at the age of twenty- six years; 
Mary (Shoemaker), who died in this State, at the 
age of twenty -two years; Nebraska Delaney, who 
died in Arkansas, when twenty years of age, and 
Thomas Cary, who is married, a farmer, and re- 
sides in Clay County, Ark. Mr. McGuire was mar- 
ried to his second wife April 22, 1865, she being a 
Mrs. A. A. Friar, of Como County, Miss., who 
died in January, 1882, having borne two children: 
America Jane, who was born in 1865, and died 
when six months old, and J . B. , who was born in 
January, 1868, and is now married to Emeline 
Odum, of Missouri. 

Hon. Hammet Mcllroy, the oldest living set- 
tler of Randolph County, Ark., was born in Madi- 
son County, Mo., March 9, 1812, it being then 
a portion of Louisiana Territory. He is a son 



of Samuel and Elizabeth (McLain) Mcllroy, the 
father's birth occurring in Culpeper County, Va., 
in 1781, and his death in Randolph County, Ark., 
April 8, 1853. The early youth and manhood of 
the father were spent in his native State, and his 
first removal fi'om there was to Hopkins County, 
Ky. , where he met and married Miss McLain, whose 
birth occurred in South Carolina, in 1793, their 
union taking place in 1808. Shortly after their 
nuptials they removed to Cape Girardeau County, 
Mo., then to Madison County, and in 1813, came 
to what is now Randolph County, Ark., where 
they made their home until their respective deaths. 
The mother died December 5, 1850. Samuel 
Mcllroy was a soldier in the "War of 1812, and 
fought the Seminole Indians. In his youth he 
learned the hatter's trade, but the most of his 
later years was spent at farming, in which occu- 
pation he was quite successful. He was a Demo- 
crat. His father, Daniel Mcllroy, was born in 
Virginia, and was of Scotch descent. He was a 
Revolutionary soldier, and was once captured at 
the battle of Long Island. Alexander McLain, 
the paternal grandfather, was also in that war, and 
was at the battles of King's Mountain, Cowpens 
and others. There were born to the marriage of 
Samuel and Elizabeth Mcllroy, ten sons, seven of 
whom lived to maturit}-. Hammet was the second 
child, and is one of only two who are now living. 
He and his brother, Andrew J., worked for their 
father until sixteen years of age, learning in the 
meantime the hatter's trade, and after that time 
began working at their trade for themselves. In 
1844 Hammet turned his attention to farming, and 
his labors in this direction have been attended 
witJi good results, he being now the owner of 650 
acres of excellent land, a considerable portion of 
which is rich bottom soil. He has been an exten- 
sive trader in grain and stock, and has shipped 
both down the river on flatboats. In politics he 
has always been a Democrat, and in 1850 he was 
elected to represent Randolph County in the 
State legislature, and in 1852 was reelected to 
the same position. July 11, 1833, he married 
Miss Elizabeth Davis, a daughter of Lot and Mary 
Davis, who came from Iron County, Mo., to this 



^^ 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



H 



couuty iu 1818. She was boru May 14, 1815, and 
died February 1, 1871, Laving been an earnest 
member of the Baptist Church for many years. 
Five of her ten children are now living: William, 
Thomas J., Archibald Y., Elizabeth Jane and 
Clorah T. Mr. Mcllroy married his second wife 
on the 10th of September, 1871, her maiden name 
being Maria L. Cooper, who was born in Greene 
County, Ind., April "22, 1828, a daughter of M. 
Cooper, and the widow of William J. luman. He 
and wife are members of the Baptist Church, and 
alth<jugh they are now quite aged, they are yet 
halo and hearty, giving promise of spending many 
more years of usefulness in Randolph County. 
In the legislature of 1850 Mr. Mcllroy heartily 
indorsed the compromise act as it was passed by 
Congress that year, and warmly supported by 
Clay, Webster, Douglas and others. This session 
witnessed resolutions introduced, some approving 
and others opposing the action of that honorable 
body. In 1860 and 1861, when the subject of 
secession was being warmly discussed, he opposed 
secession to the utmost of his ability, first because 
he did not think there was sufficient cause to justify 
such a course, and next owing to a belief that 
secession could not win. After the war had pro- 
gr<>ssed about three years and President Lincoln 
had offered his amnesty proclamation, he was in 
favor of accepting that, and when the Confederate 
armies had sunendered and peace was made and 
the Southern States offered pardon and restoration 
to their constitutional rights in the Union on cer- 
tain conditions, he advocated reconstruction as 
proposed by the Federal government, as they were 
the victorious party, and as such had the right to 
dictate the terms of peace to the vanquished. 

Andrew Mcllroy is one of the oldest and most 
prominent residents of the county, and during his 
entire life, which has been spent in this county, 
naught but good has been said of him, for he has 
been honest, industrious, and has kept himself 
thoroughly apace with the times. His l)irtli oc- 
purred on the 10th of September, 1821, and he is 
a son of Samuel and Elizabeth (McLain) Mcllroy, 
a short sketch of whom is given in the biography 
of Hon. Hammet Mcllroy. Andrew Mcllroy at 



tended the common country schools in his youth, 
where he acquired a fair knowledge of the English 
branches, and up to mature years his knowledge 
of the world was only such as could be learned on 
the home farm. At the age of twenty he com 
menced driving stock, and the following year he 
took charge of the stage line from Fredericktown, 
Mo., south to Reeves' Station, same State. Two 
years later he bought forty acres of land and com 
menced farming, and since that time has added 
thereto, until he now has 970 acres, all of which 
is the result of his own good business ability and 
shrewd management. He has made it a point 
through life never to go in debt, and he can now 
look back over a useful and well-spent life. His 
wife was formerly a Miss Sarah A. Davies, whom 
he married in 1844. She was born in Virginia, 
March 3, 1823, and has borne a family of ten 
children, of whom Margaret E. (Williams), Mary 
Susan (Lewis), James F., Dan W., Amanda C, 
Martha Josephine and Sarah A. are living. John 
A. died when thirteen years of age, and the others 
in infancy. Mrs. Mcllroy is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Mcllroy is a 
Mason, a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and a Democrat. Previous to the war he was post- 
master at Lima seven years, and it was chiefly 
through his efforts that the postoffice at that point 
was established. 

T. J. Mcllroy, farmer, Dalton, Ark. Mr. Me 
Ilroy is a practical farmer — one who believes that 
it is beneficial to have all his farming operations 
conducted in a manner so thorough as to not slight 
one department of labor in order to bestow more 
work on some other portion. This idea is caiTied 
out very completely. He is a native of the State 
of Arkansas, where he was born iu 1840, and is 
the son of Hammet and Elizabeth (Davis) Mcllroy, 
natives of Arkansas and Missouri, respectively. 
The father was one of the very earliest white chil 
dren born in this section [see sketch of Andrew 
Mcllroy for history of gi'andpareiitsj. and was 
early reared to farm labor. He also learned the 
hatter's trade, and worked in the shop until grown. 
He made some hats after l)eing married, and let his 
sons manage the farm. His marriage occurred in 



A 




'^^ 



1833 with Miss Davis, and their union was blessed 
by the birth of tea children, seven of whom lived 
to be grown: William, living in Texas; T. J. (sub- 
ject), Martha (deceased wife of Newton Robinett); 
Maria L. (deceased wife of Columbus Fry); 
Elizabeth J., wife of William Baker; A. Y. , living 
in Hood County, Tex. , and Clorah, wife of W. 
C. Bird. Hammet Mcllroy received but a limited 
education, though, after all, one superior to most 
boys in those days, for he was fond of study and 
was a good pupil. In 1850 he was elected to rep- 
resent his county in the legislature, and two years 
later was re-elected, thus serving two terms. He 
never held any other office. He was opposed to 
the secession of the States, though he is a strong 
Democrat, and never served in any of the wars. 
At present he is residing on the farm that he pur- 
chased fifty- seven years ago. He is a member of 
the Baptist Church. His wife, who died in 1871, 
at the age of about fifty-six years, was also a mem- 
ber of the same church. When it became neces- 
sary for the subject of this sketch to start out in 
life for himself, he very naturally and wisely chose 
the occupation to which he had been reared, and 
from that time until the present his success has 
been such as only a thorough acquaintance with 
his calling and years of experience could lead 
him to achieve. He began tilling the soil on land 
purchased from his father, and when in his twenty- 
first year ( 1801) he was united in marriage with 
Miss Mary White, of Randolph County. To them 
were born seven children: W. T., a merchant at 
Dalton, Ark.; Nora E., wife of James Dalton; 
Robert L., James I. I. and Henry M. (twins), Sarah 
A. and Mary F. Mrs. Mcllroy is the daughter of 
Howell and Elizabeth (Stubblefield) White, natives 
of this county. They were the parents of four 
children, three of whom lived to be grown: Henry, 
Mary, and Frances M. (deceased). Mr. Mcllroy 
joined the Confederate army in 1861, and served 
eighteen months in Gen. Price's command. He 
was not in any battles that amounted to anything, 
but was in a number of skirmishes, and although 
serving only the above mentioned time, he was 
■Still enrolled at the close of the war. He surren- 
dered at Jacksonport, Ark.. June 5, 1865. He 



then came home, engaged in farming and stock 
raising, and has continued the same ever since. At 
that time he was the owner of 130 acres, thirty being 
under cultivation. He is now the owner of about 
500 acres, with 220 improved. He also owns con- 
siderable personal property, and makes a specialty 
of raising mules. Instead of cotton he raises 
corn, wheat and clover, and has one of the best 
improved farms in the county, with good barns, 
out buildings, etc. Mr. Mcllroy is a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
takes a great interest in school affairs, and is a lib- 
eral supporter of all laudable enterprises. 

Cicero D. Mcllroy is a man well known to the 
people of Randolph County, Ark., for he was bom 
here on the 24th of April, 1850, and is a son of 
John and Mary A. (Jones) Mcllroy, who were na- 
tives of Madison County, Mo., and Randolph 
County, Ark., respectively. The father was born 
in the former county in 1818, and died in the latter 
in November, 1862. His widow survives him and 
resides in Randolph County. Both were church 
members, he being in commuoion with the Metho- 
di.st Episcopal Chui'ch, South, and she with the 
Baptist. His life was given to tilling the soil, and 
the manner in which he acquired his possessions 
showed him to be an energetic and excellent busi- 
ness manager. His first money was obtained by 
making rails, and he afterward traded in stock, 
shipping south on flat boats. He was a stanch 
Democrat in his political views. Cicero D. Mcll- 
roy is the third in the family, the names of the 
others being as follows: Callie (Brook), Mary E.. 
wife of John Amos, a farmer of the county; Al- 
exander H., also a farmer, residing on the old 
homestead; Robert J., residing in the county; 
Penelope, wife of Jasper Vandergriff, of this 
county; Samuel B., also residing here, and Eva- 
line, the wife of Gilleon Thompson, who is now 
assessor of this county. Cicero D. Mcllroy re- 
ceived his education in the common schools, and 
being the eldest of the family it fell to his lot to 
take charge of the home farm after his father's 
death, but he proved to be a successful manager. 
In 1870, 1874 and 1S75 he acted as salesman in a 



mercantile establisbmeut, being first employed by 
James & Schoonover and then by W. E. Hunter. 
His present property, which he [)urchasedin 1880, 
amounts to 320 acres, and he has 100 acres under 
cultivation. Like the majority of his family he is 
a stanch advocate of the principles of the Demo- 
cratic party, and he and wife are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Mcll- 
roy's maiden name was Lavinia W. Ellis; she was 
born in Kentucky on the 18th of January, 1852. 
Her marriage with Mr. Mcllroy took place in 1876, 
and to them has been born one child, Eunice D. - 
D. W. Mcllroy. The gentleman whose name 
heads this sketch is a member of the general mer- 
cantile firm of Mcllroy & Hatley, located at Peru, 
about twelve miles northeast of Pocahontas, be- 
tween the Current and Black Rivers. They have 
been established at that place since 1886, and be- 
ing men of enterprise and excellent business quali- 
fications, they are doing a prosperous business. 
D. W. Mcllroy is a native-born resident of Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., his birth occurring in 1853, 
and he is a son of Andrew and Sarah Ann (Davies) 
Mcllroy, who came from their native State, Vir- 
ginia, to Arkansas in 1836, and settled in Randolph 
County, where they are still living. Douljtless no 
man in this county is more universally respected, 
for to know him is to have a high admiration for 
him. as he is possessed of those sterling character- 
istics which go to make up a valuable citizen. D. 
\V. Mcllroy received his early education in the 
public and private schools of Randolph County, 
and from his earliest recollections he has been fa- 
miliar with farm work, for as soon as he was old 
enough he was put to the plow. After his mar- 
riage, which occurred in 1875. he removed to the 
farm of 20-1: acres in Current River Township, which 
was given him by his father, and on this he is still 
making his home. He has increased his acreage 
to 324 acres, and has his farm in good condition, as 
he has ever lieen ready to adopt all methods which 
may tend to benefit this property. In connection 
with his store and farm he is engaged in operating 
a saw and grist-mill, also a cotton-gin; and in these 
various enterprises he is meeting with well de- 
served success. He is a member of the A. F. & 



A. M. , has be(Mi postmaster of Peru six years, and 
held the same position at Lima. His wife was 
a Miss Martha Gross, a native of Muhlenburgli 
County, Ky., and by her he has a family of three 
childi'en: Gertrude, Cora and Frank. 

Malilon McNabb, one of the prominent agricujt 
urists of Warm Springs Township, owes his nativ- 
ity to Kentucky, having been Ijorn in Trigg Coun- 
ty, of that State, on the 13th of May, 1825. His 
parents, Elias and Margaret (Adair) McNabb, were 
both natives of South Caiolina, but were married 
in East Tennessee. They came to Arkansas in 
1840, settled in the southeast portion of Ripley 
County, and there passed the remainder of their 
days, the father dying in 1858 and the mother 
in 1859 or 1860. They reared a family of chil- 
dren: Delila (deceased), wife of Jefferson Jenkins; 
Acenath (deceased), wife of William Mulholland; 
Sarah (deceased), wife of William Dunn; Rutli 
(deceased), wife of Green Goff; Rhoda (deceased), 
wife of Madison M. Robb; Nancy (Spencer), Mah- 
lon, Mary (deceased), wife of John Bryant; F. A. 
(deceased), whose family lives with subject; G. M. , 
Enoch (deceased). Elias McNabb was a man well 
educated for the time and country in which he lived, 
and took a great interest in politics, being Demo- 
cratic in his views. He was a member of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity, and Mrs. McNabb was a member 
of the Baptist Church. When twenty-one years 
of age Mahlon McNabb commenced work for him- 
self by farming in Arkansas, to which State he had 
emigrated in 1850. Five years later he entered 
forty acres of land, and from time to time added 
to this until he had 400 acres in one body. One 
farm of eighty acres he cultivated, and in 1875 he 
gave his two youngest sons forty acres each, includ 
inc the old homestead. He then sold the remain 
ing 320 acres, and purchased his present property 
of sixty-three acres, with about thirty acres under 
cultivation. He was married the first time, in 1840, 
to Miss Harriet Lacy, and by her became the 
father of seven children, five of whom lived to bf 
grown, and two are now living: Andrew J., a 
farmer living in this county : Charley (deceased), 
Isabella (deceased) wife of John P. Bigger; Elias 
(deceased), and Michael, who lives in \\ aahington 



fk 



414 



HISTORY OF ARICANSAS. 



County, Ark. Mr. McNal)l) was married, the sec- 
ond time, to Miss Amelia James, in 1870. She was 
born in De Soto County, Miss., in 1844, and came 
with her parents to Randolph County, Ark., in 

1859. In his boyhood days Mr. McNabbhad but a 
poor chance for an education, but after his first 
marriage he applied himself, read a great deal, and 
is now a pretty well informed man. He is an A. P. 
& A. M. . and in politics is a Democrat. He was 
elected justice of the peace of his township in 

1860, and served two years. In 18()2 he was 
elected sheriff of the county, and served until 1865, 
when at the close of the war he was disfranchised, 
and could not hold his office. In 1861 he joined 
the Confederate army, and was discharged at Mor- 
risville. Miss., on the 16th of July. 1862, after 
which he came home and resumed farming. Since 
the war he has taken very little interest in politics. 

Martin Brothers compose a general mercantile 
tiriii at Reyno, Ark., and have been well and fa- 
vorably known to the people of this community 
since 1875. Thej' do an annual business of 
124,000. besides which they own 10,000 acres of 
land, and are engaged in successfully conducting 
400 acres that are under cultivation, and which 
they devote mainly to the raising of cotton. Their 
father, James Martin, was born in Richmond, Va. , 
in 1808, and was one of the pioneer citizens of 
Ste. Genevieve County, Mo., but in 1833 came to 
Pocahontas, Randolph County. Ark., and estab- 
lished a store on his farm just north of where the 
town now is. He cleared and improved a large 
area of land, and made this place his home 
throughout the remainder of his days. He served 
as judge of the county a number of terms, and 
was a man noted for his interest in public affairs, 
and for his liberal contributions to every charita- 
ble purpose. In the positions of honor and trust 
which he filled, the interests of those whom he 
served were always considered, and he thus gained 
the esteem and approbation of his constituents. 
Although not a member of any church, he was al- 
ways strictly moral, and his honor throiighout life 
was unimpeachable. He died, in 1863, at the age 
of fifty-four years. His widow is residing in Rey- 
no. and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 



Church. South. He was twice married, but only 
one of the childi'en borne him by his first wife is 
now living: V. Ellen, the wife of Capt. Webb 
Conner, a prominent resident of Pocahontas. 
James T. was a major in the Confederate army 
during the late war, and at the time of his death, 
in 1876, was a successful lawyer of Pocahontas. 
Joseph P., another son, was a captain in the Rebel 
army, and was killed at Helena, Ark, To Mr. 
Martin's last union the following children have lieen 
born: Henry, whodiedinSt. Louis in 1864, whilea 
student; Tina A., the deceased wife of A. M. Kerr, 
of Virginia: Julia, who died in childhood, and 
Andrew, Joseph, John F. and James, all mem- 
bers of the firm of Martin Brothers, at Reyno. 
Joseph was married. February U, 1888. to Anne 
E. Reynolds, a daughter of D. W. Reynolds, of 
Reyno, whose sketch appears in this work. 

John Maynard. Among the many enterprises 
which have made Randolph County, Ark., noted for 
its commercial enterprise, may be mentioned the 
mercantile establishment belonging to Mr. May- 
nard, which he has been engaged in conducting in 
the town of Maynard, since 1872. He was born 
in the "Old Dominion" in 1823, and is a son of 
Evan and Judith (Ragland) Maynard, both of 
whom were born in Halifax County, of that State, 
the former's 1)irth occurring March 3, 1793, and 
the latter' s A])ril 5. 1803, and their deaths in 
1881 and February 16, 1874, respectively. Their 
marriage was celebrated July 13, 1820. and in 
1847 they came to the State of Tennessee, where 
the father entered upon the practice of medicine, 
and he continued this occupation until his death, 
although he had previously been a farmer. He 
and his wife were of French-English origin, and 
he was a soldier in the War of 1812. They were 
members of the Missionary Baptist Chnrch, and 
became the parents of eleven children, nine of 
whom lived to be grown: Harriet (wife of Chris 
Adams), John, Judith F. (wife of Robert Hart, of 
Tennessee), Mary A. (wife of Blnford Alexander, 
a resident of this State), Stith, Patience (wife of 
Austin Simmons, a resident of Washington Coun- 
ty, Ark.), Evan (a resident of Missouri), Rebecca 
A. (wife of Jeff. Alexander, of Weakley County, 



:£: 




Tenn.) and Thomas (who is a resident of Randolph 
County). John Maynard had ]mt very poor ad- 
vantages for acquiring an education in his youth, 
but by close application to his books, and by con- 
tact with the world, he has become a well-informed 
man. He commenced the battle of life for himself, 
at the age of seventeen years, as clerk in a dry 
goods establishment, and prior to the war opened 
a dry goods house of his own; but his labors in this 
direction being interrupted by the bursting of the 
war-cloud, which had been for some time lowering 
over the country, he sold out in order to offer 
his services to the Confederacy, and was made 
first lieutenant of Company I, Twenty seventh 
Tennessee Infantry, being promoted to the rank of 
captain for gallant service at the battle of Shiloh. 
He also took part in a number of minor engage- 
ments, and after his company had been reduced to 
a few men by being killed in battle and captured, 
he joined the cavalry forces, and was in a company 
composed entirely of commissioned officers from 
different infantry regiments. He served as a pri- 
vate in a scouting company iintil his surrender, at 
Columbus, Miss., May 10, 1865. He was captured 
at one time by the Tennessee militia, but succeed- 
ed in making his escape the same night. After 
the war he settled in Jackson, Tenn., and was a 
clerk in a store until March 20, 1866, when he 
accepted a position in a dry goods house at Gon- 
zales, Tex., remaining thus employed for three 
years. Becoming impressed with the belief that 
Arkansas afforded better inducements for a young 
man to succeed in life, he came to this State, and 
located at Dardanelle, Yell County, where he oc- 
cupied the same position he had held in Texas. 
During 1871 he traveled through Kansas and the 
Iniliuu Territory, but since 1872 he has been locat- 
ed at Maynard, where he conducts an excellent 
general mercantile store, his stock of goods invoic- 
ing at about $6,000. He also owns 000 acres of 
valuable land in the county, all of which property 
he has acquired by shrewd business management 
and energy since the war. He is a Democrat in 
politics, and is a member of the A. F. & A. M. 
He was married, February 8, 1873, to Miss Rallie 
\V. Adams, a native of Missouri, by whom he lias 



three children : Lafayette, born November 18, 1878; 
Eugenia, born January 25, 1876, and John, born 
October 80, 1877. The family attend the Mission- 
ary Baptist Church. 

Luke L. Miller, justice of the peace of De 
Muse Township, was born and reared in McMinn 
County, Tenn. , his birth occurring in 1826. His 
education was received in the common schools, and 
in his youth in addition to learning the details of 
farm work he commenced the plasterer's and brick 
layer' s trades, serving his apprenticeship in Athens. 
At the age of twenty years he was married in 
Athens to Miss Jane Vincent; afterward moving to 
Chattanooga, where he spent some three years in 
working at his trade. At the end of that time he 
went to Oregon Coiinty, Mo., where he remained 
three years or until 1857, and then came to Ran- 
dolph County, Ark. . and located on a farm which 
he had previously purchased. Here he resided 
until the threatenings of war became an assured 
fact, when he joined Company A, Twenty fifth 
Arkan.sas Infantry, Confederate States army, and 
fought for the Southern cause faithfully for three 
years. He was in the battles of Murfreesboro, Mis- 
sionary Ridge, and numerous other engagements. 
He has since given his attention to farming, and 
now owns 100 acres of land, although he had pre- 
viously owned many more acres, which he sold. 
Mr. Miller'swife died in 1872. leaving two children: 
Abner, who died at the age of twenty-seven years, 
and Eliza, also married. Mr. Miller is a Democrat, 
and was elected to his present office in 1881. He 
is a member of the I. O. O. F. In all his busi- 
ness relations he is noted for honorable upright 
dealing. He is a son of William and Eliza (Corall) 
Miller, who were born in Hawkins and Washing- 
ton Counties, Tenn., respectively. The father was 
also a brick-layer by trade, and he and his wife 
became the parents of twelve children. The pater- 
nal grandfather was a German by descent, and was 
a native of Pennsylvania, his wife being of Irish 
lineage. 

Col. B. B. Morton, editor of The Pocahontas 
Free Press, one of the leading newspapers in 
point 'of circulation and inflnence in Randolph 
County, is justly entitled to no inconsiderable 



:f\7==^ 



\ 



410 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



measure of credit for the enviable position his 
paper occupies among the better class of country 
journals in Arkansas. He was born in Natchez, 
Miss., in 1848, and is the son of Thomas Morton, 
who was born in Liverpool. England. The latter 
came to America when fifteen years of age, and 
followed mercantile pursuits through life. His 
wife, who was originally Miss Leonora Tooley, 
is still living, and resides at New Orleans. She is 
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Thomas Morton died in 1884, at the age of seventy- 
one years. He was a member of the A. F. & A. 
M., and also of the I. O. O. F. He and his 
wife reared five children, B. B. Morton being the 
eldest. The others are Elizabeth C, widow of 
William Esmond (deceased), now residing in Jef- 
ferson Parish, La.; James T. , now residing in 
New Orleans, La , where he is a speculator and real 
estate dealer; William H. , now of New Orleans, 
and the captain of a steamboat, and Bettie J. , wife 
of Stephen DeGruy, a planter, of Jefferson Parish, 
La. B. B. Morton received a thorough education 
in the public schools of Natchez, Miss., and com 
pleted his education at Washington, D. C. After 
this he served three years as an apprentice to learn 
the printer's trade, on the Natchez ^Neekly Mir- 
ror, and then went to New York City, where he 
engaged in a large book pubHshing establishment. 
At the end of two years he connected himself with 
the New York Herald, where he remained a 
number of years, filling all positions, from setting 
type to a place on the editorial staff. At the first 
outbreak of the war he returned to New Orleans, 
and enlisted in Wheat's battalion, Confederate 
army, as a private, but was promoted to first lieu- 
tenant, then to captain of Company A, and served 
in that cajiacity until the battalion was disbanded, 
with only eighteen able-bodied men left. He then 
enlisted in, and was promoted to the rank of ma- 
jor of, an independent battalion, and served in that 
capacity two months, when he was promoted to 
the rank of colonel, and was given command of 
the Tenth Virginia Cavalry. Thus he served until 
the cessation of hostilities. He participated in the 
battles of Mitchell's Ford, Manassas, Hagerstown, 
the Shenandoah Valley campaign, second battle of 



Manassas, seven days' fighting around Richmond; 
was then at Malvern Hill, where he was wounded 
by a gunshot in the thigh, and disabled from duty 
five months. During his second service he was in 
the following battles: Yorktown, Williamsburg, 
Petersbiirg, and Appomattox Court House, where 
Gen. Lee surrendered. As soon as the war was 
over Col. Morton went to Farmville, Va. , and en- 
gaged in a job office, where he remained one year. 
He then returned to New Orleans, and held different 
positions on the Morning Bulletin for two years, 
when he went to New York City, and took his 
old position on the Herald. Six years later he 
went to the Far West as a reporter for the New 
York Herald, and spent four years in Mexico and 
in the Indian reservations and in Europe. He then 
started a daily jsaper at Socorro, N. M., which he 
ran for two years, and then went to Lordsburg, 
N. M. , where he started a weekly paper, which he 
continued one year. He then sold out, returned 
to New Orleans, and was there instructor in the art 
of colored job printing. This he continued until 
the 1st of January, 1887, when he came to Portia, 
in Lawrence County, Ark., connected himself with 
the Free Press, which he afterward purchased, and 
in April, 1888, moved his paper to Pocahontas. 
There he has since remained. His marriage oc- 
curred in 1807 with Miss Sallie V. Morrow, a native 
of Cumberland, Va. , and six childern were born 
to this union. Josie died of yellow fever when 
fifteen years of age. The others were named 
Seymour, Sanders, Thomas, James and Katie. 
Mrs. Morton died of yellow fever in Memphis, 
Tenn. , in 1878, and her four children then living 
died within nine days' time, of the fatal scourge. 
The Colonel had several times volunteered to attend 
the yellow fever sufferers, and he and his wife 
were living in Memphis when she took the fever 
and died. Col. Morton is the owner of a stock 
ranche in Colorado. His paper was established 
in April, 1888, and is Democratic in its views. It 
is an eight-column folio, both sides printed at 
home, and is published every Saturday morning. 

Hon. Perry Nettle enjoys the reputation 
of being not only a substantial and progressive 
farmer, but an intelligent and thoroughly posted 



^ 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



H7 



man ia all public affairs. He has always been 
noted for honorable, upright dealing, and has 
kept the name he bears [Hire in the sight of all. 
He is a native of the county, his birth occurring on 
the 80th of September, 1839, and is a son of 
Shaib-ach and Elizabeth (Graham) Nettle, who 
were born in the States of North Carolina and 
Tennessee, respectively. They moved to Arkan- 
sas in 1824, and settled in what was then Law- 
rence (now Randolph) County, and after the State 
line between Arkansas and Missouri was surveyed 
their house was found to be in Oregon County, 
Mo. , and thus it has stood in three different 
eoimties and two States without being moved. 
Mr. Nettle lived here until 1858, and after a short 
residence in Clay County. Ark., ho returned to 
Oregon County, Mo., where he made his home 
from 1863 to 1885, and on the 5th of November, 
1887, his death occurred in Lawrence County, 
Ark. He was one of the pioneers of the county, 
and always followed the occupation of farming, 
and in connection with hunting, in early days, 
succeeded in making a good liviag and laying up a 
competency for his old age. He had passed the al- 
lotted age of man at the time of his death, and was 
eighty four years, seven months, and twenty-four 
days old. He lived on the line between Arkansas 
and Missouri for sixty-two years. His marriage 
with Miss Graham occurred in 1828, and to them 
was born a family of eight children: William O., 
born January 1, 1824, and died February 7, 1875; 
Levi, born May 25, 1827, and died September 6, 
1850; Elijah was born November 4, 1831, and now 
lives in California; Francis M. was born on the 
10th of September, 1834, and resides in Oregon 
County, Mo., on the farm on which he was born; 
Carter T. , born October 23, 1837, died February 
11, 1875; PeiTy; Sarah, born May 11, 1842, is the 
wife of James Johnson, and Elizabeth, born No- 
vember 15, 1844, and died October 4, 1801. The 
mother of these children was born on the 10th of 
September, 1803, and died on the 3d of April, 
1857, she having been an earnest member of the 
i5aptist Church. Perry Nettle's early scholastic 
advantages were of the most meager description, 
but in later years he ajiplied himself closely to bis 



books, and is now one of the^most intelligent men 
of the county. In 1862 he joined the Confederate 
army, being in Capt. J. J. "VVyatt's company. 
Shaver's regiment, and was an active participant 
until the close of the war, when he surrendered at 
Shreve[)ort, La. He was captured at the fall of 
Little Rock, on the lOth day of September, 1863, 
he at that time being under treatment in the hos- 
pital, and was kejtt in captivity for nearly a year 
and a half in St. Louis, Alton, Rock Island and 
New Orleans; he was then brought back to the 
mouth of the Big Red River, and was there ex- 
changed on the 25th of February, 1865. He then 
rejoined his command at Shreveport, and served 
his cause faithfully until the final surrender, hold 
iug the rank of first sergeant of his company. 
Since that time he has been engaged in farming, 
and now has a fine farm of 200 acres, but froiu 
1874 to 1880 he was also engaged in merchandis- 
ing at Warm Spring, and at the same time dealt in 
stock. In 1884 he was elected to represent the 
people of his county in the State legislature, and 
filled the office during the session of 1885. He 
made the race again in 1886. and was defeated by 
the Hon. G. G. Johnson, but was re elected to the 
position in 1888, and served the following year. 
He now attends to his farm. July 27. 1865, he was 
married to Miss Mary S. Mock, of this county, by 
whom he has the following family : Jacob L. , born 
January 11, 1867. and died July 19, 1886; 
MasftrieE. , born June 3, 1868, was married No- 
vember 16, 1885, to James F. Baker, and lives in 
Oregon County, Mo.; ShadrachG. , born February 
17, 1872; Rufus L., bom July IS, 1875: W. A., 
born March 2, 1879, and died September 10, of 
the same year. Mr. Nettle is a Democrat, a public - 
spirited man. and a member of the A. F. & A. M. 
Mrs. Nettle is the daughter of Griffith C. and 
Margaret J. (Forster) Mock, who were born in 
Pennsylvania and North Carolina, respectively. 
They were married on the 1 1th of March, 1838, 
and reared a family of eight children: Mary S. 
(Mrs. Nettle), born July 1, 1840; Felix G., born 
June 3, 1843; Leah P., wife of Joseph W. Spikesj 
born January 7, 1846; Marcus D. L. , born April 
4, 1848; Matilda J., wife of L. H. Waldron, born 



€ k^ 



418 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



March 27. 1851; Thomas D.. boru March S. 1853; 
Rnfus M. , twrn Febrnary ITi. 18")(), and Isham J., 
born Jannaiy 22, 1859, ami ilied October 19, 
1877. ^Ir. Mock was born on tho 2nth of April. 
1815, and died September 20, 1874: his wife was 
bom on the IGth of October, 1817, and died April 

5, 1879. They were memliers of the Christian 
Church, and politically he was a Democrat. 

S. H. Parker is on extensive farmer and stock- 
man of Randolph County, Ark., and was born in 
Tennessee. April ll5, 1S45, beintj a son of C. G. 
and Mary (Burrow) Parker, whose native State was 
Tennessee. After farminjsjf in that State until 1849, 
he came to Arkansas and settled on Current River, 
where he remained two years, and in 1852 came to 
the farm on which our subject is now residing. 
Here he improved the same, and was engaged in 
farming and stock raising and trading until hjs 
death in 1874. being followed by his widow three 
years later. Their marriage took place in 1822, 
and they reared a family of ten children, the fol- 
lowing being now alive: Harriett C. wife of W. 
C. Thompson; Mary E., wife of Ben Holland; 
Charles G. ; Josephine, wife of Wilbur Abbott, 
and S. H. The latter received no advantages for 
schooling in his youthful days, owing to the scar- 
city of schools and his father's early immigration 
to this State. He left the home farm to join the 
Confederate army in ]8()4, and served with Price 
on his raid through Missouri, taking an active part 
in the l:)attles of Ironton and Pilot Knob, also In- 
dependence, Little Blue and numejous skirmishes. 
He surrendered at Jacksonport, Ark., in June, 
18fi5, returned home and commenced farming for 
himself on eighty acres of land given him by his 
father. He now owns 260 acres and has 100 acres 
under cultivation on which ar(> good buildings, 
fences, etc. He does not depend alone on corn and 
cotton for his income, but makes a specialty of 
raising horses, mules, cattle, hogs and sheep. In 
1868 he wedded Emily Wilson, of this county, and 
by her is the father of three children living: Jo- 
seph T., born November 19, 1872; John C, born 
December 2H, 1874. and James A., born Sejitember 

6, 1877. Two children died in infancy, and the 
mother's demise occurred January 8, 1880. her 



death being deeply mourned by her family and a 
largt^ circle of friends. Mrs. Amanda Halbrook, of 
Kentucky, became Mr. Parker's second wife, Janu- 
ary Ifi, 1881, and to them were born three children, 
Orlie, born January 8, 1882, and Celestia H., born 
October 17, 1887, being the only ones living. 
Mrs. Park(>r was the widow of Freeman Halbrook, 
of Kentucky, by whom she bore a family of five 
children: Prentice, living in Kansas; Nannie, wife 
of Richard Abbott, of this county; Richard, of 
Colorado, and Emma, at home; the other child 
died. Mrs. Parker's parents, Edmund and Nancy 
A. (Neely) Mitchener, wereKentuckians, and reared 
a family of eleven children, of whom the following 
are living: William, of Missouri; Martha, wife 
of Robert Kidd; John, a resident of Missouri; 
Amanda, and Georgia, wife of John Harper. 
Mrs. Parker is a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal (jhurch; iSIr. Parker is a Democrat. 

Charles W. Polk. Among the husbandmen of 
Randolph County, Ark., who have made for them 
selves an honoraljle name by a long term of years 
of steady and successful farming and upright citi- 
zenship is Mr. Polk, whose birth occurred in Ten- 
nessee in 1842. His parents, Michael and IMary 
(Duckworth) Polk, were born in North Carolina 
and Tennessee, respectively, the former being re- 
lated to ex-President Polk. They reared a fam- 
ily of eight children, six of whom are living: 
C. W., Ferraby (wife of James Wells), Rebecca 
(wife of Harrison Matthews). Polk, Ella (wife of 
Richard Polk, of Missouri) and Harvey (residing 
in Searcy County). Mr. Polk died in 1873. at the 
age of forty-one years, and his wife in 1865, aged 
thirty-six. They were members of the United 
Presbyterian Church; he was a member of the 
A. F. & A. M. , and was a Republican in his polit 
ical views. C. W. Polk received somewhat meager 
educational advantages in his youth, and in 1S7'.I 
came to Arkansas and located in Clay County, 
where he at once commenced farming on 120 acres 
of land which he had purchased some time before. 
The farm is well improved with good buildings of all 
kinds, and is supplied with the necessary stock for 
successfully conducting its management. His first 
marriage took place in 1860, it being with Miss 



y\ 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



Hit 



Effie Higgins, of Tennesssee, but she ilied in 1863, 
followed by her only eliild, whose death occnrred 
in infancy. After living a widower for seven years 
Mr. Polk was married in 1870 to Miss Martha Al- 
exander, of Hardin County, Tenn., by whom he has 
liad a family of six children, three of wliom are 
now living: Emmer (wife of Joseph Cox), and 
Joseph and E. D. (at home). Mr. Polk was so 
unfortunate as to lose his second wife by death 
in March, 1884, and three years since he es- 
poused Mrs. Mary Eldridge, who only survived 
until the following year. His next marriage was 
with Mrs. Nancy Jane Lewis, who had borne her 
first husband two children: John and Bertie. Mr. 
Lewis died in 18S5. He was a communicant in the 
Baptist Church, and was a leading member of the 
A. F. & A. M. In 1863 Mr. Polk joined the Union 
army, and was a faithful defender of the stars and 
.stripes until the close of the war, being a member 
of Companj' C, Second Tennessee Mounted Infan- 
try. He was at Clifton, Johnsonville, Lexington, 
Nashville and in numerous skirmishes. After re- 
turning home he engaged in the dry goods business, 
liut next year he began farming, which occupation 
he has continued up to the present time. He and 
wife are members of the United Brethren Church 
and he is a warm Republican, politically, and in all 
matters tending to lienefit his county he is one of 
the leaders. He is in every respect a self made man, 
and is a prosperous agriculturist. 

Newton J. Proctor is a substantial resident of 
the county, and is now living in the town of Okean. 
He was born in Crittenden County, Ky., Septem- 
ber 16, 1836, and is a son of Greenberry and Lu- 
cinda (Reese) Proctor, both of whom were also 
born in Crittenden County, Ky. , and there the 
father died while still in the prime of life, in 1838. 
He was a successful farmer, and in politics was a 
Whig. His wife died in 1868, at the age of sixty- 
four years, she having been an earnest member of 
the Baptist Church for- many years. Newton J. 
Proctor, the fifth of their six children, was edu- 
cated in the common schools near his Kentucky 
home. At the early age of fourteen years, he be- 
gan life on the Ohio and ^Mississippi Rivers, and 
after several years of faithful service was pro- 



moted to the position of pilot, in whicli capacity 
he served for many years. During the Civil War, 
he rendered valuable aid, and was concerned in the 
taking of Island No. 10. He was on the Cumber- 
land and Ohio Rivers from Nashville to Tennessee, 
as mate. After the war, he resided at different 
times in Hickman, Ky., and Belmont, Mo., and 
was engaged in farming until 1876, when he en- 
gaged in railroading. After some time, he gave 
up this work, and located at Corning, Ark., and 
two years later went to Texas. After his return 
to Arkansas, he located at Okean, where he has 
since been occupied in the timber Ijusiness. From 
1882 to 1887, he was a general merchant in the 
town of Okean, and at the latter date engaged in 
the di'ug business in connection with farming. He 
is still conducting these enterprises, and as he is 
thoroughly posted in the details of each, he is 
meeting with excellent success. He is a Democrat 
in politics, and has served eight years at different 
times as postmaster of Okean. 

Hon. James H. Purkins has for thirty-two years 
been a resident of Randolph County, Ark. . and 
during his long residence here has liecome well 
known, and has won the respect of all with whom 
he has come in contact. He possesses a fine educa- 
tion and excellent natural abilities, and is deserv- 
ing of a more extended sketch than the nature of 
this work will permit; suffice it to say that his life 
has been a success both in material affairs and in 
the esteem which has been accorded hinj among 
those with whom he has so long made his home. 
He was born, reared and educated in Essex County. 
Va., the former event taking place in the year 
1814 From early boyhood he has been familiar 
with farm life, and as his father was a prosperous 
merchant he spent much of his time in the store. 
He was married at the age of twenty-two years to 
Miss Clementina Singleton, and to their marriage 
twelve children have been born, three of whom are 
now living: Eliza, wife of Dr. Esselman; Clement 
W. and Rena S. After residing in his native State 
and following the occupation of merchandising 
until 1856, Mr. Purkins removed to Missouri, 
and settled the following year in Randol])h County, 
Ark. He entered a tract of land on Current River 



e fc_ 



420 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



which be tilled until 1862. when he entered the 
Confederate army, but was sent home after a few 
months by Gens. Vandorn and Price as a recruit- 
iui; officer, and held the position of captain. In 
1800 he had been elected to the State legislature, 
and in 1862 he was re-elected and served out his 
time. In 1866 he was elected senator from Ran 
dolph and Greene Counties, and was serving his 
constituents while the senate was in session in the 
State house at Little Rock in 1S67, when Gen. Ord ' 
with Federal troops was ordered by Congress to 
disperse the General Assembly of Arkansas, .^e 
refused afterward to lieconie a candidate for office, 
but in 1877 he was elected to the office of county 
judge. After the war he clerked ior various mer- 
chants in Pocahontas, and now owns about thirty- 
live acres near the town, which he rents out. The 
most of his children died in childhood, and within 
one week of eac-h other, of pneumonia. One son, 
James \V. by name, was a Confederate soldier from 
the time he was fifteen years of age, but was killed 
at Glasgow, Mo., at the age of eighteen years. Mr. 
Purkins is a son of W. H. and Ann (Howerton) Pur- 
kins, who were Virginians, where they were reared 
and married, and became the parents of six chil- 
di-en, of whom Hon. James H. is the only one now 
living. The father was a merchant and farmer by 
occupation, and from the time he was twenty-one 
years of age until bis death at the age of sixty- 
seven years he held office under the State. He 
.was a captain in the War of 1812, and while away 
from home, serving his country, bis son, James H. , 
was born, and he did not see him until be was nearly 
one year old. His wife died about the same age 
as himself. The grandfather. Gideon Purkins, and 
his father were both Virginians, former of whom 
was a soldier in the War of 1812 and died at a very 
old age. The groat-great-grandfatber I'urkins was 
a native of England, and came to America in Co- 
lonial times. The maternal grandfather was of 
Scotch descent, and was born in Essex County, Va. 
He was a cajitain in the Revolutionary War, being 
on the side of the Colonists, and until the day of 
his death at the age of ninety eight years kept his 
uniform. Mr. Purkins, the subject of this sketch, 
is a member of the Baptist Church, is a Democrat 



in his political views, and belongs to the Chapter 
and Blue Lodge in the A. F. & A. M. His first 
wife died in 1868, and he afterward espoused Miss 
Ava Payne, who died after having borne one child, 
James E. His third wife, who was a widow, died 
two years after her marriage with Mr. Purkins. 

J. T. Redwine is a prosperous and successful 
merchant at Supply postoffice. Little Black Town- 
ship, this county, and has been in business here 
since 1878. He first saw the light of day in the 
"Old North State"' in 1840, bis parents, Travis 
and Sally Ann (Harrison) Redwine, being also na 
tives of that State, where they were reared and also 
married, the latter event being in 1885. Ten 
years later they concluded they could better their 
fortunes by emigrating westward, and they accord- 
ingly pitched their tent on Blue Grass soil, where 
they reared a family of five childi'en to maturity, 
and lost one child in infancy: W. P. was born 
in 1836, lived to be seventeen years of age: Benja 
min F., died September 9, 1862, his birth having 
occurred May 7, 1838; J. T. ; Sallie M. (deceased); 
James D. (also deceased, his family being resi 
dents of this county), and L. A., who resides in 
Randolph County. The mother of these children 
died in the year 1850, .she having been a daughter 
of Turner and Sally (Daniels) Harrison, the father 
being related to President Harrison's family. He 
was a farmer by occupation, and tilled the soil in the 
Blue-Grass State, from 1845 until his death. In 
1851, Mr. Redwine took for bis second wife Mar- 
garet Harrison, a daughter of Jesse Harrison, l)ut 
five years later be was called upon to mourn her 
death, she having Vjorne bim three children, two 
of whom are living; George M., a resident of this 
county, and Jacob L. , who resides in Conway 
County. Seven children were born. to his mar- 
riage with Miss Elizabeth Ogdeu, of Kentucky, 
six of whom are now living, their names being as 
follows; Lucinda A., wife of D. H. Hawkins, Jr., 
of this county; Mary L. E., wife of D. C. Fowler; 
Thomas J., Isaac D , Nancy A., wife of Samuel 
Stout, and Frances. Mr. Redwine was so unfort- 
unate as to lose his third wife in 1873, and he 
then united his fortunes with Mrs. Martha (Pierce) 
Spence, who bore one child, named Lucien R. 



/' 






'*»-^ 



^-»— '^^-MiJaii^ 




InDEPENOENCE C0UNTr,ARKAM3AS . 



!.k 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



i'l\ 



J. T. Iledwino, the gentleman whose name heads 
this sketch, began life for himself at the age of 
twenty -one, and in 1861 espoused the cause of the 
Confederacy by becoming a member of Company 
G, Fifteenth Regiment, Arkansas Infantry, com- 
manded by Col. Pat. Claiborne. He served until 
the final surrender, and was an active participant 
in the battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Liberty 
Gap. Richmond, Ky., Perry ville and Chickamauga. 
He was wounded at Chickamauga, and was granted 
a furlough until he was able to attend to hospital 
duties, to which he had been detailed. He was 
paroled at Macon, Ga. , in 1805, and reached home 
in August of that year. He found employment in 
Cape Girardeau County, Mo., which received his 
attention until December of that year, when he 
came home and wedded Miss Sarah A. Melton, 
March 18, 1866. He was engaged in farming ex- 
clusively until 1878, but since that time has given 
much of his attention to merchandising. His stock 
of goods amounts to about $4,000, and his annual 
sales reach the sum of $10,000. He also has a 
general store in Ripley County, Mo., which nets 
him an annual income of about $800. His farm 
embraces 133 acres, and he owns some good 
dwelling houses, and a store-house in Doniphan. 
He is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and in his 
political views is a Democrat. He and wife are 
the parents of four children : Robert L. , born De- 
cember 7, 1866; Satira A., born October 15, 1871, 
the wife of John C. Phipps, of this county; James 
T. , who was bom February 29, 1876, and Sally M. , 
born May 25. 1882. Mrs. Redwine is a daughter 
of John and Martha (Swain) Melton, to whose 
union the following family were born: Josephine 
(Meek): Satira, the deceased wife of L. F. John- 
son: Lafayette F. ; Sarah A. (Mrs. Redwine); 
Rosetta, the widowed wife of Pharaoh Aton; El- 
setta, the deceased wife of Jasper Swin. Mrs. 
Redwine was born February 24, 1842. Neither 
J. T. Redwine nor his wife (Sarah A.) inherited 
any part of their present prop(>rty; they Isegau 
a life partnership with limited means, having 
neither liouse nor land, and what they now have 
has been gained by industry, which is the found 
ation of almost all of life's successful voyages. 



J. M. Redwine, M. D. The short sketch that 
here appears is that of one of the reliable and de- 
servedly successful physicians of Randolph Coun- 
ty, whose experience has proven him to be well 
qualified for the position he has chosen. He was 
born in Marshall County, Ky., March 30, 1852, 
his parents, Jacob and Mary (Thoniasson) Red- 
wine, having been bom in North Carolina and Ten- 
nessee, respectively. They both removed to Ken- 
tucky prior to their marriage, and there united 
their fortunes in the year 1847, becoming the par- 
ents of elevezi children, eight being now alive: \V. 
C, who resides in Clay County, Ark.: Dr. H. C, 
also a resident of Clay County, where he is a 
practicing physician and merchant; Mattie E. , a 
teacher of this county ; Jennie L. , wife of M. L. 
Gilbert, of Dade City, Fla. ; Jacob, Jr., who lives 
in Kentucky; Amanda J., wife of Charles Dish 
man, of Kansas, and Hiram G., now in a law school 
in the East. Jacob Redwine has always followed 
the occupation of farming and merchandising, and 
is now residing in Kentucky. He was in the 
Union army during the late war, and served in 
Company B, of the Fifteenth Kentucky Cavalry, 
as a private, but was discharged at the end of 
twelve months, his term of enlistment having ex- 
pired. The principal engagement in which he 
took part was at Spring Creek, near Lexington. 
Tenn., being under Col. Henry. Since the war 
he has resided on his farm in Kentucky, and is 
now fairly well-to-do. He votes the Repulilican 
ticket. Our subject. Dr. J. M. Redwine, received 
fairly good advantages for acquiring an education, 
being an attendant of the common schools of Ken- 
tucky. He first engaged in teaching school and 
clerking in a dry goods store, and during this time 
his leisure moments were given to the study of 
medicine, which profession had always had a fas- 
cination for him. After attending medical lectures 
he entered uj)on the practice of that jirofession in 
Kentucky, in 1876, and followed it there and 
in Tennessee two years. From 1878 to 1881, lie 
practiced in Randolph County, Ark., and from 
that time until 1884 he was a practitioner of Ben- 
ton County. He has since resided in this county, 
and has acquired a large and profitable practice. 



A 



® l_ 



422 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and in his journeys to alleviate the sufiferings of 
the sick, the sunshine of his disposition, as well as 
his medical skill, is brought to bear upon his pa- 
tients, and the result is very satisfactory. He has 
a fertile little farm of forty acres, and in connec- 
tion with his practice was engaged in farming and 
merchandising until within the last few years. He 
is a Republican politically, and is a member of the 
A. F. & A. M. He was married, October 28, 1879. 
to Miss Malena E. , a daughter of John and Per- 
melia E. (Mosely) Mabry, who became the parents 
of twelve children, six now living: Robert M., 
Mattie T. (Greer), Novella (Greer), William D., 
John, and Malena E. (Mrs. Redwine), the latter 
born on Blue-Grass soil. Dr. and Mrs. Redwine 
have become the parents of two children: Ethel, 
born September 1, 1884, and Edith, born Septem- 
ber 17, 1887. 

Dennis W. Reynolds, merchant, Reyno. For 
many years Mr. Reynolds has been a prominent 
resident of Randolph County, and has enjoyed 
the reputation of being an intelligent and honorable 
business man. He possesses that shrewd busi- 
ness tact and energy which are characteristic of 
people of Illinois birth, for he was born in Jack- 
son County, of that State, in 1840, being a son of 
James M. and Elizabeth Reynolds, the former 
of whom removed from the State of North Caro- 
lina to Illinois, while it was a Territory. The father 
was a native of North Carolina, and the mother of 
Jackson County, 111. He was a farmer and hunter 
by occupation; was a participant in the War of 
1812, and two years after his wife's death, which 
occurred in 1857, he married Minerva Foster. 
He was sheriff of Jackson County for four years, 
and also held a number of minor offices in Arkan- 
sas. He was noted for his morality and charity 
and his death which occurred in 1884, at the age of 
seventy years, was a sevei-e loss to the community in 
which he resided. Dennis W. Reynolds is self- 
educated, and when only seventeen years of age 
he entered mercantile life at Cherokee Bay, which 
enterprise received his attention for three years, or 
until the war broke out. On the 1 1th of March, 
1862, he dropped all his work to enlist in the 
Seventh Missoin-i Infantry, Capt. A. G. Kelsey's 



comjiany, as a private, and was afterward pro- 
moted to the rank of sergeant and then to captain, 
which position he held until hostilities ceased. 
He was at Greenville, Mo., Little Rock, and was 
with Price on his raid through Missouri. After 
being paroled he returned to his home in this 
county, and was one of the successful husband- 
men of the county until 1875, when he established 
his present mercantile business at Corning, Clay 
County, Ark., and since 1878 has been at Reyno. 
Mr. Reynolds possesses a thorough knowledge of 
the business in which he is engaged, and has the 
necessary requisites for successfully conducting it. 
He also manages his farm and gives considerable 
attention to the propagation of stock ; and it may 
be truly said that in every enterprise in which he 
has been interested, and to which he has given his 
attention, his labors have been followed with excel- 
lent results. He has always taken a deep interest in 
the politics of the county, and although not an 
unreasonable partisan he has always been a Demo- 
crat in his political views. He is a Master Mason, 
and he and his wife, whose maiden name was Mattie 
J. Wilkis, are earnest and consistent members of 
the Baptist Church. He was lirst married in 
1861, to Miss Nancy Luttrell, but her death oc 
curred the following year at the age of eighteen 
years. She left one son, James, who died in 
1888, aged twenty-six years. His second wife was 
the widow of A. G. Kelsey, and had formerlj' been 
Miss Mary Ellis. She was born on Blue- Grass 
soil, and died in 1868, having borne two children: 
Madison A. and Elizabeth A. To him and his 
present wife have been born the following family: 
Leoa, Ervin and Pearl. Three children died in 
infancy. Mrs. Reynolds conducts a millinery es- 
tablishment in her own store, and her bonnets and 
hats are always trimmed in excellent taste and the 
latest style. Mr. Reynolds was the first to clear 
the land and build where the town of Reyno now 
stands, which place, by the way, was named in 
his honor. He erected the first dwelling house 
and hotel, and is now doing business in the first 
business house in the town. 

J. H. Richardson, ex-county judge and farmer 
of Little Black Township, was born in the State 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



423 



of Illinois on the lltb of April, 1840, and is one 
of two surviving members of a family of four chil- 
dren (the other survivor being Mary A. , wife of 
Jackson Baker, of Pike County, 111. ) born to 
Emanuel and Matilda A. (Gates) Richardson, who 
were born in Alabama and South Carolina, respect- 
ively. The father moved to Illinois in 1836, where 
he purchased land and remained until 1841, at 
which time he removed to Schuyler County, Mo., 
where he also improved a farm and remained until 
1863. From that time until 1805, he resided in 
Illinois, then came to Randolph County, where he 
made his home until his death, which occurred 
June 17, 1888. He was tirst married in 1838, to 
Miss Gates, and after her death, which occurred 
in 1850 or 1851, he espoused Miss Martha Lovett 
of Missouri, in the latter year, and by her became 
the father of one child that died in infancy. He 
was called upon to mourn the death of his second 
wife in 1854, and the same year he married Miss 
Eliza A. Wadsworth, of Pike County, 111., she 
bearing him eight children, live now living: Eliza 
E. , wife of William Lewis, of this county; John 
E. , in Sharp County, Ark. ; Jacob W. , of this 
county; Fannie E., wife of James Hogan, of this 
county, and Charles B. , also of this county. Mr. i 
Richardson and his three wives were members of 
the Baptist Church, and he was something of a 
politician, taking an active interest in the politics 
of the county. He accumulated a fine propertj' 
prior to the war, but during that time he lost 
heavily, and afterward had to commence anew, re- i 
trieving his fortunes to some extent. J. H. Rich- [ 
ardson, the immediate subject of this memoir, en- 
listed in the Confederate army at the age of twen- 
ty-one years, being under Capt. Sam Shacklett, 
and served until the (Jth of August, 1861, when he 
was severely wounded, having his right leg broken, 
and was sent home to recuperate. After remain- 
ing inactive until 186'2, he rejoined his company, 
but after serving a short time, the company was 
disbanded, and he and W. H. Tipton went to Iowa, 
thence to Illinois, remaining in the latter State 
until 18()5, when he came to Randolph County, 
locating within three miles of where he now lives, 
the summer months being spent in farming, and 



the winter months in teaching school. Like his 
father, he has always been a Democrat politically, 
and in 1874 was elected to the office of justice of 
the peace, serving in this capacity two years, and 
was then chosen county assessor, filling the office 
three successive terms. In 188'2, he was elected 
county and probate judge, holding the jwsition 
four years, and to his excellent natural abilities, 
were added the wisdom and experience of a useful 
and well-spent life, and there was no rea.son to 
view his official career with disappointment when 
he retired from the bench. He is one of the heavi- 
est tax payers of the county, and at the present 
time owns 3, 000 acres of land, of which about 600 are 
under cultivation and fence. When starting for 
himself, it was with very little means, but he has 
succeeded well in his undertakings, and deserves 
much credit for the way in which he has sur- 
mounted the difficulties which have strewn his path. 
He possesses a large fund of information, is strictly 
temperate, and is respected and esteemed by all 
for his many sterling qualities. October 3, 1867, 
he married Miss Martha J. Mansker, who was born 
in this county November 25, 1849, and to them 
were born the following children: H. L., born 
September 19, 1870; W. J., born October 30, 
1872; Martha A., born January 1, 1876; Manuel 
G., born Octobers, 1877, and Eliza L. L. , born 
August 24, 1880. Mrs. Richardson, who died 
December 30, 1883, was a faithful wife and 
mother, and was a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. In 1884, our subject married Miss 
Rebecca E. Downey, who was born on the 22d of 
February, 1848. They are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. 

David C. Roberts. Prominent among the lead- 
ing men of Randolph County, Ark., and among 
those deserving special notice for their public spirit 
and energy, is the gentleman of whom this notice 
is given. He was born in Cleveland County, 
N. C, July 23, 1833, and is a son of Thomas and 
Mary (Collins) Roberts, who were ))orn, reared and 
married in North Carolina, and after residing a 
few years in their native State after the latter 
event, moved to Cherokee County, Ga. , where 
the mother's death occurred in 1854 or 1855, when 



424 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



about thirty-five years of age. Here the father 
afterward married Rebecca Wiekett, and made 
his home until 1882, when they came to Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., where Mr. Roberts quietly 
breathed his last the following year. He had been 
an active member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church for a great many years, and while a resi- 
dent of North Carolina was engaged in farming; 
ulbo acted as overseer at the King's Mountain 
Gold Mines. When the Rebellion was in progress 
he was a member of the Home Guards in Georgia. 
His father, Stephen Roberts, was an Englishman 
by birth, and died in Alabama. David C. Roberts 
was the eighth of ten children, and at the age of 
twenty-three years he left home and commenced 
farming for himself, continuing until the mutter- 
ings of war foretold the struggle that was to 
follow, and in 1861 he enlisted in Company I, 
Twenty-third Georgia Infantry, Confederate States 
Army, and held the rank of orderly sergeant. He 
was in the battle of Seven Pines, the seven days' 
fight at Richmond, Second Manassas, South Mount- 
ain, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Mechanicsville, 
Ocean Pond, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and was 
then around Richmond until the final surrender. 
He was taken prisoner twice, first at the battle of 
Mechanicsville, but was exchanged after twenty 
days' imprisonment, and then at the close of the 
war at Appomattox. He was never wounded. He 
returned to his home in Georgia after hostilities 
ceased, and remained there until 1808, at which 
time he moved to McLean, Ky. , and three years 
later to Arkansas, and has since resided on his 
present farm, which is one of the best in the 
county. It embraces a tract of 200 acres, and is 
all bottom land with the exception of about ten 
acres. In 1851 he was married to Miss Malinda 
Finley, a daughter of Aaron Finley, of Cherokee 
County, Ga. , and her death occurred in Randolph 
County, Ark., in 1872, when about thirty-five 
years of age. She left six children (four of whom 
are now living): Stephen, John. Mary (wife of 
Ezekiel Hum, of Washington County, Ark.), 
Regina (wife of William McQuay, of Lawrence 
County, Ark. ), and Martha and Leander who 
are deceased. In 1874 Mr. Roberts married Mrs. 



Susan Deaver, of this county, and by her has 
five children: Rachel J., Thomas H. , Jacob H. , 
Richard T. and Lucy A. Mrs. Roberts' maiden 
name was Weddle, and by her first husband, Isaac 
Deaver, she became the mother of three children, 
only one of whom is living, Matilda; those de- 
ceased are Mary T. and William F. Mr. and Mrs. 
Roberts are members of the Methodist and Chris- 
tian Churches, respectively, and he is a Democrat 
in his political views, and a member of the Masonic 
fraternity. 

R. R. RufF, M. D. During a professional ca- 
reer of over twenty-three years, Dr. RufP has be 
come a successful physician, and justly deserves 
the eulogisms bestowed upon him by his profes- 
sional brethren. He was born on the 25th of 
April, 1831, and his youth was spent in assisting 
in the duties of the farm, and in attending the 
common subscription schools, where he acquired a 
fair education, but which he has since greatly im- 
proved by much study and contact with the world. 
Upon reaching the age of twenty- one years he 
commenced farming, which employment received his 
attention until the breaking out of the Rebellion, 
when he abandoned the plow and donned the 
martial trappings of war, serving in the capacity 
of recruiting officer for some time. He was never 
identified with the regular army, but was in a 
number of severe engagements and was captured 
at Huntingdon, Tenn., being paroled immediately 
thereafter. He returned home with the intention 
of remaining, but owing to the i)er8ecutions to 
which he was subjected he again began recruiting 
men, and served until the final surrender. After 
taking the oath of allegiance he returned home, 
but came soon after to Pocahontas, Ark., and 
while being employed here he energetically pur- 
sued the study of medicine during leisure mo- 
ments, and in ISHti. moved to Pittman. where he 
entered on the practice of his profession, continu- 
ing there with success until 1887. In connection 
with this he commenced merchandising in 1880, 
and also managed his three farms, of which 225 
acres were under cultivation. His annual sales 
amount to some 110,000, and he sells on time, 
giving a credit of from six to eight months, but 



y\: 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



425 



Ijuys for cash. lu 1851, Laura Eason, of Ten- 
nessee, became his wife, and their marriage re- 
sulted ia the birth of five children, Leota G., 
the wife of J. P. Shemwell, being the only one 
living; three died in infancy, and one at the 
age of fifteen years. Mrs Ruff departed this 
life in 1872, having been a consistent member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church for a number of 
years. Dr. Ruff took for his second wife Miss 
Amanda W. Legate, and by her has one child, 
born Jul}^ 15, 1873. named Horace E. The 
Doctor and this wife are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and he is a Democrat and 
a member of the A. F. & A. M. His parents, 
John and Chloe (Eason) Ruff, were born in North 
Carolina, and in 1828 emigrated to Carroll County, 
Tenn.. where he was engaged in farming, and be- 
came the owner of a number of negroes. He was 
an old line Whig and died in October, 1855, at 
the advanced age of eighty-four years, respected 
and esteemed by all who knew him. He was mar- 
ried three times, his first wife being a Miss Hodge, 
by whom he had six or seven children, four sons 
living to be grown. His second union was with ■ 
Miss Eason, which took place about 1821, in 
North Carolina. The following are the names of 
their children: James G., a physician of this 
county; S. D., who is deceased, his family being 
residents of Southeast Missouri; W. H. , who is 
also dead, his family being residents of Fore.st 
City, Ark. ; Dr. R. R. , and Jackey E. , the deceased 
wife of George M. Drew. The mother of these 
children passed to her long home in 1852, at the 
age of fifty-five years, and Mr. Ruff wedded his 
third wife, Martha Eason, in August, 1855, her 
death occurring in January, 1850. 

W. R. Russell, merchant, Pocahontas, Ark. 
The mercantile interests of Ihis portion of the 
county have been ably represented for a number 
of years by Mr. Russell. General merchandising, 
of course, necessitates the carrying of a varied as- 
sortment of goods, and in his stock Mr. Russell 
has a variety which cannot fail to satisfy every 
want of his patrons. He is a native of Randolph 
County, Ark., born in 1857, and the son of Marion 
Russell, also a native of Randolph County. Ark. 



The elder Russell was a successful tiller of the soil, 
and whim a young man was united in marriage to 
Miss Sarah Leonard, a native of Tennessee. At 
the breaking out of the Rebellion Mr. Russell 
joined the Confederate States army as lieutenant 
of Company H, Fifteenth Mist-ouri Regiment, and 
was killed at the battle of Big Blue, during Price's 
raid, in November, 18R4. The jiaterual grand 
father, James Russell, was one of the first settlers 
of Randolph County, and located about eight miles 
north of Pocahontas, where he improved a good 
farm, and there remained the balance of his days. 
W. R. Russell was one of four children l)orn to 
his parents. Two brothers are deceased, and a 
sister, Alice M., the wife of R. M. Bigger, is now 
residing in Little Black Township, Randolph 
County. The subject of this sketch was educated 
in the private schools of his native county, and at 
the age of twenty- one commenced working for him- 
self. He first came to Pocahontas, and engaged 
as salesman for Levi Hecht, for whom he clerked 
eighteen months. After this he fanned for three 
years, and then again came to Pocahontas, where 
he engaged as a clerk for R. Nicholas, remaining 
with him three years, when he established his 
present business, and now has a good substan 
tial trade on a cash basis. He was married, in 
1880, to Miss Mary E. Ulmer, a native of Indiana. 
They have two children: Ina and Pearly. Mr. 
and Mrs. Russell are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and each takes an active part in 
church work. He owns a farm of 210 acres, 
seventy-five under cultivation, and is a man who 
manifests a deep interest in all j)ublic enterprises. 
J. C. Sanders. Among the native residents of 
the State of Georgia, and closely identified with its 
progress and development for many years were the 
Sanders family, a respected representative of whom 
is found in the subject of this sketch, who was 
born in that State in 1843. His parents, James 
and Eliza (Covington) Sanders, were born in 
Georgia (in 1804) and Virginia, respectively; the 
father was reared in his native State, and there fol 
lowed the occupation of a planter until 1880. when 
his death occurred. The motiier died in Texas in 
1884, aged seventy-five years. The paternal grand 




father was liorn in South Carolina, and lived in 
Georgia. He was of Irish lineage. Like so many 
of the substantial citizens of this county at the 
present time, J. C. Sanders was initiated into the 
mysteries of farm life from the very first, and this 
has continued to be the calling to which he has di- 
rected his attention. While a resident of his na- 
tive State he joined the Confederate army in 1861, 
and was in active service four years. He was at 
Gaines' Mill, Gettysburg, Petersburg, the Wil- 
derness and numerous other engagements of less 
note, and was wounded thirteen times. He was a 
private in the Twenty-seventh Georgia Regiment. 
After the war he left the State of Georgia and emi- 
grated to Missouri, thence to Arkansas and after- 
ward to Texas. After remaining in that State for 
some time he returned to Arkansas, and has here 
made his hopae up to the present time. His lands 
in this county amount to 400 acres, and he has 
225 acres under cultivation. He was married in 
1862 to Miss Jane Williams, and to their union 
have been born five children : Henry, Callie (who 
is dead). Morris (who died at the age of twenty 
years, in 1888), Jimmy and Tommy. His second 
wife was Miss Sarah Dean, who bore him four 
children: Bob, Charley, Alfred and Annie. Mr. 
Sanders has always been a Democrat in his political 
views. 

A. Z. Schnabaum, merchant, Pocahontas, Ark. 
Among the many enterprises necessary to com- 
plete the commercial resources of a town or city, 
no one is of more importance to the community 
than that of the general merchant. Prominent 
in this trade is Mr. Schnabaum, who deals in 
dry goods, hardware, implements and groceries. 
Mr. Schnabaum is of foreign birth, Austria being 
his native country. He first saw the light of day 
in the year 1864, and after reaching a suitable ago 
was educated in 'a mercantile college in his na- 
tive land. He left school at the age of nearly 
seventeen, and in 1881 emigrated to America. He 
stopped in New York Cily for six months as a 
clerk; then went to Pennsylvania, where he re- 
mained but a short time, and then came to Poca- 
hontas, Ark. Here he engaged as a clerk for R, 
Nicholas, remaining with him three years, and then 



continued in the same capacity for Imboden. with 
whom he remained a few months. At the expira- 
tion of that time he engaged in business fcSr him- 
self, having judiciously saved his money, and now 
carries all the way from $6,000 to $16,000 worth 
of goods, the annual sales amounting to over 
$35,000. He has from two to four clerks, and car- 
ries on a thriving business. He is also the owner 
of a cotton-gin, and buys and sells cotton at this 
place. He has never been married. He is the son 
of H. and G. Schnabaum. natives of Austria, who 
have died since A. Z. came to America. The father 
was a man of considerable means, and was a dis- 
tiller of liquor and a drover by occupation. Mr. 
Schnabaum is a stirring business man and an en- 
terprising citizen. He is pleasant and agreeable 
in his manners, and the large trade which he now 
has is fully merited. 

Jacob Schoonover, retired farmer, Pocahontas, 
Ark. The subject of this sketch is one of the hon- 
ored pioneers of Randolph County. He has been 
located here for a period of over twenty-nine years, 
and has not only become well known, but the re- 
. spect and esteem shown him are as wide as his ac- 
quaintance. His tine farm of 200 acres is adorned 
with an attractive and commodious house, and 
the large mill and cotton-gin which he operates 
deserve special attention. He is a native of Hones- 
dale. Penn. . and is a son of Daniel and Eliza 
(Jacks) Schoonover, both of whom are also natives 
of the Keystone State. Jacob Schoonover went to 
California when twenty- one years of age, or in 
1852, by way of the Isthmus, and remained there 
until September, 1856, engaged in mining and 
teaming. He then returned to his native State, 
remained there about a year, and then in 1857 
went to Minnesota, where he spent another year. 
In 1858 he came to Arkansas, settled in Marion 
County, and engaged in photographing, which he 
continued for three years, traveling in the mean- 
time over Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Mis 
souri. He happened to be in Randolph County 
when the war broke out, and in 1862 he enlisted in 
Shaver's regiment, Tappin's brigade, and served 
until June, 1865. in the Confederate army. He was 
regimental quartermaster. After the close of the 



^« spV 



L^ 



EANDOLPH COUNTY. 



42"; 



conflict be returned to Randolph County, re- 
mained a few months, and then proceeded to the 
State of his nativity, where be sojourned six months, 
visiting his parents. Subsequently he returned to 
this county, and engaged as salesman in the store 
of Green R. Jones, remaining thus employed for 
two years. He then bought a partnership, and 
this continued until 1873. Three years later he 
was elected circuit clerk of Randolph County, and 
tilled this position in a very acceptable manner for 
six years. After this he was engaged in farming 
and trading. He was first married in 1870 to Miss 
Martha J. Wear, a native of Pennsylvania, who 
bore him the following named children: Eugene G., 
now in Pennsylvania; Herbert, Addie C. and Parke 
T. The mother of these childi'en died on the 22d 
of December, 1878, and Mr. Schoonover was mar- 
ried the second time, on the 5th of January, 1882, 
to Miss Ella Bolen, a native of the Blue Grass 
State Two children are the fruit of this union: 
Robert and Jacob. Mr. Schoonover is a Royal 
Arch Mason, and a member of the K. of H. He 
has ever taken an active part in politics and pub- 
lic affairs, and has done much to build up every 
enterprise for the common good. 

Vincent Segi-aves is a successful merchant of 
the county, and was born here on the 2(3th of Feb- 
ruary, 1839, being a son of Vincent and Lavina 
(Lacy) Segraves, who were born in South Caro 
lina and Knox County, Tenn., in 1789. and 1814, 
and died in Randolph County, Ark., in 1870 and 
1S71, respectivel}'. The father left his native 
State when he was a young man, and went to Ten- 
nessee, and afterward removed to Illinois, and 
from there to Arkansas, in 1833, being one of the 
very first settlers of Randolph County. He was a 
farmer, and as such was one of the most success- 
ful men in this part of the State; in connection 
with this work he kept a distillery. During the 
War of 1812 he was a soldier, belonging to Jackson's 
Guard, and with him participated in the battles 
I if New Orleans and Pensacola. He was a well- 
known and prominent citizen of Arkansas, and 
hail been a life-long Democrat. He and wife were 
memliers of the Baptist Church, and were the par- 
ents of eight children, five of whom are living. 



Vincent was the seventh of the family, and received 
his early education in Randolph County. He re- 
mained on his father's farm until twenty-five years 
of age, then commenced to farm for himself; but 
his labors in this direction were interru])ted by the 
war. In 1801 he enlisted in the Confederate serv- 
ice, and the following year joined Company A, of 
the Twenty fifth Arkansas Infantry, and was an 
active worker for the Southern cause until the 
close of the war, holding the rank of lieutenant, 
and taking part in the engagements at Murfrees- 
boro, Richmond, Ky. , and was with Price on his 
raid through Missouri and Kansas, but was never 
wounded or taken prisoner. He has since been 
engaged in farming, and in connection has followed 
merchandising since 1886, at which time he formed 
a partnership with W. E. Hibbard, but at the end 
of nine months became associated with J. W. 
Witherford. He owns fertile lands to the amount 
of 120 acres, and has sixty-five acres under cul- 
tivation. In 1866 he married Caroline Waddle, 
who was born in Randolph County, Ark , in 1842, 
and is a daughter of Henry Waddle. She and 
Mr. Segraves are the parents of nine children: 
Frances B., wife of Lewis A. Manning; Rufus H. , 
William J., Emanuel W. , John H. , Detty Ann, 
Mary Emma, Sula W. and Agnes. Mrs. Se- 
graves is a member of the United Baptist Church. 
Mr. Segraves is a stanch Democrat in his political 
views. 

G. A. Seel, M. D. , of Warm Springs, Ark. , and 
proprietor of the springs of that name, was born in 
Georgetown, Ohio, in 1855, and is a eon of V. F. 
and C. A. (Houck) Seel, who were married in the 
State of Ohio in 1854, and moved to Kentucky 
about a year later. The father followed merchan- 
dising and farming in Bracken County, Ky., and 
was moderately successful in business. He was a 
man of superior education, and was able to speak 
three or foui' different languages. He served under 
Gen. Taylor in the Mexican War, and was with him 
in all the battles in which he took part. He was 
born in 1819, and his wife in 1816, and both their 
deaths occurred in 1888. He was a Democrat in 
his political views. He and his wife reared a family 
of seven children: Catherine, Peter, F. W. , G. A., 



\ 



4i 



428 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



V. F., Henry, and Mary C. While growing 
up, G. A. Seel had excellent advantages for ac- 
quiring a good education, and to say that he fully 
improved his opportunities woiild be only speaking 
the truth. After attending the free school of his 
section until sixteen years of age he entered Hig- 
giusport high school, but left that institution at the 
age of seventeen, and began traveling, so continuing 
until he was about twenty years of age, at which 
time he returned to Kentucky, and remained there 
for nearly one year, assisting his father on the 
farm. He then began traveling again, continuing 
two years, and became familiar with some of the 
finest points of interest in the United States. He 
located in New Madrid, Mo., where he became 
conductor on the Little River Valley & Arkansas 
Railroad, and as such continued for four years. 
He then tilled the same pcsition on the Cotton 
Belt road for about one year, and daring this time 
his leisure moments were spent in studying chem- 
istry. In the latter part of 1880 he engaged in 
the di'ug business at Doniphan, Mo., and after 
continuing there one year he devoted his time and 
attention the two following years to the study of 
chemistry under Profs. Detmer and Stille,of the St. 
Louis Dairy Company's Laboratory. From there 
he went to Chanute, Kas. , where he established a 
private laboratory, remaining in that place until 
the fall of 1885. During the two years he spent 
in this place he was studying medicine under Drs. 
Webb & Brown of the Eclectic school, and after- 
ward underwent an examination before the Kansas 
medical board, consisting of eight men, and secured 
a certificate to practice. He became a member of 
the Eclectic Medical Association of that State, and 
after leaving there in the fall of 1885, he came to 
Randolph County, and located at Warm Springs, 
where he passed an examination before the board 
in 1885, and immediately entered upon the prac- 
tice of his profession. Since coming here he has 
graduated from the St. Louis College of Physicians 
and Surgeons, and has made a special study of 
operative and opthalmic surgery under the able 
instructions of Profs. Louis Bower, A. C. Bernays 
and John Glancis, being now a successful surgeon 
and physician. He was married, October 14, 



1885, to Miss Ella S. Kibler, of Water Valley, this 
county, and by her became the father of two chil- 
dren: Leona C. (deceased), and G. A., Jr. ili-s. , 
Seel is a native of Arkansas. The Doctor belongs 
to the K. of P. , and in his political views is a 
Democrat. In 1888 he and Capt. J. J. Hand 
werker, of Memphis, Tenn. , purchased the famous 
warm springs of this place, which in days gone 
by were used by the Indians as a health resort, 
this being as early as 1818, when the first settlers 
began to come into the region. The first hotel put 
up near the place was in 1840, by a man named 
Rice, and after his death the property fell to his 
heirs. In 1874, it was purchased from them by 
Dalton, Kibler & Waddle, who erected a substan- 
tial hotel there the same year and put up bath 
houses, bowling alley, etc. They also inclosed two 
and one-half acres with a nice fence, and in this 
inclosure are sixty springs, with three different 
kinds of water, chalybeate, sulphur and carbonate. 
The largest spring is carbonate water, containing 
160 cubic inches of carbonic acid gas to the gallon, 
making it the equal of the famous chalybeate 
Vichy waters of Europe. In addition to this it 
also contains iodine and lithia. The springs are 
accessible by the following stage routes: Doniphan, 
Pocahontas, the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & South- 
ern Railroad and the Kansas City & Memphis 
Railroad. The climate in the locality of the 
springs is fine, and the Doctor's manner of treat- 
ing diseases in the way of baths can not be excelled, 
for hot, cold and electric baths can be secured at 
any time. The citizens in the locality contemplate 
erecting a high-school, and the place can then be 
utilized as a point for securing both a good educa- 
tion and the benefit of the health restoring waters 
of the springs. The country is very beautiful 
hereabouts, and the streams abound with fish and 
the woods with deer, turkeys, squirrels, quail, etc. . 
making it a sportsman's paradise. 

James F. Shaver, who is one of the successful 
farmers of Warm Springs Township, was born in 
Randolph County, Ark., in September. 1833, and 
is a son of John and Nancy (Cook) Shaver, who 
were boi'n in Georgia. They were married in 
Alabama, about 18'23, and in 1S28 came to Arkan- 



EANDOLPH COUNTY. 



429 



sas, settling iu this count}-, where they purchased 
and also entered some Government land. Wild 
animals of all kinds roamed the woods at will at 
this time, and in some places the forests were 
almost impenetrable, but it can be said of John 
Shaver that, with the courage and perseverance 
which marked the lives of so many of our pioneers. 

He chopped, lie logged, he cleared his lot, 
And into many a dismal spot 
He let the light of da_y. 

His neighbors were from ten to fifteen miles 
distant, and at that time wagons were a rare 
sight, but small trucks were made by sawing large 
logs in two, the wheels being of solid wood —even 
these rude conveyances being few and far between. 
The nearest flouring-mill, which was twenty-five 
miles away, could only be reached by crossing two 
rivers, and owing to the ditSculty of doing this, 
the settlers had to resort to the old-fashioned pes- 
tle. The first flouring-mill put up in this part of 
the county was on the old Rtissell place, and was 
run by horse power. This was about the year 
183S. He and his wife were born in 1800 and 
179S, and died in 1850 and 1858, respectively. 
They were members of the Christian Church, and 
became the parents of eleven children, eight liv- 
ing to ho grown: M"illiaui, who resides in Webster 
County, Mo., is a minister in the Christian Chnrch; 
Robert, who died leaving a family in this county; 
Alexander, also deceased, his family being residents 
of the county ; Peter, Martha, widow of C. Johnson ; 
Caroline, the deceased wife of John Johnson; 
Nancy, wife of Jesse Johnson, and John, who 
was killed at the battle of Shiloh in 1862, while 
serving in the Confederate army. The other chil- 
dren died in infancy. James F. Shaver had very 
poor educational advantages in his youth, and al- 
though he attended the old fashioned subscription 
schools long enough to learn to read, he did not 
attend suflficiently long to learn to write. In 1852 
he married Miss Elizabeth Waddle, a native of 
the county, born in ISSfj, and to them were born 
the following family: Alexander, born December 
23, 1853; J. H., born August 2, 1855; Louis M., 
born December 22, 1857; Sarah E., wife of Eli 
Morris, born January 2, 1859; Jacob S., born Oc- 



tober (>, 1861; James F., Jr., born November 2, 
1863; Matilda A., born January 14, 1866, wife of 
Jeff Morris ; R. L. , bom A pril 4, 1 868, Peter M. , born 
December 20, 1869; William M., born August 27, 
1871; PermeliaE., born January 14, 1874, and Jo- 
seph A., born February 28, 1876. In 1862 Mr. 
Shaver joined the Confederate army; he was with 
Price on his last raid through Missouri in 1864, and 
was a participant in a number of battles and skir- 
mishes. Pilot Knob and Blue Lick being among the 
number. After his surrender, which occurred at 
Jacksonport, Ark., in June, 1865, became home and 
engaged immediately in farming, entering at first 
160 acres of land, and now has eighty under cul- 
tivation. He is also engaged in raising horses and 
cattle of a good grade. Mr. Shaver is a public - 
spirited citizen, is a Democrat in his political views, 
and he and his wife are members of the Christian 
Church, as are nearly all their children. Mrs. 
Shaver is a daughter of Henry and Sarah (Big 
gers) Waddle, Tennesseeans by birth, who came 
to Arkansas about 1832, and here married the fol- 
lowing year. Their children were Lucinda. wife 
of Peter Shaver; Matilda (deceased), vSarah (John- 
son), Susan (Roberts), Jefferson (deceased), Jake, 
Caroline (Graves), Marietta L. (Hawk), George and 
James (twins), and Elizabeth, wife of our subject. 
The parents died in 1849 and 1862, aged fifty and 
sixty years, respectively. 

Col. Thomas S. Simington. The name that 
heads this sketch is that of one of the oldest set- 
tlers of this vicinity, whose entire life in this 
county has been such as to win him the respect and 
esteem of all who are favored with his acquaint- 
ance. His father, Robert Simington, was a Scotch- 
man who emigrated to the United States when 
twenty-two years of age, and being of an adven- 
turous turn of mind, and nothing daunted by the 
talk of Indian troubles, determined to seek his 
fortune in the " far West," and accordingly pushed 
on westward. From the city of Pittsburgh, Penn. . 
he floated down the Ohio River on a flatboat, and 
made a landing at Cincinnati, Ohio, which place 
then consisted of two cabins, and from there went 
overland to Fayette County, Ky., becoming one of 
the verv first settlers of that State. While making 



430 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the toilsome journey to this State he was fre- 
quently surrounded by Indians, having trouble 
with them at various times, and bad frequently to 
depend on the block-houses for protection. After 
making his home in Fayette County for some time, 
he removed to Hem-y County, of the same State, 
where he made his home until 1827, when he re- 
moved to Jefferson County, Ind. , for the pmpose 
of educating his children and giving them the ad- 
vantages of Hanover College. He came to the 
United States without means, but possessing the 
sterling characteristics of his ancestors he was very 
successful in his farming enterprises, and at the 
time of his death in 1849, at the age of seventy-six 
years, he was quite a wealthy citizen. He lavished 
his wealth freely in educating his children, was al- 
ways a kind and considerate father, and his mem- 
ory is still respected and revered by them to a 
wonderful degree. He was a stanch Whig in 
politics, and was in favor of colonizing the colored 
race. His wife, Nancy McWilliams by name, was 
born in Virginia, and removed with her parents to 
Kentucky when she was a young girl, and in that 
State she was married to Mr. Simington. She died 
in Jefferson County, Ind., about two years after 
the death of her husband, when about sixty-foixr 
years of age. Both she and her husband were 
members of the Presbyterian Church, ai)d for many 
years he was an elder in that church, and was hold- 
ing that position at the time of his death. Of the 
seven daughters and live sons born to their union 
nine lived to maturity, and four are living at the 
present time: Robert S. , who has been a Presby- 
terian minister since a young man, and is now lo- 
cated at San Diego, Cal. ; Martha R. , widow of 
William Finley, and is now residing in Independ- 
ence, Mo. ; Myra, widow of Gen. Lucas, also located 
at Independence, and Col. Thomas S. The latter, 
owing to his father's liberality, received an ex- 
cellent education in Hanover College, and when 
nineteen years of age he went to Boonville, Mo., 
where he was engaged in teaching school and clerk- 
ing for several years. After residing in Palestine, 
111., for about three years, he moved to Randolph 
County, Ark. , and has since been actively engaged 
in farming, the first few years being also spent in 



wielding the ferule. He is now the owner of some 
of the best farming lands in the county, and is one 
of the prosperous citizens. He served as county 
surveyor prior to the Rebellion, and in 1861 was 
elected sheriff and collector of the county. The 
following year he organized a company to serve 
thirty days in the Confederate army, then enlisted 
in Company A, and was made first lieutenant. He 
was soon after elected lieutenant-colonel of the 
Twenty-fifth Infantry, but after serving two years 
was discharged on account of disability. He was 
at the battles of Tupelo and Perry ville, and al- 
though his loss in money matters was very heavy 
during the war, he has been very successful in ac- 
cumulating worldly goods. January 1, 1852, he 
was united in marriage with Miss Emily B. Russell, 
a daughter of one of the oldest settlers of Ran- 
dolph County, Ark., Col. James G. Russell. She 
was born in the county July 20, 183;i Her 
union with Mr. Simington was blessed in the birth 
of eight childien, of whom two died in infancy and 
six are now living: Williamson T. and Francis L., 
farmers of the county; Ida J., wife of Benjamin 
F. Bigger of Pocahontas; Thomas F., a merchant 
of Eastern Texas; Minnie and Mattie, at home. 
The family attend the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, of which Mr. Simington is a trustee and 
steward. He is one of the oldest Masons in the 
county, and although a Whig in politics until 1856, 
he has since been a Democrat. He has always 
been a public spirited citizen, and is a patron of 
education and all worthy enterprises. 

James Henry Skaggs was born on the 2d of 
August, 1840, near Danby. Jefferson County, Mo. , 
and is the son of Henry Skaggs, the grandson of 
Stephen Skaggs, and the great-grandson of James 
Skaggs, who was a native of Virginia, a man of 
great physical strength and activity, and of whom 
it is said that he settled in Kentucky before 
Daniel Boone. Stephen Skaggs was also a native 
of Virginia, his birth occurring about 1764. He 
died in Kentucky in 1814. His wife's maiden 
name was Miss Nancy Andrews, who was bom in 
the year 1766, and died in Kentucky in 1862. 
Henry Skaggs (father of the subject of this sketch) 
was born in Green Countv, K v. , on the 6th of June, 



& 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



431 



1807, aad came to Jeffersou County, Mo., in 1833, 
bought a tract of laad of several hundred acres, 
and this he improved and cultivated. He devoted 
the remainder of his life to farming and the raising 
of tine horses. He died on the 9th of September, 
1866. His wife, Mrs. Mary (Eagelbarger) Skaggs, 
vpas born on the 7th of October, 1814, and was a 
woman of sujierior intelligence and firmness of 
character. She received her final summons in 
Jefferson County, Mo., in September, 1866. The 
maternal grandfather of our subject, John M. 
Eagelbarger, was a native of Germany, born in 
1784, and came to the United States in 1800, 
landing at Savannah, Ga. He came to Missoiu'i at 
an early day, and here followed his trade, that of 
a gunsmith. He died in Jeffersou County, Mo., 
on the 3d of July, 1829. His wife's maiden 
name was Unity Carlin, a sister of ex- Governor 
Carlin of Illinois, and a woman of great courage 
and determination. James Henry Skaggs (the 
subject of this sketch), was taught the principles 
of farming in early life, and in 1861 he joined the 
Confederate army under the command of Gen. 
Jeff. Thompson, served about eight months, and 
was discharged on account of sickness. He then 
followed school teaching for about six years, two of 
which were spent in Monroe County, 111., and the 
remainder in Jefferson and St. Francois Counties, 
Mo. During the period of teaching he gave his 
spare time to the study of medicine. Later he en- 
gaged in dealing in live stock and in merchandis- 
ing, which he continued two years. In 1870 he 
came to Clay County, Ark. , and followed farming 
and buying stock. He selected for his companion 
in life Miss Eliza James, and was united in mar- 
riage to her in 1873. They had two children, 
both of whom died in youth. Mrs. Skaggs died on 
the 19th of March, 1875. After that Mr. Skaggs 
accepted a position as collecting agent for Levi 
Hecht & Bros., at Pocahontas, which he held for 
over a year. In 1876, on the 17th of December, 
he was married to Mrs. Serena J. Russell, a native 
of Louisiana, and whose maiden name was Kil- 
crease. Mr. Skaggs then turned his attention 
once more to farming. In 1882 he was elected 
county surveyor, which office he filled with ability 



and credit. For the past few years he has been 
extensively engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 
also in the timber business, in which he has been 
very successful. He now owns over 4,000 acres 
of land and has 800 acres under cultivation. Mr. 
Skaggs is five feet eleven inches in height, and 
weighs 250 pounds. In middle life he was very 
strong and active, and was well trained in Olympic 
games, as was also his father. Mr. Skaggs after 
receiving a common-school education was for sev- 
eral terms under the tutorage of Mr. Robert A. 
Booth, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Ire- 
land, with whom our subject, among other things, 
completed mathematics as far as calculus. He has 
taken an active part in public affairs, and is alive 
to the interests of his country, is willing to do his 
part in forwarding all enterprises for public good, 
and is an important commercial factor of Ran- 
dolph County. 

Will H. Skinner, druggist, Pocahontas, Ark. 
Holding the leading place among the druggists of 
the town of Pocahontas is the above-mentioned 
gentleman. The business he now conducts was 
established by him in 1886, and he has built it up 
to its present enviable position by upright and 
honorable dealing, by understanding the wants of 
the public and anticipating them; also by keeping 
nothing but the best and most reliable goods, so 
that whatever is purchased at "Skinner's" can 
be implicitly relied upon. This gentleman was 
born in Guernsey County, Ohio, and is the son of 
Alfred and Mary (Virtue) Skinner, the father a 
native of the "Buckeye State," and the mother 
of Maryland. Alfred Skinner was a manufacturer 
of and dealer in saddles. He was a gentleman of 
education, was well versed in law matters, and lie 
ing a leader in politics was called upon by the peo- 
ple to fill many offices of trust in the county and 
township. He and his wife were faithful members 
of the Presbyterian Church. They reared to ma- 
turity a family of eight children, all living: Mary 
C. , a stenographer at Baltimore, Md. : Helen M. , 
a teacher in Baltimore; Nola, in Washington, 
Ohio; Fannie, also in Washington, Ohio; Anice 
P., wife of C. L. Ferguson, of Columbus, Ohio; 
Will H. , Laura, a teacher in Baltimore, Md. ; 




Alfred, a harness and saddlery merchant and 
manufacturer, of Washington, Ohio. The father 
of these children died May 22, 1889, at the age of 
sixty-eight years, and the mother died in May, 
1871, at the age of forty-eight years. Will H. 
Skinner was educated in the public schools of 
AVashington, Ohio, and graduated at the age of 
eighteen. Immediately afterward he commenced 
the study of pharmacy, which he continued in his 
native town until 1885, when he came to Pocahon- 
tas, Ark., and established himself in the same 
business. He now has the largest trade of that 
kind in the county, and in connection with drugs 
he keeps books, stationery, paints, oils, tobacco, 
cigars, and in fact everything necessary for a first- 
class store. Mr. Skinner is a member of the pres- 
ent city council, and is one of the representative 
citizens of the county. His paternal grandfather. 
Judge William Skinner, was a soldier in the Rev- 
olutionarv War, and was one of the oldest business 
men of Washington, Ohio, where he established 
the harness and saddlery business, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son, Alfred Skinner, who in turn 
was succeeded by his son, Alfred Skinner, now a 
prominent manufacturer and trader in that line. 
The firm of which the younger Alfred Skinner is 
a member is widely known in that part of the 
State of Ohio. 

H. A. Slaughter, M. D., is one of the very 
foremost among the professional men of the county, 
and has won an enviable repalation as a practi- 
tioner of the " healing art. " He possesses ad- 
vanced ideas and progressive principles regarding 
his profession, and is gifted with a full share of the 
sterling characteristics of the native Kentuckian. 
His birth occurred on the 14th of August, 1839, 
and he is the tenth of twelvo children, five of 
whom are living, born to the marriage of French 
G. and Mary W. (Anthony) Slaughter, who were 
born in the Blue Grass State and the "Old Do- 
minion," respectively. The father followed hus- 
bandry throughout life, and although he had an 
excellent knowledge of the law, having studied it 
in his early manhood, he never practiced. He 
held many different offices in Nelson County, Ky., 
such as justice of the peace and sheriff, and died 



in that State in 1871 at the age of seventy-seven 
years. His wife also died there, she having been 
an earnest and consistent member of the Presby- 
terian Church for many years. The paternal 
grandfather, James Slaughter, was a Virginian, 
who died in Kentucky. Dr. H. A. Slaughter re- 
ceived the rudiments of his education in Winslow, 
Graves County, Ky., and from the time he was 
eighteen years of age iintil the breaking out of the 
war he was engaged in farming. He then enlisted 
in Company L, of the Eighth Kentucky Cavalry. 
but after serving faithfully for two years he was 
discharged on account of disability, and after re- 
turning home located in Kenton's Station, where 
he spent about three years. He also studied med- 
icine during this time under Dr. David Yandall, 
and afterward pursued his studies in the Louisville 
Medical College. From 1868 to 1870 he resided 
in Ballard County, Ky., and then took up his 
abode in Randolph County, Ark., where he has 
since been actively engaged in the practice of his 
profession, the large extent of territory over which 
he travels speaking louder than mere words can 
do of the estimation in which he is held by the 
public as a member of the medical fraternity. 
Politically he supports Democratic principles; he 
is a Royal Arch Mason, and belongs to the Chris- 
tian Chiu'ch. 

John F. Spikes, who is one of the substantial 
and progressive agriculturists of the county, was 
born here on the 20th of February. 1836, and is 
one of a family of seven children who were born to 
the marriage of Joseph Spikes and Permelia Wad- 
dell, who were born in Hawkins County, Tenn.. in 
1806 and 1805, and died in 1853 and 1864, respect- 
ively. They were married in their native State, 
and moved to Arkansas, being among the very first 
families to settle in what is now Randolph Countj'. 
Mr. Spikes was engaged in farming and trading, 
and in every enterprise to which he turned his at- 
tention he met with good returns. He was sheriff 
of Randolph County for many years, and was 
filling the duties of this position at the time of his 
death. He was a Democrat, and he and his wife 
were members of the Methodist Episcopal Cliurfh. 
John F. Spikes received fair educational advan- 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



433 



tages in his youth, and made his home with his 
mother until a short time before her death, when i 
he started out in life for himself. After the war he 
was left without means, but as he inherited some 
of his father' s excellent business qualities, coupled 
with his energy and enterprise, he has succeeded 
far beyond his expectations, and is now the owner 
of 840 acres of some of the best land in the 
county. When barelj' twenty-one years of age he 
was elected constable, and served in this capacity 
for eighteen years, then positively declined to serve 
farther. In 1874 he was elected county sheriff, 
and at the end of the term, although solicited by 
many to again become a candidate, he declined to 
put up his name. Although he is a non-partisan, 
he has always supported the men and measures of 
the Democratic party. He is a Mason, and he and 
his wife, whom he married February 7, 1863, and 1 
whose maiden name was Martha E. Mock, are both 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Mrs. Spikes was born in Randolph Coimty 
in 1840, and is a daughter of Matthias Mock. 
To their union eight children have been born: 
Amanda P. (wife of Franklin Tiner, a farmer and 
teacher of the county), Mary J., James C, Will- 
iam A., John W., Sulah M. , Thomas F. and Jo- 
seph A. , all at home. 

Samuel E. Spikes. Among the families who 
were early settlers of the State of Arkansas, was 
that of which the subject of this sketch is a worthy 
member, although the exact date of their settle- 
ment is unknown. He himself was born on the 
farm where he now lives, May 15, 1840, and is 
one of three surviving members of a family of four 
children born to William and Mary L. (Masters) 
Spikes, who were born in Hawkins County. Tenn. , 
and near Charleston, S. C, in 1784 and 1802, and 
died in 1855 and 1881, respectively. At the time 
they located in Randolph County^ Ark., the set- 
tlers were very scarce, and the nearest neighbor 
was eight miles away. He cleared a farm on 
which he resided until his death, and in addition 
to managing this farm he carried on the cooper's 
and wheelwright's trades which he had learned in 
his youth. He was a successful financier, but was 
rather improvident and spent his money freely, 



laying up but very little for a rainy day. He was 
an active worker in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, of which he had been a member for many 
years, and in his political views was a Democrat. 
His wife, whose maiden name was Mary L. Mas- 
ters, was first married to a Mr. Alexander, and 
with him moved to Arkansas, where he was after- 
ward drowned. She then wedded Mr. Spikes, 
being his third wife, and by him became the 
mother of the following children; Samuel E., Eliz- 
abeth C. (widow of George Kerzey), Mary P. 
(widow of Madison Gallich), and two others de- 
ceased, one of whom was L. F., who died while 
serving in the Confederate army. Mr. Spikes' 
first union resulted in the birth of six children: 
Joseph W. , who was the third sheriff of Randolph 
County, and died in New Orleans; Jesse, John 
William, Martha and Nancy, all of whom died in 
the same county, except Nancy who died in Texas. 
Samuel E. Spikes enlisted, in 18(12, in Capt. B. 
Shores' company. Col. Adams' regiment, and served 
until the close of the war, being a participant in the 
battles of Cane Hill and Delhi. After his return 
home he was married to Miss Mary Frances Stone, 
a daughter of Rufus Stone. She was born in 
Tennessee, May (3, 1847, and died in Randolph 
CoiTnty, Ark., December 24, 1882, having borne a 
family of eight children, seven now living: Will- 
iam R. , Samuel E. , Mary C, Martha J., Fannie 
E., Robert A. and Francis M. A daughter named 
Eliza A., was born April 9, 1S70, and died No- 
vember 24, 1887. Our subject started in life 
without means, but by his own energy and good 
management he is now one of the wealthy resi- 
dents of the county. He is a Mason in good stand- 
ing, and is a Democrat in his political views. 
After his marriage, his mother made her home 
with him until her death. 

Mrs. Alice L. Surridge, widow of Robert Sur- 
ridge, and a lady of culture and refinement, was 
born in Jackson County, Tenn., and is the daugh- 
ter of A. W. W. Brooks, one of the prominent 
and wealthy farmers of Randolph County, whose 
sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. 
Surridge came to Arkansas with her parents when 
a child, was reared on a farm and received her 



« k^ 



484 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



education at Warm' Springs high school. Wlien 
twenty-one years of age she was united in marriage 
to Mr. Robert Surridge, a native of Missouri, born 
May S, 1862. Heaven bles.sed this union with 
tliree children : Sudie, Lena and Robert Caldwell. 
Mr. Surridge was engaged in the gi'ocery business 
at Pocahontas, and was an excellent business man 
and, above all, thoroughly honest. He continued 
in this business until his death, which occurred 
February 28, 1889. It is sad to think of death in 
connection with the young, and especially so with 
regard to Mr. Surridge, who, with his wife and lit- 
tle children around him, was full of business and 
enterprise until the grim destroyer entered and 
laid him low. Mrs. Surridge is the owner of 880 
acres of land, and also considerable town property. 
James F. Sutton is a farmer residing near Po- 
cahontas, Ark., and was born in Tennessee Feb- 
ruary 18, 1828. He is one of six sons and six 
daughters born to the marriage of Forester and 
Mary (McNiece) Sutton, who spent the greater 
portion of their lives in Marshall County, Tenn. , 
and there resided until their respective deaths. 
James F. was the eldest of their children, and re- 
mained in his native State until 1852, at which 
time he settled in Southwest Missouri; three 
years later he came to Randolph County, Ark. , and 
here has made his home up to the present date, 
with the excejstion of the time spent in the army. 
He joined the Confederate forces in 1861, becom- 
ing a member of Company H, Col. Shaver's regi- 
ment of infantry, and was a private until the sur- 
render of Little Rock, Ark. , and was on the In- 
firmary corps until the battle at Cane Hill He 
returned to the duties of farm life after the battle 
of Little Rock, and has pursued the occupation of | 
husbandry on his 160 acre farm ever since. This 
land he purchased prior to the war, paying 12J 
cents per acre, and he now has seventy five acres 
in an excellent state of cultivation. While he has 
never held any oflice of public trust, yet he is a 
man who does all in his power to assist in the im- I 
provement of his county; is a liberal supporter 
of worthy movements, and is a strong advocate of 
flee schools. Politically he is a Republican. His 
marriage with Miss Anna Noblin occurred in 1849, 



and by her he became the father of eleven children, 
five of whom are now living: G. W. , who resides 
in the county; F. M. ; Mary E., wife of John Kiu- 
caid; Samuel T. and Benjamin F. His wife and 
eldest three children are members of the Baptist 
Church. Prior to the Rebellion he served in the 
State militia as first lieutenant, and has held the 
same position since. 

Richard Sweeza. In giving a history of Ran- 
dolph County. Ark., the name of Mr. Sweeza 
deserves honorable mention, for he has always 
been industrious and enterprising, and has ever 
aided enterprises which tend to the interests of the 
county. He was born near where he novp lives, on 
the Ist of February, 1837, and is one of two sur- 
viving members (the other survivor being Nancy 
Jane, the wife of Joseph Thomas, a farmer of the 
county) of a family of nine children born to Rich- 
ard and Matilda (Bigger) Sweeza, both of whom 
were born in Missouri, former's birth occurring 
in Carter County. They were reared to maturity 
and married in that State, and after the celebration 
of their nuptials they resided in Carter County 
several years, then came to Randolph County, 
Ark., being among the very first settlers of the 
county. The country was full of Indians and 
wild animals at that time, but Mr. Sweeza began 
to clear a farm, and followed this occupation in con- 
nection with blacksmithing throughout life, accu- 
mulating thereby a large amount of property. He 
died in 1841, when a comparatively young man, 
his widow afterward becoming the worthy com- 
panion of Randolph Cook, of Illinois, and her 
death occurred in that State, in 1855. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Sweeza were members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, and he was of French 
descent. Richard Sweeza, the immediate subject 
of this sketch, received his early education at 
home, and made his home with his stepfather, Mr. 
Cook, until the opening of the Rebellion, when he 
enlisted in Company C, of the Eighth Arkansas 
Infantry, Confederate States Army, and was on 
active duty east of the Mississippi River until the 
close of the war. He was in twenty-three regular 
engagements, among which were the battles of 
Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Perryville, 



iL£: 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



435 



Atlanta, Nashville, Missionary Ridge and many 
others. He was wounded by a musket ball in the 
upper lip, at Atlanta, and also at Ringgold Gap by 
a shell .striking the lock of his gun and bursting. 
At Atlanta he was taken prisoner, but was re-taken 
by his friends ten minutes later, and in this en- 
gagement his whole command was captured with 
the exception of twenty men. He saw some very 
hard service, and after the war he returned home 
with the consciousness of having been a brave and 
faithful soldier. Like his father before him he 
has always been engaged in farming and black- 
smithina;: and although he commenced life for him- 
self with little or no means, he has succeeded 
well, and now owns 200 acres of excellent land. 
In 1867 he was united in marriage to Mrs. Louisa 
Jane (Russell) Bigger, a daughter of Col. James 
G. Russell, and the widow of Ransom Bigger, who 
was killed during the war. 8he died in 1870, an 
earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and three years later Mr. Sweeza 
wedded Mrs. Sarah A., the widow of Marion Rus- 
sell. She was born in Lincoln County, Tenn. , De- 
cember 14, 1834, and both are now members of the 
iSIethodist Episcopal Church, he being a steward 
in the same. He is a Democrat politically, and is 
one of the enterprising men of the county. 

John S. Tanner, merchant of Kingsville, Ark. , 
needs no introduction to the people of Randolph 
County, for his connection with its affairs dates 
back to 1875. and although his name has never 
been thrust before the public for purposes of 
notoriety, he is one of the county's most successful 
young business men. He was born in Fulton 
County, Ark., March 1, 1864, and is a son of Will- 
iam W. and Sarah Ann (Reeves) Tanner, both of 
whom were born in Obion County, Tenn., the 
former's birth occurring in 1832, and the latter' s 
in 1834. They were married in that county, and 
moved from there to Fulton County, Ark., being 
among its earliest settlers, but in 1875 came to 
Randolph County. The father had been familiar 
with merchandising from earliest boyhood, but a 
short time prior to his death, which occurred on 
the 16th of October, 1888. he had retired from 
the active duties of business life, and left af- 



fairs to the management of his son. He was also 
engaged in farming, was a Mason, a Democrat, and 
while in Tennessee held the office of constable, and 
after coming to Arkansas was justice of the peace 
for several years. He served in the Confederate 
army throughout the war, and was a participant in 
a number of important engagements. His widow 
now resides in Kingsville, Ark. , and both were 
members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
Of their nine children our subject is the third, 
and eight of the family are now living: Mary F. 
(Blackwell), Nancy W. (Baker), John S. , William 
S. (who is deputy clerk of Randolph County), Sarali 
A., Emma J., Ida B. , Arthur A. (who died when 
in his third year) and Lula. John S. Tanner's 
early scholastic advantages were received in his na- 
tive county, and were such as the common schools 
afforded, but these advantages he improved to the 
utmost, and he is now acknowledged by all to be 
one of the bright, energetic and enterprising young 
men of the county. In later years he tinished his 
education in the Cumberland University at Leban- 
on, Tenn., and was one of its most substantial stu- 
dents. February 3, 1884. he was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Nora Ann Fuller, a daughter of 
Albert Fuller. She was born in Grayson County, 
Ky., and is the mother of two childi-en: Nellie G. 
and Guy W. Mr. Tanner and wife are in commu- 
nion with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and as far as his political views are concerned Mr. 
Tanner has followed in the footsteps of his father, 
being a stanch Democrat. 

Samuel W. Thompson, although just in the 
prime of life, has made his way to the front ranks 
among the energetic farmers of this county, and 
owing to the attention he has always paid to each 
minor detail, he has accumulated a fair share of 
this world's goods. He is a native-born resident 
of the county, his birth occun-ing on the 9th of 
Lecember, 1845, and he is a son of \\'illiam and 
Mary (McLean) Thompson, who were also well 
known here. The father was born in Virginia, 
March 3, 1815, and when a child only seven years 
of age, he was taken to Knox County, Tenn. . by an 
uncle, whence, after remaining there a short time,he 
came to Arkansas, and became interested in farm- 



V 



436 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ing and wagon making, which occupations he fol- 
lowed for many years. After the war, he farmed 
exclusively, and was school commissioner for years, 
also county and probate judge, and was tilling the 
latter position at the opening of the Rebellion, being 
appointed to the same position after the cessation 
of hostilities. He was a well-known and respected 
citizen, and he and his wife, whose native State Avas 
Missouri, having been born there in 1816, were 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Her death occurred in this county in 1856. 
He died November 28, 1883. During early times, 
meetings were held in their house in lieu of a pub- 
lic bviilding, and for years he was superintendent 
of the Methodist Sunday-school. He was a life- 
long Democrat and Mason, and was an active 
worker for all causes tending to the good of the 
county. His father, who was born in Ireland, 
at an early day came to the United States and 
settled in Virginia, but afterward returned to Ire- 
land, and was never afterward heard from. The 
maternal grandfather, William McLean, was a Vir- 
ginian, who removed to Kentucky, thence to Cape 
Girardeau County, Mo. , and afterward to Ran- 
dolph County, Ark. , and in the latter county took 
up his abode on the farm on which our subject is 
now residing. To William and Mary Thompson 
eleven children were born, of whom the following 
are living: JohnB. , aresidentof Washington Terri- 
tory; David D., a farmer of Randolph County, Ark., 
and Samuel W. The latter acquired a fair knowl- 
edge of the English branches in the common schools 
of his native county, and remained at home assist- 
ing his father until 1868, when he enlisted in Capt. 
Connor's company. Confederate States army. Cav- 
alry service, and was on active duty until June 5, 

1865, when he was discharged at Jacksonport, Ark. 
He started for himself with no means, but now has 
320 acres of some of the best land in the county, 
and is considered one of its best farmers. He is a 
Democrat in polititics, and in 1874 was elected 
county assessor, also to the office of justice of 
the peace, and filled both positions with much 
credit to himself for four years. December 20, 

1866, he was married to Maria E. Adams, a daugh- 
ter of William H. Adams. She was born in Bed- 



ford County, Tenn., April 20, 1849, and is the 
mother of six children: Beatrice, Hettie E., Will- 
iam A., Edward, Eugene and Marion E. Willie, 
Augustus and Luther are deceased. Mr. Thomp- 
son is a Royal Arch Mason, and belongs to the K. 
of H. 

J. P. Throgmorton, M. D., who is numbered 
among the successful members of the medical fra- 
ternity in Randolph County, Ark., came originally 
from Henry County, Tenn. , where he was born 
January 4, 1836. Richard and Elsie (Barnwell) 
Throgmorton, his parents, were born in the " Old 
North State," but were married and resided in 
Henry County, Tenn., where the father was killed 
during the Rebellion by guerrillas. He was a 
farmer and carpenter, and in his political views 
was an old-line Whig. He served several years as 
justice of the peace, and he and wife were mem- 
bers of the Methodist Church. Four of their chil- 
dren grew to maturity, of whom our subject is 
the eldest. His early youth was passed in the 
State of his birth, and there he was favored with a 
good education, being a student for some time in 
Bethel College, in Carroll County, Tenn., where 
he was a faithful and conscientious student. He 
remained with his parents on the farm until 1859, 
but that work not being at all stiited to his tastes 
he began taking medical lectures in the University 
of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, and there dis- 
tinguished himself by his faithful application, as 
well as at school. After leaving that collegre he 
spent a short time in Illinois; then returned to 
Tennessee, and after residing there until the spring 
of 1865 he moved to Williamson County, 111., and 
there located and p'lrsued the practice of his pro- 
fession until 1871, when he came to Arkansas and lo- 
cated on the farm on which he is now residing. The 
. following year he retiu'ned to the State of Illinois 
on account of the ill health of his wife, but after 
her death, which occurred in 1873, in Williamson 
County, he determined to improve his medical edu- 
cation, and again entered the University of Penn- 
sylvania, from which institution he was graduated 
in 1874. Soon after this he returned to Randolph 
County, where he has since been engaged in a gen- 
eral practice, and the success which has attended 



^' 



\ 



liL 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



43-; 



his efforts in healing the sick is shown by the ex- 
tended territory over which he practices. He also 
successfully conducts his home farm, which com- 
prises a tract of 300 acres, and he also owns an- 
other farm, in which are 1 20 acres. His farm is 
finely located and improved, and he has one of the 
handsomest residences in the county and a fine 
barn for his stock and grain, all the result of his 
own work. In lS6-t he was married to Miss Caro- 
line Davidson, a native of Henry County, Tenn., 
who died in Illinois as above stated. Two of the 
three children born to their union are living: 
Richard, and Rosa Lee, the wife of John Earley, 
a farmer of the county. Laura died in infancy. 
March 17, 1870, the Doctor's nuptials with Miss 
Pollie E. Barnett were consummated. She was 
born in Williamson County, 111., and died July 
1-1, 1873, having borne two children; Hiram L. 
(at home) and Ann E. (deceased). September 10, 
1874, Isabel Lentz, a daughter of Eli Lentz, of 
Williamson County, 111., became his wife. She 
was born in that county on the 22d of January, 
ISoU, and she and the Doctor are the parents of 
the following family: Frederick E., Clara A., 
Helen, Viola N. , James G. , Edna, and Clara A. 
who is deceased. Mrs. Throgmorton is a member 
of the Missionary Baptist Church; the Doctor is a 
Mason in good standing, and in his political views 
is a stanch Republican. He is one of the public- 
spirited men of the county, and at all times sup- 
ports worthy enterprises, being especially the friend 
of education. 

W. H. Tipton, blacksmith and farmer of Little 
Black Township, Randolph County, Ark., was 
born in Boone County, Mo., June 26, 1832, and is 
one of nine surviving members of a family of ten 
children born to Samuel and Sarah (Lynch) Tipton, 
whose native States were Kentucky and Virginia, 
respectively. The father removed to Missouri 
about 1828, and was a successful farmer of Boone 
County for six or seven years, but the most of his 
attention was given to the trade of blacksmithing. 
In 1837 he moved to Macon County, and settled in 
Bloomington, where he worked at l)lacksinithiiig 
for several years, and then bought a farm on which 
he settled. From 184(5 until the breaking out of 



the war he resided in Schuyler County, Mo., but 
in the first year of the Rebellion he was taken 
prisoner by the Union army, and since that time 
no knowledge of him has ever come to the family. 
He was a member of the Baptist Church, and his 
marriage occurred in 1827. His widow resides in 
Iowa, and their children are as follows: W. H. , 
John T. (in Virginia), Samuel (in Iowa), James (in 
Nebraska), Harrison (deceased, whose family re- 
side in Montana), Elizabeth (the deceased wife of 
Ezariah Padgett, of Texas), Mary F. (wife of H. 
C. Grimes, a traveling salesman, who resides in 
Plattsmouth, Mo.) and Sarah (wife of James Van 
Cleve, a farmer). W. H. Tipton started out to 
struggle with the world at the age of eighteen 
years, and although his early education was neg- 
lected he is accounted one of the intelligent and 
well-posted men of the county. He first went to 
California, where he was engaged in mining three 
years, but returned in 1854 via the Gulf of Mexico, 
and lauded in New York City. From there he 
proceeded to Schuyler County, Mo., and began as- 
sisting his father in the blacksmith shop, continu- 
ing this until the breaking out of the Rebellion, 
when he joined the Confederate army under Capt. 
McCullough, but was on detail the most of the 
time, being engaged in shoeing horses. After 
the close of hostilities he went to Illinois with 
Judge J. H. Richardson of this county, and re 
mained there until 1866, when he moved to Ran 
dolph County and settled in Little Black Town- 
ship, where he went to farming and blacksmithing, 
and has continued these occupations up to the 
present time. He owns 240 acres of land, and has 
given two of his sons eighty acres each, besides 
much personal property. May 31, 1855. he was 
married to Miss Harriet E. Wadsworth, of Illinois, 
and their nine childi'en were as follows: three 
died in infancy; Mary E., deceased wife of B. J. 
Norris, of Texas; Claiborne W., who was acci- 
dentally killed, being fatally crushed by a log 
while he was working in a saw-mill, his death oc 
curring January 30, 1888, in his twenty-fourth 
year; S. C, residing in Pocahontas; Robert E. S., 
at home; B. S. and Antoinette. Mr. and Mrs. 
Tipton are members of the Baptist Church, and 



438 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



be is a member of tbe A. F. & A. M., bis chil- 
dren, S. C, B. S. and Antoinette, also being mem- 
bers of the Baptist Church. He is a Democrat. 
Robert E. S. Tipton was born in Randolph Coun- 
ty, Ark., September 26, 1867, and married, No- 
vember 8, 1888, Miss Amelia A. Smith, whose 
birth occurred in Marshall County, Ky.. December 
11. 1867. 

John W. Tweedy, farmer, Lima, Ark. To the 
the person who closely applies himself to any oc- 
cujiation which he has chosen as his calling in life, 
there can only come one result — that of success, 
and a high place in the esteem of those among 
whom he has made his home. And Mr. Tweedy 
is no exception to the rule, for it has only been l>y 
industry and strict attention to agricultural pur- 
suits that he has attained to the position which 
he now enjoys. He was born in Virginia Febru- 
ary 6. 1 838, and passed his youthful days on the 
farm in Randolph County, whither his parents had 
moved in 1839. He received a limited education 
in the pulilic schools of this county, also in the sub- 
scription schools, and at the age of twenty- one 
commenced life for himself by engaging in agri- 
cultural pursuits on his own land in this county. 
He has since continued in the same business, which 
has been his life occupation. On the 1st of Au- 
gust, 1858, his marriage with Miss Cynthia H. 
Stubblefield, of this county, was consummated. 
She is the daughter of Coleman Stubblefield, one 
of the oldest settlers of Randolph County, who 
came here as early as 1802, and was the third 
man to settle on Eleven Points; the other two be- 
ing Phelau Stubblefield (a brother) and William 
Looney (a cousin), who were there but a short 
time before him, as all came in the same year from 
Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Stubblefield reared a 
family of children, one of whom died young: 
Abraham, deceased, whose family lives in this 
county: Nettie, deceased wife OT' Thomas John- 
son, who is a farmer, and lives in Lawrence Coun- 
tj'. Ark. ; Absalom, deceased, was a farmer, and 
resided in this county; Nancy, deceased wife 
of Thomas Rioe, a farmer, who lives in this coun- 
ty; Elizabeth, widow of W. Spikes, another resi- 
dent of this county; Lettie, deceased wife of 



William White, who is also a resident of this 
county; Robin, deceased at the age of twenty- 
seven years; Martha, deceased at the age of twen- 
ty-two years, and Redmond, deceased at the age 
of twelve years. Before the war Mr. Stubblefield 
was a colonel in the State militia: he was a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife were 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. 
Stubblefield died in 1849, at about the age of fif- 
ty-six years, and Mrs. Stubblefield died in 1862, 
at the age of sixty-one years. Mr. and Mrs. John 
W. Tweedy were the parents of three children, all 
deceased: Martha, died at the age of three months; 
Nettie L., wife of Thomas H. Wells, died at the 
age of twenty-five years, leaving two children 
(John D. and Maud G.), and Laura D., who died 
at the age of three years and three months. Mr. 
Tweedy served three years in the Confederate 
army under Gen. Price, and participated in several 
raids made by that general. He was slightly 
wounded once by a spent ball, but was only dis 
abled for a few days. In 1865, June 5th, he sur- 
rendered at Jacksonport, Ark., and then came 
home and went immediately to farming. He 
owned, at the close of the war, 240 acres of land, 
with about forty acres under cultivation. He is 
now the owner of 235 acres, with eighty acres 
under cultivation, but he gave his daughter (Mrs. 
Wells, now deceased), 600 acres at the time of her 
marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and have been so 
for a number of years. She was born in 1828. 
Mr. Tweedy is a member of the A. F. & A. M. . 
and in politics affiliates with the Democratic party. 
His parents, Watson D. and Martha E. (Spikes) 
Tweedy, were natives, respectively, of Virginia and 
Tennessee. The father was reared to farm life in 
his native State, and remained there until about 
twenty-two years old, when he moved to Tennessee. 
Here he was married, and afterward he returned to 
Virginia, where he remained until 1839, when he 
moved to Randolph County, Ark. There he died 
in 1873. He had been twice married, first to Miss 
Martha E. Spikes, and by her became the father 
of three children, viz. : John W., Joseph (deceased) 
and R. A., who lives in this county. Mrs. Tweedy 



4 



RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



489 



was born in 1817, and died in 1843. She was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Chnrch. For 
his second wife Mr. Tweedy took Miss Nauey Ras- 
berry, of Mississippi, in 1847, and she boi'e him 
following children: James (deceased) whoso widow 
lives in Jackson County, Ark. ; Watson died at the 
age of twenty-one; Jane died at the age of twenty 
years; Marion died at the age of nineteen years; 
Lee died at the age of eighteen years; Amanda is 
the wife of John Coffman, and Mary is the wife of 
G. W. Morgan, and has one child. Mrs. Tweedy 
died in 1877. She was a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Watson D. Tweedy had but 
a limited education, and followed agricultural 
jiursuits all his life. He became comfortably 
tixed, and his honesty and liberality in all things 
won him a host of friends. He was never very 
active in politics; he was a consistent member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

James M. Vandergriff. who is a prosperous 
agricnlturi.st of Eleven Points Township, was born 
near where he now lives on the Ist of October, 
1848, and is a son of RufSn and Jane (Garrett) 
Vandergriff, who were born in North Carolina, in 
1N12 and 1814, respectively. They were both 
taken by their parents to McCracken County, Ky. , 
in their vouth. and were there reared and married, 
coming, in 1844, to Randolph County, Ark., where 
the father died January 16, 1879. He (the father) 
learned the blacksmith's trade in his youth, and 
followed it. in connection with farming, up to the 
time of his death. His principles were sound, and 
the people showed their appreciation of his efforts 
by electing him to the position of justice of the 
peace for twelve years. He was a life long Demo- 
crat, and served a short time in the Confederate 
army. His widow survives him. Jacob Vander- 
griff. the paternal grandfather, was of German 
descent, was born in Pennsylvania, and died iu 
Kentucky. The Garrett family are of Scotch 
descent. Nine of their ten children are now liv- 
ing; James M. ; Mary E., wife of A. Y. Mcllroy, of 
Texas; Jasper P. and Joseph N. , farmers, of Ran- 
dolph County; Jacob R., a farmer, of Independence 
County, Ark.; Martha J., wife of Mose Lane, a 
farmer, of Shannon County, Mo.; Sarah C wife 



of R. J. Mcllroy, of this county; Je.sse A., of Erath 
County, Tex., and Emma E., wife of Boyd Ellis, 
of this county; John W. is deceased. James M. 
Vandergriff received his education in Randolph 
County, and since twenty years of age has ))een in 
business for himself, his attention being given to 
the blacksmith's trade as well as farming, carpen- 
tering and cabinet making. His enterprises have 
met with the desired result, and he now owns a 
tract of fertile land amounting to 200 acres. He 
is a Democrat, and during 1884 and 1885 he served 
as justice of the peace. His marriage was cele- 
brated on the 9th of February, 1808, his wife being 
a Miss Elizabeth Bryan, a daughter of F. M. 
Bryan. She was born in Lincoln County, Tenn. , 
March 14, 1852, and to their union the following 
children have been born: Ellar Jacob Milton, 
Myrtie, James Burley and Ada E. Mr. and Mrs. 
Vandergriff are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and he is one of the wideawake and pro- 
gressive farmers of the county. 

Daniel Wyatt was born in Stewart County, 
Tenn., July 29, 1830, and is a son of David and 
Jansey Wyatt (maiden name Nickols), who were 
natives of the State of Tennessee, the former's 
birth occurring in 1804, and the latter, in 1806. 
They both died in Randolph County, Ark., the 
father November 10, 1857, and the mother July 29, 
1858. They were married in Tennessee in 1823, 
and in 1833 moved to Cape Girardeau County, 
Mo., and in 1837 to Lawrence County, Ark., com- 
ing in 1841 to Randolph County. Ark. Both were 
members of the Bajrtist Chnrch. and he was a 
member of Randolph Lodge No. 71, A. F. & A. 
M. , and a Democrat. He worked at the black- 
smith trade in connection with farming, and was 
successful iu both enterprises. His father, Daniel 
Wyatt, was a very early settler of Tennessee, and 
was a soldier in the IJevolutionary War, and the 
War of 1812, being a participant in the battle of 
New Orleans, at which place he died of small- 
pox on the 11th day of Fel)ruary, 1815. There 
were born to the marriage of David and Jansey 
Wyatt ten children, of whom Daniel was the 
fourth child; three of the family are now living: 
Evaline, wife of Redding Vandergriff, a physician 



^f 



440 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and surgeon, and a farmer of Old Round Rock, 
Tex. : Daniel, who resides in Randolph County, 
Ark., and Albert P., who went to California in 
1859, and has been mining in the west since 
then. Daniel received his education in Randolph 
County, Ark., and worked on his father's farm 
until twenty-three years of age, when he located 
on the farm where he now lives, then consisting of 
eighty acres, to which he has since added 700 acres. 
November 10, 1852, he was married to Nancy C 
Burrow, a daughter of Jesse Burrow. She was 
born in Jackson County, Ala., March 27, 1832, 
and died in Randoljih County, Ark., on the 30th 
of September, 1868. She bore five children, three 
of whom are now living: Leetha C, wife of J. 
T. Bennett, a farmer of Cooke County, Tex. ; Ella, 
wife of J. W. Knoy, a farmer of Kaufman County, 
Tex. , and Marion, a farmer of Randolph County, 
Ark." November 10, 1868, was the date of Mr. 
Wyatt's second marriage, it being with Bethany J. 
rianery, a daughter of John Flanery. She was 
born in Arkansas on the 30th of September, 
1832, was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and died on the 25th of July, 1880, 
having become the mother of three children: 
Marvin, John, and Nancy J., who is now the 
wife of Charles H. Tyler, a farmer of Randolph 
County, Ark. Mr. Wyatt's third marriage took 
place September 23, 1880, his wife being a Mrs. 
Ellen A. Chesser (her maiden name was Ellis), 
whose birth occurred on December 13, 1842, in 
Davidson County, Tenn. They have one child: 
Jethro, born May 5, 1881. Mrs. Wyatt is a mem- 
ber of the Christian Church, and Mr. Wyatt be- 
longs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
In the month of September, 1862, he enlisted in 
Capt. Wyatt's company (C), in Col. Shaver's 
regiment of infantry. Confederate States army, 
and served eighteen months, participating in 
many skirmishes. In 1876 he was elected to the 
office of justice of the peace, which position he 
held for several years, and in 1880 he was elected 
county and probate judge of Randolph County. 
Ark. . but did not wish to serve longer than one 
term. He is a member of Randolph Lodge No. 
71, A. F. & A. M., and of the Knights of Honor, 



belonging also to the Masonic Mutual Relief Asso- 
ciation of Arkansas. He is a Democrat politically. 
David R. Weakley, M. D., of Kingsville. has 
for the past four years been prominently associated 
with the professional interests of Randolph County, 
and -is deserving of more than a passing mention 
in any history of the same. He was born in Dick- 
son County, Tenn., on the 4th of March, 1847, and 
was the sixth of eight children, two now living, 
born to the marriage of David C. Weakley and Isa- 
bella Gleaves, who were born in Robertson and 
Dickson Counties, Tenn. , respectively. After their 
marriage they moved to Dyer County, Tenn. , in 
1858, where the father became a successful agri- 
culturist, and although a heavy loser by the war, 
he was a well-to-do man at the time of his death, 
which occurred in 1873, at the age of .sixty four 
years. His wife's death occurred about 1853, 
when still a young woman, and he afterward wed- 
ded Miss Elizabeth Brigham, who is now residing 
in Dyer County, Tenn. He was a Mason and a 
Democrat, and he and both his wives were members 
of the Cumberland Prestiyterian Church. David R. 
Weakley, after attending the common schools in 
youth, entered Newbern College, where he received 
an excellent education, but left his books in 1863 
to enlist in the army, becoming a member of Com- 
pany B, Tenth Tennessee Cavalry, in which he 
served until the Rebellion was quelled, participat 
ing in the battles at Guntown, Miss., and Cold- 
water. Desiring to enter professional life, he en- 
tered upon the study of medicine under Dr. R. N. 
Fryer, of Newbern, and applied himself with ener- 
gy and perseverance to his books, and in 1871-72 
attended lectures in the Nashville University, grad- 
uating in the latter year. He commenced active 
practice in Dyer County, Tenn., but a short time 
thereafter came to Arkansas, locating in Greene 
County, and still later in Clay County, on Blue 
Cane Island. His next move was to Oak Bluff, and 
after a residence of four years at this {>oint he set- 
tled at Knobel Station, on the Iron Mountain Rail- 
road, remaining until 1885, since which time he has 
been a resident of Kingsville, where he has estab- 
lished himself substantially as a prominent member 
of the medical profession, and it is conceded that 






RANDOLPH COUNTY. 



441 



he has proven himself one of the skillful practition- 
ers of the county. He is a Royal Arcli Mason, 
and has served as Master of his lodge. Politically 
his views are in accord with the Democratic party, 
and in religion lie is a member of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church. On the 8th of March, l.S7'2, 
the Doctor's union with Miss Drusilla Curtis was 
celebrated. She was a daughter of Clement and 
Sally Curtis, of Crockett County, Tenu., and is also 
H member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
Marshall Weaver is a representative of a well- 
known family in this county, his parents, Joseph 
and Hai'riet E. (Abbott) Weaver, having come here 
from the State of Kentucky in ISofi. Their native 
States were Tennessee aiyl North Carolina, re- 
spectively, in the former of which they were mar- 
ried about 1835; they made their home there un- 
til about 1842, and from that time until the year 
1856 Mr. Weaver resided in Kentucky. After com- 
ing to Arkansas, he purchased 3'2() acres of land 
at 12f cents per acre, and was engaged in im- 
proving this farm until 1862 or 1863, when he sold 
out and returned to Kentucky. From there he re- 
moved to Butler County, Mo., and at the end of 
two years went back to Kentucky, and there died 
in 1876, his wife's death having occurred in 1852; 
both lie buried at Spring Creek Church, in Graves 
County, Ky. They were the parents of nine 
children, of whom the following lived to he grown: 
John N. , who lives in Missouri; Samuel, who re- 
sides in Alabama: Asher, a resident of Missouri; 
Marshall, of this county ; Jasper and Joseph, who 
died after reaching maturity. After the death of his 
first wife, Mr. Weaver wedded Sarah A. Proffit, of 
North Carolina, their union taking place in Ken- 
tucky, and four of their five children lived to be 
grown: A. J., of Kentucky, Thomas J., Louis G., 
also of that State, and George W., who died after 
reaching maturity. This wife died in Kentucky, 
in 1878, an earnest member of the Christian 
Church. Marshall Weaver was born February 25, 
1845, and began working for himself at the age of 
fourteen years as a farm hand in the State of Ken- 
tucky, but removed, in 1862, to Gallatin County, 
111. , where he joined the United States Army, two 
years later, being a memljer of Company C. Six- 



teenth Kentucky Battalion, which was consolidated 
with the Twelfth Regiment of Kentucky Cavalry. 
He served until the final surrender, and took part 
in a number of battles and skirmishes, being one of 
the men that followed up Morgan. At Nicholas- 
ville, Ky. , he was accidentally shot by a comrade, 
the wound being in the left leg, and spent some 
time in Camp Nelson hospital; he still suffers 
severely from his wound at times. After being 
discharged in August, 1865, he returned to Illi- 
nois, but only remained a short time, then returned 
to Kentucky, and commenced farming and black- 
smithing. He was married in Cairo, 111., in 1866, 
his wife having been born in Mississippi, December 
4, 1850, and to them were born nine children, five 
of whom are now living: Eddie A., bora August 
21, 1870; Asher, born September 15, 1878; James 
L., born May 15, 1881; Robert, born November 4, 
1884, and Clara B., born August 21, 1886. 
Those deceased are Joseph, Bettie, born April 4, 
1874; Samuel and Adir (twins), born December, 
25, 1873. Mr. and Mrs. Weaver are members of 
the Christian Church, and he is a Republican po- 
litically. He is the owner of a fine farm compris- 
ing 280 acres, and has about 100 acres under culti- 
vation, well improved with good buildings. Mrs. 
Weaver is a daughter of William and Diana 
(Dobbs) Head, who were the parents of nine chil- 
dren, six of whom lived to be grown, and four of 
whom are now living: Talitha, wife of Benjamin 
Hancock; Bettie, widow of Thomas Hall: Eva, wife 
R. King, and Mrs. Weaver. Mr. Head served in 
the Confederate army a short time, and died in 
1862, in Mississippi. His widow moved to Illinois, 
and was married a second time in Cairo. She and 
Ml'. Head were members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church. 

John Wells was born in Washington County, 
Mo.. January 4, 1821, but has been a resident of 
Randolph County, Ark., since 1821. His parents, 
Thomas H. and Barbara (Maybary) Wells, were 
born in South Carolina and Virginia in 1796 and 
17'J8, and died in Randolph County, Ark., in 
1869 and 1866, respectively. They were both 
taken to Davidson County, Tenn., by their parents 
when young, and there they grew to maturity and 



^s r- 



^^ 



442 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



married, shortly after tho latter event moving to 
Randolph County, Ark., where they resided until 
1820. at that time taking up their abode in Wash- 
ington County, Mo. After a short residence here 
they became dissatisfied and returned to Arkansas, 
where they spent the rest of their days. He 
served in the War of 1812, under Jackson and 
Coffee, and was at the battle of Coosa. His 
youth was spent in learning the tanner's and black- 
smith's trades, but he afterward gave up these oc- 
cupations to engage in farming, and in this he was 
very successful. Politically he was a life-long 
Democrat. He and wife became the parents of 
fourteen sons and one daughter. Seven sons were 
in the Confederate army, serving all through tho 
war, and retiu'ned home alive and well. John 
Wells spent his youth in learning the tanner's 
trade .and attending school, and in connection with 
farming he was engaged in tanning up to the 
breaking out of the war. He was in the commis- 
sary department in 1S63, but afterward joined Capt. 
Mitchell's regiment, and was in the battles of Iron- 
ton and Lexington, and in numerous skirmishes. 
By his I'eadiness to adopt new inventions, and by 
industry, he has been remarkably successful, and 
now owns 1,100 acres of fertile land, with about 
30(l acres under cultivation. July 13, 1848, he 
married Harriet Alcorn, who was born on the farm 
where Mr. Wells now lives, February 5, 1828, a 
daughter of Isham Alcorn. To them were born 
nine children: Margaret E. , wife of Shelton White, 
a farmer of the county; Susan, wife of James 
McLain, of Floyd County, Tex.; Thomas H., a 
farmer of this county; Lola M. , wife of Robert 
Stubbletield, of this county; Mollie J., wife of 
Rufus C. Dalton, of Oregon County, Mo. ; Maud 
G. , wife of Frank Ricknian, residing on her 
father's farm, and James P. Those deceased are 
Maria J. and ^\ illiam M. Mr. and Mrs. Wells 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and he is a Mason and a Democrat. 

Thomas H. Wells, though now only thirty-three 
years of age, has won an excellent reputation as a 
farmer and stock raiser of Randolph County. He 
is a native-born resident of this county, his birth 
occurring in 1856, and here his boyhood days were 



spent in attending the common schools, and in do- 
ing farm work. At the age of twenty five years 
he was married to Miss Nettie Tweedy, also a na 
five of Randolph County, born in 1S63, and their 
union was blessed with two children: John D. 
and Maude G. Mrs. Wells died May 31, 1888. 
After their marriage they located on the farm on 
which Mr. Wells is now residing, his land em- 
bracing over 541 acres; but the most of his atten 
tion has been devoted to raising a good grade of 
stock, such as cattle, mules and hogs. He now has 
on hand 140 head of cattle, some of which are 
well graded, and his annual profits on his stock, 
which he fattens and ships, are large. Although 
a non-partisan iu his political views, he has always 
voted the Democratic ticket, and supports the men 
and measures of his party. He is a man posses 
sing admirable traits of character, and has taken 
a position of more than ordinary prominence in 
the material affairs of the county, and the rejjuta 
tion which Randolph County is securing as one of 
the richest farming and stock counties of the 
State is due to such men as our subject. Although 
his early educational advantages were somewhat 
limited, he has become one of the most intelligent 
men of the county, this being in a great measure 
acquired by reading and contact with the business 
affairs of life. He is a warm friend of education, 
and takes an active part in all movements tending 
to benefit or encourage school facilities hereabouts. 
Henry White, farmer, Davidson Township, 
Randolph County, Ark. The subject of this sketch 
needs no introduction to the people of Randolph 
County, Ark. , for he is one of the most esteemed 
and successful agriculturists of the same, and is 
one whose honesty and uprightness have never been 
questioned. He is a native of this county, his 
birth occurring in the year 1841, and is a son of 
Howell White, a native of North Carolina. The 
elder White came to Arkansas when a young man, 
and was here married in 1840 to Miss Elizabeth 
Stubblofield, a native of this State. He then 
settled on Dry Creek, Davidson Township, entered 
land and made himself a home. He remained 
there until 1846, when he sold his farm with the 
intention of moving to the Lone Star State, but 



-71-. 



was taken sick and died at the home of his broth- 
er- in law, Joseph Stubhlefield. To his marriage 
were horn three children, two now living, Henry 
and Mary, wife of T. J. Mcllroy. Mrs. White 
died within an hour of her husband, and both are 
buried in one grave. They were members of the 
Presbyterian Church, and he was a Democrat in 
politics. Henry White was reared by his uncle, 
and received but a meager education in the sub- 
scription schools of that section. In 1861 he 
joined the Confederate army. Company K, Eighth 
Arkansas Infantry, under Capt. Wright, and served 
four years, ))articipating in the following battles: 
Hhiloh, Perry ville, Murfreesboro, Siege of Corinth, 
besides a number of minor engagements. At 
Murfreesboro, Tenn., he was wounded above the 
knee in both legs, and also received a severe wound 
in the shoulder. He was left on the lield two 
days and nights before being sent to the hospital, 
and after being placed there he was taken pris- 
oner. He was sent thence to Nashville, Tenn., 
and was only kept there one month, when he was 
removed to Louisville, Ky. Two months later he 
was sent to Cedar Point, Va., and exchanged. He 
was not able to do service, so he returned home 
and remained there until cessation of hostilities, en- 
gaged in tilling the soil on rented land. In 1867 he 
took a trip through Kansas, Indian Territory and 
Texas, and spent a year thus employed. In 1868 
he purchased his present property, consisting of 
160 acres, at Eleven Points, and has improved 
eighty-live acres of this. He raises corn, wheat 
and oats, but no cotton. He makes a business of 
breeding all kinds of stock, more especially mules. 
In 1869 Mr. White married Miss Sarah Barnett, 
who died the year of her marriage, and in 1882 
he wedded Miss Mary L. Reynolds, of Randolph 
County. The result of this union was the birth 
of three children: Nora B. , born April 13, 1884; 
Eeler, born December 27, 1886, and William G. , 
born October 22, 1887. The second Mrs. White 
was bom November 25, 1864, and is the daugh- 
ter of J. M. and Minerva (Foster) Reynolds [see 
sketch of Dennis M. Reynolds]. Mr. White is a 
self-made man, and is counted among the best 
farmers of the township. He is a Democrat. 



John C. Wisner, dealer in real estate, at Reyno, 
Ark. , has been actively engaged in the business of 
real estate since 1885. His early education was 
acquired in the public schools of Cumberland 
County, 111. At the age of seventeen he left his 
home to seek his fortune, and came to Randolph 
County, Ark. ; was engaged in tilling the soil in 
Cherokee, being on Current and Black Rivers until 
1885, at which time he commenced the real estate 
business and the study of law. He owns 700 
acres of land, besides a large amount of live prop- 
erty, and has acquired his possessions by good 
business ability and energy. In 1870 he was mar- 
ried to Miss Sarah Womack, a native of Randolph 
County, Ark., and their union has been blessed in 
the birth of five children: Nannie, who is a suc- 
cessful teacher in the county; James M., John H. , 
Alcie L. and Sula. Mrs. Wisner is a member of 
the Christian Church, and he has shown his ap- 
proval of secret organizations by becoming a mem 
ber of the Masonic order, having been master of 
Reyno Lodge No. 417, for the past seven years. 
The success he has met with has more than real- 
ized his expectations; he has an extensive acquaint- 
ance, and enjoys a liberal patronage in his business. 
His parents, David T. and Rhoda (Dosier) Wis- 
ner, were born in the District of Columbia and 
Middle Tennessee, respectively. The father was a 
prosperous merchant, and while Illinois was still a 
territory he moved there and settled in what was 
afterward Cumberland County; in the year 1872 he 
located in Madison County, Mo., where he en- 
gaged in merchandising and milling until his death, 
which occurred the following year, at the age of 
seventy-two years. He was a man of sterling 
princijsles, and was a citizen who would be wel- 
comed in any locality, for he possessed sound judg- 
ment, was honest to a fault, and was always 
interested in public affairs; his death was a loss to 
the community in which he resided, but his good 
works will always be remembered. His wife died in 
1884, and of the five children born to them, three are 
living: Mathias, who died in Illinois; Mary A., 
wife of W. H. Welles, who resides in Illinois; 
James \V., now second comptroller of the United 
States treasury; O. B. F., who died in his na- 



^^ 



444 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tive county, at the age of twenty-four years, and 
John C. 

•Judge A. J. Witt, county judge, Pocahontas, 
Ark. Few men have attained the prominence in 
Randolph County, in a social as well as a business | 
point of view, that has Judge Witt, who is courte- 
ous and pleasant in all his relations to the public. 
His birth occurred in Weakley, Tenn. , on the 31st 
of December. 1855, and he remained in his native 
State until twelve years of age, when he came with 
his parents to Randolph County, Ark. ^^'hen of a 
suitable age, he had been placed in private schools, 
where the opportunities afforded were enjoyed to 
the best advantage. After finishing his scholastic 
training, he engaged in the teacher's profession, 
and this continued for twelve months, when he was 
appointed deputy sheriff of Randolph County. 
At the end of eighteen months, he again returned 
to teaching school, so continuing for nine months, 
after which he clerked in a store until the fall of 

1882, He was then elected sheriff of the county, 
and served four years. After this he retired from 
public life, and was engaged in tilling the soil for 
two years. In ISSS, he was elected county judge, 
which office he still tills. Previous to this, on the 
14th of November, 1887, he was appointed to the 
office of postmaster at Pocahontas, which position 
he still holds. For his companion in life, he se- 
lected Miss Ida M. Kibler, a native of Cross Coun- 
ty, Ark. , and was married to her on the 3d of May, 

1883. She is the daughter of William Kibler, a 
native of North Carolina. To this union were born 
two children. Mary Ethel, at home, and Edith 
Gertrude (deceased). Judge Witt is the owner of 
420 acres of land and considerable town property. 
He has always taken an active part in school work, 
and in everything pertaining to the good of the 
county. He is a Royal Arch Mason, and a membe?- 
of the K. of H. He is the son of Isaac H. and Mary 
C. (Shelton) Witt, and grandson of Charles Homer 
Witt, a native of East Tennessee, and a farmer by 
occupation. Isaac H. Witt was a native of East 
Tennessee, and his wife of Weakley County, Tenn. 
The maternal grandfather, Jeremiah Shelton, was 
a native of the same State, was a tiller of the soil, 
and was also a minister in the Baptist Church, be- 



ing one of the pioneer preachers. The Witt fam- 
ily were among the first settlers of Gibson County, 
Tenn. The father of Judge Witt is a minister in 
the Missionary Baptist Church, but he has always 
carried on farming in connection with his minis- 
terial duties. He emigrated to Randolph County 
in 1868, and settled in Warm Springs Township, 
where he is residing at the present time. He was 
one of the first Baptist ministers of this county, 
and is still preaching at the present time. The 
mother died on the 30th of August, 1888, at the 
age of fifty -six years. They reared a family of 
eight children. Judge Witt being the eldest. The 
remainder are named as follows: Christiana E., 
wife of P. W. Kidd, of Warm Springs Township; 
Cora E. , wife of James W. Shaver, of the same 
township; Caleb E., now living at Portia, Ark., 
and is a successful M. D. ; Marion J., who died at 
the age of seventeen years; I. R. , wife of James 
Williams, of Clay County, Ark, ; Lulu S. , a teacher, 
residing at home, and William J., at home. 

C. W. Woolley is quite an extensive cotton grow- 
er of Current River Township, Ark., and was born 
in St. Francis County, of the same State, in 1849. 
He remained in his native county until 1801, then 
came to Randolph County, and soon after moved to 
Jackson County where he remained until 1809, 
after which he again came to Randolph County, 
making his home here three years, taking up his 
abode for the following seven years in Boone 
Coimty. His next change of residence was to the 
Lone Star State, and from there he returned to 
St. Francis County, Ark. , a year later. The next 
year he again moved to Boone County, and the fol - 
lowing year located permanently in Randolph 
County, this being in the year 1885. He has an 
excellent farm, and his land will average one bale 
of cotton to the acre, this being his principal prod- 
uct. His views of Arkansas as a stock country are 
quite enthusiastic, and he is giving that branch of 
farming a great deal of attention at the present 
time. Mr. Woolley is not an unreasonable parti- 
san, but has always been a Democrat in his politi- 
cal views, and he belongs to the A. F. & A. M. 
He is a son of J. L. and Serena (Walls) Woolley, 
the former of whom was born in Alabama, was a 



-7C. 



B "V 




>'-'sviit--?^?'.^Si" C-'^f^,^'" 





S^Y y^yC^t^^y 



Osceola, 
Mississippi County, Arkansas 




MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



445 



farmer by occupation, and died in Boone County. 
He was a minister of the Primitive Baptist Church, 
and was a soldier in the Confederate army during 
the Rebellion. C. W. Woolley, our subject, was 



married in Boone County, Ark. , to Miss Arkansas 
Barbeo, who was born in Carroll County, Ark., in 
1860. They are rearing an adopted child named 
Mamie Russell. 



>-i~* ■">- * t< - 



4-+- 



MississiPPi County— Location, Boundary, Topography, Etc.— The Expedition of De Soto Into 

Mississippi County — Towns— Settlements by Local Names— Secret Societies— Military 

Affairs of the County— The Uprising ok the Colored People— Officers of 

the County— Public Buildings- Population — Local Statistics — 

County Organization— J. bvies— Schools and Churches 

— Selected Biographical Sketches. 



" Culture's hand 
Has scatter'd verdure o'er the land; 
And smiles and fragiance rule serene, 
Where barren wild usurp'd the scene." 




*HE county of Mississippi, 
in Northeast Ai'kansas, is 
bounded north by Dunklin 
and Pemiscot Counties in 
Missouri, east by the Mis- 
sissippi River, which sep- 
arates it from Dyer, Lau- 
derdale and Tipton Counties in 
Tennessee, south by Crittenden, 
and west by Poin.sett and Craig- 
head Counties in Arkansas. It has 
an area of about 865 square miles, 
including its lake and river beds. 
It is watered on the east by the 
Mississippi and tributaries empty- 
ing therein, on the north central 
by Pemiscot Bayou, and on the 
west by Big Lake at the northern 
extremity of the county; Little River, the out- 
let of this lake, and by Tyronza Lake and Bayou. 



Besides these there are many other and smaller 
lakes. As the county has been subject to over- 
flow, its soil is composed of alluvial deposits, has 
great depth and is therefore exceedingly fertile. 

What is now Mississippi County once formed a 
part of Arkansas County, then of Phillips and next 
of Crittenden, and was finally erected into a sepa- 
rate county by the Territorial legislature Novem 
ber 1, 1833. 

Its original boundaries extended as far west as 
the St. Francis River, and embraced 1,000 square 
miles. The first county seat, which was located 

Note. — The above early history of Mississippi County 
has been furnished b}' the Hon. H. M. McVeigh, of 
Osceola, from his manuscript history of the early set- 
tlements of Arkansas, a work on wliicli he has been 
employing his leisure hours for the last three or four 
years. During this lime he hase.\ainined and studied the 
original sources of Arkansas history, and personally in- 
terviewed all the surviving old settlers with whom he 
could get an audience, wriiing down their recollections. 
His work was undertaken solely for the purpose of pre- 
serving that valuable mat ter which was about to perish 
through the death of old settlers and loss of records. 



'^ 



« ^ 



\ 



44fi 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



opposite the Chickasaw Bluffs, was called Corn- 
wall. This place was on the site of an old Spanish 
encampment and has long since disappeared, and 
Osceola, the present county seat, was adopted soon 
after. The latter was first incorporated January 
12, 1843, and again October 4, 1875. 

Although this county, from its isolated situa- 
tion, and from being cut off from direct communi- 
cation with the rest of the State (the sunk lands of 
the St. Francis preventing communication with 
counties immediately adjoining it), may not be as 
well known as others, it nevertheless has a history, 
dating as far back as the year 1541. At that 
time its present territory was inhabited by races 
of people almost civilized, living in walled towns 
and cultivating immense fields of Indian corn. Of 
course the walls of their towns were made of wood, 
and both have long since disappeared; but there re- 
main even at this day evidences of the fact that the 
countiy was once densely inhabited. The enormous 
mounds, the great amount of Indian relics of all 
kinds scattered over the surface of the country, such 
as arrow and spear heads, pottery, etc., and human 
skeletons, which are continually being plowed up, 
amply confirm the statements of the historians of 
De Soto's ill-starred expedition of the density of 
the population of this country. The advent of 
De Soto is the real beginning of the history of what 
is now the State of Arkansas. The march of this 
leader to the Mississippi River was marked by deeds 
of unmitigated cruelty and oppression, which can 
not be read even at this day without a feeling of 
horror and indignation. After seven days' travel 
through an uninhabited desert from Alabama, the 
expedition came in sight of an immense river, which 
is thus described by the " Gentleman of Elvas," 
an eye witness and the historian of the expedition. 
"The river," says he, " was almost half a league 
broad. If a man stood still on the other side, it 
could not be discerned whether he was a man or 
not. The river was of great depth and of strong 
current; the water was always muddy; there came 
floating down continually many trees and timber 
which the force of the water swept rapidly toward 
its motith." 

If the reader is acquainted with the lower Mis- 



sissippi, he will have conclusive proof that these 
statements are not exaggerated. It stands to the 
credit of De Soto that he discovered the Missis- 
sippi, but such was a mere undesigned incident of 
the main object of his search, namely, wealth, and 
to this he could not possibly lay any claim. Per- 
haps no idea was more remote from his thoughts 
than the credit of having made this discovery. 
Seeking for gold, he would perhaps have been bet- 
ter pleased had the stream been a thousand miles 
out of his line of march, but finding it in his way 
he halted his command and went into camp where 
the city of Memphis now stands, and at once began 
preparations for crossing the river, which was ap- 
propriately given the name of Rio Grande. The 
work of building flat-boats was commenced, and 
for nearly a month his men labored industriously, 
plying the axe, saw and hammer with as little fear 
as at the same place in our own day, though around 
them were the warlike Chickasaws, and on the 
Arkansas side, in plain view, thousands of men- 
acing Indians. 

At last eight scows were finished, furnished with 
sails and oars, and bearing crosses. Then loading 
their boats, the adventurers fearlessly launched out 
into the stream, and bending strongly on their 
oars, soon approached the shores of Arkansas, the 
people of which curiously noted the advancing fleet, 
but contrary to expectation, permitted the flotilla 
to land and disembark without a tight. 

Ferdinand de Soto, the first governor of Arkan- 
sas, and his escort, landed about the latter part of 
May, 1541. An overwhelming weight of author- 
ity is to the effect that he immediately ascended 
the Mississippi. The expedition passed through 
the province of Aquixo, which embraced a large 
part of what is now Crittenden County. 

The Indians had as a rule fled at the approach of 
De Soto, though a few were killed and some taken 
prisoners. Three days' journey from Aquixo was 
the province of Casqui, included within the limits 
of what is now Mississippi County. Tyronza Bayou 
was crossed on a bridge hastily constructed. Upon 
reaching the first town of Casqui many men and 
women were captured, and the place plundered. 
There was another town a mile and a half away. 




The country round about w;is described as high 
and dry, though bordering near the river. The 
historian speaks of the walnut trees, mulberry and 
plum trees, some red, and others of a grayish 
color, and that the fruit trees seemed to be planted 
iu orchards. The venturesome tourists traveled 
two days through this province of Casqui, which 
was filled with towns. 

At last they came to a large Indian village, 
containing more than four hundred dwellings, the 
name of which is unknown. Here the Spaniards 
were kindly received by the inhabitants. 

The Casqui Indians of that day are generally 
conceded to be the Kaskaskias. afterward known as i 
Illinois Indians. Mr. Bancroft has placed the 
village as high as Little Prairie, a short distance 
above the Arkansas State line. Mr. Milburn, in 
his lecture on De Soto, locates it in the northeastern 
corner of Arkansas. 

The county seat of Pemiscot County, Mo., 
Caruthersville, is in Little Prairie. Guided by 
distances on a map it is about eighty miles on 
an air line from Memphis to Little Prairie; it 
is really over 100 miles by any traversable land 
route on the west side of the river. A command of 
foot soldiers encumbered as that of De Soto's evi- 
dently was might have a.scended as high as Bar- 
field's Point, iu Mississippi County, in five days' 
marching, a distance of about eighty-five miles from 
Memphis. It is true the country is level, and for- 
tunately for De Soto unusually dry at the time of 
his expedition, but the surface is in many places 
wet and swampy, and everywhere, even to this 
day, covered with cane and undergrowth except 
where under cultivation. To avoid the dense cane 
as much as possible De Soto would have been 
obliged to do what is still done by the people of 
this country when traveling up and down the 
river by land — kee]) as near the banks as possible; 
and in following this course Barfield might have 
lieen reached in five days; otherwise numerous nat- 
ural hindrances might have occurred. 

It must 1)(> borne in mind that in identifying 
the places visited by De Soto, in the limits of what 
is now Mississippi County, it is not possible to pre- 
tend to mathematical exactness. That the province 



of Casqui was partly, if not wholly, in Mississippi 
County, is fixed beyond doubt, and it seems clear 
that the first large town reached, in May, 1541. 
was at, or near what is now known as Barfield 
Point. Here, and in the surrounding country, 
the relics of bygone ages speak distinctly of a 
large and prosperous community. Here archaeol- 
ogy throws its light upon the narrative of the 
Portuguese eye-witness of De Soto's expedition. 
Here, within the memory of living men of to- 
day, once stood immense mounds, encircled by 
trenches, but which have within the last forty 
/years caved into the Mississippi River. On the 
A largest of one of these an old settler by the 
name of Buford had erected his house, with a 
garden. 

For many years hundreds of human skeletons 
have been lost in the Mississippi at this point, 
and a short distance south, in building the State 
levees, human skeletons were constantly being 
disinterred by the workmen. 

Within the memory of living inhabitants, this 
country was high, dry and less alluvial than it is 
now. The clearing up of the country lying on the 
tributaries of the Mississippi above, the caving of 
the banks, and the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 
have changed it into an overflowed country. Tra- 
dition handed down by the early settlers tells that 
formerly this country was little subject to inun- 
dation. This is confirmed by the large mounds 
still existing intact, in the overflowed and unin 
habited parts of the county. 

After recruiting themselves two days at this 
village of Casqui, De Soto's Spaniards proceeded 
to the chief town of this people and residence of 
the Cacique, or chief of the province, which ap- 
pears to have been situated in the same neighbor 
hood, or, as is believed, near Blythesville in the 
comitry known as Chickasawba, about fifteen miles 
west of Barfield, on Pemiscot Bayou. The latter 
is an arm of the Mississippi — a broad, beautiful 
sheet of water. 

This is still a high, dry body of land, now in- 
habited by about 2, 500 industrious, thrifty people. 
Near the bayou, and a short distance from Blythes- 
ville, is an enormous artificial mound. 



^ 



I 



^ 



9 w. 



448 



HISTORY OF AEKA^AS. 



There are uo hills iu the river bottom below 
Cape Girardeau, and if, as is highly probable, Chick- 
asawba was the locality where the town of Casqui, 
chief of the Casquins was situated, it was on the 
mound just mentioned where De Soto erected his 
great cross fifty feet in hight. As a circumstance 
tending to confirm this view, Mr. Joseph Fassit, 
an old citizen of the county, states that a large 
wooden beam was taken from that mound a few 
years before the late war. Remembering that the 
region now being described was undoubtedly vis- 
ited by Do Soto; that Bancroft, the most painstak- 
ing of American historians, locates the site of these 
towns in about the same region; and that William 
Henry Milburn fixes them in the northeast corner 
of Arkansas, one will be better able to judge the 
facts here stated. 

The Spaniards were received at this town in a 
very handsome manner. The Cacique, attended 
by a large retinue personally, gave them a formal 
welcome, and then conducted them into the town, 
where they were provided with good quarters and 
a supply of food. 

It was now about the beginning of June, and 
besides excessive heat the inhabitants had been 
afflicted by a long drought which threatened to 
cut off the crops. They were an agricultural peo- 
ple, just as their successors of to-day, and those 
living there at this time have annual frights on 
the subject of droughts at about the same per- 
iod of the year. The church at Blythesville has 
often been vocal with prayers and supplications for 
rain, about the 1st of June. The chief, seeing the 
kind of men the Spaniards were, concluded that 
their God must be greater than his, and asked 
De Soto to petition for rain, that the crops might 
be saved. The Indians had been continually en- 
gaged in prayers and incantations, but heaven 
seemed deaf to their entreaties. De Soto agreeing 
to their request, the great cross was erected upon 
a high mound, and the Indians assembled around 
it in vast numbers, silently and reverently gazinor 
on the sacred symbol. Spaniards and Indians, to 
the number of two thousand, gathered and knelt 
around the cross, and amid the forest the sublime 
strains of te deum laudamus broke the stillness 



of that hot, dry day in June, 1541. Though not 
the kind of services to which the good people of 
this section are now accustomed, it was Christian 
worship, and is s-trongly suggestive of Sunday, and 
the religious exercises peculiar to that day. 

A knowledge of the locality, the highlands of 
Chickasawba, and the great mound and the broad 
sheet of water to the north, brings this scene of 
Spanish soldiers and hospitable Indians, congregat 
ed together 348 years ago, like a picture to the 
mind. Soon they were breaking up and dispersing 
; from their religious assembly, Spaniards and In- 
dians mingling together conversing by signs, Indian 
maidens and children shyly looking at the splendid 
specimens of Spanish manhood, in their helmets, 
breast plates and arms glittering in the sun, as 
they sauntered in groups through the town. No 
doubt there could be seen the thoughtful, uneasy 
looks of the old men and women of the tribe, feel- 
ing instinctively the far reaching effects that must 
follow this armed invasion by a superior race from 
beyond the sea. The Cacique presented two blind 
men to De Soto, and asked him, nothing doubting, 
to restore them to sight, from which circumstance 
can accurately be inferred what the natives actually 
I thoiight of the bold cavalier, mistaking him doubt- 
less for something little, if any thing, below a god. 
De Soto caused another cross to be made and set 
up in the highest part of the town, and then pro- 
j ceeded to explain to the savages, the mysteries of 
the Christian religion. It is stated that a plentiful 
shower of rain soon blessed the parched fields of 
: these Indians. 

From the town of Casqui the Spaniards advanc 
ed to Paeaha, but a day's march, and the limit of 
I the journey northward. Here, on June 19, 1541, 
De Soto and his men found the chief town situated 
on a lake, with a stream of water flowing through 
it, and into the Mississippi. "He lodged." says 
the Portuguese narrator, ' ' in the town where the 
Cacique used to reside, which was one great, walled, 
and beset with towers, many loop-holes being in 
the towers and walls. In the town was a great 
store of old maize, and quantities of new in the 
fields, while within a league and a half were great 
towns all walled. Where the governor was lodged 



^A 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



449 



was iin extensive lake, that came nearly to the walls, 
entering into a ditch which went round about the 
town, and wanting but little to completely environ 
it. From the lake to the great river was made a 
weir, by which the fish came into it, and these the 
Cacique kept for his recreation and sport. With 
nets that were found in the town all took as they 
would, and no matter what was taken, no want was 
perceived. There was also a large supply of fish 
in many other lakes thereabout. ' ' 

Let it be remembered that this region of 
country abounds in lakes, and that, on the map 
attached to Part II, of the Historical Collections 
of Louisiana, drawn and printed at an early period 
during the last century, Big Lake, on the borders 
of Mississippi County, Ark. , and Dunklin County, 
Mo., are marked as the extreme northern limit of 
De Soto's expedition; thus the reader will have 
some solid reasons to believe that the movements 
of De Soto in 1541, in this county, have been 
properly traced. The coimtry in and around Big 
Lake, or Mich-i-gam-ias, its Indian name, in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, still bears 
upon its surface traces of a wide but now extinct 
population; and precisely such a ditch as described 
by the Portuguese narrator can now be traced near 
the home of Mr. Sam Hector, of Big Lake. 

There is no doubt that the lake spoken of in the 
extract just quoted, is other than Big Lake, the 
ancient Mich- i gam- ias of the early French explor- 
ers. It would be tedious to give a detailed de- 
scription of this locality and of the conduct of the 
Spanish brigands under De Soto during their forty 
days' stay at this place. 

After robbing and plundering the unhappy peo- 
ple of Pacaha, or Big Lake, they proceeded in a 
southwesterly' course, in search of a land called 
Colgoa, where gold was reported to be plenty. 

After the remnants of the ill-starred expe- 
dition had effected their escape from the limits 
of the present State of Arkansas, the aborigines 
were left to their own devices, without making even 
a passing acquaintance with a single European of 
whom there is in any account, until in June, 1073, 
130 years after the Spanish rule, they were visited 
))y a small party of French, led by one of the 



noblest and most self-sacrificing men that ever 
blessed by his presence, example and teachings any 
people — Father James Marcjuette, the first ex- 
plorer of the Mississippi. 

The first village visited by Marquette in the 
limits of the State, was that of the Mich-i-gam ias. 
This was, it is thought, located at or near Barfield 
Point. 

On the autograph map of Father Marquette, 
on which he delineates the Mississippi as far as he 
explored it (extending no farther than the village 
of Arkansa), this village is placed at about the 
same distance below the mouth of the Ohio, that 
the Ohio is placed below the mouth of the Mis- 
souri. In his narrative ho says ho found the Ohio 
about forty leagues below the mouth of the Mis 
souri. If the distance by the river was measured 
he was much mistaken, for it is 194 miles. If by 
an air line he was about correct, it being some 120 
miles, or forty leagues. On an air line from the 
mouth of the Ohio to Osceola is about 100 miles; 
by the river, 160. Marquette, it must be recol- 
lected, did not know but judged the distance from 
his knowledge and experience in such matters, and 
of course could not be very exact. The village of 
Michigamias was about ten leagues above Arkan- 
sa, which latter was on the east side of the river. 
In a foot note to Marquette's account of the for- 
mer place, the writer on the authority of Charle- 
voix states that the Michigamia dwelt on a lake, 
not far from the St. Francis River. Big Lake 
is within fifteen miles of the St. Francis River, 
and on the ancient French map, already referred 
to, it is called Lac Michagamias. The same lake 
is mentioned by Smyth in his tour down the Mis- 
sissippi, in 1774, as Michagamias lake or river. 
Marquette on his map marks this village on the 
west bank of the Mississippi, but shows another 
settlement immediately back from the river, with 
the same name, and about eighteen miles west from 
the village on the river. It is therefore concluded 
that Big Lake was the main settlement, and that 
the village on the river was a settlement of the 
same people. 

In 1082, when La Salle came down, Arkansa 
was on the west bank. Marquette does not speak of 



/ 



» "V 



<5 Ji^ 



450 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



a single river below the Ohio, though if he had 
passed the St. Francis or White Rivers, or seen or 
heard of the Arkansas, or had passed the Chicka- 
saw Bluffs, he would have been almost certain to 
have mentioned or marked them on his maps. 
Marquette learned from the Indians that the Mis- 
sissippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; such 
however was his strict veracity, that he would not 
extend on his map the line marking the river a 
mile beyond what he had seen with his own eyes. 
As with his intelligence and learning he would not 
have passed a mighty stream like the Arkansas 
without seeing it, especially if the village of Ar- 
kansa, as has been assumed, was located at or near 
its mouth, he could not have traveled the distance 
between the mouth of the Ohio and that of the Ar- 
kansas and then made the mistake of putting the 
Arkansa village the same distance below the Ohio, 
that he put the Ohio below the Missouri. 

. Marquette, after preaching the gospel to the 
Indians in this county, on the 17th of July of the 
same year, tCZS, bade them an affectionate farewell, 
and returned to the French settlement in Illinois. 
The report that he carried off his discoveries 
resulted in the expedition of La Salle and his faith- 
ful lieutenant, Henry De Tonti. 

La Salle, under the orders of Gov. Frontenac, 
fitted out an expedition consisting of some fifty odd 
French and Indians, proceeded to explore the Mis- 
sissippi to its mouth, and to take possession of the 
entire country in the name of the French king. 

On the 24th of February, 1682, he with his 
command threw up a fort and built a cabin, on the 
first Chickasaw Bluff, the present Fort Pillow, to 
which he gave the name of Prudhomme, after Peter 
Prudhomme, one of his men. who, after being lost 
eleven days while hunting, at length came up in a 
half starved condition and rejoined his comrades 
at this fort, where La Salle was awaiting him. 

Here La Salle erected on the bluff a great cross, 
and the arms of France, and took possession of the 
country in the name of his king. This fort was 
known to the French inhabitants of Louisiana as 
late as 1825 as Fort Prudhomme. These men must 
have hunted all over the present area of Mississippi 
County. 



During the eighteenth centurj- there is little or 
no information to give of occurrences in this local 
ity. In the spring of 1722 the French historian, 
Charlevoix, passed down the Mississippi, stopped 
for a while in this country, and visited the Indians. 
Catholic missionaries and French trappers and 
traders constantly visited the country from the post 
on Arkansas River and carried on a lively trade 
with the Indians. And here and there, there may 
have been a cabin home in the wilderness, but no 
permanent settlements of any kind were made. 

In 1785 the Spanish governor at New Orleans 
sent an officer and a company of men to New Mad- 
rid to take command of this section of country, 
which was included in his military district. The 
main business of this officer was to rigorously en- 
force the Spanish revenue laws, in exacting trib- 
ute from all American boats descending the Missis 
sippi. * 

In the country called Canadian Reach, of which 
Barfield Point is the center, a few French and 
Spanish traders carried on a lively trade with the 
Indians from the back country. There is no 
knowledge of a single clearing for farming pur- 
poses owned by a white man in this country dur 
ing the last century. 

At the time of the cession of Louisiana l)y 
France to the United States, in 1803, the country 
between the mouth of the St. Francis and the town 
of Cape Girardeau was occupied by remnants 
of the Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Cherokees 
and Chickasaws, in all about 500 families. These 
Indians often attacked boats descending the river, 
plundering them and even committing murders f 
The Indian population of Mississippi County was 
located about Barfield, ChickasawVia, Big Lake, 
Little River and Shawnee Village, generally the 
same places where the white settlements were first 
made. 



* Mississippi County was included in the New Mad- 
rid district until 1709. In that jear New Madrid was at- 
tached to U]iper Loviisiaiia. now the Slate of Missouri, 
and Mississippi County fell to the jurisdiction of the 
Spanish commaudant. Don Carlos de Villemont. at Arlian- 
sas Post, then a town of about l-")0 inhabitants, and pro- 
tected by a garrison of Spanish soldiers. The inhahi- 
tants were French-C'anadians. — II. M. McVeigh. 

f Martin's History of Louisiana. 



~5i> ')» 

T 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



+51 



The first two white settlors in this county, of 
whom there is any knowledge, were a man named 
Carsons and William Kelhims; they were hunters, 
and lived and hunted peaceably with the Indians. 
Carsons' Lake Township and Kellums' Ridge took 
their names from these men, who were here as 
early as 1812, at which time the country was vis- 
ited by the great earthquakes, generally known as 
the Now Madrid earthquakes. 

An Arkansas journal published soon after this 
event gives the following account of how the In- 
dians sought to avert the danger of the shocks by 
reviving an almost obsolete religious rite among 
the aborigines, in imploring the Great Spirit to 
avert his wrath. These Indians lived in the coun- 
try now known as Mi8sissij)pi County. 

"After a general hunt had taken place to kill 
deer enough for the undertaking, a small hut was 
built to represent a temple or place for offering 
sacrifice. The ceremony was introduced by a pre- 
paratory cleansing of the body and face. After 
neatly skinning their deer, thej' suspended them 
by the fore feet so that the head might be directed 
toward the heavens before the temple, as an offer- 
ing to the Great Spirit. In this attitude they re- 
mained for three days, which interval was devoted 
to such penance as consisted in absolute fasting, 
at night lying on the back on fresh deer skins, 
turning their thoughts exclusively upon the happy 
prospect of immediate protection that they might 
conceive dreams to that effect — the only medium 
of intercourse between them and the Great Spirit 
— and lastly, gravely and with much apparent 
piety, imploring the attention of the Great Spirit 
to their helpless and distressed condition, acknowl- 
edging their absolute dependence on him, entreat- 
ing his regard for their wives aad children, declar- 
ing the fatal consequences that must ensue by 
withholding his notice, namely, the loss of their 
wives and children, and their total disability to 
master their game, arising from their constant 
dread of his anger: concluded in the full assurance 
of asserting that their prayers were heard. Their 
object was accomplished by a cessation of terrors, 
and game becoming again ])lentiful and easily 
overcome. On the lapse of three days thus dedi- 



cated, believing themselves forgiven for every un- 
! warrantable act of which they were sensible, and 
that the offering was accepted, they finally began 
with a mutual relation of their respective dreams, 
and the scene is changed to joy and congratulation. 
by proceeding ravenously to devour a sacrificed 
deer to allay their fast." 

Chickasawba, Shawnee Village and Tyronza 
Bayou are localities bearing Indian names. As 
early as 1828 the principal white men living in 
I in this county were the three Brackens, father and 
! two sons; John Troy, county judge from 1836 to 
1838, and for whom Troy Township is named; 
Thomas J. Mills, the first representative after the 
county was formed in 1833; Edwin Jones, the 
first county judge; J. W. Whitworth, its first clerk; 
E. F. Loyd, first sheriff; S. McLung, coroner, and 
G. C. Barfield, its first county surveyor, after 
whom Barfield Point takes its name (Mr. Bar- 
field was a member of the Territorial council from 
j Crittenden, when Mississippi formed a part of 
Crittenden County, in 1827); John C. Bowen, who 
was sheriff from 1836 to 1848; James Williams, 
or "Cedar Jim," as he was called, on account of 
his physical endurance; Elijah Buford, from whom 
Buford's Lake takes its name, and Peter G. Reeves, 
a once noted hunter These were here before 1828, 
and with the exception of Carsons and Kellums 
were the earliest white people in this county of 
whom there is now any account. Judge Charles 
Bowen, who resided in that locality at that time, 
still survives, a hale, hearty, vigorous old man. full 
of years and of honors, having been sheriff of 
the county for sixteen years, a brave officer in the 
late war, a member of the constitutional conven 
tion of 1874, and county judge in 1877-78. 

After hunting and trapping, the principal oc- 
cupation of the early pioneers was chopping and 
selling cord-wood to the steamboats. The advent 
of the little stern- wheel steamboat, "Orleans," in 
the winter of 1812, sailing from Pittsburg to New 
Orleans, was the herald of the Anglo Saxon popu 
lation to Arkansas. The boat created a demand 
for cord-wood, which was supplied by the first 
settlers. They were hardy, industrious, honest 
men. and soon had their cabins on the river, sur- 



L^ 



452 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



rounded by little clearings that gradually ex- 
panded into plantations. Joseph Hearn, who 
came to this county in 1834, says that from the 
lower end of this county to Mill Bayou there were 
not more than half a dozen clearings, all on the 
river. He knew of no one living in what are now 
the back settlements. A man named Hudgens 
lived where Osceola now stands, and a little above 
him on the river was Thomas J. Mills, the first 
representative. A Mr. Penny settled on what was 
afterward Col. Elliot H. Fletcher's plantation, now 
Fletcher's Landing, on Mill Bayou. 

Col. William L. Ward, representative in 1844- 
45, was living in Canadian Reach, and had been 
there for many years. Mr. Riley Hearn, brother 
of Joseph, speaks of the Indians who lived on Big 
Lake; he remembers Big Knife, Keshottee and 
Corn Meal. There were some fifteen or twenty 
livincr on Big Lake in his recollection. 

The Indians in later years remained on Big 
Lake, Chickasawba and Little River. These set- 
tlements are still the frontiers of the wild hunting 
grounds of the sunk lands of the St. Francis. 

As late as 1861 Indians of different tribes con- 
tinued to linger in and around Chickasawba settle- 
ment, which takes its name from Chickasawba, an 
old Indian chief, well lemembered by the pioneers 
of this county, and especially by the venerable 
Judge Charles Bowen, who has seen him carry- 
ing wild honey in a skin flung across his back, 
tramping to Barfield to sell it. Judge Bowen says 
there were about forty Indian families living in 
the neighborhood of Chickasawba as late as 1830. 
The.se Indians would occasionally cultivate a little 
corn and a few vegetables, but depended mainly 
on fishing, hunting and trapping for a living. The 
Judge is authority for the statement that the great 
mound at Barfield has caved into the river in the 
past forty-five years. Here he has seen the un- 
mistakable remains of an ancient fort. The land 
in this vicinity and below for four or five miles 
was open, free from cane, and known as prairie. 
On a tree about si.x miles from Barfield he remem- 
bers seeing a hand carved in the wood, well exe- 
cuted, and pointing directly the way to Barfield; 
it was supposed to be an Indian device indicating 



the way to the Indian village at the mound and 
fort. In 1815 the famous Lorenzo Dow passed by 
this country on a government boat. He claimed 
that this country was inhabited by Indians, and 
white people degenerated to their level. 

Mr. Sam Hector, a truthful, upright citizen of 
Big Lake, who is proud of his Indian blood, lived 
in 1833 at an Indian village called Chil-i-ta-caw. 
the site of Kennett, Dunklin County, Mo., not far 
from Big Lake. 

When he settled on this lake in 1837 the 
Indians occupied the country, chief among whom 
were Corn Meal, John East, Moonshine, John Big 
Knife and Chuck-alee. The latter killed an 
Indian named Keshottee on an island in Little 
River, still known as Keshottee' s Island. He 
thinks the Indians gave the name to the Bayou 
now called Tyronza. Corn Meal told Mr. Hector 
there had been an Indian town on his (Mr. 
Hector's) place, and several along the banks of 
Little River. Where these villages were said to 
have been located he has often seen apple and 
peach trees growing in the woods. About the 
year 1830, an Indian named Little George killed 
a Mrs. Burns near Jackson, Mo. The Indian was 
supposed to have been hired by some one inter- 
ested in an estate, of which the lady was an heir. 
He came to her house and asked for provisions, re- 
ceiving the best she had, and when she turned from 
him, he thrust a large knife to her heart, causing 
instant death. The assailant immediately fled. 
The whites proclaimed that they would extermi- 
nate the entire Indian population if, within a cer- 
tain number of days. Little George was not pro- 
duced, dead or alive. The Indians knew the whites 
were in earnest; they made diligent search, and at 
last came up with him near the foot of Buffalo Is- 
land in Mississippi County. As he was attempt- 
ing to escape, Corn Meal and Keshottee. fired upon 
him, and he fell; and then before he was dead, 
they cut off his head, and one of them, on a fleet 
horse, boro it night and day to the whites at Jack- 
son, and flung it down in their midst. Thus, the 
threatened extermination was prevented. * 

In and around Mr. Hector's place on Big Lake 

*Mr. McVei{?h's narrative ends here. 



'C s 



ih^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



453 



pieces of pottery and brick ware are often plowed 
up. The same material is found all along the 
banks of Little River, and there are everywhere 
through this part of Mississippi County relics of a 
once dense population, which no doubt was that 
now known as Mound Builders. 

There are no towns in Mississippi County that 
can properly be so-called except O.sceola, the coun- 
ty seat, and this pleasantly situated village, with 
a population at the present time of nearly 1,()0(), 
is located on the Mississippi River, al)out midway 
between the northern and southern limits of the 
county. It was one of the earliest settlements in 
this territory, but e.\isted for many years as a small 
collection of huts on the river bank. About 1840 
J. W. DeWitt was postmaster, when he kept the 
affairs of his office and the mails in a cracker box, 
each patron helping himself. Mr. DeWitt was 
also the first school teacher in this county, hav- 
ing his school at a point near the northern limits 
of Osceola. 

The first municipal election in the jjlace was 
held November 20, 1875, and resulted in the choice 
of the following officers: Leon Roussan, mayor; 
John O. Blackwood, recorder; Alex. Goodrich, 
Berry Henwood, B. F. Jones, Daniel Matthews, 

F. M. Petty, aldermen. 

On November 24 the council appointed W. M. 
Speed, marshal: J. W. Clapp, treasurer. 

At the date of incorporation of Osceola it con- 
tained a population of aliout 250 people and some 
half dozen business houses. The business inter- 
ests at present are represented by the following 
firms and business men: Physicians — H. C. Dun- 
avant, R. C. Prewitt, W. D. Jones, J. E. Felts; 
lawyers -H. M. McVeigh, Hugh McVeigh, G. 
\V. Thomason, S. S. Semmes; general stores — 
James Liston, N. L. Avery & Co.. J. K. P. Hale, 
L. A. Morris. A. Goodrich. G. R. Brickey & 
Bro. , Simon & Co.; druggists —Charles H. Gay- 
lord, Ben H. Bacchus; saddlery and harness — N. 

G. Cartwright; liverj'men — Borum & Bro., T. N. 
Tucker; blacksmith and wagon-maker — Mack Mur- 
ry; saloons -C. O. Faber, B. F. Butler, Buck 
Hall, James Perry; jeweler — Charles Jewell; pub- 
lisher—Leon Roussan, proprietor of the Osceola 



Times; shoemaker — Ilobei't Geotz; hotel — Plant- 
ers' House, Mrs. Summers, proprietress. 

Osceola is in the midst of one of the finest 
farming regions in the State; broad and fertile 
acres stretching north, south and west, with over 
10,000 acres under a high state of cultivation. 
The productiveness of these lands is noted, and 
the farms are well supplied with improvements. 
Society is of a higher order than is usually found 
in a town of this size, and many of its citizens are 
college graduates. Under these favorable condi- 
tions the county seat of Mississippi may well be 
pointed to with pride, as here are centered refine- 
ment, culture, education and taste. 

Its thrifty Inisiness men, taking advantage of 
its commercial opportunities, have built up a large 
and constantly growing trade, so that it now ranks 
second in commercial importance among the towns 
on the Mississippi River between Cairo and Mem- 
phis. 

New stores and dwellings are constantly being 
erected, and with good or even fair crops the pres- 
ent promised prosperity will more than be secured. 

Osceola has a good school, four church organ- 
izations, and several secret societies. 

Blythesville, a village of about 200 population, 
is situated in Chickasawba Township, and in the 
center of what is known as Chickasawba settle 
ment. The first postoffice was established in 1870 
with H. T. Blythe as po.stmaster. The business 
interests are represented at the present time by the 
following firms and business men: General stores — 
L. W. Gosnell & Co., N. L. Avery & Co., H. C. 
Davis & Bro. ; groceries and provisions — J. M. E. 
Si.sk; Z. T. Williams & Co., W. P. Adkins; di-ug 
stores— Dr. J. T. Jones, W. H. Oglesby: physi- 
cians— J. T. Jones, W. H. Oglesby, E. D. Rhea, 
J. N. Mize; blacksmiths — A. J. Bishop, B. V. 
Flemens; carpenters — R. N. Ornaby & Co., Eison 
& Co. ; cotton gin, saw and grist mill — H. T. 
Blythe; postmaster — H. T. Blythe; justices J. H. 
Scruggs, A. J. Moody. 

Since the organization of Blythesville, in 1878, 
it has been rapidly advancing and is now the sec- 
ond largest village in Mississippi County. It is 
surrounded by a beautiful country, fertile and pro- 



*$J 



la v_ 



454 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



ductive, with about 4,500 acres under cultivation; 
some 1,800 acres in this community are never 
overflowed in any ordinary flood. The woods are 
tilled with valuable timber, and only await mills 
and transportation to become the source of great 
wealth. The open land in this section is under a 
high state of cultivation, while thousands of acres 
still in the timber, now available to settlers, are 
unsurpassed in the State. 

The people of the township are intelligent and 
enterprising, and will extend a cordial welcome to 
settlers from any part of the United States, pos- 
sessing similar traits of character. 

In the settlement known as Cooktown is one 
of the largest Indian mounds in this county ; it has 
long been known that in this vicinity was an im- 
mense Indian population in former times, and in- 
deed, Indians have been located here within the 
memory of living men. Many curiosities and relics 
have been unearthed, and as the mound stands in 
the center of cultivated fields, it is easily accessible 
to visitors, to whom it is always an object of inter- 
est and wonder. 

Hickman Bend, a section of river front extend- 
ing from about three miles above Barfield to the 
northern border of Mississippi County, is one of 
the most desirable sections hereabouts. There 
are about 1,300 acres of land under cultivation, 
and the bend is being rapidly opened and im- 
proved. The shipping point at Brolaski has a 
store and postoiiice, which give the people a con- 
venient outlet. Too much can hardly be said in 
praise of this magnificent country, as its product- 
iveness is proverbial, a bale of cotton to the acre 
being a small average yield. Settlement is great- 
ly desired, one planter stating that he would gladly 
welcome fifty families, and provide good accommo- 
dations for them all. This bend and the townshij) 
in which it is located take their names fi'om Dr. 
Hickman, an old pioneer who settled at an early 
day, and who is still remembered for his ster- 
ling qualities, his tender-hearted kindness and gen- 
erosity. 

Barfield, the most extensive business point in 
the northern part of Mississippi County, is located 
in Canadian Township, on the river front. It is 



' surrounded by a fertile country, with some 1,200 
acres under cultivation. It has two stores, and 
landings, and in the vicinity there are three saw- 
mills. The lumber business of this county is in 
its infancy, but the success and prosperity of these 
mills assure the development of great wealth from 
surrounding valuable timber in the near future. 

The mail for these river points is carried by 
boats, and Barfield has a mail daily. 

Elmot is a postoffice five miles above Osceola, 
in Fletcher Township. It is the outlet for an ex- 
cellent country, which is being rapidly improved 
and settled. The Government has been making 
extensive improvement along the river fi'om and 
in the channel below, and this has given Elmot a 
rapid rise. The open land in this section is a con- 
tinuation of the Osceola settlement, extending along 
the river in unbroken fields of the choicest land for 
nearly ten miles. Within a short distance on the 
river front are three stores and several landinsfs, 
which have local names. Ed. Williams, proprietor 
of a general store, is also postmaster of Elmot. 

Nodena, a postoffice kept by Maj. Ferguson, is 
situated twelve miles below Osceola, on the river 
front. It consists of the plantations of Maj. Fer- 
guson and Col. Craighead, which places rank 
among the finest in the county, having about 
2,0U0 acres under a high state of cultivation. 

Golden Lake, which also includes Idaho Land- 
ing, is located eight miles above the county line. 
Here the postoffice is kept by J. W. Rhodes. Mr. 
Rhodes established this landing in 1883, the orig- 
inal landing, Crowell, on which he had resided 
since the year 1878, having been washed away. 
This place is the outlet of the Frenchman's Bayou 
settlement; fi'om that source it derives a large 
trade. 

At both landings there are about 500 acres 
under cultivation, the places containing three 
general stores, three cotton gins and one saw-mill. 
From this point there is a tramway to a saw mill, 
five miles inland, owned by R. E. Lee Wilson, 
which ships large quantities of lumber annually. 

Pecan Point, situated in the extreme south- 
eastern part of Mississippi County, on the river 
front, embraces a rich and fertile tract of land, 






MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



455 



vvitli iibnut 2,000 acres uuder cultivation. It oc- 
cupies a commanding position on a point, and is 
one of the most beautiful places on the river 
front. 

It WHS originally settled and brought under a 
state of cultivation by Felix Grundy, Jacob Mc- 
Gavock and J. M. Bass, all of Nashville, Tenn. 
The business and postotfice are conducted at the 
present time by K. W. Friend, who has been 
located here a long time. He enjoys a lucrative 
trade, and owns a large proportion of the culti- 
vated land. 

Frenchman's Bayou, in the southern part of 
the county, about twenty-tive miles southwest of 
Osceola, is a most attractive stretch of country, ex- 
tending for about six miles, and embracing an area 
of 3,500 acres, under a high state of cultivation. 
This locality is noted for its general condition of 
improvement, many of its buildings being in ad- 
vance of other sections of the county. The laud 
has long been noted for its fertility, and the 
annual crops here show in an indisputable manner 
the wonderful growing qualities of the soil. The 
people are courteous, cultivated and enterprising, 
welcoming all industries that promise to contribute 
to the general good. The neighboring wood-lands 
are tilled with valuable timber, only awaiting trans- 
portation and the saw-mill to become sources of 
wealth. 

Along the bayou there are live general stores, 
conducted by T. B. Jones, W. H. Pullen (also 
postmaster). Ward & Jones, F. Musick, Adams & 
Co., and one drug store, by Dr. J. C. Joyner. A 
school, church, a Masonic lodge (Frenchman's 
Bayou No. 157), and McGavock Lodge No. 2,754, 
Knights of Honor, are also here. 

Secret societies seem to occupy public attention 
quite as well in Mississippi County as elsewhere in 
the State. The following lodges are among the 
representatives of numcu-ous fraternities and orders : 

Kallorama Lodge No. 990, Knights and Ladies 
of Honor, of Osceola, was organized January 29, 
1885, with the following charter members; S. S. 
Semmes, Mrs. F. M. Semmos, Mrs. O. J. Hale, 
H. L. Kline, Mrs. I. H. Kline, A. J. Nolty, Mrs. 
Amelia Nolty, D. A. Richardson. Mrs. M. E. 



Richardson, Mrs. L. A. Wynne, Mrs. J. A. Wood, 
P. B. Sexton, G. F. Stowell, Mrs. M. A. Stowell, 
Robert Dona, W. B. Haskins, G. A. Bolick, J. O. 
Blackwood, T. N. Tucker, Mrs. T. F. Tucker, C. 
H. Gaylord, B. O. Harrison, Mrs. Eloize Harrison, 
Mis. S. B. Blackwood, G. L. Gould, E. M. Ayers, 
Mrs. S. F. McVeigh, W. D. Jones, Mrs. Lizzie 
Conley. This association is a mutual beneficial in- 
surance company, and its object is to promote social 
intercourse among its members. The present mem- 
bership is thirty-two, with the following officers: 
S. S. Semmes, P. P. ; Mrs. F. M Semmes, P. ; Mrs. 
M. G. Morris, V. P. ; Mrs Lizzie Clure, C. ; C. H. 
Gaylord, S. and F. S. ; N. L. Avery, Treas. ; Mrs. 
L. A. Wynne, guard.; Mrs. M. F. Avery, guide; 
Mrs. S. B. Price, sentinel; Mrs. O. J. Hale, S. 
S. Semmes, N. L. Avery, trustees; H. C. Duna- 
vant, medical examiner. 

Monroe Lodge No. 2,167, Knights of Honor, 
of Osceola, was organized April 6, ISSO, with the 
following charter members : J. O. Blackwood, John 
Mathews, John B. Driver, D. H. Lawrence, T. C. 
Edrington, W. M. Dunkin, J. W. Pennell, W. J. 
Bowen, H. C. Dunavaut, C. H. Gaylord, G. R. 
Brickey, John Waller, T. A. Blackwood, J. L. 
Edrington, W. S. Hayes, F. B. Hale, A. Good- 
rich, W. F. Williams, G. F. Stowell, F. M.Tucker, 
Ed. H. Mathes. 

The object of this association is the same as that 
of the Knights and Ladies of Honor. It has a pres- 
ent membership of twenty-seven, and is presided 
over by the following officers: A. Goodrich, D. ; S. 
S. Semmes, V. D. ; W. P. Hale, A. D. ; R. Gootz, 
C. ; C. H. Gaylord, R. and F. R. ; G. R. Brickey, 
treasurer; D. Lawrence, guide; B. F. Buller, guar- 
dian; H. C. Duuavant, medical examiner; A. Good- 
rich, S. S. Semmes, G. R. Brickey, trustees. 

Samaritan Lodge No. 18, A. O. U. \V., Grand 
Lodge of Texas, was organized in December, 1884, 
with a charter membership of twenty-live. It is 
still in working order, with a membership of ten, 
C. O. Faber being M. W. ; S. S. Semmes, R. and F. 

Osceola Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M.. was 
organized November 6, 1867, with the following 
charter members: William A. Ferring, \V. M. ; 
R. G. Hardin, S. W. ; B. F. Bennett. J. W. ; 



V 



456 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



B. Harris. Treas. ; E. \V. Rowlett, Sec; J. ¥. 
Davies. S. D. ; T. C. Morris, J. D. : J. R. Acree, 
tyler. Members; J. G. Lay ton, W. S. Sugg, J. 
B. Kelley, J. W. Ozell, J. C. Clark, W. J. Kent, 
M. F. Warren, J. M. Able. James Stewart. 

This lodge, which has always been one of the 
most flourishing in the State, has a large mem 
l)ership, now numbering eighty, presided over at 
the present time by the following officers; Ben- 
jamin H. Bacchus, W. M. ; \V. F. Williams, S. 
W. ; F. B. Hale, J. AV. ; R. M. Fletcher, Sec. ; 
J. K. P. Hale, Treas.; Elliot Williams, S. D. ; 
S. C. Edriugton, J. D. ; John Barney, tyler. 

The lodge is noted for its acts of charity, and 
the V)rillianc}- of its members in Masonic knowl- 
edge. From this two other lodges have originated. 
No. 134 at Chickasawba. and at Frenchman's 
Bayou. 

Osceola Royal Arch Chapter No. 57 was or- 
ganized March 1, 1871, with the following charter 
members; George A. Dannel}', B. A. Williamson. 
F. C. Morris. A. K. Nash, W. A. Ferring, J. F. 
Davies, J. S. Mahau, C. C. Morris, George Faf- 
ford. 

The Chapter enjoys a membership of nineteen 
at the present time, is in good working order, and 
is presided over by the following officers; J. K. P. 
Hale. H. P.; J. E. Felts, P.; C. Bowen, S. : C. 
H. Gaylord, Sec. ; W. P. Hale, Treas. 

The Ladies' Aid Society of Osceola was organ 
ized for benevolent jjurposes, February 20, 1882. 
with twenty-six active members, and a large hon- 
orary membership. The first year of its existence 
its labors were directed wholly to church work, 
proving quite successful. This society, in Janu- 
ary, 1883, was incorporated by the circuit court of 
Mississippi County, and immediately purchased a 
lot and entered into contract witli Capt. E. M. 
Ayers, to erect a building 40x60, to cost $1,200, 
In October, 1883, the hall was formally opened, 
and from that time on. the entertainments given 
under the auspices of the society have been promi- 
nent features of the social life of the community. 
It is claimed that this was the first corporate body 
of women in the State of Arkansas. 

The Ladies" Aid Society is not denominational, 



the following churches being represented in its 
membership; Episcopal, Methodist, Catholic and 
Christian; neither is it a "charity" organization, 
though ever eager to spend and be spent in the 
service of suffering humanity, whenever occasion 
lequires. 

The society has passed successfully into its 
eighth year, with Miss F. H. Fletcher, president: 
Mrs. Clara A. Ronssan. vice-president: Mrs. R. C. 
Prewitt. treasurer, and Mrs. Leon Roussan, sec- 
retary: and with unabated zeal, will, no doubt, 
continue to do much to dispel the social and 
mental stagnation consequent upon a long res- 
idence in a small and isolated community. 

Chickasawba Lodge No. 134. A. F. & A. M., 
of Blythesville, was organized October 12, 1875, 
with the following charter members; Samuel 
Thompson, A. J. Bishop, T. H. Robinson, Noah 
Sawyer, John Long, R. D. Almond, Martin Nor- 
man, J. F. Ruddle, T. P. Davis, W. W. Mann, 
R. D. Carr, R. G. Hardin, H. T. Blythe. 

This lodge is in good working order, has been 
constantly growing in strength, and now has a 
membership of over forty. It is presided over at 
the present time by the following officers: J. A. 
Scrnggs, W. M. : l.eginald Archillion, S. W. ; W. 
R. Simpson. J. W. : B. J. Rook, S. D. ; T. E. 
Hendricks. J . D. : A. Harris, Treas. ; Rollo Arch- 
illion, Sec; J. D. Rutledge, Chaplain; J. W. 
Conley and George W. Miller, stewards; W. W. 
Morris, tyler. 

At the commencement of the Civil War the 
people of Mississippi County, though loyal and 
patriotic, finally decided to go with the State, and 
were a unit in favor of the cause of secession. 
The war spirit ran high, affecting rich and poor 
alike. If there was any Union sentiment in the 
county (and there was at first), it soon succumbed 
to the influences in favor of a separate Coufod 
eracy. 

Three companies of nearly 100 men each were 
immediati'ly organized, being commanded by Col. 
Charles Bowen. Capt. Elliott H. Fletcher, and 
Capt. Robert Hardin, and were at once placed 
in active service. Only a few of the men form 
ing those companies were alive at the end of the 



-re 



>?-, 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



4.")? 



war. Of Capt. Fletchei's compauy, some twelve 
or fourteen are now living, mostly around Chicka- 
sawba, and all are men of character and well to-do 
citizens. One of these, Hon. James F. Ruddle, was 
representative of the county in the legislature of 
1875. Capt. Elliot H. Fletcher and his brother, 
Thomas, a youth of sixteen years, were killed iu 
the battle of Shiloh. The first lieutenant of this 
company, William H. Ferring, was badly wounded 
in the same Viattle. He survived the war, and was 
elected county clerk iu 1S()(5-6S. 

After the battle of Shiloh, Capt. Boweu re- 
turned to Mississippi County to recruit a new com- 
pany, but as the Federals had taken possession of 
the river he found it impossible to cross his men, 
and from that time on, wrought good service at 
home clearing the county of lawless bands of rob- 
bers. 

There were no regular battles fought iu this 
county, though it suffered greatly from predatory 
raids by Federal cavalry from Missouri and Kan- 
sas. Business of every interest was suspended, 
and people lived in constant apprehension of being 
raided, captured and killed. 

In 1864 Col. Burris, in command of a regi- 
ment of Kansas cavalry (Federal), made a dash 
through this country, taking several prisoners, 
among whom were Capt. Charles Bowen and Col. 
Elliot Fletcher. This company was pursued Ijy 
Capt. McVeigh, in command of some seventy men, 
but they escaped to Missouri and no engagement 
was fought. 

This and similar marauding expeditions formed 
the principal war history of Mississippi County. 

The Federal troops stationed at Fort Pillow 
often came into Mississi])pi County, and, on one 
occasion, supplied themselves with material for 
building V)arracks at the fort, l>y taking away tlie 
houses of Osceola. 

With the general surrender of the Confederate 
troops, the soldiers returned from the war, and in 
a short while had resumed the habits of peaceable 
citizens; but it was a long time l)efore they could 
shake off the habits of soldiers. It was not un- 
usual for tlu>m to go with pistols Ijuckled on, often 
to cliurch. and it was not until the law against 



carrying pistols began to be rigorously enforced, 
that the old soldiers found out the true moaning of 
the terms of the surrender. 

In 1808 Mississippi (bounty was under martial 
law, and a regiment of State militia was quartered 
upon the people. Upon the withdrawal of the 
militia, the people again returned to their indus- 
tries — though large numbers of the best citizens had 
fled from the county— and again the prospects of 
the county began to brighten, only to be again 
disturbed and disorganized by an insurrection of 
the blacks in 1872. 

A rising of the negroes in that year was called 
the Blackhawk War, and was an event of consid- 
erable importance in the history of Mississippi 
County. 

The colored people formed into secret societies 
throughout the county and often marched in 
armed bands to Osceola and other points, making 
speeches and causing a great deal of excitement, 
but there was no collision between them and the 
whites until fall, when, during a term of court in 
the county, the negroes, forming quite a formid- 
able band, were attacked by the whites, under 
Capt. Charles Bowen, and immediately dispersed. 
Prior to this Judge Charles Fitzpatrick, who had 
been appointed l)y Gov. Clayton as president of the 
board of registration of Mississippi County, in an 
altercation with Sheriff Murray, killed the latter 
in the streets of Osceola. 

This caused public sentiment to ran high, but 
Judge Fitzjiatrick immediately gave himself up, 
was bound over to appear at the next term of 
court, and then released. After the engagement 
between the whites and blacks Judge Fitzpatrick 
escaped. There were a good many negroes killed, 
how many was never known, and a number escaped 
to adjoining counties. 

The first representative of Mississippi County 
after the admission of Arkansas into the Union, in 
1830, was P. H. Swain, from whom Swain Town 
ship received its nan)e. 

Crittenden and Mississippi Counties were rep 
resented in the State senate by W. D. Ferguson 
in 188fj-37-;58, and in the session of 1840 he was 
still in the senate, P. H. Swain being representa- 



@ t^ 



458 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tive of this county. In 1842-43 A. G. Greer was 
the senator and W. M. Finley the representative. 
In 1844-45 Peter G. Reeves, previously mentioned 
as a noted hunter, rejaresented Mississippi and 
Crittenden in the State senate, and Col. Willi&m 
L. Ward was representative. In 1840-48-50-51 
G. W. Underhill was senator and Col. Elliot H. 
Fletcher representative. In 1850-53, Underbill, 
senator; Thomas J. Blackmore, representative; 
1854-55, Thomas B. Craighead, senator; Joseph 
C. Harding, repre.sentative; 1856-57, T. B. Craig- 
head, senator, Thomas M. Harding, representative; 
1858-59, T. B. Craighead, senator and T. B. Craig 
head, representative; 1860-62, Craighead, senator. 
John R. Acree, representative; in the legislature 
of 1868, the county was not represented. In 
1864-65, T. Lambei-ton, senator, no representa- 
tive, nor in the special session of that year. In 
1866-67, O. R. Lyles, senator, William W. Saw 
yers, representative; 1868-69, D. H. Goodman, 
senator, A. M. Johnson, representative; 1871-72, 
J. G. Frierson of Cross, senator, L. D. Rozzell, 
representative. 

In the famous legislature of 1873. which revo- 
lutionized the State government, relieving the peo- 
ple from disfranchisement, J. G. Frierson was 
senator; and the First district, composed of Craig- 
head, Cross. Jackson and Mississippi Counties, was 
represented by Roderick Joyner of Poinsett, W. 
H. Cate. of Craighead, H. M. McVeigh, of Missis- 
sippi, and F. W. Lynn, of Jackson. In the ex- 
traordinary session of 1874, Frierson was senator, 
and J. F. Davies was elected to fill the unexpired 
term of H. M. McVeigh, who had been appointed 
by the govei'nor prosecuting attornej' of the Elev- 
enth judicial district. In 1874-75, J. T. Hender- 
son, senator, and J. J. Ruddell of Chickasawba, 
representative; in 1878. Benjamin Harris, senator, 
J. H. Williams, representative; iu the session of 
1879, B. Harris, senator, and J. O. Blackwood, 
representative; 1881, J. B. Driver of Mississippi, 
senator, and H. M. McVeigh, representative; 
1883, Driver, senator, and F. G. McGavock, rep- 
resentative; 1885, John W. Stayton, senator, and 
Joseph Bradford, repn>sentative; 1887, Stayton, 
senator, and H. T. Blytho. representative; 1889, 



Ben Harris. Jr.. senator, J. K. Hale, of Osceola, 
representative. 

I The men who served the county as representa- 
tives from the organization in 1833 to 1889 were, 
in the main, persons of excellent abilitj', and did 
much toward shaping the destiny of their State. 
They were not all men of education; some of them 
may have been very illiterate; but they were pos- 

, sessed of honest hearts and strong, natural sense. 
Those who were members before the late Civil Wai' 
experienced none of the difficulties which confronted 
their successors after that conflict. 

Thos. B. Craighead and Col. Elliot H. Fletcher 
were, perhaps, the two most brilliant of those 
whom this county sent to the legislative assembly 
before the war — men qualilied by natural ability 

I and scholarly attainments to fill with credit any 
position in the gift of the people. Craighead was 
an able lawyer, and a fine orator. Fletcher was 
a born ruler of men, and the magnetism of his 
manner, the clearness and elegance of his conver- 
sation, and his varied knowledge on all subjects, 
made him a welcome companion in every circle. 

The public buildings of Mississippi Count}' 
consist of a large two-story frame court-house, 
with the county offices in the lower and the court- 
room in the upper story, and a frame jail with iron 
cells, both of which are located on Broadwaj- 
street, at Osceola, the county seat. The court- 
house was erected in 1882-84, under the adminis- 
tration of S. S. Semmes, county judge, and cost 
all told about 18, 500. 

The population of the county in 1840 num- 
bered 900 whites and 510 slaves; total, 1,410. It 
then contained 3,042 neat cattle, 76 sheep, 5,022 
hogs, and produced 107,615 bushels of corn, 3,908 
bushels of potatoes, and 22, 500 pounds of cotton. 

': It had one store, and one school with 25 scholars. 
This was taught by J. W. DeWitt, who was county 
clerk from 1830 to 1840. 

From 1840 to 1861 the county growth was slow 
and gradual. Its population in 1854 was only 
2,260, of whom 541 were slaves. In that year 
were produced 192,200 bushels of corn, and in 
1850, 200,250 bushels of corn, 455 bales of cot- 
ton, and 21,273 pounds of butter. 



'-^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



459 



The population at the oiitbrpnk of the war had 
not materially increased, being in ISdOonly 3,895, 
and the effects of the Civil War upon the county 
may be judged from the fact that in the ensuing 
ten years the population had decreased, being in 
1870, 8,();!:i 

But little progress in population and wealth 
was made until the adoption of the constitution of 
1874. From that time all restrictions upon the 
right of suffrage were removed, and an economic 
State government, with A. H. Garland as gov- 
ernor, soon restored public conlidence. Then the 
county began to grow, especially from 1877 to 
1881. The census of 1880 showed that the county 
had doubled its population since 1870. In the 
year 1877 the temperance wave struck this locality 
and swept it like a whirlwind, and from Osceola 
the agitation spread throughout the State. Great 
and permanent good was effected by the worthy 
movement in Mississippi County. But very little 
drunkenness will be observed among the people at 
this time. 

The only serious drawbacks to the county's 
prosperity in late years were the disastrous floods 
of 1882-83-84. These floods checked for a while 
all growth and development hereabouts. Many 
farms were temporarily abandoned, and new clear- 
ings were left by those who had settled on the pub- 
lic lands. The effects of this disaster have passed 
away, and the people seem to have forgotten them. 
The county is now in a more prosperous condition 
than at any previous period in its history. There 
are almost as many Northern people in the county 
as those of Southern origin, and they live together 
upon terms of perfect peace and mutual respect. 
Ex-Federal and ex-Confederate soldiers may be 
seen together at almost any time, apparently with- 
out a thought of the days when they met each 
other on opposite sides in deadly conflict. 

Mississippi County was organized in accordance 
with an act of the legislature of Arkansas, ap- 
proved November 1, 1833; and the following is a 
list of the names of the county and legislative of- 
ficers, with the dates of their terms of service an- 
nexed, from the organization to the present: 

Judges: Edwin Jones, 1833-35; Nathan Ross, 



1835-36; John Troy, 1836-38; Fred Miller, 
1838-40; Nathan Ross, 1840-42; H. A. Phillips, 
1842-44; W. L. Ward, 1844-40; H. A. Phillips, 
1846-48; E. M. Daniel, 1848-56; J. H. Williams, 
1856-58; J. H. McKinney, 1858-60; J. W. Alris, 
1864-66; J. H. McKinney, 1866-68; C. L. Moore, 
1868-72; L. M. Carrigan, 1874-76: Charles Bowen, 
187()-78; J. E. Felts, 1878-80; E. A. Garlick, 
1880-82; S. S. Semmes, 1882-84; E. Bevel, 1884- 
86; L. D. Rozzell, present incumbent, first elected 
in 1886. 

Clerks: J. W. Whitworth, 1833-36; J. W. 
DeWitt, 1836-40; J. P. Edrington, 1840-44; A. 
G. Blackmore, 1844-50; H. A. Phillips, 1850-54: 
D. D. Dickson, 1854-58; M. W. Nanney, 1858-62; 
M. W. Nanney, 1864-66; W. A. Ferring, 1866- 
68; J. B. Best, 1868-74; J. K. P. Hale, 1874-80: 

B. H. Bacchus, 1880-84; Hugh R. McVeigh, 
1884-88; J. B. Driver, present incumbent, elected 
in 1888. 

Sheriffs: E. F. Lloyd, 1833-36; J. C. Bowen, 
1836-48; Charles Bowen, 1848-62; Charles Bowen, 
1864-66; John Long, 1866-68; J. B. Murray, 
1868-72; J. B. Driver, 1872-78; W. B. Haskins, 
1878-86; W. S. Hayes, present incumbent, first 
elected in 1886. 

Treasurers: Uriah Russell, 1836-38: T. L. 
Daniel, 1838-42; John Gibson, 1842-50; W. C. 
Dillehay, 1850-54; C. W. Bush, 1854-56; D. 
Matthews, 1856-58; C. W. Burk, 1858-60; D. 
Matthews, 1860-62; H. C. Edrington, 1864-66: 
D. Matthews, 1866-68; J. H. Edrington, 1868 
72; J. H. Sheddon, 1872 to August, 1874; J. L. 
Driver, Atigust, 1874-78; J. W. Uzzell, 1878 to 
January. 1884; G. F. Stowell, from January, 1884; 
James Listen, 1884-88; C. H. Gaylord, present 
incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Coroners: S. McLung. 1833-36; T. L. Daniel. 
1836-38; J. Williams, 1838-40; Thomas Sears, 
1840-42; Richard Pearson, 1846-48; J. Cunning- 
ham, 1848-50; T. Williamson, 1850-52; E. O. 
Cromwell, 1852-54; J. V. Lynch, 1854-56; W. 
D. W. Bond, 1858-60; L. W. D. Bond, 1860-62: 
D. Matthews, 1864-66; John Pedigo, 1866-68; H. 

C. Rosa, 1872-74; A. W. Lucas, 1874-78; G. E. 
Pettey, 1878-80; J. M. Lawrence, present incum- 



4f iO 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bent, first elected in 1880, and has served^ontin 
uoiisly since. 

Surveyors: G. C. Barlield. 1838-36; J. G. 
Davis, 1830-38; A. G. Blackmore, 1840-44; J. D. 
B. Sherman, 1846-48; G. Pendleton, 1848-50; 
William Dillingham, 1850-52; E. G. Sugg, 1852- 
54; W. B. Wood, 1854-56; A. H. Fisher, 1856- 
58; A. Faucette, 1858-60; William Femsite, 
1860-62; J. W. Uzzell, 1864-66; W. H. Craig- 
head, 1866-68; J. W. Uzzell, 1868-72; F. L. 
James, 1872-74; J. H. Rainey, 1874-76; James 
Anthony, 1876-77; J. T. Burns. 1877-78; B. H. 
Bacchus, 1878-80; George Benton, 1880-82; J. H. 
Caruthers, 1882-84; T. H. Musgrave, 1884-86; 
R. H. Clay, 1886-88; Reginald Archillion, present 
incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: H. C. Edrington, 1868-72; P. 
Mitchell, 1872-73; John Rainey, 1873-74; L. 
Ward, 1874-76; D. D. Dickson, 1876-78; W. M. 
Speed, 1878-80; J. A. Lovewell, 1880-82; J. R. 
Riggins, 1882-86; B. L. Hill, 1886-88; T. W. 
Davis, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

In 1887 the National government constructed 
a strong and massive levee, from Bear Bayou to 
Craighead Point, covering a distance of about 
twenty miles, and protecting the finest section of 
farming country in the county. The county has 
now in contemplation the continuation of this 
levee to its northern limit, which will immediately 
make available for cultivation hundreds of thous- 
ands of acres of rich and fertile lands; it will in- 
crease the taxable property of the county, and 
open up large areas for settlement. Thus, with 
the completion of this levee system to the southern 
limit of the county (which will probably be done 
during the next few years), Mississippi will be 
thoroughly protected from the river floods, and 
may then expect to see the opening of an era of 
prosperity to which it is justly entitled. 

The enumeration of school children of Missis- 
sippi County in 1886, showed the presence of 2,582 
children of school age; in 1887, 2,809. There are 
twenty-nine school districts in the county, and the 
present enumeration would probably exceed 3,000 
children of school age. 

The county school.s are generally in good con- 



dition, and the directors have ample money to 
secure good teachers. Mr. Leon Roussan, the 
present county examiner, is exerting himself to raise 
the grade of both teachers and schools. 

There is a high school in Osceola which ranks 
among the substantial institutions of the State. 
At Blythesville the directors are about to build a 
new school building, and then hope to raise the 
grade to a point that the people of Chickasawba 
need. 

School service, however, throughout the county 
can only be spoken of in terms of praise, as there 
seems to be a feeling among the directors that 
the people will only be satisfied with the best, and 
as they have recently voted high taxation for school 
purposes, this county may be expected to take a 
leading place in educational matters. 

The first Baptist Church of Mississippi County 
was organized in Osceola, about 1870, by Elder 
H. H. Richardson, of Clear Creek Association, 
Illinois, acting as missionary, and was composed 
of the following constituted members: J. K. P. 
Hale and wife, Melissa A. Hale, Charles G. Evans 
and wife, Martha Evans, Mrs. Rhoda Housman. 
John E. Felts and wife, Eliza Felts, all of whom 
exhibited their church letters from regular Baptist 
churches, and in regular form. In 1S80 they built 
a substantial and ornamental building, and now 
have a membership of about sixty. 

There are Baptist churches at Chickasawba and 
other places in Mississippi County. 

The Methodists have an organization at Osce- 
ola, several churches in the southern part of the 
county, and four in Chickasawba Township. 
Blythe's Chapel, Shady Grove, New Hope and 
Clear Lake. 

There are four organizations of the Presbyter- 
ian denomination in Mississippi County, all grow- 
ing in strength, meml)ership and importance. 
These are located at Osceola, Nodena, Pecan Point 
and Frenchman's Bayou. The present pastors are 
Revs. Boggs and Lloyd. 

The colored people have numerous organiza- 
tions of various denominations throughout the 
county. 

The Catholic (Church of Osceola, the only 



^ — ^t 



^, 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



4fil 



church of this denomination in Mississippi County, 
was built in 1879. It is a frame building, 44x24 
feet, weatherboarded outside and sealed inside; 
it is sixteen feet to the tof) of ceiling and sixty- 
four feet to the top of the cross; and cost, seated, 
$2,000. It was built with the proceeds of a fair 
and by private subscription, raised through the 
exertion of a committee of ladies. The congrega- 
tion numbers about thirty-five communicants, who 
depend upon the transient visits of a priest to ad- 
minister to their wants. 

From the distress and poverty entailed by the 
most disastrous war in modern times, Mississippi 
County is rapidly passing to the period when it 
will become one of the most prosperous counties 
in the State. No one who studies the facts in the 
case can question this. Here is a county "rich 
beyond compare;" a county with timber resources 
almost without limit; with agricultural possibili- 
ties not surpassed, probably not equaled, by any 
other county in the State, in the production of that 
wonderful product — cotton, and nowhere else can 
there be added to this such facilities for fruit rais- 
ing, for early and late vegetables, for the cereals 
and grasses, as in this favored section. 

What most impresses a chance visitor to this 
locality is the large number of self-made men — men 
who came here a short time ago with absolutely 
no resources, who are now, after a few years' cul- 
tivation of this productive soil, living in compara- 
tive affluence. This is undisputed evidence that 
it is one of the most promising counties for emi- 
gration that the South can show. 

Mississippi County has an immense wealth of 
timber awaiting the advent of capital and labor to 
put it in the markets of the world. All these ad- 
vantages are so apparent, that settling here has 
long passed the range of speculation, and success 
and prosperity are positive rewards of moderately 
directed energy and industry. 



Reginald Archilliou, has been employed as 
farmer, school-teacher and surveyor during his 
residence in the county, and resides upon his 
wife's lands on Clear Lake. He ii^ a native of 



Indiana, bis birth having occurred in Madison 
County, in 1855. He is the eldest of two children 
born to Anthony and Maria Archilliou, and in the 
county of his birth he continued to make his home 
until nine years of age, afterward entering school 
at Evansville, Ind. , where he remained until fifteen 
years of age, his father having passed to his long 
home two years previously. At the early age of 
thirteen years Reginald began depending on his 
own resources to obtain a livelihood, and although 
quite young he perceived that if he wished to make 
a success of his life a good education was very es- 
sential; accordingly he continued to attend school 
until seventeen years of age, the last few years 
being spent in Richmond. He also attended the 
schools of Huntington, Ind., one year, and was 
also engaged in studying law in that place until he 
was twenty years of age, at which time he went to 
Louisiana, and two years later to Texas. On the 
7th of February, 1880, he came to Osceola, Ai-k. , 
soon after engaging as a farm hand for A. B 
Young, at Osceola, but spent the winter months up 
to a few years ago in teaching school. He is a 
member of Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, F. & A. 
M. : is now filling his second term as county sur- 
veyor, having been elected first in 1887 to fill a 
vacancy. In 1881 Mrs. Rebecca (Cutwright) 
Hetherington, a native of Indiana, became his 
wife. 

Rollo Archilliou, like his brother, Reginald 
Archillion, is an energetic and enterprising young 
agriculturist of Mississippi County, and now owns 
an excellent little farm of eighty acres, situated 
about one mile south of Blythesville, which property 
has been in his possession since 1887. At that 
time but twenty-five acres were under cultivation, 
but he has since made many improvements in the 
way of repairing the house, building fences, and 
clearing up the land; he has opened up five addi- 
tional acres, and expects soon to have his entire farm 
under the plow, which can be readily done. His 
father died when he was an infant. l)ut, through 
his own determination and the assistance of a kind 
and willing mother, he succeeded in attending 
school until about sixteen years of age; then, in 
company with his brother Reginald, he started for 






^ 



4fi2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the South with the expectation of bettering his con- 
dition, and after working in Louisiana for some 
time he went to Texas, in which State he remained 
for very nearly two years. After another short 
period spent in Louisiana he came to the State of 
Arkansas, and settled in Mississippi County at Clear 
Lake, where he spent some time in tilling the soil, 
and was there united in marriage to Miss Elma 
A. Conley, a native of the county and a daughter 
of one of the old and worthy settlers of this region. 
Mrs. Archillion owned an interest in a farm on 
Clear Lake, on which they located after their mar- 
riage, and during their two years' residence at this 
place Mr. Archillion taught school. At the end of 
this' period (in 1883) they concluded to go to the 
Lone Star State, where they both engaged in ped- 
agoguing for three years; then returned to Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark. , where they have since made 
their home. Mr. and Mrs. Archillion are the 
parents of two childj-en, Maud and Mabel. The 
mother has been for a number of years a consistent 
and worthy member of the Methodist Episcojial 
Church. Mr. Archillion is a member of CLicka- 
sawba Lodge No. 134, F. & A. M. He is a young 
man whose activity and energy will one day place 
him among the foremost agriculturists of the 
county, for everything about his place indicates 
thrift, which is one of the prominent characteristics 
of its owner. 

Jesse Ashburn is recognized as a careful, ener- , 
getic agriculturist of this community, and by his 
advanced ideas and progressive habits has done no 
little good for the farming interest hereabout. 
Originally from Huntsville, Ala., he was born in 
the year 1823, and is the son of Byrd Ashburn who, 
shortly after the birth of his son Jesse, loaded his 
family and effects on a flatboat at Huntsville and 
floated down the Tennessee River to the Ohio, on 
that river down to the Mississippi, and thereon to j 
the mouth of the Hatchie River. He then sailed 
up that river to the mouth of Indian Creek, where 
he disembarked and took up land in Tennessee. 
Here he opened up a fine farm, but later sold out 
and moved to near Randolph, where he remained 
one year. He then moved with his family, con- 
sisting of his wife and four children, direct to 



Frenchman's Bayou, settled about a fourth of a 
mile from where his son Jesse now resides, and 
there remained until his death, which occurred in 
1847. His wife survived him eleven years. Jesse 
Ashburn has lived in this settlement ever since, 
with the exception of aboat five years spent in 
Missouri, whither he had moved in 1863. During 
the war he took part with neither side except to 
suppress a few guerrillas who were plundering 
indiscriminately in Missouri. For many years 
after his residence in Arkansas, there was no 
market, and but two settlements on the Bayou — 
one family by the name of McClung and another 
by the name of Owens — but they left no descend- 
ants here. The first school taught was at Owens' 
house, and McClung' s son taught the first term. 
Mr. Ashburn attended, and the only book used 
was the spelling book. This was about the year 
1836. The few settlers lived on corn bread and 
bear meat, this being the regular diet. The woods 
were full of animals, and privation and hardship 
were the order of each day. Once in a wliile a 
little coffee was secured from the boats on the 
river, but it was scarce and high. Most of their 
clothing was homespun, although they sometimes 
secured a little shirting from the boats, and their 
shoes were made of leather tanned by themselves. 
Caps were made of otter hides. The first cotton 
was raised about 1849 or 1850, but was not culti- 
vated as a crop until a few years before the war, 
after which it was raised with great profit along 
the river front. It has been noticed that as the 
land is improved and cleared up the whole surface 
becomes diyer. Even in the last ten years there 
has been a very noticeable improvement. Mr. 
Ashburn has in his field now, under a fine state of 
cultivation, land that the water used to stand on as 
high as his waist. His marriage with Miss Emily 
j Adkinson, occmTed in 1846. She is the daughter 
of John B. and C. A. (Watts) Adkinson, the father 
a native of Georgia, but who passed his last days in 
Missouri, and the mother a native of Tennessee. 
To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Ashburn were born 
six children : Andrew J. , John David, who marritwl 
Miss Higgins, of Mississippi County, Ark., and is 
the father of six children: Savannah, who married 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



463 



Joe N. Hays, and dow lives ou the Chickasawba, 
they have two children; Lavina J., married to J. 11. 
Mnsic, of Mississippi County, Ark. ; Thomas J. 
and A. Forrest, at home. Mr. Ashburn is a mem- 
l)er of Masonic Lodge No. 251, of Frenchman's 
Bayou, and has been a meml)er and a main pillar 
in the Missionary Baptist Church for the past nine 
years. 

N. L. Avery, who is one of the important fac- 
tors in the business growth and ])rosperity of Os- 
ceola and Mississippi County, is justly entitled to 
more than a passing notice in this volume. Since 
his identification with this city as a business man, 
no one has been more active and enterprising, or 
has done more in the mercantile line to increase 
and extend the trade and influence of the place. 
His stock is large and complete, and the patronage 
drawn to him results largely from liberal and po- 
lite treatment. His native State is Tennessee, and 
he was born in Memphis, January 1, 1S53. His 
parents, Hamilton and Henrietta (Polk) Avery, 
were natives of New York and South Carolina, re- 
spectively. His father came to Memphis about 
1S45, was engaged in the book business for a few 
years, and then became editor of the Memphis Bul- 
letin, remaining thus occupied for several years. 
He was then appointed wharf-master, but on ac- 
count of ill-health he resigned that position, and 
spent two years in traveling. He returned to 
Memphis in 1859, and soon afterward died there. 
His mother is still living, and makes her home in 
Memphis. The paternal grandfather died at Syra- 
cuse, N. Y., in 1889, at the age of eighty-nine 
years. The paternal grandmother is still living 
in that city, and is seventy-eight years of age. 
The maternal grandparents died when N. L. 
Avery 8 (the .subject of this sketch) mother was a 
child, and her grandfather was a brother to Pres- 
ident James K. Polk. N. L. Avery passed his 
boyhood days in attending the public and private 
schools of Memphis. At the youthful age of thir- 
teen he engaged as messenger in a steamboat office, 
but subsequently entered a drug store with Mans- 
field & Higbee of that city. In 1868 he engaged 
in a wholesale dry goods establishment (Joyner, 
Lemmou & Gale), remaining thus employed until 



1882. He began as an errand boy, and was suc- 
cessively promoted to the highest position, being at 
his retirement manager of and buyer for the no- 
tion department. In 1882 he came to Osceola and 
established his present business in that city, with 
a capital of 1750. In 1888 ho erected the large, 
fine store-house which he now occcupies. In the 
same year Mr. Rajihael Semmes [see sketch of S. 
S. Semmes] was admitted as partner in the firm, 
which probably does the largest business on the 
Mississippi River between Memphis and Cairo. 
IVlr. Avery owns a large tract of land, 1,000 acres, 
six miles west of Osceola, and is farming about 400 
acres. The firm are the owners of a large tract 
of land in Phillips County. They have a Viranch 
store at Blythesville, which has a large and exten- 
sive trade. Mr. Avery is the owner of a block in 
town, and also other property in the same place. 
By his marriage with Miss M. F. Pullen, daughter 
of B. K. Pullen, of Memphis, on November 3, 1875, 
he became the father of seven children: Hamilton 
King, Norman L., Jr., Walter Graham (died in 
infancy), Charles L. , Bennie Pullen (died in in- 
fancy), Eugene R. and Percy P. Mr. Avery's 
family are members of the Episcopal Church. He 
is a fair type of the self-made man, having risen 
from the lowest to the highest offices of a large 
store: and at last, after years of earnest, honest 
work, we find him starting for himself, with a 
capital of but $750. In six years he had built 
that business up from $5,000 in 1882 to §100,000 
in 1889, at the same time managing a branch store, 
doing an annual business of $30,000. This is a# 
creditable showing for a young man, even in this 
community of almost universally self-made men. 

E. M. Ayres. It is a fact recorded in history 
that the first English immigrants to Virginia were 
a superior race, with most progressive views of 
government, lilierty and laws, and who sought 
out homes in the New World in obedience to im- 
pulse prompted by lofty ambition and an earnest 
desire to benefit the race. From these ancestors 
sprang men who subsequently became eminent in 
different localities. A worthy native of that State is 
Mr. Ayres, who is one of the prominent j)]anters of 
Mississippi County, Ark., and resides two miles 



4G4 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



west of Osceola. He was born in Buckingham 
Gounty, Va. , ia 1840, and is the seventh in a fam- 
ily of nine children born to John W. and Mary 
(Maseyj Ayres. The parents were also natives of 
Virginia, where they spent their entire lives, the 
mother dying about 1848 and the father in 1857. 
The latter was a well known planter in his native 
State, and the family was widely known and univer- 
sally respected. He was a soldier in the Warof 1812. 
The paternal grandfather was a farmer and miller, 
and was also a very prominent Methodist Episco- 
pal preacher, having married every couple in his 
county for a period of twenty years. E. M. Ayres 
learned the rudiments of farming in his native 
State, and attended the common schools until six- 
teen years of age. He remained at home until the 
age of twenty-one years, and in 1859 went to West 
Tennessee, where he engaged as overseer for his 
brother-in-law. John M'. Chambers. At the break- 
ing out of the late war he threw down the imple- 
ments of peace to take up the weapons of war- 
fare, and enlisted in Capt. Dean's command, after- 
ward joined to the Fourth Tennessee Regiment of 
Infantry under Col. Nely. He was assigned to the 
Mississippi division, and soon secured permission to 
organize a company, which he at once did, namely 
Company A, united with the Forty-seventh Tennes- 
see Infantry. He was in the battle of Shiloh, and 
during that most destructive engagement his com- 
pany was almost totally annihilated, only eighteen 
out of the 108 returning. Mr. Ayi'es then joined 
the Henderson Scouts, under Capt. Tom Hender- 
son, and operated in the Mississippi Valley. He 
was in the battles of Corinth, Parker' s Cross Roads, 
Franklin, Tenn., and Murfreesboro, where he re- 
ceived a severe wound in the hand. The company 
then made a campaign into Mississippi, and sur- 
rendered at Gainesville, Ala. , in 1S65. During his 
time of service Mr. Ayres had three horses shot from 
under him, was captured several times, but always 
succeeded in making his escape. He was in many 
close engagements, was a fearless and daring sol- 
dier, and saw a great deal of the war. In 18(35 
he came to Mississippi County, and engaged in 
the saw-mill business with Dr. Hardin, of Nash- 
ville. Here he sawed the timber to put up the first 



store-house built in Osceola after the war. Mr. 
Ayres continued this business in a successful man 
ner for over twenty years, and supplied the lum- 
ber to build most of the frame houses in this 
county. He has made a great deal of money by 
strict application to business, and the energetic 
and thorough manner in which he has taken ad 
vantage of all methods, tending to enhance the 
value of his property, has had a gi'eat deal to do 
with his obtaining the competence which he now 
enjoys. His wife was originally Miss Sallie Bowen. 
whom he married in 1867. Her father, Arthur 
Bowen, is one of the well-known settlers in this 
county. From time to time Mr. Ayers has bought 
large tracts of land, and is now the owner of about 
6, 000 acres, 200 of which are under cultivation. He 
has made all the improvements on his place, and 
has assisted in opening 2,000 acres for cultivation. 
During his residence in Mississippi Count}' he has 
seen many changes, and he speaks veiy highly of 
this section. The result of his marriage with Miss 
Bowen has been nine children, three of whom are 
deceased: Lizzie died at the age of two years; 
Charley died at the age of two years, and Lelah 
died at the age of fourteen years. Those living 
are Willis, who lives at home and is fourteen 
years of age; Arthur, twelve years of age; Clay, 
ten years; Louis, eight; Sallie B., six, and Eddy, 
two years in 1889. 

Benjamin H. Bacchus, a prominent druggist 
and farmer of 0.sceola, Ark., is a native of Kent 
County, Md. , born at Chestertown on October 15, 
1848, and of the six children born to his parents, 
William and Harriet (Greenwood) Bacchus, Benja 
min H was the fifth in order of birth. The par 
ents were natives of Maryland, and the father for 
a long time was a miller and farmer of that place. 
The mother died in 1856, and in 1859 the fa- 
ther married Miss Susan Arthur. He died in 1872, 
having during the latter years of his life lived 
in retirement. Benjamin H. Bacchus passed his 
youth in Chestertown, and received an exception- 
ally good education in public and private schools, 
supplementing the same by a two years' attend- 
ance at the college at Chestertown. He then took a 
course of instruction at Bryant, Stratton & Sadler's 



jj®__v. 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



my, 



Business College, at Baltimore, and left that in- 
stitution fully equipped to enter upon any pursuit. 
He followed the teacher's profession for one term, 
and in 1867 went to Memphis, where he engaged 
in the cotton and oil business. At the end of one 
and one-half years he came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., and commenced farming at Elmot, where he 
continued until 1880. In 1878 Mr. Bacchus was 
elected county surveyor, and in 1880 he was elected 
clerk of the supreme court, ex-officio clerk of the 
county and probate courts, and recorder. So well 
did he fill this position that he was re-elected in 
1882. In 1887 he was elected mayor of the city 
of Osceola. At this time the city was heavily in 
debt, and its warrants were worthless; but at the 
expiration of Mr. Bacchus' term of office the debt 
of the city was wiped out, and the warrants were 
worth their face value. In July, 1885, Mr. Bacchus 
engaged in the di'ug business in Osceola, and in 
1888 he erected a fine store-house, into which he 
moved in February, 1889. The new quarters are 
neat, tasty and ornamental, and contain a complete 
line of fresh drugs. Mr. Bacchus selected Miss 
Katie M. Williams as his companion in life, and 
was wedded to her in 1871. She was born in 
Mississippi County, and is the daughter of James 
H. Williams, who was formerly from Tennessee, 
and one of the old settlers of Mississippi County. 
To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Bacchus were born 
seven children: Alice W., Lallie C, Lena S.. Ben- 
jamin H. , Jr., J. Greenwood. Minnie Avery and 
Mary Kate. Mr. Bacchus is a member of the 
Episcopal Church, and Mrs. Bacchus of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal. Mr. Bacchus is a member of 
Masonic Lodge No. 27, Osceola, occupying an 
official position. He was school commissioner of 
the county from 1872 to 1880, and takes a decided 
interest in all school matters. 

G. C. Baldock, a popular and enterprising 
farmer at Frenchman's Bayou, is the eldest of 
three children born to Derastus and Mary Jane 
(Hill) Baldock, and was born in Tennessee in 1855. 
The elder Baldock was a farmer, and followed that 
occupation until the outbreak of war, when he en- 
listed in the army and gave up his life in 1862. 
After the father's death the familv went to reside 



with Mr. Addison M. Hill, Mrs. Baldock' s father, 
who was one of the best known citizens of Ti]) 
ton County, Tenn. , and a pioneer of that coun- 
ty, upon whom the citizens of that section still 
look with veneration and respect. G. C. Baldock 
began life for himself when nineteen years of age, 
and rented the land upon which he made his first 
crop. He continued farming until the year 1880, 
when he sold out his place and moved to Mississippi 
County, Ark., where he settled on Frenchman's 
Bayou. In 1887 he bought 200 acres of fine land 
in that section, and at the present time has eighty- 
five acres under cultivation, besides making esten 
sive improvements which will make the land aver- 
age about one bale to the acre. He also owns a 
herd of fine stock cattle and horses, and over 100 
hogs. January 17, 1882, Mr. Baldock was married 
to Miss Rosie P. Notgrass, a charming lady of 
Tennessee, and by this marriage has had three 
children: Mary Peete. Ella Maud and Derastus 
Norton. He is active in school matters, and has 
served as school director, believing that education 
should be within the reach of every child. Mr. 
Baldock is a pleasant and hospitable gentleman, 
whose genial manner has won for him a large cir- 
cle of stanch and influential friends. He is a suc- 
cessful farmer, a valued citizen, and stands high 
in the estimation of the surrounding community. 

Barton Bros. & Co., an enterprising firm at 
Golden Lake, Ark., consisting of T. A., W. P. 
and Ida M. Barton, began business here as the 
successors of T. A. Barton, in 1836. In 1873 Mr. 
T. A. Barton came from the State of Mississippi, 
and entered into commercial life at Golden Lake. 
At that time (1881) the business at this point was 
slight, and many business men would have given 
up the venture as a failure, but with that foresight 
that has always marked his success. Mi'. Barton 
saw that the prospects in the future were very 
flattering, and he continued his business. He kept 
adding to his stock from year to year, as the busi- 
ness increased under his good management, and in 
1886 he was joined in partnershii> by his l)rotlier. 
who had previously worked for him as clerk. Their 
business consists of one of the finest cotton-gins 
on the Mississippi River, with a capacity of fifty 



400 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bales per day, a saw-mill with a capacity of 20,- 
000 feet of lumber per day, and a general merchan- 
dise store that enjoys a lar^e patronage. Altogether 
they did a business last year of 130,000, which 
will be largely increased this year. The firm also 
have large land interests in Mississippi County, 
owning in various tracts about 500 acres, from 
which they are cutting the timber to supply their 
saw-mill, and in addition to this they have 500 
acres of land under cultivation, in Frenchman's 
Bayou, besides a branch store and fine saloon at 
that place, and a tiamway from the river to French- 
man' s Bayou, a distance of six miles, which pene- 
trates the timber region. The Barton family are 
natives of North Carolina, where T. A., the eldeist 
of a family of seven children, was born in 1851. 
The parents were J. T. and Mary M. (Adams) Bar- 
ton, of South Carolina and Georgia, respectively. 
Thomas A. remained with his parents on the farm, 
and attended school until his twentieth year. In 
1873 he was married, in Tennessee, to Miss Ida 
Parker, of Mississippi, and after his marriage 
moved to Arkansas, where they settled in Poinsett 
County. He remained in that county one year, 
and met with a great many losses during that time, 
afterward moving to Mississippi County, where he 
farmed for six yearsi;prior to entering business at 
Golden Lake. Mr. and Mrs. Barton are the par- 
ents of six children: William Arthur, Ida Ellen, 
Veta May, Joseph T., James and Quincy G., and 
Mr. Barton is a member of the K. of H. , in which 
association he carries a $2,000 policy. William 
P., junior partner of the firm, was born in North 
Carolina in 1857, and was the fourth child of the 
family. He moved first to Poinsett County, and 
later on came to his present home, in company with 
his brother, Thomas, with whom he has been asso- 
ciated in business since the firm commenced oper- 
tions. He was married, in December, 1887, to 
Miss Mary Musick, of this county, and they are 
the parents of one child, a girl, named Tennessee 
Block. Among the many enterprising and pros- 
perous citizens of this county, certainly none are 
more worthy or deserving of success than the mem- 
bers of the firm of Barton Bros. & Co. Upon 
entering Arkansas their arriA'al was heralded by 



misfortune and financial ruin, but out of the chaos 
of their deplorable condition they rose equal to the 
occasion, and paved the way to their present for- 
tune. Shortly after commencing their business, a 
fire consumed the store, and the fruit of their 
patient industry was engulfed in flames; but again 
they put their shoulders to the wheel, and to-day 
they stand living examples of those two virtues, 
pluck and perseverance. Through all the vicissi- 
tudes of their earlier life in Arkansas, they still 
preserve and enjoy good health. 

William Biship. A lifetime of hard, earnest 
endeavor in pursuing the occupation to which he 
now gives his attention, coupled with strict integ- 
rity, honesty of purpose, and liberality in the right 
directions, have had the result to place Mr. Biship 
among the truly respected and honored agricult- 
urists of the county. He was born in Missouri. 
in 1818, and as his father was a successful tiller 
of the soil, Mr. Biship was reared to farm labor 
until about the age of seventeen years. In 1830, 
he made a visit to Arkansas, having relatives living 
at Osceola, which was then a small collection of 
log huts: but soon moved back to Missouri, where he 
continued to reside until 18-14, when he returned 
to Arkansas. In this State he has since resided, 
and has lived in Mississippi County the principal 
part of that time. He first visited the county on 
a hunting trip, but being favorably impressed with 
it he located here, and has since made it his home. 
In 1850 he entered land, but soon sold it, and 
afterward settled several tracts, which he sold 
after making a few improvements. In 1844 there 
were but four families in what is now Chickasawba 
Township, and the township had also an Indian 
population of about 100. After a few years Mr. 
Biship made a permanent settlement on forty 
acres, where he has since made his home. His 
marriage with Miss Bryant occurred at an early 
date, and to them were born two children : Andrew 
Jackson, a blacksmith at Blythesville, and Vir- 
ginia, wife of Mr. Carney, and residing in Little 
River County, Ark. Mrs. Biship died, and Mr. 
Biship took for his second wife the Widow Golden, 
by whom he has one living child: William Oliver, 
who is married and lives at home. When first 




settling in the county, Mr. Biship experienced 
many hardships and trials. He was compelled to 
go to Hornersville, Mo., a distance of about forty 
miles by water, for their meal, and the people de- 
pended but little on tame meat, and subsisted 
chiefly on game. About the end of 1850, there 
was a store started in the settlement that is now 
called Cooktown. Mr. Biship still resides on the 
original forty acres that he settled years ago, and 
has this wholly under cultivation. Though now 
quite advanced in years, Mr. Biship is remarkably 
well preserved, as the "ravages of time" have 
had but little effect on him. He has been a wit- 
ness to the complete development of this section. 
He was never very active in politics, but has held 
the ofi&ce of constable of this section, and was 
deputy sheriff under Sheriff Bowen. 

A. J. Biship has been a resident of Mississippi 
County, Ark., all his life, his birth having oc- 
curred here in 1846, he being the eldest of two 
children born to William and Diadema (Bryant) 
Biship, who were natives of Scott County, Mo. , 
and came to Mississippi County, Ark., at an early 
day. [For further history of their lives see sketch 
of AVilliam Biship.] A. J. Biship received a fair 
knowledge of the English branches in the schools 
of his native county, and was reared to a knowledge 
of agricultural life on his father's farm in Chieka- 
sawba Township. After his mother's death, which 
occurred when he was about eight years of age, 
his father married again, and he remained with him 
until he attained his seventeenth year, when he 
began leaining the art of photograjihy, at which 
he worked for eight years, traveling through the 
country and on the river. At the age of twenty- 
tive years he engaged in teaching school, and 
wielded the ferule for four terms in Mississippi 
County, after which he commenced rafting lum 
ber from Big Lake down the St. Francis River to 
Helena, continuing this occupation two years. He 
was married about this time to Miss Maggie Brown, 
a native of the county, and a daughter of Jack 
Brown, an old pioneer of this region. In 1809 he 
began keeping a store on Big Lake, but returned 
to Chickasawba Township and opened a wagon and 
blacksmith shop at Cooktown, locating at the end 



of one year in Jouesboro, where he was engaged 
in blacksmithing. Sickness in his family made 
this a disastrous move, and at the end of one year 
he returned to Chickasawba Township with only 
$1 with which to start anew. In 1884 he opened 
a shop in Blythesville, which he is still successfully 
conducting, and is doing a constantly increasing 
trade In 1888 he purchased 120 acres of land 
one mile from Blythesville, ou which projjerty he 
has erected some good buildings, and has five acres 
under cultivation. He expects to rapidly continue 
his improvements until he has reduced it all to a 
state of cultivation, which day will not be far dis- 
tant if Mr. Biship evinces his usual energy and 
perseverance. He, like many of his neighbors, is 
a member of Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, of the 
F. & A. M. He is an intelligent and enter- 
prising man, and in all his operations is meeting 
with substantial evidence of success, results which 
all concede he fully merits. His union with Miss 
Brew has resulted in the birth of four children: 
William Andrew, Major Green, Aurora Lurena 
and Robert Thaddeus. Mrs. Biship is a consistent 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Hon. Henry T. BIythe, a prominent citizen 
of Blythesville, was born in Virginia in 1816, being 
the fourth in the family of ten children of John 
and Elizabeth (Cobb) BIythe, natives of South- 
ampton County. Va. , where the father followed 
farming. In 1826 the family moved to Henry 
County, Tenn. , bought a farm and were among 
the pioneers to that county. The father put many 
improvements on his place, and made it his home 
mostly till his death in 1831*. The mother siir- 
yived him several years and died about 1845. 
Henry T. 's paternal grandfather, also John BIythe, 
was a native of Scotland, and emigrated to Vir- 
ginia from that country before the independence of 
the United States. He served a portion of the 
time in the Revolutionary War. The maternal 
erandmother was a native of Virginia. This man 
was one of four brothers, one of whom, David, 
was the grandfather of Thomas H. BIythe, who 
died in California in 1883. Our subject was reared 
on the farm in Virginia till ten years of age, when 
the family moved to Tennessee, and there he at- 



- — ^K 



468 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



tended the common schools till eighteen years of 
age, when he went to Mississippi, spending about 
six years in the early settlement of the northern 
part of that State, a part of the time being among 
the Indians. In 1841 he returned to Tennessee 
and settled in Lauderd.ile County, where he fol- 
lowed farm labor. About twelve years later he 
came to Arkansas and located on Crooked Lake, ^ 
Mississippi County, settling on a farm in the \ 
woods, and cleared about sixty acres, erected 
buildings and made many improvements. This was 
his home till 1873, when he moved on a tract of 
land previously purchased in partnership -with Mr. 
Moseley in 1864. This is the tract upon which he 
now lives, and where the town of Blythesville has 
since been built. Upon the small clearing then 
made he at once built a steam saw -mill and gin — 
the first steam mill in this section. He has since 
added about 300 acres to this place, and now has 
a fine tract of 500 acres of some of the best farm- 
ing land in the county. Of this 185 acres are 
under a high state of cultivation. In 1880 he 
laid ofF a tract for a village, which was named in 
his honor, Blythesville. He was soon appointed 
the first postmaster, and served in that capacity 
till the summer of 1889, a term of nearly nine 
years. Mr. Blythe's saw- mill and cotton-gin were 
the first business enterprises here, where now are 
several stores, and the pleasant homes of many 
families. In 1886 Mr. Blythe was elected by the 
people of Mississippi County to represent them in 
the State legislature, serving one term. During 
this time he introduced several bills of importance 
to the State at large. This family from remote 
times have been earnest workers in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and our subject was reared under 
Methodist influence. In 1841 he was given a 
license as an exhorter, and was a constant worker 
in the church till 1802, when he was granted a 
preacher" s license ; in due time after this he was 
made deacon and elder, which offices he still fills. 
In 1875 he was instriimental in building a church 
at Blythesville, which still retains the name of 
Blythe's Chapel, so christened in honor of the rec- 
ognized patronage of our subject. He has been 
married five times, and has had nine childjren, 



seven of whom are yet living. His first marriage 
occurred in 1842, to Miss Mary Jane Fisher, a na- 
tive of Tennessee. She died in 1844, leaving one 
child, a boy named William W., who died soon 
after. His second marriage was, in 1851, to Miss 
Elizabeth Willis. She lived only about one year, 
and died without issue. In 1854 Mrs. Julia A. 
Young, a native of Tennessee, became his wife. 
She died in Arkansas in 186? ,'ithout children. 
In 1868 Mr. Blythe married Mrs. Amanda Drew, 
a native of Georgia, who only lived about one year 
and left one child, Margaret Ann; the latter also 
died in her fourteenth year. In 1871 Mrs. Millie 
E. Murry became Mr. Blythe's wife. This lady 
was a native of Alabama. To their union seven 
children were born, all of whom are living: Alice 
F. , Henrietta J., Emma F., Eva Harris, Henry 
Thomas, Nola Ada and John Wesley. This inter- 
esting family is the pride of our subject's heart. 
Coming to him when the weight of years bore 
with a heavy hand upon his head, these children 
renewed his youth, for in their merriment he threw 
a bridge across the gulf of time, and lived again 
in fancy the freedom of a child. As years have 
come and gone these little ones have all passed 
through infancy and youth to maturer years, and 
are now developing in character and mind, with a 
purity in which a parent's heart can rejoice, proving 
sources of the greatest comfort. They are justly 
esteemed by all who know them for their j leasing 
manners and their winning ways. In the summer 
of 1889 Mr. Blythe spent three months in the State 
of California, but in his journey through other lo 
calities he saw no j)lace that pleased him so well 
as his home in Arkansas. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, was one of the charter mem 
bers of Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, and was a 
member of the committee sent to secure the 
charter from the Grand Lodge of the State. 

David Boney is a man who has risen to consid- 
erable prominence in the affairs of Mississipj)! 
County, not less in agricultural matters than in 
other circles of active l)usiness life. His birth oc- 
curred in the " Old North State," he being the 
third of five children born to James and Martha 
(Henderson) Boney, who were also North Caroliu- 




Craighead Countt^Arkambas , 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



4(11) 



iaiis, where the father died when his kou David 
was six years old. His widow removed with her 
children to the State of Tennessee, where she after- 
ward married again, and in 1851, came to Arkansas. 
David Boney was principally reared in Lauderdale 
County, Tenn. , his youth and early manhood be- 
ing spent in following the plow, but at the age of 
twenty one years he began to trade on the river, 
coming at the end of two years to Mississippi 
County, Ark. , and settling in the Clear Lake coun- 
try, his occupation being that of farming and raft- 
ing. In 1858, he was united in marriage with 
Miss Malinda Stuckey, who lived but a f<^w months. 
Growing tired of tilling land belonging to other 
men, Mr. Boney, in 1S5S, purchased a tract of 
eighty acres on Clear Lake, and two years later he 
settled on this farm with his wife, whose maiden 
name was Miss Sallie Boone, her birth place being 
Tennessee. They resided here until 1866, then 
sold out, and the following year moved to 
Tennessee, where Mr. Boney purchased a "iOO-acre 
tract of woodland. He entered actively upon the 
work of improving, and the result of his industry 
is eighty live acres of land cleared and under culti 
vation, the property fenced, two good houses and 
other buildings, and an excellent orchard. He 
returned to Mississippi County, Ark., in 1874, and 
purchased 160 acres of land, where he resided and 
made improvements for one year, then rented his 
place and returned to his farm in Tennessee. 
Here he continued to live until the winter of 
1888, since which time he has resided in Arkan- 
sas. He has just purchased 160 acres of land 
in this vicinity, on which he expects to make 
inime<liate improvements, there being thirty acres 
already under the plow, and twenty acres ready 
for improvement. Good timber, abundance of 
water, convenient and necessary buildings and 
other desirable conveniences render this a model 
farm. In 1882 his second wife passed to her 
l(ing home. His third marriage occurred in the 
fall of 188'2, his wife being a Miss Susan Halfacre. 
The family worship in the Methodist Episco])al 
Church. Mr. Boney's children, ten of whom were 
by his second wife and six by his third, were as fol- 
lows: John J. (deceased), Noah (deceased), David 



D. (deceased), Martha J. (deceased), Mary F. (de- 
ceased), Mandy C, George R., "William W., Em- 
ma J., Lou E. , an infant son (deceased), Mary A. 
(deceased), twin sons (deceased), Susan L. and 
Lena L. 

P. S. Borum. liveryman, of the tirm of J. H. 
Borum & Bro. , Osceola. This stable, from the 
large business it does, not only exemi)lities the 
importance of this part of the town, but reflects 
credit on its management. Mr. Boi-uni was orig- 
inally from Tennessee, where he was born in 1847, 
and was the eldest of nine children born to Rev. 
J. H. and Ann C. (Brooks) Borum [see sketch of 
J. H. Borum]. P. S. Borum was reared in the 
town of Durhamville, and at the age of seventeen 
years he began clerking in the store of J. H. 
Borum, where he continued for two years. He 
then, in partnership with his brother, James W. , 
opened a general store in the same place, and 
there remained two years, during which time his 
brother died. Mr. Borum then sold out the store 
and engaged in tilling the soil, which industry he 
carried on for four years, with comparatively good 
success. He subsequently went to Brownsville 
and reengaged in clerking, but after one year re- 
turned to farming. He followed this occupation 
until 1878, when he went to Dyersburg, engaged 
in clerking, and after remaining there for four 
years, in the fall of 1883, came to Osceola, where 
he joined his brother, J. H. Borum, in the livery 
business, and this business has since grown into a 
tlouiishing trade. Mr. Borum liegan [iractically 
with nothing, but now has one of the best equipped 
livery stables in the State. They have forty ' 
horses, twenty hacks, carriages, buggies, etc.. and 
can turn out, day or night, as tine rigs as are to 
be found. At the age of fifteen years, Mr. Borum 
enlisted in Company M, Seventh Tennessee Cav 
airy, under Col. William Jackson (afterward Gen. 
Jackson), and was in the battles of Cross Roads. 
Miss., Pulaski and Nashville. Tenn., Fort Pillow 
in 1862, Florence, Ala., and also in the compaign 
through Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. 
He surrendered at Gainesville. .Via., in 1865. He 
was in many close quarters, and in manj- minor 
engagements, but escaped without a wound, or 



470 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



ever being taken prisoner. He has since lived in 
Osceola, and has taken an active interest in all 
local affairs that pertain to the good of the com- 
munity at large. 

Joseph H. Borum, Jr. , a member of the w^ell- 
known firm of J. H. Borum & Bro. , liverymen at 
Osceola, is a native of West Tennessee, born in 
1858, and is the seventh in a family of nine chil- 
dren born to Rev. Joseph H. and Ann C. (Brooks) 
Borum, natives of Virginia and Tennessee, respect- 
ively. The elder Borum was a merchant in Ten- 
nessee prior to the war; in later years he was a 
Baptist preacher, and was the author of "Baptist 
Ministers of West Tennessee. ' ' He died July 13, 
1888. This remarkable man baptized about 4,000 
people; organized more churches than any other 
minister in West Tennessee; married about 3,000 
couples, and has received five generations of one 
family into his church. He was well and widely 
known throughout the State. The mother is still 
living in Tennessee, and is now (1889) seventy-two 
years of age. She is the only one living of a 
family of nine children. Joseph H. Borum, Jr., 
entered the school at Covington, Tenn. , at the age 
of ten years, remained there three years, after 
which he entered the Southwestern Baptist Uni- 
versity of Jackson, Tenn. He remained there two 
years, and then started out thoroughly fitted to 
enter upon any position in life. In 1877, he came 
to Osceola, Ark., and was principal of the Osceola 
High School for six years. In 1883 he engaged 
in the livery business with -J. L. Driver, but in 
1884 he continued the business under the firm 
name of J. H. Borum & Bro. In 1888 he was 
elected mayor of Osceola without opposition, and 
was complimented by being re-elected in 1889 
without opposition. Under his administration and 
his predecessor's, Mr. Bacchus, the city has been 
relieved from debt, and its affairs are now con- 
ducted on able business principles. Quiet and or- 
der reign upon its streets, and it is said by all that 
Mr. Borum fills the office of Osceola's mayor with 
credit and respect. 

Capt. Charles Bowen. There are many men in 
this county at the present day in whose lives there 
are l)ut few thrilling incidents or remarkable events, 



yet whose success has been a steady and constant 
growth, and who, possessed of excellent judgment, 
strong common sense and indomitable energy, 
have evinced in their lives and characters great 
symmetry, completeness and moral standing of a 
high order. Such traits may be found in the char 
acter of Mr. Bowen, a native of Jackson County, 
Tenn.. born on the 28th of Febraary, 1814, and 
one of the most prominent planters of the county. 
His parents, John and Jennie (Crawford) Bowen, 
were originally from Virginia, but came to Tennes- 
see at an early day. Shortly after the birth of 
their son, Charles, they removed to the western 
district of Tennessee, and there built the first cabin 
in what is now Dyer County. They subsisted for 
the first year exclusively on wild meat, and did not 
taste bread during that time. After living in 
Western Tennessee for seven years, where Charles 
Bowen clerked in a store in Trenton, the family 
moved (1828) to Mississippi County, Ark., and set- 
tled for a short time on the river, near what is now 
Barfield Point. After two years Charles, with his 
father, fitted out a store and produce boat, and 
traded on the river for about three years. They 
then returned to Mississippi County, and there 
made a permanent settlement. After a few years 
the elder Bowen went back to Tennessee, and there 
passed his last days. The mother had died when 
Charles was about eight years of age. As a resi- 
dent of Mississippi County the latter sold wood to 
the steamboats, and was also engaged in farming 
on a small scale. His brother, John C. Bowen, 
was the second sheriff of Mississippi County, elect 
ed in 1838, and Charles served as his deputy for 
about six years, after which the latter was himself 
elected sheriff of the county. He served in this 
capacity for sixteen years, to the entire satisfaction 
of all. When the war broke out Mr. Bowen raised 
a company in Mississippi County, and was elected 
captain of the same, which was called the " Osceola 
Hornets;" it operated on the east bank of the Mis- 
sissippi River during the principal part of the 
time. He was in the battle of Belmont, and also 
at Shiloh, where his company was badly cut up, 
leaving the battle field with only seven men. The 
Captain then returned to Mississippi County, and 



w — 



® k^ 



iHl 




raised another company. This operated mostly on 
the west bank of the Mississippi River. In 181)4 
C'apt. Bowen, while in charge of his command, was 
captured at Osceola, by Col. Burris, a Kansas jay- 
hawker, and was kept a prisoner at St. Louis for 
about two months. He then retui'ned, gathered 
up his company, and continued to operate in this 
section. He had a fight on Ten-Mile Bayou, in 
Crittenden County. He surrendered at Osceola, in 
1865, to the captain of a gunboat. He was then ap- 
pointed sheriff by the governor, serving for two 
years, but refused to run again. In 1872, during 
the negro troubles in Mississippi County, known as 
the ' ' Black Hawk' ' war, Capt. Bowen led a charge 
against the mob. which was at once dispersed. 
In 1874 the Captain was a member of the State 
constitutional convention, and was also elected 
county judge for one term. He purchased a fine 
plantation of 320 acres, half of which is under a 
high state of cultivation. On this place he has 
made all improvements, erected all buildings, etc. 
At present he is the owner of about 1,000 acres. 
He was married in 1843 to Mrs. Mills, nee Bishop, 
and three children were the result of this mar- 
riage: Charles Reese (deceased), William J., mar- 
ried and living near Osceola, and Margaret Ann, 
wife of J. B. Driver, and residing about one mile 
below Osceola. Mrs. Bowen was called to her final 
home in 1865. The Captain took for his second 
wife Mrs. Segars. ti.ee Howe, and four children 
were the fruits of this union: Clem Clay, Samuel, 
Mamie and Katie. 

Louis C. Bowen. If. as is self-evident, this 
work would be incomplete without sketches of the 
more public spirited of the successful agricultur- 
ists and stock men and substantial, well to do cit- 
izens of Mississippi County, then the biography of 
the subject of this sketch justly finds a conspicuous 
place in the present volume. Mr. Bowen owes 
his nativity to Tennessee, where his birth occurred 
March 81, 1818. His parents, Charles G. and 
Susan (Shell) Bowen, wore natives of Virginia, but 
they were married at Knoxville, Tenn. , where the 
father worked as a saddler. In 1823 the family 
moved to Vigo County, Ind., but two years later 
settled in Putnam County, of the same State, where 



they resided twelve years. In that county the 
father followed his trade, and was also engaged in 
agricultural i)ursuits. On May 2, 1835, they land- 
ed at Barfield Point, Ark., but only remained there 
four years, when they returned to Indiana. Still 
not satisfied, they came back to Arkansas, and set- 
tled on a tract of land near Osceola. Here the 
father died, in 1873, at the age of eighty-four 
years, but the mother died a number of years pre- 
vious. The character of Mr. Bowen, the subject 
of this sketch, was modeled in such a manner that it 
was natural for him to look, perhaps unconsciously, 
upon farming and stock raising as the only call- 
ing with which he should identify himself. He 
received limited educational advantages, and re- 
mained at home until thirty years of age. He 
then chose Miss Catherine Martin as his future 
wife, but she lived only about eleven months after 
marriage. In 1839 Mr. Bowen entered 160 acres 
of land, on which he is living at the present time. 
He has all of this tract under cultivation, and his 
improvements are all of the best — good buildings, 
extensive orchards, etc. In 1853 Mr. Bowen mar- 
ried Miss Amelia O. Driver, a daughter of Abner 
Driver, one of the first settlers in this section. She 
lived about ten years, and became the mother of 
five children, all now deceased. They were named 
as follows: Martha, Nellie, James Lawson, Viola 
C. and Katie. In 1868 Mr. Bowen was united in 
marriage to Mrs. Sallie M. Driver, nee Baley, a 
native of Ohio. Six children were the result of 
this union: Robert L., William E. (deceased), Wal 
ter, Sallie, Charley and Joseph. The family are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, at Osceola, of which Mr. Bowen has been 
steward for twenty years. He has been quite ac- 
tive in political affairs; was deputy sheriff from 
1843 to 1849, under his cousin. Sheriff John 
Bowen. In addition to his home plantation, he is 
the owner of 800 acres in another tract. 

W. J. Bowen, farmer, Osceola, Ark. By rea- 
son of his being a native-born citizen of the coun- 
ty, no less than because of his excellent reputation 
as a progressive and enterprising agriculturist, 
Mr. Bowen enjoys an extensive acquaintance in 
the community. His birth occurred near where 



/-< 



472 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the town of Osceola now stands, May Ki, 1848, 
and there he remained until thirteen years of age, 
when he moved with his parents to the farm where 
his father, Capt. Charles Bowen, is now living, 
three miles west of the village. Here W. J. 
Bowen remained until of age, and received such 
education as could be obtained in the slab school - 
house erected by his father near the place. The 
slabs were obtained from the saw mill that stood 
where Capt. Ayres' place now is, two miles west of 
Osceola. This was the first saw- mill in the coun 
ty. The first grist- mill was a horse mill kept by 
Felix R. Lanier. The first teacher in the county 
was John W. DeWitt, who taught school in the 
old lay court-house, about 1854, spelling and 
reading being about the only branches taught. 
The teacher lived in a little shanty built from old 
steamboat lumber, and he was also the postmaster, 
and kept the postoffice in an old cracker box, into 
which the letters would be thrown promiscuously. 
Those wishing their mail might go and hel)) 
themselves from the box, taking out all the mail, 
looking it over and returning what they did not 
want. DeWitt, the teacher and postmaster, was 
quite a man for his bottle, and at times would go 
on a regular spree. Sometimes he would take a 
child on his shoulder and run through the town, 
yelling like an Indian. In those good old days a 
negro with a good gourd fiddle would be i)ropped 
up in one corner of a 15x15 log cabin, and for the 
pleasure of dancing to his music, the young man 
would get a horse or mule, go sometimes as far as 
twenty-five miles, get some pretty country lass be 
hind him and — 

Dance all night 'till broad dayligUl 

And go home with the girl in the morning. 

Others would take a yoke of oxen, hitch to a cart 
and take the whole family, making a two days' 
trip of it. An incident Mr. Bowen relates of his 
father, when a young man, is as follows: He 
started from where Osceola stands with a young 
lady, in a dug out, to go to Bartield, twenty-five 
miles up the river, to a dance. By some misman- 
agement the canoe was capsized and they were 
spilled out: but Mr. Bowen was equal to the emer- 
gency, and after swimming to shore with the lady, 



returned to the dug-out, saved his saddle bags, and 
again returned to the canoe, which he brought to 
shore in a passably good condition. This they 
again entered, and went on their way to the dance. 
This was no unusual occurrence, as they fi-equently 
went to dances and camp meetings in dug-outs, and 
as frequently were upset. One time at a camp 
meeting "Old Stormy.'' a preacher from Big 
Lake, rode a mule into camp, and while he was 
expounding the gospel, the boys got his mule, 
tied a bee-hive to its tail, and sent it flying 
through the camp grounds. It is hardly neces- 
sary to add that ' ' Old Stormy ' ' was filled with 
righteous wrath, and that the camp meeting was 
broken up. W. J. Bowen is the owner of 160 
acres in one tract, 100 acres being under cultiva- 
tion, and he is also the owner of forty acres near 
Osceola. He is now living on the Dan. Matthews' 
place, one mile from the town, where he has about 
iiOO acres under cotton and corn, and has on his 
place about forty people. He was married to Miss 
Mollie J. Wilks, a daughter of John Wilks, of 
Pemiscot County, Mo., and five children were born 
to this marriage, two of whom died in childhood: 
Ollie P. , who died at the age of seven years, and 
Charles E. , who died at the age six years. Those 
now living are named as follows: Sallie E., at 
home; Ella L. , and an infant unnamed. Mr. 
Bowen' s father. Capt. Charles Bowen, is one of 
the oldest known citizens of the county. 

H. E. Bowen, farmer of Swan Township, is 
now successfully following the occupation to which 
he was reared, and which has been his life-work, 
a calling that has for ages received undivided ef- 
forts from many worthy individuals, and one that 
always furnishes sustenance to the ready worker. 
Mr. Bowen first saw the light of day in a log cabin 
near the present site of the village of Osceola, Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., in the year 1853. His 
father, Reece Bowen, came to Mississippi County 
at a very early date, and there died in 1850, leaving 
his widow and six children to the tender mercies 
of the world. She kept her children together un- 
til her death, which occurred in 1800, and then the 
home place was divided and sold. H. E. Bowen 
was so unfortunate as to receive very limited 



'*~7\s 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



473 



mlucatioaal advantages in youtli, and when eight- 
ecu years of age he began renting land, engaged in 
agficultural pursuits, and this occvipatiou he hits 
followed ever since. His marriage with Miss Minnie 
Fassett, daughter of J. J. Fassett, occurred in 
1878, and three interesting children are the result 
of this union: William Douglass, Hovpard E. and 
Joseph Reece, At the age of thirty Mr. Bowen 
bought 480 acres of land, and has opened up 125 
acres of as rich bottom land as can be found, and 
which averages from three fourths of a bale to a 
l)ale per acre each year, with a cost of from $5 
to 16 per acre for the work. He is classed among 
the live, energetic farmers of the county, and is a 
man universally respected. 

Howard H. Bowen. To show what industry, 
perseverance and good management can do in con- 
(jnering difficulties, it is only necessary to record 
some of the facts of Mr. Bowen' s career from ear- 
liest childhood up to the present day. Left an or- 
phan in infancy, he has carved ovit his own fortune 
and has attained an enviable footing among the 
leading agriculturists of the county. He was horn 
in Osceola on the 21st of January, 1856, being the 
only child born to his parents, and the day follow- 
ing his birth his father died and was followed to 
the grave by the mother eight days later. At the 
time of his death the father was engaged in farm- 
ing, and was also in commercial business in Os- 
ceola. He belonged to one of the prominent pio- 
neer families of the county, a short history of 
whom is given in the sketch of Cajit. Bowen 
Howard H. Bowen was cared for l:>y his grandpar- 
ents, but they, too, died when he was about two 
years of age, after which he was cared for by an 
aunt, Mrs. Ruth Bnrk, and then resided with 
James H. Edrington, an uncle by marriage. Later 
he made his home with an uncle, John C. Bowen. 
and then again with his aunt, Mrs. Burk. When 
he was about eight years of age he was taken into 
the family of his uncle. Arthur C. Boweu, with 
whom he remained until he attained his majority. 
During this time his advantages for acquiring an 
education were of a rather inferior description, but 
this fault he has remedied iu a great measure by 
reading, contact with business life and intercourse 

30 



with hi.s fellowincu. After starting out in life for 
himself he began working ou a farm at 122 per 
month, less hoard, washing and mending, for John 
Matthews, and at the end of six months had saved 
•1107, only sfjouding during this time the. sum of 
12.60 for his personal needs, an instance of fru- 
gality rarely seen in the young men of the present 
day. He was employed as a farm laborer, woi'k- 
iug by the mouth, until the 27th of December, 
1879, and up to that date had saved $500. With 
this money he made a payment of $450 on an un- 
improved farm of 120 acres, near Elmont. On 
this place he at once began clearing land, selling 
his wood at 50 and 65 cents per cord, and lived in 
a little log cabin, 8 x 10 feet, which wa.s scarcely 
high enough for him to stand erect in. Here he 
worked until the fall when he went to Osceola, and 
during the winter was employed in a cotton-gin. 
In the spring of 1881 he put in the first crop that 
was ever raised on the place, which amounted to 
some eight acres of cotton and corn, and the next 
year had in about twenty-five acres, which he cul- 
tivated by hiring men with teams, not yet having 
been able to purchase a span of horses. About 
this time he met with some reverses, the floods of 
1882-83 injuring his fences by washing them 
away and piling up logs and drift of all descrip- 
tions; but with the energy, push and pluck which 
are among his leading characteristics, he continued 
at his work and now has the entire tract cleared 
and under cultivation, it being also highly ini 
proved, with a fine dwelling-house, a good barn, 
warehouse and a large steam cotton gin. The lat- 
ter has a capacity of twenty-five bales per day 
and was erected at a cost of 14,000. In addition 
to this admirable farm he owns a tract of 120 
acres, two miles west of the river, forty acres of 
the land being under cultivation, and from this he 
derives a very fair rent. Four years ago it was a 
tract of wild land, but is now being put under cul- 
tivation and is improved with a good house. In 
the year 1887 he was united iu marriage to Miss 
Fannie S. Boyles, a native of the county and a 
daughter of Chailes Boyles, who was one of the old 
settlors of this region. Their only child, Charley 
Bard, died on the 15th of May, 1889. at the age 



jjl 



474 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of fourteen mouths aud fourteeu days, deeply 
mourned by his sorrowing parents. Mr. Bowen is 
a member of Lodge No. 27, of the A. F. & A. M. , 
at Osceola. He has always been very temperate, 
and up to the age of twenty-six years had never 
taken a drink of liquor in a saloon. 

Charles Boyles. A lifetime spent in pursuing 
one calling will usually result in substantial suc- 
cess, especially if energy and perseverance are ap- 
plied, and such is found to be the case with Mr. 
Boyles, who, from boyhood, has given the occu- 
pation of agricultui'e the principal part of his time 
and attention. He was born on Tennessee soil in 
1831, and was brought to Arkansas by his father, 
William J. Boyles. in 1849, settling on a tract of 
extremely wild land in Mississippi County. Like 
the majority of native Tennesseeans, the father 
was energetic and thrifty, and the first year 
cleared four acres, cutting down the canebrake 
with a hatchet, and by perseverance and industry 
soon had a comfortabh? home. Here he resided 
until his death, which occurred the first year of 
the Rebellion. His wife was a Miss Marjory 
Blackmore, of Tennessee, who bore him a family 
of ten children, of whom Charles is the eldest. 
The latter was an attendant of the schools of Os- 
ceola, being compelled to walk a distance of four 
miles to receive his instruction. His first en- 
trance upon life's duties for himself was in the 
capacity of a farmer when in his twenty-first year. 
The first two years he worked out by the month, 
then cut cord-wood for the same time, after which 
he gave his attention to raising crops of cotton and 
corn on rented land. After the death of his par- 
ents, the old homestead was divided, and sixty 
acres fell to his share, of which forty are under 
cultivation. His marriage with Miss Emeline Pace 
was celebrated May 20, 1852. She is a native of 
Chicot County, Ark., coming to this county in 
1840. Their union has been blessed in the birth 
of ten children, four of whom are living: John P. ; 
Thomas, who is married to a Miss Blackwood aud 
lives on his father's farm; Fannie, wife of H. H. 
Bowen, and Naufiett D. Mr. Boyles is a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

T. P. Bragg, though still a young man, is 



rapidly and surely making his way to the front in 
agricultural pursuits and is considered by all a 
careful, painstaking farmer. He was born in 
South Carolina in 1854, and was the second of 
four children born to Wiley and Sarah (Otts) 
Bragg, who were also born in the " Palmettp 
State," the former being an energetic farmer of 
that region. The earliest recollections of T. P. 
Bragg are of sjiending his time upon the home farm, 
but at the early age of fourteen years he left the 
parental roof and emigrated westward to Tennes- 
see, in which State he was engaged in farm labor 
for four years. He was married there in 1873, to 
Miss Margaret Denton, and immediately after came 
to Mississippi County where, after working as a farm 
laborer for five years, he rented land and put in 
a crop for himself. He has farmed in this manner 
ever since, but conducts business on a very exten- 
sive scale, and his success has been exceptionally 
good. He has 250 acres in crops, and besides this 
has a farm of eighty acres (which he purchased in 
1887) under the plow, it being located about two and 
one-half miles north of Osceola, aud is very advan- 
tageously situated. On coming to this county the 
greater portion of the land in this section was in a 
wild condition, but has been opened up since his 
arrival. He has been quite an active politician, 
and his votes are cast for Democratic candidates. 
The names of the children born to himself and 
wife are Ada Elizabeth, Maud M. , Thomas W., 
William Walker, Maggie L. and Charles. 

Dr. Thomas G. Brewer, whose celebrity in the 
healing art is widespread, was born in Aberdeen, 
', Miss., in 1851. His parents were Samuel C. and 
Mary A. (Pritchett) Brewer, of Virginia, who 
moved to the State of Mississippi at an early 
period, where the father became a very prominent 
contractor for the erection of buildings. Thomas 
was the youngest of fourteen children, of whom 
four boys entered the Confederate army, one of 
them being killed at Gettysburg, one dying in 
prison at Rock Island, having been captured at the 
battle of Chickamauga, and the other two serving 
through the entire period of the war, of whom one 
is residing at Water Valley, Miss., and the other is 
a popular physician at Lamar, Miss. The father of 



-^ 



e t^ 



?^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



475 



these boys died iu 187U, and the mother nine years 
previous. Thomas remained at home durino; the 
war, beinif then too young to bear arms, and 
studied mathematics under his father, pre2><iratory 
to entering the university. His first intention was 
to adopt the law, but his father's financial ruin 
soon after the war changed his plans, and he 
joined his brother, W. W. Brewer, at Lamar, to 
study medicine. He remained with his brother 
one year, and then attended the Jefferson Medical 
College at Philadelphia, where he remained one 
year. On his return he won a scholarship at a 
comjietitive examination held in the Louisville 
Medical College at Water Valley, Miss., and re- 
mained at that college during the years 1873-74, 
graduating in February of the latter year. On 
his return to Lamar he began practicing his pro- 
fession, and continued at that place until 1879. 
It was during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, 
that the Doctor displayed his heroism, and the 
courage to face death, where thousands were panic- 
stricken and fleeing in all directions to escape the 
scourge. He remained at his post, and with his 
Ijrother's assistance attended case after case with 
a nerve that was magnificent, and won the ad- 
miration of thousands. During his residence in 
Lamar he was elected mayor and quarantine com- 
missioner, and held the office of mayor for several 
years. In 1879 he removed to Monroe, Phillips 
County, Ark. . where he remained for two years, 
but losing his health to some extent, he thought 
it Ijetter policy to return to Lamar. After one 
year's residence there he improved, and then came 
to Mississippi County, Ark., settling at Pecan 
Point, to practice his profession. He remained 
here until 1887, and then moved to Fort Smith, 
l)ut the ill health of his family again compelled 
liim to change, and he returned to Mississippi 
County, where he has since been permanently lo- 
cated, and has built a comfortable home. His skill 
is too well known to comment upon, and his practice 
embraces a stretch of some twenty miles upon the 
river front, and several of the islands; besides this 
it is rapidly increasing. The Doctor is a member- 
of the County Medical Society and of the Tri State 
Medical Association of Mississippi. Arkansas and 



Tennessee, and at one time was vice-president of 
the latter society. He also belongs to the Masonic 
fraternity and the Knights of Honor, Lodge No. 
8315, of Pecan Point, and was instrumental in the 
organization of these lodges. In 1876 he was 
married to Miss Mollie C. Hudson, of Lamar, 
Miss., and they are the parents of one child, a boy 
named Norman W. Dr. and Mrs. Brewer are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
and are both active in all church work. Some idea 
of the Doctor's skill may be gathered from the 
fact that last year he attended 130 families, and 
but two deaths occurred out of that number, which 
is one of the most creditable records of any physi- 
cian in that section. 

Gideon R. Brickey, of the firm of G. K. 
Brickey & Bros. , general merchants and planters 
of Osceola, Mississippi County, Ark. . first saw the 
light of day in Ste. Genevieve County, Mo., in 1850. 
The paternal ancestors of Mr. Brickey came orig- 
inally from France in 1080, and settled in South 
Carolina, but later moved to Georgia. They left 
their native land on account of religious oppres- 
sion, and were among the Huguenots who came to 
America at that time for freedom of belief. Since 
then this family has been among the pioneers in 
the settlement of several States. In 1814, John 
Brickey, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, 
settled in Washington, Mo. Of the nine living 
children born to John C. and Emma (Carpenter) 
Brickey, Gideon R. is the fourth. His parents 
were natives of Missouri, and the father was for a 
long time a miller in that section, but is now in 
business in Festus, Mo. Gideon R. Brickey at- 
tended the public schools of Missouri, and had a 
more thorough course of private instruction at 
home, until the age of eighteen; then, in 1872, with 
his brother Peter, made a trip on a flatboat, taking 
photographs on the Mis.sissippi River. They were 
engaged in this novel life for three years, and in 
1875 Mr. Brickey came to Osceola and started a 
general store. He is the oldest business man in 
this place. In 1878, his brother Peter, who was 
also interested in the business, made his home iu 
Osceola, and in 1885, another brother, John, 
joined them also, so that the individual members 



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410 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of the above mentioned firm are Gideon R., Peter 
and John Brickey. They now have one of the 
lavjrost and finest stores in Osceola. This firm also 
have large farming interests, and buy and sell cotton 
as well as gin it. In 1885, they started a produce 
and commission business in Memphis, Tenn. , con- 
tinued there one year, and then opened a branch 
store at Marianna, Lee County, Ark. , where they 
have a rapidly increasing business. In 1882, they 
erected a fine storehouse, the finest perhaps, in 
Osceola. They have also bought town property, 
on which they have erected fine residences. In 
1878, Mr. Brickey selected Miss Emily Price, a 
native of Tennessee, for his life companion. She 
died in 1 883, and left one child, Maggie H. . who 
died when four years old. In 1886. Mr. Brickey 
married, for a second time, Miss Lula Roussan, 
a native of Missouri, who bore him one child, Arthur 
Gideon. Peter Brickey was married about 1881, to 
Miss Laura E. Miller, a native of South Carolina. 
One child, a son. Garland Smith, is the result 
of this union. Mr. Brickey is at present living in 
Lee County, where he is managing the branch store 
at Marianna. He purchased the Hewitt estate at 
that place, and is becoming prominently identified 
with that section. John C. , the youngest member 
of the firm, was born in 1856, and was educated 
mostly at home. He has been engaged in mercan- 
tile pursuits most of his life, and is a wide-awake, 
business young man. He was married in 1879, 
to Miss Emma C. Bastwick, a native of Illinois, and 
their union has been blessed by the birth of one 
child, a daughter named Mabel, whose birth oc- 
curred in 1880. 

J. B. Brisendine. The entire life of Mr. 
Brisendine has been passed in ceaseless activity, 
and has not been without substantial evidences of 
success, as will be seen from a glance at his pres- 
ent possessions. He is numbered among those of 
Georgia nativity now in this county, in which 
State he was born in 1839, being the third of 
five children born to James R. and Elizabeth 
(McDowell) Brisendine, both of whom were na- 
tives of the ' ' Old North State, ' ' where they 
were also reared and married. After the latter 
event they moved to Georgia, where the father fol- 



lowed the mechanic's trade until 1860, at which 
date they removed to Jackson County, Ark. , where 
they both died in January, 1861, within four days 
of each other. J. B. Brisendine spent his youth in 
Atlanta, Ga. , where he also received his education 
and learned the liricklayer's trade; but in 1860 he 
removed with his parents to Arkansas, and at the 
opening of the war enlisted in Company I, Mat- 
lock's regiment of the Confederate States Army, 
and was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi depart- 
ment, afterward taking an active part in the battles 
of Prairie Grove and Helena, also a ruimber of other 
engagements of less note. At the cessation of hos- 
tilities he went to Memphis, Tenn., and became an 
employe of Brown. Jones & Co., coal dealers of 
that place, with whom he remained until the fall 
of 1866, when he came to Mississippi County. 
Ark., locating near Frenchman's Bayou, where he 
was engaged in making brick for about two years, 
his being the fii'st establishment of the kind on the 
Bayou. He then followed the bricklayer's trade 
in Tennessee until 1878, after which he returned to 
Mississippi County, and settled in Chickasawba 
Township, where he purchased a small farm con- 
taining forty acres, on which he resided and made 
many improvements for two years; then was com- 
pelled to vacate owing to defective title. He soon 
after purchased the farm of 151 acres on which he 
is now living, it being situated two miles south of 
Blythesville. The place was a complete wilder- 
ness, but during the eight years of Mr. Brisen- 
dine' s occupancy he has reduced sixty acres to a 
high state of cultivation, has erected a substantial 
dwelling house and barn, and has the trees on fifty 
acres deadened and ready to be removed. His land 
is quite productive, and will readily yield a bale of 
cotton to the acre and forty bushels of corn. Jan- 
uary 20, 1869, he was united in the bonds of matri- 
mony to Miss Linda Blackwell, of Tennessee, and 
the following are the children born to their union : 
Birdie, who was accidentally burned to death at 
the age of seven years; Ralph E. , Louis A.. Cham- 
berlin, Eva and Julius B. . Jr. The family are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
he has been school director. 

George \V. Buckner, agriculturist. One of the 



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MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



477 



best and neatest farms in Mississippi County, Ark. , 
is owned by Mr. Buckuer, and his prosperity can 
be traced directly to his energy, earnest and sincere 
endeavor and good judgment. He was born in 
Osceola, Mississippi County, Ark., in 1840, and 
was married in 1861, bis union resulting in the 
birth of five childi'en. His farm comprises a tract 
of 500 acres, of which 155 are under cultivation, 
and of this he has cleared about twenty-five acres 
himself, erected several dwelling hoiises, and has 
made other valuable improvements on his property. 
On his various farms he has eight families of ten- 
ants living. In 1S66 he b(jught the machinery for 
a steam cotton-gin, which is now being operated 
in connection with Rncker Bros., who are leading 
merchants and agriculturists of Bartield, Ark. The 
life of Mr. Buckner has been one unmarked by any 
unusual occurrence outside of the chosen channels 
to which he has .so diligently af)plied himself, but 
he deserves much credit for the admirable manner 
in which he has overcome the many difficulties 
which have strewn his pathway during his life of 
nearly half a century, and in the acquisition of his 
present fine property he has shown himself to be 
a man of sound judgment. 

Dr. Benjamin A. Bugg. For a period now of 
about twenty -nine years, he whose name heads this 
sketch has been a resident of Mississippi County, 
Ark., and during this time he has enjoyed a repu- 
tation as an honorable upright man, and a solid, 
substantial and thoroughly reliable citizen. The 
history of his life is not unlike that of other pro- 
fessional men, and yet there has been that individ- 
uality about him that has gained for him many 
friends. Dr. Bugg was bom in Davidson County, 
Tenn., in 1835, and was the fourth in a family of 
eight children born to Benjamin and Nancy Green 
(Towns) Bugg, whose birthplaces were Virginia 
and North Carolina, respectively. They were mar- 
I'ied in the State of Tennessee, and there the 
father pursued the calling of agriculture until bis 
death, in 1847, his wife also dying in that State 
in 1881. She was a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. Benjamin A. learned the 
details of farm work in his youth, and acquired 
sufficient education in the schools of his native 



county to permit him at the age of twenty-one 
years to engage in teaching the "young idea," 
which occupation he successfully carried on in 
Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. He was mar- 
ried while in Tennessee to Miss Martha A. John- 
son, a native of that State, and the next year per- 
manently located in Arkansas; after a few days" 
stay at Osceola, he went to Clear Lake, where he 
remained for three years, being engaged in wield- 
ing the ferule and farming. He then followed the 
same occupations in Chickasawba Township until 
1872, and at this date, having given much of his 
attention to the study of medicine, he began prac- 
ticing the healing art, being also engaged in stock 
raising on a farm of forty acres, which he pur- 
chased in the township. After improving this 
place, he sold it, also several other tracts, and in 
1875 purchased a fine tract of eighty acres in 
North Chickasawba Township, on which he made 
his home for one year, after which he moved to a 
farm south of Blythesville, and the year succeed- 
ing he purchased an interest in Judge Daniel's 
estate, in Cooktown, where he made his home dur- 
ing 1877-78. In 1877, his estimable wife, who was 
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, departed this life, leaving him with four- 
children to care for: Lillie G. , wife of J. J. Thomp- 
son, who resides on her father" s farm ; Mattie A. , the 
deceased wife of J. C. Clemens, she belonged to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Nancy Ann. 
who died in infancy ; Benoni Harris, who died when 
seven years of age, and Jesse Neely, whose death 
occurred at the age of four years. He owns in all 
about 600 acres of land, with fully 400 acres in a 
high state of cultivation. All his land is very pro- 
ductive, and his farm in North Chickasawba Town- 
ship is considered among the best in this section 
of the country. His residence is a tasty cottage, 
very neat in design and finish; and as he is a man 
of refined tastes he surrounds his home with many 
comforts and luxuries, and on the beautiful lawn, 
in front of his house, flowers of every hue bloom 
luxuriantly. His buildings are all in excellent 
condition, and his place is thoroughly improved in 
every respect, thus showing the care and thrift 
which have ever characterized the Doctor's career 



V 



^ 



478 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



through life. He has from time to time been more 
or less interested in commercial pursuits, and up 
to the year 1889 has a mercantile establishment 
in Gooktown. He has always been interested in 
political affairs, and in 1884 was chairman of 
the Democratic executive committee of Missis- 
sippi County. In all matters of public interest 
he is usually found among the first supporters, and 
in school matters he has been particularly interest- 
ed, having held the office of school director for 
many years. The Doctor took no part in the late 
Rebellion until the fall of 1804, when he joined 
Price on his raid through Missouri and Kansas, 
and was an active participant in all the battles of 
that campaign. He was a member of Kitchens' 
regiment, crossed the Missouri River at Arrow 
Rock and proceeded to Glasgow, where they 
had a victory. His was the only regiment that 
crossed the river. After their return they joined 
the main body of troops, and soon participated in 
severe engagements at Independence and Big Blue, 
after which they proceeded to Kansas and then south 
to Arkansas, reaching the latter State at about the 
close of the war. The Doctor allowed his beard 
to grow for twenty years and it had then attained 
a length of six and one half feet, after which he 
had it removed. A portrait of him appears in this 
work, which was taken when his beard was long- 
est. He is a member of Osceola Lodge No. 27, 
A. F. & A. M. , and he and his wife, whom he mar- 
ried in 1886, and whose name was Mrs. Rosa A. 
Felts, nee Carney, of Tennessee, were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. She died 
June 25, 1888, leaving one child, Benjamin Alex- 
ander. 

C. F. Bush. In mentioning those of foreign 
birth who have become closely associated with the 
farming interests of Mississippi County, Ark., we 
should not fail to present an outline of the career 
of Mr. Bush, for he is one who has fully borne 
out the reputation of that class of industrious, en- 
ergetic and prudent men of German nativity, who 
have risen to prominence in different portions of 
this country. He was born in 1832, and was the 
second in a family of eight children born to George 
H. Bush, who came with his family to the United 



States in 1838, and settled in the State of Tennes- 
see, where he remained until the opening of the 
war, at which time he removed to Mississippi 
County, Ai-k. , and began farming on a tract of 160 
acres in Chickasawba Township, and there died 
three years later. C. F. Bush grew to manhood 
on his father's farm, but in 1867 found a worthy 
companion in the person of Sarah Ann Garrison, 
of Mississippi County, she being the daughter of 
one of the old residents of the county. Mr. Bush 
soon after purchased a tract of 160 acres, all wild 
land, but some time after sold eighty acres of this, 
and purchased eighty acres in another tract, of 
which twelve acres were under cultivation. At the 
present time he has forty acres under the plow, 
and will soon have twenty-five acres more which are 
almost ready for cultivation. In 1887 he built a 
good hoiise, and as far as buildings, fences and or- 
chards are concerned, has his farm well improved. 
He is making a specialty of raising a good grade 
of stock, and has twenty-five head of horses, and 
a fine male animal which has won a good record. 
His land is fertile, and yields a bale of cotton to 
the acre. The following are the children born to 
himself and wife: Martha E., wife of J. T. Battles; 
John Henry, Stenie E., who died at the age of 
seven years ; Mary A. , Minnie and Kittie. Mr. 
Bush has been a member of the school board, and 
is active in school work. 

Benjamin F. Butler, another prominent busi- 
ness man of Osceola, was born on Frenchman's 
Bayou, on the banks of Butler's Lake, in the year 
1839, and is the elder of two children born to 
Jesse and Urena (Clark) Butler, natives of New 
York and Kentucky, respectively. The father 
was a gentleman of education, and in 1826 came to 
Arkansas in company with his mother, sister and 
brother- in-law. They settled on a small lake 
about eight miles southwest of Pecan Point, and 
this lake was afterward, and is still, known as 
Butler's Lake, so called in honor of its first set- 
tlor, Mr. Jesse Butler. Mr. Butler and his brother- 
in-law each selected 160 acres, and proceeded 
to make a home in the wilderness. After mak- 
ing such improvements as were necessary, they 
turned their attention to stock raising, which was 



^i= 



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^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



479 



very profitable from the fine rfinge. These early 
settlers dependecl on their own labor for most of 
their supplies, spinning yarn and m.'iking their 
own garments, and were compelled to go to Ran- 
dolph for groceries, etc. When Osceola was se- 
lected as the county seat, Jesse Butler helped to 
survey the road for their section to that place. 
This old settler assisted in the county organization, 
was elected constable of his section, and held that 
office almost continuously until his death, which 
occurred in 1844. During the time of the early 
history of this region, Mr. Butler was a very useful 
citizen, and being a man of education and good 
practical ideas, many sought advice and counsel 
from him. This family, like all others at that 
time, ground their meal by hand, and secured their 
meat from the forest. They endured many priva- 
tions, and paved the way for fnture generations. 
Mr. Butler died in the house where he located at 
first, never having sought a change from his first 
choice of location. Benjamin F. Butler was born 
on the above described place, where he resided 
until eleven years of age, when he moved with his 
mother to the vicinity of Osceola, where she died 
in 1852. Benjamin was then a lad of thirteen, 
and began fighting the world's battles for himself. 
He had but slight educational advantages, but by 
his own earnest endeavors secured a fair education. 
When the war opened Mr. Butler enlisted in Capt. 
Bowen's company; was in the battles of Shiloh, 
Corinth, Dug-gap, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Frank- 
lin, where he was wounded, biit he remained with 
his command until he reached Tupelo, Miss. , 
where he secured a furlough and returned home. 
He then worked for several months in the field as 
a farm laborer, and in 1866 started in the saloon 
Inisiness, which he has carried on ever since. He 
has met with good success in his calling, and al- 
though his trade is large, he prides himself on his 
quiet and orderly house. His standing in society 
illustrates forcibly the truth that 

Honor and shame from no condition rise — 
Act well your part; there all the honor lies. 

During 1882 and 1883 he ran on a steamboat in 
the Osceola and Memphis trade, but has always 
kept up his business in Osceola. On the 9th of 



May, 1867, his marriage with Miss Evaline Hale 
occurred. She was the eighth child in this fami- 
ly [see sketch of ))rother J. To Mr. and Mrs. But- 
ler were born eight children, only one now living : 
Clarence E., who resides at home. Those de- 
ceased are Willie, Martha Lurena, Jesse Bird, Eva 
Aurena, Benjamin F., Carrie and Claud. In 
1870 Mr. Butler bought a lot in Osceola, and has 
since erected a fine residence, which, surrounded 
with plants and flowers, and supplied with all the 
conveniences, makes a very attractive home. 

B. S. Carleton. As an example of the useful- 
ness and prominence to which men of character 
and determination will attain, we have but to 
chronicle the life of Mr. Carleton, one of the most 
extensive cotton growers within the limits of Missis- 
sippi Coimty. He was born in Lafayette County, 
Miss., in 1851, and moved with his father. Dr. A. 
Carleton, of Virginia, to Memphis, Tenn., when but 
eight years of age. He received his education in 
the Memphis schools, with the exception of three 
years which he spent in the schools in Mississippi, 
and afterward studied medicine for two years in 
Memphis. He then went to his mother, who was 
living on a plantation in Coahoma County, Miss. , 
and was engaged in agricultural pursuits for sev- 
eral years. Going from there to Commerce, 
Miss., he followed merchandising for three years, 
and then came to Nodena about twelve years ago. 
Since that time he has been speculating in cotton, 
and runs a plantation. His average yield of cotton 
is from 300 to 650 bales per year, and he has now 
about 300 people on his place. He is proprietor 
of the landing known as the Idaho & Tonages, 
and is also proprietor of the places known as 
Idaho, Clark, Carleton Lake, Pitman and Lower 
Tonages, which contain about 1 , 200 acres of land. 
Mr. Carleton is the owner of a cotton-gin and saw- 
mill. In 1880 his marriage to Miss Ida V. Bell 
was consummated, she being of Memphis birth, the 
daughter of W. J. Bell, of North Carolina, and 
Josephine (Moore) Bell, of Shelby County, Tenn. 
Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Carle 
ton: Cleave, Byron and Carrie, all at home. Mr. 
Carleton is a member of the Masonic fraternity. 
Lodge No. 27, Osceola, Ark. Mr. and Mrs. Carle- 



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480 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ton ai'e people of retinement and taste, and are con- 
nected with some of the best families of the county ; 
they are also well known and much esteemed in 
Memphis, Tenu. Mr. Garleton takes great pride 
in the fact that he is a descendant of the State 
that was ' ' the mother of Presidents, ' ' and of the 
Scotch-Irish Carletou family. 

Edgar A. Carleton. The history of every com- 
munity is made up of the events and transactions 
which have occurred in the lives of its prominent 
representative citizens, and in giving a worthy 
history of Mississippi County, a sketch of the life 
of Mr. Carleton would be most appropriate, for he 
has been unusually successful, and in his farming 
operations has always combined the practical with 
the theoretical, his long experience in that calling 
rendering him fully capable of doing so. He was 
born in Lafayette Count}', Miss., in 1855, and 
remained in his native county until eleven years 
of age, when his father, Alex. Carleton, with 
his family, which consisted of his wife and seven 
children, of whom Edgar A. is the fourth, removed 
to Memphis, Tenn. , where the children received 
sufficient educational advantages to fit them for 
the ordinary duties of life. At the age of nine- 
teen years Edgar A. went to Tunica County, Miss., 
where he engaged in farming and merchandising, 
continuing successfully until the fall of 1877, when 
he moved to Lee County, Ark., remaining one 
year, being also occupied in farming and merchan- 
dising at this point, following the latter occupa- 
tion for the mercantile firm of Ferguson & Ham- 
son. In 1879 he came to Mississippi County, 
where his mother, brothers and sisters had pre- 
ceded him, and took charge of a store for the 
above named firm, which he conducted in a highly 
successful manner until 1882, doing a business 
amounting to $50,000 per annum. In addition to 
this he and a brother attended to over 2,000 acres 
of land, employing in different capacities from 
300 to 500 hands, and shipped in one year 1,100 
bales of cotton. In the latter part of 1882 he and 
A. B. Carouthers formed a partnership and em- 
barked in the mercantile business at Richardson 
Landing, just across the river from where he is 
now located, but in the spring of the following year, 



owing to poor health, he sold out his share to his 
partner and took a trip through Texas, Mexico and 
New Mexico, returning home much improved in 
health, at the end of five months. He again began 
working for his fonner employers, Messrs. Fer- 
guson & Hamson, and about four months later, in 
the month of December, while sitting in the store 

I after dark, he was fired upon through a window 
by a man. who shot him in the left breast with 
a double-barreled shot gun, the wound being so 
serious that he was obliged to give up work until 
the 22d of April. The would-be murderer was 
caught and sentenced to the penitentiary for nine 
years. After recovering, Mr. Carletou went to 
Frenchman's Bayou, where he purchased the mer- 

( cantile stock of R. E. L. Wilson, where he re- 
mained in business until January, 1885, returning 
the following year to Nodena. He is now engaged 
in farming (his land being rented of Mr. Ferguson), 
and has about 425 acres in cotton and corn, which 
requires the care of from fifty to 150 men. His 
wife, who was Miss Nina Uzzell, was born in this 
county in 1860, her parents, J. W. Uzzell and wife, 
having settled at Frenchman's Bayou in 1858. 
To Mr. and Mrs. Carleton have been born two 

[ children: Edith Orr and Nina Gray. Mr. Carle- 
ton is a Mason, and a member of the Knights and 
Ladies of Honor. 

W. F. Carloss' name has become a familiar 
one to the people of Mississipjai as well as the sur- 
rounding counties, and his genial, sincere nature, 
no less than the business in which he is engaged, has 
tended to bring about this result. His birth oc- 
curred in Phillips County, Ark., in 1859, he being 
the second of four children born to A. C. and Eliz- 
abeth (Harkleroads) Carloss, the former of whom 
was a prominent farmer and miller of that county, 
whither he moved in 1848, beginning his ca- 
reer as a farmer on a very limited scale indeed. 
He now owns 2,000 acres in one body, 600 being 
under cultivation, and as he has held the office of 
justice of the peace there for many years, he is very 
well known, and has been given the cognomen of 
"Squire Carloss." Upon growing up, W. F. Car- 
loss was instructed in all the details of farm life, 
and received his elementary education in the com- 






'.±. 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



481 



mon schools of Phillips County, which was after- 
ward supplemented by one and a half year's attend- 
ance at the Christian Brothers' College of Memphis, 
Tenn. , acquiring in that well known institution an 
education of more than ordinary thoroughness. 
Upon reaching the age of twenty-one, he began 
as fireman, but was soon afterward promoted to the 
•position of conductor on the Arkansas Midland 
Railroad, serving in the latter capacity for two years. 
He then filled the position of station agent and 
postmaster at Marvel, Ark., from 1880 to 1883, 
and at the latter date was married to Miss Mittie 
Hudson of Phillips County. He soon after became 
interested in well-boring, purchased a set of tools, 
and began drilling wells in Arkansas, Mississippi, 
Missouri, Tennessee and California, and did so 
well at the business that he is now operating six 
sets, two of which are run by steam. He has had 
extensive experience in this business, and agrees 
that if, after the well is sunk, the water-supply 
is exhausted, he will charge nothing for his work. 
He sinks his well to a great depth in order to ob- 
tain water from coarse white sand and gravel, and 
not one has ever been known to fail; a well at 
Osceola supplies two forty-horse power engines. 
They are becoming very popular in this part of the 
country, as they are lasting and cheap, and are 
spoken of in a highly flattering manner by every 
one. In 1887 this business was organized as the 
Carloss Well Company, their main office being at 254 
Second street, Memphis, Tenn. Mr. and Mrs. 
Carloss have a son named Leslie. 

J. J. Carr, a prominent planter at Barfield, was 
born in Robertson County, Tenn., in 1853, and was 
the fifth child of Robert D. and Elizabeth (Lowe) 
Carr, of Viigiuia and Tennessee, respectively. The 
father was an extensive farmer and stock raiser in 
Tennessee, until 1858, when he moved to Missis- 
sippi County, Ark. , and settled at Barfield, on the 
farm upon which his son now resides. At his 
removal Mr. Carr sold his property in Tennessee for 
f no. 00(1, and invested the greater portion of that 
sum in lands of this county, buying some 10,000 
acres of land, and erecting a handsome residence 
one mile from the river. Since that time the river 
banks have caved in to such an extent that the 



residence has been removed one mile farther back, 
and now the river flows directly past it. The elder 
Carr, soon after his arrival, began improving his 
land on quite an extensive scale, and in a short 
time had over 200 acres of land under cultivation. 
His death occurred in 1861, at the age of fifty-five 
years, just three years after his settlement in Ar- 
kansas. After his decease the estate was managed 
by his widow and her oldest son. At the age of 
sixteen years J. J. Carr attended school at High 
Plains, Tenn. , and afterward entered the seminary 
at Walnut Grove, where he remained for three 
years, returning to Mississippi County on the oc- 
casion of his mother' s death. He then entered the 
business house of Edi'ington & Co., at Osceola, 
and occupied a clerical position for three years, 
after which he went to Memphis, Tenn., and trav- 
eled for a firm of cotton factors. At the first out- 
break of yellow fever, in 1877, he gave up his 
employment, and returned to Mississippi County, 
where he took possession of his farm, then con 
sisting of 125 acres under cultivation, but num- 
bering in all about 1,100 acres. He has added 350 
acres more since then, and has some 1 50 acres 
under cultivation, well stocked and fenced. Mr. 
Carr was married in 1882 to Miss Susie Phillips, of 
Missouri, a daughter of Richard R. Phillips, one of 
the oldest settlers of New Madrid County, Mo. 
This union has given them three children: John 
Haiden, Rosa Louise and an infant daughter. 
Mrs. Carr is a devout Christian, and belongs to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Carr is a 
member of Osceola Lodge No. 1153. Knights of 
Pythias. His land will average one bale of cot- 
ton to the acre, and about fifty bushels of corn, 
and in connection with his farming interests he 
operates a cotton-gin on his place, and owns 
the steamljoat landing, known as the Chickasawba 
Landing, where most of the cotton from the town- 
ship of that name is shipped, and the goods for 
that locality are received. Mr. Carr is a gentle- 
man of pleasing manners and address, and is well 
and popularly known throughout that section, 
where he is highly esteemed. 

N. G. Cartwright, sad<ller and harness-maker 
of Osceola, and one of the public-spirited citizens 



:x: 



■482 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of that city, is a native of Nortli Carolina, his 
liirth occurring in 1841. His scholastic advantages 
were rather limited, as he only attended the com- 
mon schools until twelve years of age, after which 
he was apprenticed to learn the harness-maker's 
trade, and served three years. He then began 
working at his trade, which occupation he continued 
for about four years, and during that time be- 
came convinced that a better education was neces- 
sary, and attended school one year. In 1861, 
when the late Civil War broke out, Mr. Cartwright 
enlisted in Company F, First North Carolina In- 
fantry, and was in Lee's army from its organization 
to the surrender. He was in the battles of Roanoke 
Island, where he was captured, biit soon paroled ; 
was at the battle of Chancellorsville, also the 
battle of the Wilderness, and was in a great many 
minor engagements. He surrendered at Appo- 
mattox with Gen. Lee's army, April 9, 1865. Mr. 
Cartwright was then in North Carolina for about 
a year, and in the spring of 1866 moved to 
Memphis, but in August of the same year he came 
to Osceola, where he taught the public school for 
two years. He married Miss Sallie E. Williams, 
daughter of James H. Williams, of that place, and 
one of the old and much respected citizens of the 
county. After his marriage Mr. Cartwright rented 
land and engaged in agricultural pursuits. Soon 
after he purchased 160 acres about twelve miles uji 
the river, and on this he made many improvements. 
This very pleasant home he sold at the end of 
three years, but continued farming for a number of 
years after that. In 1879 he started the first 
saddlery and harness-making shop in Osceola. He 
purchased a lot in that city, erected a store, and 
in 1882 built the line residence in which he 
now resides. In 1888 he put up his present store- 
room on Main Street, and now has a good and 
rajjidly increasing business. In 1883 he was 
elected mayor of Osceola, and in 1888 he was 
elected justice. By his union with Miss Williams 
Mr. Cartwright became the father of these chil- 
dren: Charley W., who died at the age of two 
years; Mary Frances, died in infancy; Foster, also 
died in infancy; Katie, James W., Vance, Leland 
and Henry (twins, and both deceased), and Finley. 



Mr. Cartwright is a representative business man, is 
careful and painstaking in all matters relating to 
the saddlery business, and carries a full and com 
plete stock of goods. His parents, Noah G. and 
Cassandra (Bailey) Cartwright, were both natives 
of North Carolina, where the father carried on 
agricultural pursuits. 

A. L. Cissell. Among the representative men • 
of this county none are more favorably known or 
more highly respected than the above-mentioned 
gentleman. His prominence arises from personal 
worth, which the public is not slow in recognizing, 
as well as from distinguished family connections, 
he being a direct descendant of Sir Robert Cecil, 
who was an exile fi-om England on account of relig- 
ion, and who first settled Cecil Coimty, Md. Mr. 
Cissell was born in Bar Township, Daviess County, 
Ind. , in 184-t, and is the son of J. A. Cissell, who 
came with his father, James S. Cecil, from Nelson 
County, Ky. , when a boy, and settled in Indiana. 
Here James A. Cissell changed his name fi'om 
Cecil to Cissell, and so it has since been continued 
by the Kentuck}' branch of the descendants. A. 
L. Cissell was reared at Loogootee, Ind., until 
eighteen years of age, and upon the bursting of the 
war cloud which had hovered above the country for 
so long a time, he enlisted in the Fifty-second In- 
diana Volunteer Infantry, and served four years, 
taking part in the campaign from Fort Donelson 
to Mississippi, or Harrisburg, where in 186-t he 
was severely wounded. He was then sent to the 
Overton Hospital in Memphis, and from there 
home on a furloiigh. In August. 1864. he re- 
turned to the regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Mo , 
and was afterward in a fight at Franklin, Mo., 
with Gen. Price. After this he was put in charge 
of the wounded and sent to the marine hospital at 
St. Louis, where he remained for some time, 
later going home to vote. Subsequently he rejoined 
his regiment at St. Louis, just from the raid after 
Gen. Price in Missouri, and from there accompanied 
it to Nashville. Tenn., although classed as non- 
combatant, owing to the wound in his right 
shoulder. He was sent to the hospital, and re- 
joined his regiment at Montgomery, Ala., just 
prior to being mustered out at Indianapolis, Ind., 



17; 



i^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



483 



in September, 1865. Mr. Cissell then returned to 
Loogootee, Ind. , where he rented hind of his fa- 
ther, and was there united in man'iage to Miss 
Sarah C. Brown, daughter of Felix Brown, of 
Loogootee. In 1869, in company witli his father 
and brother, Mr. Cissell made a prospecting tour 
to Mississippi County, Ark., and there bouglit 213 
acres of land, while his father bought 100 acres, 
mostly timber land. The next year they brought 
their families and settled on land situated on Car- 
son's Lake, about six miles southwest of Osceola, 
where he cleared some 200 acres. There A. L. Cis- 
sell remained until 1879, when he engaged in mer- 
cantile business at Osceola, and continued in this 
for two years, when he sold out at a loss of 
$13,000. After paying every cent he was left in 
debt to the amoimt of 1928 which, in 1884, he 
managed to place in the hands of one man. He 
then resumed agricultural pursuits, and is now the 
owner of 505 acres, with 165 under cultivation. 
In 1888 he was a candidate for sheriff of Missis- 
sippi County, but was defeated, owing to the fact 
that he left the field in the heat of the contest to 
undergo the most trying ordeal which can befall a 
man, the loss of a true and loving wife. She died 
July 9, 1888, leaving three children: Maggie is 
Mrs. O. W. Stacey, and now lives on a farm near her 
father's; Nora is the wife of J. H. Meyers, whose 
sketch appears elsewhere in this volume, and Til- 
den is at home. Mr. Cissell is a member of 
the A. O. U. W., located at Osceola, and is a 
member of the Catholic Church, as was also his 
wife, who died in that faith, holding membership 
in the Church of St. Matthew, at Osceola. 

John W. Conley. This young agriculturist is 
the son of a man who during a residence of four- 
teen years in this county became well known and 
prominently identified with the county's interests. 
James Conley was born in the "Old Dominion," 
being a member of one of the first families there, 
and was married in the State of Arkansas to Miss 
Rebecca Cutright, who was born in Indiana. They 
took up their abode in Mississippi County, Ark., 
in 1854, settling at Daniel's Point, and began farm- 
ing along the river, Mr. Conley having been pre- 
viously engaged in flat-boating. He made this his 



home until his farm was carried away into the 
river, then moved back to Clear Lake and bought 
160 acres of land, on which there was a slight 
clearing and a few improvements made. He 
erected him a house, made other improvements in 
the way of buildings and fences, and there resided 
until his death in 1868, having lived a life of use- 
fulness and honor. His widow still survives him. 
From earliest boyhood John W. Conley has been 
familiar with life on a farm, and at the age of nine- 
teen years entered upon active life as a farmer, 
which occupation has received his attention up to 
the present time, the jjerseverance and industry he 
has displayed being rewarded by substantial re- 
sults. He first tilled the soil in Chickasawba 
Township for seven years and in 1883 settled at 
Clear Lake on a tract of 106 acres, which had 
previously belonged to his father, where he has 
made some improvements in the way of repairing. 
His marriage with Miss Elma Patterson was cele- 
brated in 1874, she being a native of Indiana, and 
a daiighter of an old pioneer of this section. To 
them have been born a family of five children: Re- 
becca, Andrew J., Rosetta C, Eldord and Naomi. 
Mr. Conley is serving as school director, and has 
always been interested in the advancement of edu- 
cation, as well as all other good works. He was 
born in 1856, and was the second of seven children. 
Thomas B. Craighead was born near Nashville, 
Tenn., about 1800. He was a younger brother of 
David Craighead, also a lawyer. He came to Ar 
kansas about the year 1838, purchasing a large 
tract of land opposite Fort Pillow, where he opened 
quite an extensive plantation. Mr. C. was a bach- 
elor, and of the simplest of tastes. He was un- 
ambitious as a farmer, and continued after his re- 
moval to Arkansas to practice law, as he would say, 
to support the negroes on his farm. He rarely 
left his home except to attend court at Osceola or 
at the neighboring county seats in Tennessee. Mr. 
Craighead was a man of extraordinary character. 
At home he was simple in his habits, living in a 
plain log cabin, with no as.sociates except his 
negroes, yet he was a man who would have shone 
consj)icuously in any company in the United States. 
His mind was clear and active, well stored with in- 



484 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



formation of every kind, his manners most fascin- 
ating; modest, generous, eloquent, hospitable, 
charitable, he is to this day remembered by and 
lovingly spoken of by the older inhabitants as the 
noblest man they ever knew . He was never known 
to collect a bill for legal services, although he was 
engaged on one side or the other in almost every 
case of importance in the county or neighborhood. 
If his client paid his fee, well and good; if not 
well also. Before the war Mr. Craighead, much 
against his will and inclination, was elected a sen- 
ator to represent his county in the Arkansas legis- 
lature. Such was his popularity among his legis- 
lative brethren that against his vain protests they 
named a new county, then just formed, after him. 
The bombardment of Fort Pillow drove Mr. Craig- 
head from his home, and being much exposed and 
in advanced years he was seized with pneumonia, 
and died on a neighboring farm belonging to one 
of his nephews, where his remains now lie. 

James B. Craighead, a man of marked charac- 
ter and more than ordinary prominence in the ma- 
terial affairs of Mississippi County, Ark., is the 
eldest son of David Craighead, one of the pioneers 
of Arkansas, who was born near Nashville, Tenn. , 
in Davidson County, in 1790, and for some years, 
after reaching maturity, was a resident of that city, 
where he practiced law, and at one time represent- 
ed his county in the State legislature as a senator. 
About the year 1834 he purchased a large body of 
land in Mississippi County, Ark., on a point oppo- 
site the town of Randolph, in Tipton County, 
Tenn. , and with the help of slave labor opened a 
large plantation, but continued to make his home 
in Nashville. As was the custom of planters before 
the war, he passed a part of each year with his 
family on his plantation, and became so charmed 
with life on the banks of the Mississippi river, 
among his humble retainers, that he would gladly 
have remained there all the time except for the 
necessity of educating his children, of whom there 
were then five. He died at Memphis, Tenn., in 
1849, while on his way home from Little Rock, Ark. , 
where he had been on a matter of business. He 
was a man of fine personal appearance, cultivated 
and refined, and his views on all subjects were 



broad and liberal, betokening a studious mind and 
deep thought. He was an intimate friend of An- 
drew Jackson and James K. Polk, always a Demo- 
crat in his political views, and an advocate of 
free trade. At this point it will not be inappro- 
priate to give a short history of Mississippi Coun- 
ty as it was at the time of Mr. Craighead's set- 
tlement. While but a Territory, the lands of Ar- 
kansas comprised within the present boundaries of 
Mississippi County were surveyed by the United 
States Government during the years 1824, 1825 
and 1826, and were placed for entry in the land 
office at Helena, Ark., at 61.25 per acre. The land 
was covered with forests of cottonwood, gum, elm, 
hickory, walnut, ash and other timber, while the 
undergrowth consisted of almost impenetrable cane 
brake, which grew to the height of twenty feet, 
the stalks being over an inch in diameter. Tlie 
remainder of the land was covered with water dur- 
ing the overflows, to a depth of from one to ten 
feet, and is yet to a great degree occujjied by fine 
cypress brakes. Hardy jjioneers visited this section 
soon after it was surveyed, and with infinite trou- 
ble and pains examined and located the sections 
and quarter sections of land best suited for culti- 
vation, which as a general rule lay near the Mis- 
sissippi River. The knowledge which they had 
gained they sold for a consideration to capitalists 
from other States, who entered and purchased the 
land. Among those who availed themselves of 
this opportunity may be mentioned Nathan Ross, 
David Craighead, Thomas B. Craighead, John 
Harding, Jacob McGavock, William Baird, Charles 
Bowen, Isaac Lanier, Edwin Jones and many 
others. These parties were true pioneers, coming 
to the country when it was a wilderness, inhabited 
by bears, wolves, wild cats and other wild animals. 
The reputation which Arkansas had at that date, 
and has since had, of being a resort for murderers 
and criminals of every description, was not de- 
served, for the actual residents of Mississippi Coun- 
ty were then, and are now, at least were until the 
close of the war, a quiet, peaceful and law-abiding 
people. The region was no place for the conceal- 
ment of criminals, for the reason that the settle- 
ments were on a narrow strip of land running 







;ilong the Mississippi River, elosod in on the west by 
impenetrable cane-brakes and impassable swamps, 
and the places for crossing the river were few and 
far between. The original settlers above men- 
tioned came to Mississippi County and opened 
farms between the years 1833 and 1840. Osceola, 
the county seat, was a small village of about fifty 
inhabitants, and for many years the most impor- 
tant cases on the docket of the court were neigh- 
borhood troubles over a hog or a cow, with an oc- 
casional indictment of country boys who were 
caught playing "old sledge" in some out-of-the- 
way rendezvous. There was not then, and has never 
been, a stillhouse in the county, to our informant's 
knowledge, and whisky drinking was a rare vice, 
the people being perfectly sober, if not remark- 
ably industrious. Wealthy farmers lived quietly 
at home, raising crops of cotton and corn, and the 
poorer classes made a comfortable living cutting 
and selling cord-wood to steamers, until the cord- 
wood contiguous to the river gave out, when coal 
began to be used, owing to its cheapness. The 
plantations along the river were at first far apart, 
but have been gradually extended until they touch 
each other, and most of the available high land is 
now occupied and cleared. As soon as levees are 
constructed (and they are now partially built), 
millions of acres of fine alluvial land will be ready 
for use. James B. Craighead, the gentleman 
whose name heads this sketch, was born in Nash- 
ville, Tenn., in 1825, and generally accompanied 
his father to his plantation in Mississippi County, 
Ark. In 1843 he graduated from the University 
of Nashville, and two years later entered Har- 
vard University, being graduated from the law 
department of that institution in 1847. The same 
year he settled in New Orleans, where he entered 
the law office of the late Isaac T. Preston, with 
the purpose of studying the code of Louisiana, 
but in January, 1849, his father died leaving a 
widow and several minor children, and James was 
compelled to return to Arkansas to wind up the 
estate, which occupied several years, during which 
time the family resided in Nashville. In October, 
1849, he was married to Miss Erwin, of Nashville, 
bv whom he ha<l two children, both living, a 



daughter being married to W. Hooper Harris, of 
Nashville. The other child, Erwin Craigliead, 
received such education as was possible in the dis- 
organized condition of affairs in Nasliville during 
the war, and at the close of hostilities he sjjcut one 
year at Racine College, Wis., going from there to 
London, England, whore lie resided for a short 
time. He then spent one year in the University 
of Leipsic, Germany, and aft.er returning home, 
was married to Miss Harris, of Nashville. Having 
selected journalism as a profession, he moved to 
New Orleans, where, in conjunction with another 
gentleman, he establislied a daily paper, which 
still exists, called " The States. " A year or two 
later he sold his interest in that paper and re- 
moved to Mobile, Ala., where he was employed as 
a reporter on the staff of the Mobile Register, from 
which position he was promoted to the city editor- 
ship, and then to managing editor, which position 
he now holds. James B. Craighead, after his 
marriage, while continuing his interests in Arkan- 
sas, opened a hardware store in Nashville, which 
he managed successfully until it was closed by the 
Federals in 1862, who required an iron-bound 
oath, which Mr. Craighead could not take. In 
1873, Mr. Craighead's wife died, and in 1876, he 
took for his second wife. Miss Alethea Allison, also 
of Nashville, and soon after moved to his planta- 
tion, "Stonewall," in Mississippi County, Ark., 
where he has resided ever since, being the only 
member of his family who makes that State his 
home. He does not farm his lauds in the usual 
sense of farming, but rents out his place in small 
farms of twenty and thirty acres, to tenants, of whom 
he has about forty families, among whom he lives in 
a quiet and patriarchal manner. His views on the 
labor question are as follows: "One great draw 
back to the prosperity of this section of the coun- 
try is the greed for land which possesses many 
men who hold hundreds and thousands of acres 
more than they can possibly use. and still hunger 
for more. There is, however, a wiser feeling on 
j the subject, and many are dividing, or contemplate 
' dividing, up their surplus lands and selling them 
1 out on long time to permanent settlers. As a large 
portion of the residents and workers of Mississippi 



"rv" 



486 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



County are negroes, who are nomadic, restless and 
irresponsible, it has been found that the best way 
to make this people staid and respectable is to 
make them laud owners. As soon as one of this 
people settles as the owner of a hit of land, he 
gives up his nomadic habits and becomes a law- 
respecting citizen. The wi'iter thinks (after more 
than sixty years of association with colored jjeople, 
as the owner of slaves and the employer of freed- 
men) that the safety of the South depends upon 
civilizing these people, not simply by educating 
the children, but mainly by giving the people in- 
terest in the country as land owners — as an exper- 
iment, it is perfectly safe. If a man owns 10,000 
acres of uncultivated land, and sells out one-half of 
it to small buj^ers, say in forty or eighty-acre tracts, 
giving long time for payment, he can not possibly 
lose anything. If the land is paid for, well and 
good; if it is not paid for, it reverts to him or his 
heirs, in an improved condition, partly cleared, 
with houses, fences, etc. , upon it, and in condition 
to yield revenue, which it had never done before 
under the creation. As a mere hireling or laborer, 
African or white, a man is the enemy of, or at least 
antagonistic to, the landlord, and hostile to law, 
which he presumes is made for the benefit of the 
latter, but the moment he buys land, he becomes 
a landlord himself, and ranges himself on the side 
of law and order. It would be well, not only for 
Mississippi County, but for the State at large, if 
two- thirds at least, if not all the men living therein, 
owned lands of their own and cultivated them." 
Mr. Craighead is quite literary in his tastes, 
and subscribes for a large number of papers, mag- 
azines and journals, of literary, religious and scien- 
tific character, and is passing his old age in con- 
tentment and peace, esteemed and respected by all 
who know him. 

T. Y. Crawford. It was fifty six years ago 
when the subject of this sketch was born, his 
birth l)oing in St. Francis County, in this State, 
and he now occupies a position among the agri- 
culturists of this county which is by no means an 
inferior one. He is the eldest of nine children 
born to Moses and Evaline (Wright) Crawford, 
both of whom were natives of South Carolina, the 



former coming to the State of Arkansas in his 
youth, and was married near Helena. He first 
busied himself in rafting and hunting, and also 
did a little farming, but other occupations at that 
time were more profitable. They resided here 
during our subject's youth, then went to the 
State of Mississippi, but returned to Osceola, 
Ark., in 1844, and made one crop, after which 
they settled on land in Chickasawba Township, 
which is now known as the Cook farm. Here 
they cleared thirty-five acres and lived ten years; 
then selling the farm and moving to Pemiscot 
Bayou, which farm is now occupied by our subject, 
and on which the father died October 23, 1888, at 
the age of eighty- three years, and the mother at 
the same place, August 24, 1876, aged fifty-two. 
He was among the men who early cast their for- 
tunes with the then new county of Mississippi, 
and he is remembered with esteem and respect by 
the few remaining pioneers, who are one by one 
passing to their long home At the age of seven- 
teen years, T. Y. Crawford began working for 
himself, being engaged in hunting and working 
in wood yards on the river, and previous to his 
marriage, at the age of twenty-three years, to 
Miss Myra Potter, he had purchased a farm in 
Missouri; this farm he traded to his father for 
the home place, and here he has since resided. 
His farm comprises 274 acres, sixty of which are 
under cultivation, and is improved with fair build 
ings, fences and orchards. In 1888 he began 
running a trading boat down the bayou, but the 
next winter he brought the stock of goods to 
his home and started to keep a store, which has 
proved fairly successful. The children born to 
himself and wife are as follows; John T., George 
W., Wesley, Margaret P., W. Richard S., Isaac 
Y., Mary Bell, Edward M. and Henry L. Mrs. 
Crawford is a true Christian lady, and always 
tries to do as she would be done by. 

H. C. Davis. This respected citizen of Missis- 
sippi County, Ark., has been a resident of this 
locality since 1874, and has been associated with 
its mercantile and farming interests, and not with- 
out substantial results. His birth occurred in Mad- 
ison County, Tenn. , in 1847, but his parents, Henry 



^ 9 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



487 



W. and Martha M. (Holmes) Davis, wore born in 
NortL Carolina, but were taken to the State of 
Tennessee when young, and were there reared and 
married. The father was quite an extensive plant- 
er of that State, which occupation he continued 
to pursue until his death, in 1803. H. C. Davis 
passed the most important years of his life (the 
days of his youth) on the old homestead in Madi- 
son County, in the meantime acquiring a fair 
knowledge of the common liranches; and after his 
father's death he continued to remain at home and 
assist in supporting his widowed mother and the 
remainder of the family, which consisted of four 
children, until 187-1, when, as stated above, he 
came to Mississippi County, Ark. He rented a 
farm on Crooked Lake and made a crop that year, 
continuing thus until 1877. Prior to this, in 
1878. in partnership with his brother and brother- 
iu law, he had started a mercantile establish- 
ment in Blythesville, but, in the fall of 1882, the 
tirm was dissolved, and three years later Mr. Davis 
lesumed in the same business alone at that point, 
selling out a year later. Since 1888 he and his 
brother have conducted a general store in Blythes- 
ville, and being a man of keen business foresight, 
he has been able to meet the wants of his customers 
in every instance, and has built up a large patron- 
age by his thoroughly honest and reliable dealing. 
In 1880 he purchased eighty-five acres of land in 
Chickasawba Township, on which he built two 
houses, and cleared forty acres from timber and 
brush, and put it under cultivation. Two years 
later he purchased property in town, and on one 
lot built a commodious and substantial store-house, 
aud on another his residence. In 1885 he pur- 
chased several tracts of land in the vicinity, on all 
of which he made improvements, and now has 
very nearly 100 acres under cultivation. Since 
locating in Mississippi County Mr. Davis has seen 
many changes for the better take place, and has 
helped in the organization of the school districts, 
the education of the rising generation being one 
in which he takes an active interest. He has 
served as school director, and although not an act- 
ive politician, he has always voted with the Dem- 
I leratic party, aud was elected on that ticket to the 



office of deputy sheriff for a number of years. 
He is a member of Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, 
of the A. F. & A. M. During the overflow of 
August, 1875, Mr. Davis lost over 115 acres of 
growing crops, which crippled him considerably, 
but with his usual energy and j)er8everance he be- 
gan again the next year, and has retrieved his 
losses in a great measure. He is constantly en- 
gaged in speculating and trading, his enterprises 
in this direction being attended with excellent re- 
sults. Mrs. Sarah A. Eskridge, nee Rose, a native 
of the ''Hawkeye State," became his wife June 
24, 1880, and to their marriage has been given the 
following family of children: Martha Ann, Thom- 
as W., Mildred Frances and Hillary C. The fam- 
ily worship in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. 

T. W. Davis is a prominent and honored resi- 
dent of the county and is ranked among its success- 
ful agricultui-ists. He was born in Madison County, 
Tenn. , in 1849, being the third of five children 
born to Henry and Martha M. (Holmes) Davis. 
[For parents' history see sketch of H. C. Davis.] 
T. W. Davis was reared to a knowledge of farm 
life in his native State, attending the district 
schools, where he received a practical education, 
sufficient for the necessary purposes of everyday 
life. He remained with his father engaged in cul- 
tivating the old homestead until twenty years of 
age, and two years later was united in marriage to 
Miss Annie Scallions, also a native Tennesseean. 
He continued to till the soil in that State for three 
years after his marriage. In 1873 he became occu- 
pied with the farming interests of Lonoke County, 
Ark. , and also attended school there for one year. 
Here his wife died, leaving him with two little 
children to care for, but they, too, died soon after. 
He first located in Mississippi County in the year 
1875, and after farming for three years in Chicka- 
sawba Township removed to Blythesville, and 
opened a store, which he successfully conducted 
for several years, but also continued his farming 
operations. He made his first land purchase about 
the year 1877 and now owns 100 acres, twenty-tive 
being in a state of cultivation. This is a fine 
tract of land and is nearly all capable of a high 



<5 W- 



488 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



state of cultivation. Mrs. M. E. Pollard, a native 
of East Tennessee, became his second wife in 
1880, and by her he is the father of two children : 
Moms E. (deceased) and Mildred Elsie. He and 
wife attend the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
ever since twenty-one years of age he has taken an 
active interest in politics, serving as deputy un- 
der Sheriff Haskins. In 1885 he was elected jus- 
tice of the peace, serving two years, and in 188U 
was chosen county assessor, which office he still 
holds, discharging his duties in a manner aV)Ove 
criticism, and with a thoroughness highly credita- 
ble to all concerned. 

William V. Dean, an extensive farmer of Dean's 
Island, was born at that place in 1855, and was the 
youngest in a family of eleven children. His par- 
ents were James C. and Mariah (Wright) Dean, of 
Georgia and Tennessee, respectively. The elder 
Dean moved to Arkansas with his father in 1828, 
and settled on Crowley's Ridge in Craighead Coun- 
ty. In 1829 the father came to Mississippi Coun- 
ty and located on what is now the McGavock farm, 
tielow Pecan Point. He acquired several hundred 
acres of land at that point, which he afterward 
sold to Jacob McGavock, and then moved to an 
island in the Mississippi River, which has since 
been named Dean's Island in his memory. He 
bought (500 acres of land upon his arrival at the 
latter place, and soon afterward purchased 500 
acres more, and had succeeded in totally clear- 
ing 400 acres up to the time of his death in 
1874, at the age of sixty -three years, the mother 
dying in April, 1889, at the age of seventy-seven 
years. William Dean remained with his parents 
during their lifetime, and after his father's death 
continued on the farm, while the other sons left 
home and traveled in various directions. In 1880 
he was married to Miss Tennessee Wigley, of Ala- 
bama, and this estimable wife has given him live 
children; William R., James C, Nellie, Eliza- 
beth M. and Lillie Maud. Mr. Dean, Sr. , in his 
life was noted for his great strength as well as for 
his prowess in hunting. He was one of the pio- 
neers of this section, and made a business of sel- 
ling wood to the steamboats. He was strong in 
his denunciation of slavery, but did not sanction 



the war, and would neither enter into the army nor 
allow his sous to do so. He cleared most of his 
farm of 300 acres himself, and was a man of great 
popularity on account of his integrity and truth. 
His youngest son, William, lives quietly on the 
old estate, cultivating the land, and has a pleasant 
home at the upper end of the island. 

J. D. Driver, like so many of the repi'esentative 
citizens of Mississippi County, Ark., is a Tennes- 
seean by birth, having been born in that State in 
1830. At the age of four years he was brought to 
Arkansas by his parents, Abram and Sallie (De 
Moss) Driver, who removed from their old home 
in Tennessee by fiatboat down the Ciuuberland 
River, and during a storm were blown up against 
the lauding at Council Bend, in Crittenden County. 
After a little investigation Mr. Driver discovered a 
tine body of land at this point, and here decided to 
make his home, purchasing from the government a 
tract of land consisting of 1,000 acres, at $1.25 per 
acre. Here he .settled with his family, consisting 
of his wife and seven childi-en (four being after 
ward born to them), and they set bravely to work 
to improve their land, the result of their united 
efforts becoming plainly perceptible. On this farm, 
where he had labored so earnestly and faithfully 
to provide a competency for his family, he died in 
1845, leaving his wife to carry on the work he had 
left uncompleted. This she did for four years, 
when she, too, died. J. D. Driver, whose name 
heads this sketch, was the sixth child born to his 
parents, and as there were no public schools in 
those days, his early opportunities for acquiring an 
education were of the most meager description. 
His two elder brothers and his sisters were, how- 
ever, sent awav to school bv the father durin<j his 
lifetime. After the death of the mother the fam- 
ily became scattered in all directions, and for about 
two years J. D. Driver diifted aimlessly from 
one point to another without settled occupation. 
Being brought up to a farm life he chose that as 
his calling, and after remaining some time in 
Phillips County he moved to Lauderdale County, 
Tenn., where he purchased a farm and made his 
home from 1858 to 1872. giving mnch of his at- 
tention to the raising of cotton subsequent to the 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



mi 



year i860. In 1800 he was married to Miss Sarah 
Gilespie, a daughter of James Gilespie, of Lau- 
derdale County, Teun. , and granddaughter of 
John Gilespie, a North Caroliuian, whose wife 
was a Miss Minerva Nelson, a daughter of Edward 
Nelson, of South Carolina. Mr. Driver purchased 
the farm where he now lives, th^ place Ijeing then 
known as the Hardin farm. It is situated about 
two miles below Osceola, Ark., and by proper 
management and strict attention to his calling, he 
has vastly improved his property and is now ac- 
counted one of the leading agriculturists of his sec- 
tion. Up to 1880 he was largely interested in the 
culture of cotton, to which he devoted from 1,000 
to 2,000 acres annually, l)ut since that time he has 
Vjeen renting his land, which amounts to 14,000 
acres, 11,000 being iu Mississippi County, of 
which 3,500 are under cultivation. He is in eveiy 
respect a self-made man, for the money he realized 
from his father's estate, amounting to $3,500, he 
invested in slaves a short time prior to the Rebel- 
lion and consequently lost all. Just before the 
fall of Fort Sumter he had bought live negroes, 
paying for one $1,000, for another $1,300, for 
another $1, 100, and for a negress and child $1,300, 
she afterward becoming; the mother of two more 
children. These he lost in addition to twenty 
head of horses and mules, which crippled him 
financially, but with the energy and deteimination 
to succeed, which have ever characterized his efforts, 
he set bravely to work to retrieve his fortunes, and 
is now one of the wealthiest planters in Mississippi 
County, being the heaviest taxpayer. His resi 
dence is beautifully situated, facing the river, and 
his lawn and buildings show unmistakable evi- 
dence of taste and refinement. Around his home 
is ornamental shrubbery of many varieties; and 
immense forest trees of sycamore, box elder and 
elm assist largely in making his home one of the 
loveliest in the county. During the war. before 
the Federal troops reached Osceola, Mr. Driver 
sent his slaves to Alabama for safe keeping where 
they, iu time, became free, but to his credit be it 
said that the colored people, with one exception, 
made their way back to him and are now working 
on his plantation. A short time ago he received a 1 



letter from the one who remained in Alabama, in 
which he expressed a wish that he too could come 
back to his old home. The names of the children 
born to Mr. and Mrs. Driver are as follows: John 
Lee, who died at the age of sixteen years; May, 
who lived to be twelve months old; Abnor, who 
resides on his own farm of 300 acres near his 
father, is married and has two children, Harry and 
Ida May; Minerva Tennessee, who is the wife of 
B. F. Hale, aud is residing on one of her father's 
farms across the river in Tennessee; James Skel- 
ton, who resides on his father's place about three 
miles from home, is married and has two children, 
Cecil and Savilla May; William Walter, at home 
attending school; Eli Edward, Jettie, and Lillie, 
an infant. Mr. and Mrs. Driver are worthy and 
respected members of the Baptist Church at Osce- 
ola, and he is a member in good standing of the 
Masonic fraternity. 

John B. Driver, farmer, and clerk of the pro- 
bate court, Osceola. The ])ublic services of Mr. 
Driver, since 1872, have been characterized by a 
noticeable devotion to the welfare of this county, 
and his ability and fidelity in all po.sitions of ])ub 
lie trust have made a lasting impression upon the 
sphere of public duty. For many years his name 
has been closely connected with the history of Mis- 
sissippi County, not only otlicially but as an hon- 
ored and esteemed citizen. Mr. Driver was born 
in Americus, Ga., in the year 1846, and is the el 
dest in a family of eight children born to Samuel 
and Mary Ann (Barlow) Driver, both natives of 
Georgia. The father followed farming and car 
pentering until 1853, when he emigrated to Inde 
pendence County, Ark., and bought a quarter sec- 
tion of land, where he made his home and many 
improvements. Not Ijeing satisfied, he sold out in 
1857, and moved to Jackson County, where he 
bought land, and there resided until his death, in 
1802. The mother is still living, and makes her 
home at Sikeston. Mo. John B. Driver learned 
the rudiments of farm life in his adojited State. 
and his scholastic advantages were enjoyed in the 
State of Arkansas. In 1870 he wedded Miss Mar 
garet A. Bowen, a daughter of Captain Charles 
Bowen [see sketch of Capt. Bowen], and two yeais 



J^ 



a fc». 




later he bought a farm of 160 acres, three miles 
west of Osceola. There was a slight clearing on the 
place at that time, and this he greath' increased. 
Since that time he has been buying land in all 
parts of the county. In 1887 he bought the place 
on which he now resides, a tract of 140 acres, all 
under cultivation and fenced, and one mile below 
town. He is the owner of 2, 500 acres all together, 
with about 430 under cultivation. In 1872 he was 
elected sheriff of the county, and such was his 
popularity that he was re elected three successive 
terms, serving in all six years. In 1880 he was 
elected State senator from his district, and served 
in this capacity one term of four years. In 1888 
he was elected circuit and county court clerk, 
which position he still holds, to the satisfaction 
of his constituents and the public in general. Be- 
ing a self made man it may safely be recorded that 
Mr. Driver owes his success and advancement to his 
own energy and exertion. His extensive farming 
gives employment to sixteen families, all of whom he 
furnishes with provisions, etc. The cultivation of 
his large plantation of 400 acres results in prosper- 
ity and plenty to all around him. and gives em- 
ployment to many people. To the union of Mr. 
and Mrs. Driver have been born eight children, all 
of whom are living; they form ample evidences of 
the sanitary condition of this section. Their names 
are Charles S.. Willie J., Maggie E., Sue M., 
John B.. Jr., James Garland, Grover Cleveland 
and Frances F. Mr. Driver is a Royal Arch Ma- 
son, a member of Osceola Chapter No. 57, and for 
a number of years was H. P. of the Chapter. He 
is also a member of Hugh DePayens Commandery, 
K. T.. at Little Rock, Ark. 

James Skelton Driver, though still comparative- 
ly a young man, has already had an active career 
in agricultural pursuits and is recognized as a care- 
ful, energetic farmer of Mississippi County, who, 
by his advanced ideas and progressive habits, has 
done not a little for farming interests hereabouts. 
He is a son of James D. Driver, whose sketch 
appears in this work, and in his youth received 
good educational advantages, which he improved 
to the utmost, being an attendant at Alton, 111. , 
and Frankfort, Ky. After his marriage, which oc- 



curred in Memphis, Tenn. , in 1SS5, to Miss Carrie 
Kenney, a daughter of the late M. W. Kenney. of 
Memphis. Tenn. , he moved upon one of his 
father's plantations and set energetically to work 
to clear it of timber, and put it in good condition 
for farming. Fifty acres had already been cleared, 
and he has since put 150 acres more under the 
plow and has erected several buildings, including 
his residence, which is a substantial frame build 
ing. He employs about twenty-tivepeojjle to keep 
his plantation in good condition, and has always 
taken great interest in everything that bids fair to 
be of benefit to the community in which he resides. 
He and his wife are the parents of two little chil 
dren, son and daughter: Cecil and Savilla May. 
Mrs. Driver's father, M. W. Kenney, was the 
tarpaulin manufacturer of Memphis, Tenn., and 
died there on the 13th of August, 1878, of yellow 
fever, being the first victim of that dreaded scourge 
in that city. He was fifty-one years of age and 
was born in Philadelphia. Penn.. in which city he 
remained until eight years of age. When a young 
man he married a young lady of Wilmington, Del., 
and afterward went by steamship to Florida, thence 
to Memphis about 1850, and was married there to 
his second wife, whose maiden name was Miss 
Caroline Klinck, her father being John G. Klinck. 
whose ancestors came to America in that famous old 
ship, the ' ' Mayflower. ' ' He was the first man to 
start a newspaper in Memphis, which took the name 
of the Evening Bulletin, and was one of the com 
mittee to receive the Marquis de La Fayette when 
on his toiir through the United States. He was 
also connected with the Memphis Appeal, now one 
of the most popular journals of the day in that city. 
Abner Driver. As one of the enterprising 
younger members of the agricultural circle of Mon- 
roe Township we can not fail to mention Abner 
Driver, who, having Vjeen identified with the inter- 
ests of Mississippi County from his birth, is now 
one of its foremost agriculturists, although young 
in years. In 1882 he began life for himself, and a 
tract of 1,600 acres of land was placed at his dis- 
posal by his father, who is one of the wealthiest 
men of the county, and. with the exception of 100 
acres, all of it was heavilv covered with timber. 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



491 



Being a "cliip of the old block" he entered 
heart and soul into clearing this laud and getting 
it into good shape for farming, and up to the pres- 
ent time has put about 300 acres under the plow, 
and has erected twenty dwelling-houses on the 
place, among which is hia own handsome residence, 
a well-finished two-story house in T shape, the 
main part of the building being 35x48 feet 
and the annex being 25x48 feet. In addition 
to this he has a tine barn and a cotton-gin 
and sawmill, the latter two enterprises giving em- 
ployment to about twelve men. The different 
branches of work on his plantation call for the la- 
bor of at least seventy people, and Mr. Driver is 
compelled to work early and late to attend to his 
big farm and keep the wheels of fortune moving. 
In early life his means and opportunities for ac- 
quiring an education were excellent, and after at- 
tending the schools of Cape Girardeau, Mo., he 
entered the East Tennessee University, located at 
Knoxville, where he pursued his studies assidu- 
ously. His wife, a lady of much culture and re- 
finement, was a Miss Matie Williamson and a na- 
tive of Mississippi County, her parents being Miss 
Letha Hale and Mr. B. Williamson. Mrs. Dri- 
ver is a member of the Baptist Church at Winches- 
ter, Tenn. , where she received her education, and 
he is a Mason, both being members of the Kallo- 
rama Lodge of the Knights and Ladies of Honor, 
of Osceola. They have two very interesting little 
children, Harry Lee and Ida May, who add much 
happiness to their pleasant home. 

Dr. H. C. Dunavant. The professional minds 
of physicians may be divided into two separate and 
di.stinct classes, aptly designated the perceptive and 
the memorative. To one class belong those whose 
medicinal knowledge and perception depends upon 
memory; to the other, those who rely chiefly 
upon their conscious resources and mingle them 
with their own judgment. To those acquainted 
with Dr. Dunavant it is unnecessary to mention to 
which class he belongs. He was born in Tennessee 
in 1844, and was next to the youngest in a family 
of fourteen children born to Leonard and Mary 
Beaufort (Reid) Dunavant. The parents were 
natives of Virginia and Tennessee, rt^spectively. 



The father left his native State at the age of six- 
teen and went to Tennessee, where he was engaged 
in contracting and building for many years. He 
held the position of major in the War of 1812, and 
during the battle of Now Orleans, when one of the 
soldiers was sick, Maj. Dunavant took his gun ami 
used it with telling effect during the remainder of 
the engagement. He was also in a number of 
Indian fights. Later he went to West Tennessee, 
where he engaged in agricultural pursuits, and this 
occupation continued until his death, which oc- 
curred in 1869. The mother had died previous to 
this, in 1850. The maternal grandfather came to 
Tennessee, and was the first school-teacher in 
Nashville, where he made his home during life. 
Young Dunavant attended the common schools of 
Tennessee until sixteen years of age, and when the 
war broke out entered the Confederate army, en- 
listing in Company E, First Confederate Cavalry. 
He participated in the battles of Paris (Tenn.), 
Guntown (Miss.), Perry ville (Ky.), Murfreesboro, 
Chiekamauga. and was with the army on the re- 
treat through Georgia. He was with Gen. Wheeler 
in his celebrated campaigns, and also with Gen. 
Forrest at Gainesville, Ala. , at the time of the suv- 
render. After the close of the conflict he attended 
school two years, then earned some money, and en- 
tered that well-known and far-famed institution, 
the University of Nashville, and graduated from 
the medical department in 1873, thoroughly pre- 
pared to enter actively npon the discharge of his 
professional duties. He practiced one year with 
his brother in law, Dr. Mitchell, and January 25. 
1874, selected Mississippi County, Ark., as the 
scene of his future labor. He located at Osceola, 
and there he has since remained. The Doctor 
travels all over the county, and claims that the 
sanitary condition of this section has improved very 
much since his residence here. His career as a 
physician has long been well and favorably known 
to the many who have teste4 his healing ability, 
and abundant proof of his practice at this time is 
seen in the extended territory over which he goes 
to alleviate the suffering of the sick. The Doctor 
was married in 1874 to Mrs. Hattio Lanier, nee 
Binford, a native of Kentucky. She died in 1878 



r 



W2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of yellow fever, having borne two children, Harry 
Binfort, who died just before his mother, aged three 
years, and Julia. Dr. Dunavant was married the 
second time, in December, 1879, to Mrs. Bettie 
Wheeler, nee Pulliam, a native of Tennessee, 
and the daughter of Elijah Pulliam, one of the 
oldest settlers in the State of Tennessee, and who 
died a -short time since at the age of eighty-five 
years. To the second union were born two ehil- 
di'en, Harry Pulliam and Buford Nelson. The 
Doctor is a member of the American Public Health 
Association, also a member of the Medico- Legal 
Society of New York, and a member of the Tri- 
State Medical Society, composed of the States of 
Tennessee. Mississippi and Arkansas. He is quite 
active politically, but is not an office-seeker. Aside 
from his professional duties he is actively engaged 
iu agricultural pursuits, and in this, as in all 
other enterprises, makes a complete success. Mrs. 
Dunavant is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

George H. Evans (deceased). For nearly a 
quarter of a century the name that heads this 
sketch was borne by a man who was identified with 
the interests of Mississippi County, Ark., in more 
ways than one. Honest and worthy in every par- 
ticular, his life was one of great industry, and 
was spent in an earnest endeavor to do good to 
all. His father, Jesse Evans, was a successful 
cotton planter near Shelbyville, Tenn. , where he 
married Miss Levina Tipton, a sister of Gen. 
Jacob Tipton, of Tennessee. George H. Evans's 
birth occurred in Shelbyville, Tenn., where he re- 
mained until seventeen years of age, and then fin- 
ished his education at Covington, in the same 
State. Afterward he became deputy countj' clerk 
of Tipton County, and was then elected to the of- 
fice of circuit clerk, which [wsition he held for 
a number of years before leaving that county. In 
1836 he was married to Miss Edith White, daugh- 
ter of William White, of Tipton County, Tenn., 
but formerly of North Carolina, and the fruits of 
this union were three children: Levina Tipton, 
now the widow of J. W. Uzzell [see sketch and 
portrait]; J. Tipton Evans, the only son, who en- 
listed in the late war, but died before reaching the 



field, and Edith E. , married to Dr. St. Clair, by 
whom she had one son. In 184-1, after the death 
of his father, who had entered a large tract of 
land in Mississippi County, but had not proven it 
up, George H Evans, then a married man with a 
wife and three children, moved upon the place un- 
til he could prove up, after which he returned 
with them to Tipton County. Tenn., and there re 
sided until 1850. He then returned to the farm 
with his family, and there continued until his death, 
which occurred in 1867. He left each of his 
daughters 1,090 acres of land and his widow 
5,000 or 6,000 acres, only a few hundred acres, 
however, under cultivation. Mrs. Evans now oc- 
cupies one of the most desirable places to be found 
in the State. She has ten acres of fine orchard, 
besides some seven acres surrounding the house, 
where she has 1,000 different varieties of fruits and 
flowers. She takes great pride in her flowers and 
spends much of her time among them. She may 
well be proud of them, for she has virtually made 
the "wilderness blossom as the rose," as when she 
came there, in 1850, all was a deep forest and the 
cane-brake was twenty feet high. Mrs. Evans was 
born in Pennsylvania, but left that State with her 
parents when six years old and moved to Tipton 
County, Tenn. 

Newton J. Evans is the fifth of eleven children 
born to his father and mother, his birth occurring 
iu Osceola, Mississippi County, Ark. , in 1849. The 
occupation he is now following was learned on his 
father's farm, and during this time, while directing 
the plow, he received some educational advantages. 
In 1871, he rented land, began farming on his own 
responsibility, and four years later commenced 
following that occupation in Chickasawba Town- 
ship, his labors being on rented land until 1888. 
In 1880, he wedded Miss Joe Lee, a daughter of 
an old pioneer resident of this county, by the name 
of James Sawyer, and from that time up to 1888 
he was engaged in raising crops on land belonging 
to his father-in-law. At the latter date he became 
the owner of eighty acres of some of the finest land 
in this section, forty-seven acres being in a tine 
state of cultivation, and will usually average a 
bale of cotton to the acre. To Mr. Evans and his 



tS' f' 





(deceased) 
Mississippi Cdunty, Arkansas . 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



493 



wife, who is an earnest member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, have been born the following 
named children: Alice Dean and Minnie, living; 
and Maggie, Charles N. and James, who died in 
infancy. His parents, Newton and Amelia (Bowon) 
Evans, were born in Putnam County, Ind., and 
were reared and married in their native State. 
They removed to the State of Arkansas about 1836, 
and settled on land near what is now Osceola, 
where the father cleared about eighty acres of land, 
and made many other valuable improvements. Af- 
ter selling this land they purchased other property 
near Elmot, which they also improved, but meet- 
ing with heavy losses by fire, they soon moved back 
to near Osceola, where Mr. Evans passed from life 
in 1870. His wife's death had occurred in 1854. 

J. E. Felts, a physician of Osceola, was born in 
East Tennessee, in 1817, being the third in a 
family of four children born to Tilman and Rebecca 
( Ellis) Felts. The father was a carpenter by trade, 
and also followed farming. The paternal grand- 
father was a native of Germany, and came to this 
country before its independence, serving seven 
years during the Revolutionary War. He died at 
an old age in Sussex County, Va. Tilman Felts 
was a pioneer settler of Kentucky, locating in War- 
I'en County, near Bowling Green, where he re- 
mained till 1836, and then removed to Jackson's 
purchase, Hickman County, making it his home 
till 1856. Then he came to Ai'kansas to live with 
our subject. He died in Mississippi County, in 
1857, at the age of eighty-four. Young Felts 
spent his youth in Kentucky', remaining at home 
till eighteen years of age, when he moved to Hick- 
man County, and began farming. In 1839 he 
married Miss Eliza Pickett, a native of Tennessee, 
after which he entered upon the study of medicine, 
under Dr. J. A. Wording, at Columbus. He stud- 
ied and practiced with this doctor for three years, 
and then began practicing for himself in the same 
place, where he remained till 1855, when he came 
to Arkansas, and located at Mill Bayou, in this 
count3^ Resuming farming on rented land, he 
also followed the practice of his i)rofession till 
1868, when he moved to Osceola, where he has 
since made his home, enjoying an extensive prac- 



tice till 1875, when failing health caused him to 
practically retire. Dr. Felts has always been active 
in the political affairs of Mississippi County. In 
1878 he was elected county judge, and served for 
two years; also acting as deputy clerk in 1881 and 
deputy sheriff from 1883 to 1886. He has seen 
many changes in these years, and has taken part 
in most of those that promised to promote the wel- 
fare of this section. He had two sons who served 
in the Confederate army: David C, who was a 
member of Capt. E. H. Fletcher's company, and 
William T. , who was a member of Capt. Grider's 
company. David was taken prisoner, and died at 
Nashville in 1862. William served till the close. 
To the union of Dr. and Mrs. Felts, who have been 
married now nearly fifty-one years, were born the 
following children : David C, Sarah Jane and 
William T., all deceased; Martha C, wife of H. M. 
Pope, residing at Nodena; Mary E., wife of John 
Pierce, living at Caruthersville; John E. , deceased, 
and Daniel H., married, and residing in Dunklin 
County, Mo. Dr. and Mrs. Felts are members of the 
Baptist Church of Osceola. Dr. Felts belongs to 
Osceola Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M., and Osce- 
ola Chapter No. 57. He has held nearly all the 
offices in both lodge and chapter. He is enjoying 
the autumn days in the declining years of an active 
and well-spent life among the friends whom he has 
served so long, esteemed and respected by all. 

Daniel Lee Ferguson was born near Pulaski, 
Giles Coimty, Tenn., September 30, 1832. His 
family was an old North Carolina family of Scotch 
origin. His father, Edmond Ferguson, moved 
from Wilkes County, N. C, to Giles County, Tenn., ' 
in 1824, where he soon afterward married Mary 
Sheron, who was also of a North Carolina family, 
and of English descent. They both died in 1840, 
leaving a family of seven children. Daniel Lee 
was the fourth child, and only eight years of age 
when his parents died, and from that early age he 
has fought his way unaided through the world. 
He is a fine representative of the self-made men 
of our times. In September, 1852, he married 
Mary T. Combs, of Pulaski, Tenn. She was the 
daughter of James Combs, attorney at law, and 
, granddaughter of Capt. Charles Buford, a noted 




man of his day and time. A month after their 
marriage the young couple moved to Tunica Coun- 
ty, Miss. , which at that time was an almost un- 
broken wilderness. Mi-. Ferguson there began his 
career as a cotton planter, which business he has 
successfully followed ever since. In 1869, on ac- 
count of his wife's failing health, he moved to 
Memphis, Tenn. , where he went into business as a 
cotton factor and commission merchant, in the firm 
of Ferguson & Hampson. At the same time he 
kept up his business as a cotton planter. In De- 
cember, 1875, his wife died of consumption. Two 
children were born of this marriage, both of whom 
died in their early infancy. In January, 1877, 
he married again, his second wife being Mary 
Alcy (Carleton), widow of Benjamin R. Norris. 
Her ancesti-y on the Carleton side belonged to an 
old Virginia family of English descent. Her fa- 
ther was a prominent physician of North Missis- 
sippi before the war. On her mother's side she 
is connected with the Orrs, Grays and Alexan- 
ders, tine old Scotch-Irish families of Meck- 
lenburg County, N. C. , and Mississippi. She had 
one child by her first marriage. Pearl Eglantine 
Norris, who died soon after her father, in 1874. 
One child has blessed this second marriage, a 
daughter, Alcyone Carleton Ferguson, who is now 
H bright little girl, eleven years of age. In 1877 
Mr. Ferguson became interested in the Nodena 
plantation, in Mississippi County, Ark., which was 
then in litigation, and when it was sold by the 
supreme court of the State, in 1879, he bought it 
for himself and his partner, Mr. Hampson. Imme- 
diately thereafter he was plunged into a long and 
expensive lawsuit, which lasted nearly ten years, 
and seriously crippled him financially. But in the 
end he gained the lawsuit, after carrying it through 
all the courts of both Tennessee and Arkansas. 
His family have made Nodena their home since 
1879. He found he could not give his business in 
Memphis the attention it required, and in 1884 
closed up his afFairs there entirely, and concentrat- 
ed all his energies at Nodena. He is one of the 
largest cotton planters on the Mississippi River 
above Memphis. A view of his l)road fields, white 
with the open cotton, in the autumn, is a sight 



worthy of admiration. For thirty-seven years the 
steamers that float on the bosom of the mighty 
Mississippi have cari'ied his cotton bales to the 
markets of the world. His plantation, with the rich 
alluvial lands surrounding it, is interesting from 
another point of view than its cotton fields. That 
prehistoric and once mighty race, " The Mound 
Builders," had an abiding place here, in the cen- 
turies long gone by, as is evidenced by the mounds 
they have left behind them. Mighty oaks crown 
the summits of these mounds, and speak in silent 
whispers of the watch they have for centuries kept 
over them. Races come and go, and these mounds 
still stand, the monuments of a forgotten people. 
Mrs. B'erguson is an enthusiastic moiind explorer, 
and has quite a collection of the vessels and imple- 
ments of those prehistoric people. She hopes to 
be able, through her explorations, to throw some 
light upon the habits and customs of that early 
race. It is with regret that we leave Mr. Fergu- 
son and his interesting plantation, with the mounds 
and their buried histories, the cotton fields that 
will help to clothe the people of the world, and the 
majestic river as it sweeps onward in its resistless 
course to the sea. Mr. Ferguson seems to belong 
to such surroundings. A man of magnificent stat- 
ure and noble bearing, in his broad bosom there 
beats a heart that is large enough to sympathize 
with the sufferings of all humanity. Not one 
of the human family ever turned from his door 
hungry, or cold from nakedness. He is always 
ready to lend a listening ear to the woes of the 
afflicted and needy, and his purse is always open to 
the wants of the poor. It can truly be said of him, 
" He is one of Nature's noblemen." 

Elliot H. Fletcher (deceased) was a native of 
Charlottesville, Va., born in the year 1805, and 
was the fifth child born to the second marriage of 
Thomas Clark and Susan (Jouette) Fletchei'. These 
families trace their genealogy back to colonial 
times, and took an active and important part in 
the early history of Virginia. One of the ances- 
tors on the mothers side, John Jouette, is remem- 
bered for his timely warning to the Virginia legis- 
lature and to Gov. Jefferson, of Gen. Tarleton's 
purpose to surprise and capture them. They 



*¥ 



A^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



4ur) 



made their escape, and Mr. Jouette was presented 
with a handsome sword. At the present time there 
are a number of prominent artists descended from 
this family. Until fourteen years of age Elliot H. 
Fletcher spent his time in his native State, attend- 
ed a ])rivate school, and clerked in his brother's 
store. At that age he went to Tennessee to live 
with an elder brother, Thomas H. Fletcher, one of 
the most celebrated lawyers in the annals of that 
State, and whose literary and legal attainments 
and achievements have often been mentioned in 
the literature of the Southwest. There he began 
a thorough course of study under his brother' s ad- 
vice, and his intimate association with this most 
eminent man of Tennessee, who then resided in 
Nashville, gave him means of improvement which 
supplied the lack of a regiilar collegiate education. 
When he arrived at man's estate, he was appointed 
aid-de-camp to Gen. William H. Carroll. At about 
the age of twenty he engaged in mercantile pur- 
suits in Fayetteville, under the lirm title of Fletch- 
er & Carr. This firm did an extensive business, 
and bought and sold cotton in large quantities. At : 
the age of twenty-six he was united in marriage i 
with Miss Frances Hickman, of Fayetteville. This i 
laily was a great- granddaughter of Gen. Thomas ; 
Eaton, of North Carolina, a distinguished officer 
of the Revolutionary War, who married Miss Anna 
Bland, the sister of Frances Bland, who was the 
mother of the celebrated John Randolph, of Roan- 
oke. Miss Hickman's grandfather was Col. Guil- 
ford Dudley, who commanded a regiment of Con- 
tinental troops under Washington, and who dis- 
tinguished himself as a brave and gallant officer. 
About 188f) Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher came to Crit- 
tenden County, Ai'k. , and he held some office in the 
Real Estate Bank of Arkansas. In 1840 he moved 
to Mississippi Count}', Ark., where he bought 
a small farm on Mill Bayou, afterward known as 
Fletcher's Landing. At that time the immense 
tract of country embraced within the limits of Mis- 
sissippi County e.xtendod as far west as the St. 
Francis River, and had a population of about 900 
souls. All were living in plain huts, very little 
superior to those of the Indians among whom these 
white people resided. Such were the surround- 



ings of Col. Elliot H. Fletcher and his fine and 
accomplished wife. They took up their residence 
in their log cabin on the banks of the Mississippi 
River, and there began a hand-to-hand .struggle 
for existence, against obstacles before which a less 
brave and determined man would have failed. For 
many years the encroachments of the " Father of 
Waters," by overflows and caving l>anks, brought 
him to the verge of ruin. But as time passed he 
gradually leveed- in his own river front, and thus 
having overcome his greatest enemy, the high 
water, he extended and developed his farm until 
he found himself in easy and independent circum- 
stances. Col. Fletcher's noble bearing and pleasing 
manners, together with his evident talent for bus- 
iness, soon attracted the attention of the people of 
the county, and in 1846 he was induced to become 
a candidate to represent the county in the legisla- 
ture. He was elected, and served his county and 
State with distinguished ability, taking rank at 
once with the foremost men of the State. He was 
re- elected in 1848, and again in 1850, at which 
session he was the chief member in organizing the 
public levee system of the State. In the mean- 
time his judicious management of his private af- 
fairs, and his investment in lands, had made him 
independent, financially, and although his talents 
for political employment were known and recog- 
nized throughout the State, the fact of his being a 
devoted Whig amounted to political disfranchise- 
ment, for the Democratic party then, as now, 
reigned supreme in the State. Being a lawyer, 
though never having engaged in the practice, he 
was urged to accept the office of circuit judge, but 
declined, although he would have been promptly 
elected had he been willing to serve. His three 
terms in the legislatui-e ended his political career, 
though to this day, among those who still survive 
and who knew him, the mention of his name will 
start many an old man to speaking of his grandeur 
of manner and ajipearance, his nobility of soul, 
and the marvelous magnetism about him. Col. 
Fletcher was an ardent sympathizer with the 
South, and when the war began he equipped a 
company known as " The Fletcher Hifles," at his 
own expense. This company was commanded by 



—rf 2) 




bis eldest son, Elliot H. Fletcher, a youth scarcely 
twenty one years of age, and his only other son, 
Thomas, a mere boy of fifteen, became sergeant 
in the company. This company Avas attached to 
the Third Confederate regiment, commanded by 
Col. Marmaduke, in Hiudman's legion, and after 
the hardships of a campaign, it was present at the 
battle of Shiloh, in which great battle Capt. 
Fletcher and his brother Thomas were killed. 
Capt. Fletcher was in the act of waving his sword 
and leading his men, when he was informed that 
his brother had just been killed. In another 
moment he fell dead, pierced with a bullet, and 
both were buried in the trenches opened for the 
reception of the dead heroes who wore the blue 
and the gray. 

Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day. 
Tears and prayers for the Blue, 

Prayers and tears for the Gn-jy. 

After learning of the death of his boys. Col. 
Fletcher was seized with a settled melancholy, and 
was rarely known to smile or take interest in pass- 
ing events. He was afterward visited by both 
Federal and Confederate oflScers, and it is but 
simple justice to say that the Federal officers, 
even in the midst of the war, treated him with 
the greatest respect and kindness, especially those 
on the gun- boats. On one occasion a Federal 
cavalry command pa.ssed by his house, and a young 
officer, the surgeon of the regiment, stopped and 
asked if he was Col. Fletcher; on being answered 
in the affirmative, the officer replied that his name 
was Fletcher also. A little investigation proved 
that he was a nephew, a son of his brother. After 
a touching interview they bade each other adieu, 
never to meet again. Such was the respect in- 
spired by Col. Fletcher that it often happened that, 
while Confederate officers would l)e in the house, 
Federal gunboats would land, officers come ashore 
and be entertained under the Colonel's roof, with 
the full knowledge that there were Confederate of- 
ficers in another room. The close of the war found 
him prostrated in mind and body, and his fortune 
swept away, but retaining the devoted friendship 
of every one who knew him. His last days were 



passed in comparative peace and comfort. It quite 
often happened that boats would land and passen- 
gers come ashore to visit him. He died July 2, 
1867. A very beautiful and touching sketch of his 
life and character was written and published by 
Albert Pike. His estimable wife survived him 
many years and died February 29, ISS-t. They left 
three daughters: Anna, wife of John W. Williams, 
now residing near Elmot: Frances (or Fannie), 
unmarried, and Susan, wife of H. M. McVeigh, a 
lawyer of Osceola (whose sketch may be seen in 
another part of this volume). Col. Fletcher pos- 
sessed talents and accomplishments that would 
have given him a national and enduring reputation, 
had he lived in, or near, any of the great centers 
of population. But his isolated situation and the 
fact of his being a Whig in politics, precluded him 
from high official positions or achieving a reputa- 
tion much extended beyond the limits of his own 
State. He was in person tall and commanding, 
very dark hair, dark complexion and his eyes, deep 
set behind heavy eyebrows, were keen and pierc- 
ing. His manners were gracious, deferential and 
easy, and he had the happ)' facult}' of making the 
poorest and humblest feel the dignity of being 
men, and they consequently revered and respected 
him. He was the counselor and legal adviser of 
all in trouble in regard to the title of their lands, 
and in early times his house would be thronged 
with pioneers and backwoodsmen, seeking legal ad- 
vice in this matter, and not a cent of compensation 
would he receive. Fletcher township, in Missis- 
sippi Cotinty, is the only public memorial now re- 
maining of this truly great and good man. 

John W. Fonville, whose name is a synonym 
of activity and enterprise, was born in Marshall 
County, Tenn., in 1848, and is the youngest of a 
family of three children born to Jury and Frances 
(Smith) Fonville, of that State. The father died 
the year after John W. was born, and the widowed 
mother again married five years afterward, her 
husband being John J. Hazlewood, a well-known 
resident of that section. Mr. Fonville" s edu 
cational facilities were somewhat limited in his 
youth; he succeeded, however, in obtaining a fair 
amount of learning at the schools of Tennessee, 



-< 9 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



497 



and was in a position to cope with tlie world when 
starting in life for himself. In 1802 the family 
moved to Mississippi County. Ark., where the step- 
father was engaged by Mr. John McGavock as 
overseer for his extensive plantation. In this ca- 
pacity he remained two years, and then moved 
about live miles west of the river to Shawnee Vil- 
lage, where he purchased KiO acres of timber land 
and immediately began to improve it. He cleared 
about thirty acres and made a good farm, living 
here until his death in 1873; he was followed by his 
wife in 1877. John W. remained with them until 
he had attained his majority, and then commenced 
farming for himself on rented land. After three 
years of labor, he purchased 100 acres of wild land 
on the river near Shawnee Village, and on this 
he made a great many improvements, and cleared 
about forty acres. He then sold out to good ad- 
vantage and bought 160 acres where he now re- 
sides, the land being some of the finest in that 
section. He has cleared some 1 00 acres, and prom- 
ises to soon have the entire lot under cultivation, 
which, with five good dwellings, an excellent barn 
and all the necessary adjuncts, will made one of 
the finest farms in Mississippi County. Mr. Fon- 
ville was married in 1871, to Miss Barbara Simp- 
son of Georgia, who moved to this State with her 
parents. This lady died in 188B, leaving two 
childi-en: Drew and Minnie O. In 1883, he was 
again married, his second wife being Miss Frances 
Smith, and this union gave them one child, Lad- 
dus, who died at the age of four years. Mr. Fon- 
ville is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
belongs to Pecan Point Lodge, in which he holds 
the office of S. D. He owns a large number of 
horses, cattle and hogs, and is said to be one of 
the best judges of cattle in that section. 

R. W. Friend. The life-record of him whose 
name here appears has been one of more than 
usual interest, and his career has been of such 
benefit and influence to the people, not only of 
Mississippi County, but throughout the State, that 
a sketch of his life will be of more than passing 
interest; which, though l)rief, will convey some- 
thing of an idea of liis usefulness in different 
walks of life. He is the proprietor of Pecan 



Point, one of the largest, richest and also best-kept 
plantations along the river from Memphis, Tenn. , 
to Cairo, 111., and although he has been the owner 
of the property only a few years he has by his 
tact, skill and energy converted it from almost a 
wilderness into well tilled fields of cotton and 
corn. Shortly after the close of the war he settled 
a few miles below his present place in the State of 
Tennessee, where by close economy and industry 
he became in a few years the owner of 160 acres 
of land. This land he sold in 1872, and purchased 
in one body 2,000 acres of his present estate, whicli 
now amounts to nearly 4,000 acres, a large portion 
of which is under cultivation, extending about a 
mile along the river and several miles inland. All 
the land is well fenced and laid off in well ciilti 
vated fields of cotton, of which material Mr. 
Friend ships 1,000 bales annually. The village of 
Pecan Point, which he founded and owns, consists 
of one store, one blacksmith shop, one saw-mill, a 
grist-mill, a cotton-gin, four churches (two of 
which, the Methodist and Presbyterian, are attend 
ed by the white residents, and the other two by the 
colored population) and two schools, the white 
school having an attendance of twenty pupils and 
the colored school an attendance of 100 pupils. 
There are also about forty dwelling houses, all the 
property of Mr. Friend, with the exception of one 
dwelling-house, which belongs to his son-in-law, 
A. M. King, who is the able assistant and business 
manager of the mercantile establishment at Pecan 
Point. He is a gentleman well (jualitied by edu- 
cation and experience for the responsible position 
he is now filling. Mr. Friend's assistants, serv- 
ants and tenantry comprise a population of nearly 
1,000 people, and he also owns a large estate of 
rich bottom-land, comprising 3,000 acres in Phil- 
lips County, near Helena, which is under the su- 
pervision of his brother, E. B. Friend. Mr. Friend 
is one of the few men in this section who realizes 
the importance of using the best tools and the la- 
test improved machinery on his plantation, and. as 
one of his men tersely puts it, ' ' He uses nothing 
but the best, either in tools, mules or niggers," 
and the results have shown his judgment to be 
sound. In personal appearance he is prepossess- 



408 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



iiig anil in disposition is genial and liberal, distrib- 
uting his wealth with an unstinted hand wherever 
it is essential to the pleasure or welfare of himself 
and family or those around him, and as a result he 
commands the respect and liking of all with whom 
he conies in contact. He is a native of Missouri, 
having been born near Jefferson City in 1S;:5'J, but 
was taken shortly after his birth by his father, 
F. C. Friend, to Bolivar, Mo. .where be gi-ew to man- 
hood: and here his early scholastic advantages 
were enjoyed, though only such as the common 
schools of that day afforded. By his own individ- 
ual efforts, and at the expense of diligent study 
and hard practical experience, he has attained his 
present enviable position. When the war broke 
out his sympathies were naturally with the South, 
and in 1861, in company with his two brothers, 
Edward and Daniel, and his father, he entered 
the Confederate service under Sterling Price, and 
was on active duty until 1864, when he was cap- 
, tured at La Mine River, his Inother Daniel being 
killed a short time afterward on Price's last raid 
into Missouri. Mi-. Friend was taken to Alton, 
111. , where he was held a prisoner, being afterward 
released on taking the oath of allegiance. He re- 
sided for some time in Edwardsville, 111., and af- 
terward went as far north as Ottumwa, Iowa, at 
which place he made his home for about six 
months, then returned to Missouri. In 1868 he 
settled in Tennessee, nearly opposite where he 
now lives, but in 1872 came to his present planta- 
tion, as above stated. His residence is by far the 
finest and most substantial in the county, and is 
built in the shape of a T, having a frontage of fifty 
feet. It is painted white, is two stories in height, 
with porches above and below, and covers an area 
of 5,000 square feet. It commands a beautiful 
view of the river, situated as it is on a bold point 
of land and only 100 yards distant, and can be 
plainly seen from steamers as they round the bend 
from the north, ten or twelve miles distant, or 
from Island No. iiC), many miles below. The lawn 
surrounding this ideal home is several acres in ex- 
tent, and is dotted over with lovely forest trees of 
elm, oak. cottonwuod. sycamore, pecan, magnolia, 
etc.; while back of the house is a tine apple or- 



chard, and near by is the residence of his son-in- 
law, Mr. King, which is the second best house in 
the county, covering an area of 4,000 square feet. 
All the buildings in the town are painted white, 
and present a lovely picture from the river. In 
1860 Mr. Friend was married near Bolivar, Mo., 
to Miss Nanc}' Payne, who died in 1806, leaving 
two children: Miss Virginia, who is a graduate 
of St. Vincent Academy, at Cape Girardeau, Mo., 
and is now at home, and Emma, who was educated 
in the same school and is now the wife of A. M. 
King, and the mother of three children. Mr. Friend 
married his present wife in Tennessee, her maiden 
name being Miss Melissa Carr, of Shelby County, 
Tenn. , and a daughter of G. L. Carr. Their 
union has been blessed in the birth of three chil- 
dren: Miss Nettie, just returned from McMinn- 
ville, Tenn. , where she had been attending school : 
Charley, a ladin his teens, whom Mr. Friend ex- 
pects to give a thorough collegiate education, and 
Roberta, a little girl at home. The family attend 
the Methodi.st Church, and Mr. Friend is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic and I. O. O. F. fraternities, 
having joined the latter organization in 1866. 

Edwin R. Freeman, whose success as a farmer 
is proverbial, was born in the State of Tennessee, 
in 1831, and is a son of James A. Freeman, of 
North Carolina, who was one of the pioneers of 
Tennessee, and was known as having built the 
first chimney in what is now Dyersville. After 
submitting to the dangers and hardships of an 
early settler's life, the elder Freeman moved to 
Arkansas in 1849, but the following year returned 
to Tennessee, where he died in 1850. On Sep- 
tember 15, 1851, Edwin R. , in company with his 
brother James and sister Annie, moved to Missis- 
sippi Coimty, Ai-k. , and settled in Chickasawba 
Township, where they bought and entered some 
247 acres of unimproved land. They immediately 
began to cultivate the soil, and make a great many 
improvements, and also started in, the business of 
raising hogs. In 1854, they had a drove of 850 
hogs, and from that period began to farm and raise 
stock on an extensive scale: they also helijed to 
erect the first corn-mill put uj) in this township. 
In 1857, Edwin R. was married to Miss Matilda 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



VM 



Hutcbins, a daughter of one of the old settlers of 
Mississi])pi County, but lost his wife in 1800. Two 
children were born to this marriage: Susan Ann 
(deceased), and Thomas, who is married and re- 
siding in this county. Mr. Freeman contracted a 
second marriage, in 1801, with Miss Alliua Hutch- 
ins, a sister of his first wife, and to this union were 
born five children: Nixon, married and living in 
Missouri; Edwin E., Jr.; Martha Jane, wife of 
Harry Springer, living in Missouri; Charlie and 
Alice. In 1862, Mr. Freeman enlisted in the Con- 
federate army, and was assigned to duty on the 
Arkansas River. He was engaged in many sharp 
skirmishes, biit no regular battles, as his duty was 
principally scouting, in which he was an adept. 
He returned home about the time of the surrender, 
and as the war had stripped him of everything he 
possessed, he was compelled to begin life anew. 
He commenced farming, and with the aid of a de- 
termined will soon placed himself in an independ- 
ent position again, and now owns about seventy - 
one acres of fine laud, all under cultivation, having 
given his children about as much more. Mr. Free- 
man l)roaght the first cotton seed that was ever 
planted in this county, and after raising that plant 
upon a small tract of land in 1852, it became a 
nine days' wonder to the neighboring farmers. In 
1859 he brought 100 bushels of cotton seed from 
Tennessee, and distributed it among the farmers 
of that vicinity, and the cotton now grown upon 
the land averages a bale to the acre. Judge 
Daniels, a brother-in-law of Mr. Freeman, erected 
the first cotton-gin in Mississippi County, and his 
brother James was one of the projectors of the Bar- 
field road in 1853. 

Mrs. A. A. Gabel. There are in every com- 
munity some persons who, on account of their in- 
dustry, and practical management of the affairs 
which fall to their lot. deserve special credit; and 
such is Mrs. Gabel. She is the relict of C. C. 
Gabel. and the daughter of David and Lucinda 
(Myers) Metzger. the parents being natives of the 
" Buckeye State. " About 1888, they removed to 
Mississippi County. Ark. . settling about four miles 
below Barfield. and in 1858. when the State 
Imilt the levee through this county. Mr. Metzger 



had a contract on the work, which he held until 
the work was finished. He then purchased 480 
acres of laud in Hickman Township, the property 
being in a wild state, and after taking possession 
he erected a building, cleared 160 acres of land, 
and put the propi^rty iu e.\celleut shape. To the 
superior natural abilities possessed by Mr. Metz- 
ger were added the wisdom and experience of a 
useful and well spent life; and there was a geni- 
ality, honesty of purpose, and broad hospitality 
about him that attracted and fascinated. His 
death, which occurred in 1881, was deeply la- 
mented by his friends and neighbors, whose hospi- 
tality they had partaken of times without number. 
His wife died in 1868. Mrs. Gabel was married 
in 1870, and has always made her home on the 
farm where she is now residing, which place was 
settled and cleared by her father. She has two 
children : Alexander C. and Fannie E. Her broth • 
er, William Metzger. the only living son of David 
Metzger, also occupies a part of the old home- 
stead, his home adjoining his sister's. He was 
married, in 1870, to Miss Elvira Branch, a native 
of the county, and to them have been born an in- 
teresting little family of three children: David, 
Eleanor Jane and John Noah. 

Charles H. Gaylord, druggist, owes his nativity 
to Michigan, having been born iu Detroit in 1838, 
and of the family of seven children born to his 
parents, Henry C. and Harriet (Parshall) Gaylord, 
he was the eldest. The father was originally em- 
ployed on the lake steamboats. He died in 1854. 
The mother is still living, and is a resident of 
Detroit. Mr. Gaylord has in his possession a com- 
mission given to his great great-grandfathei from 
the British Government, appointing him lieutenant 
in the French and Indian AVars, dated 1753. His 
ancestors, on the paternal side, were originally 
from Connecticut, and those on the mother's side 
were originally from New York, and trace their 
descent back to Koger Williams. Charles H. Gay 
lord attended the ])ublic schools of Detroit until 
sixteen years of age, and was two years in the tel- 
egraph business, first as messenger -boy, and then 
as copyist. Later he learned the trade of pattern- 
maker, which he continued until he commenced 



500 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bis coinmeicial career, in 1865. He then came to 
Osceola, Ark. , where he engaged in general mer- 
chandising until 1883, after which he embarked in 
the drug business, and is at present one of the most 
reliable and well-established druggists and pharma- 
cists in Osceola. He was married in 1879 to Miss 
Clara L. Miller, a native of Georgia, and daughter 
of Dr. B. F. Miller, who moved to Missouri, and 
there passed his last days. Mrs. Gaylord died in 
January, 1884, and left one child, Charles H. , Jr. 
Mr. Gaylord is quite active, politically, and in 
1888 was elected county treasurer, being the pres- 
ent incumbent of that office. He is also very 
active in educational matters. Mr. Gaylord is a 
Royal Arch Mason, and at present is secretary of 
Chapter No. 57. He has held all the offices in the 
Blue Lodge except Master. He is also a member of 
Hugh De Payen Commandery No. 1, K. T. , of Lit- 
tle Rock; is secretary of the Knights and Ladies 
of Honor, and reporter of the K. of H. of Osceola, 
Ark. Aside from his practical education in the 
public schools of Detroit, Mr. Gaylord took a two- 
years' course in the literary department of Greg- 
ory's Commercial College of that place. 

John B. Gilles. From the biography of every 
man there may be gleaned some lessons of geniiine 
worth; for here we discover the secret of success 
or failure. In the history of John B. Gilles, one 
of Mississippi County's active and progressive 
planters, is found much to commend. He was 
born in Dyer County, Tenn., in 1854, being the 
youngest of twelve children born to William Allen 
and Sallie (Boone) Gilles, who were also Tennes- 
seeans, the former a farmer and blacksmith by oc- 
cupation, and a mail route agent. He died in 
1855, followed by his wife in 1860. John B. 
Gilles spent his youth on a farm, and at the time 
of his mother's death removed to Woodruff County, 
Ark., where he remained five years, then went back 
to Tennessee, In 1873 he returned to Arkansas 
and located in Mississippi County, in Chickasawba 
Township, where he engaged in farming on the 
old Cook plantation. In 1879 his marriage with 
Miss Josephine Thompson was consummated, and 
he soon after purchased 160 acres of wild land 
four miles southeast of Blythesville, which he be- 



gan immediately to improve, and now has twenty- 
three acres under cultivation; has erected good 
buildings, and has a good orchard of choice varie- 
ties of fi'uits. Mrs. Gilles is a native of Missis- 
sippi County, and is a daughter of James Olliver 
Thompson, a very early resident of that county. 
She and Mr. Gilles are the parents of three 
children: Carrie R., Samuel Jones and one un- 
named. 

T. F, Glasgow. There is in the development of 
every successful life a principle which is a lesson to 
to every man following in its footsteps — a lesson 
leading to higher and more honorable position than 
the ordinary. Let a man be industriously ambi- 
tious, and honorable in his ambitions, and he will 
rise whether having the prestige of family or the 
obscurity of poverty. We are led to these reflec- 
tions by a study of the life of the subject of this 
sketch, Mr. T. F. Glasgow, who was born in At- 

] lanta, Ga. , in 1856. His father, A. J. Glasgow, 
left the State of Georgia, just prior to Gen. Sher- 
man's invasion in 1863, and went to the eastern 
part of Texas, near Mt. Vernon, where he died 
shortly afterward, leaving his wife with a family of 
three children. T. F. Glasgow was the eldest of 

i these children, and was about eight years of age 
at the time of his father's death. His mother 

, was married again, and moved to Lake County, 

\ West Tenn., where she died in 1869. The 
little brother then died, and T. F. and his sister 
Mina, were the only ones left. At the age of 
twelve years the former hired out, worked a year, 
and when in his thirteenth year took a farm on 

• shares, hired three boys and raised about 4,000 
bushels of corn. The next year he rented land, 
raising a crop, and this he continued the following 
year, making enough money to send his sister to 
school at Memphis, She was married at the age of 
fifteen to Mr. G. W. Marr, Jr., and is now living in 
the northern part of the Lone Star State, In 1873 
Mr. Glasgow accepted a position with Capt, Nail, 
who was then running a steam ferry at Point 
Pleasant, and acted as pilot and collector until 
in June, 1874, He then came to Mississippi 

I County, Ark,, and engaged with Mr. J. W. Will- 
iams, with whom he remained about eighteen 



--r->- 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



501 



months, after which he took a trip to Texas to 
visit his sister. He remained with her about 
eighteen months, and then received a letter from 
Mr. Williams requesting him to return, which he 
did in about 1876, and remained with that gentle- 
man as overseer until 1882. One year later he 
rented about 100 acres of land from the above 
mentioned gentleman, and worked at agricultural 
pursuits for one year, after which he went to Pecan 
Point, where he worked for R. \\'. Friend until 
July 1, 1884. In 1886 he rented a farm of W. P. , 
Hale, just west of Osceola, where he has con- j 
tinned since, and is now in partnership with Mr. 
N. L. Avery, under the firm name of Glasgow 
& Avery. They have over 500 acres of cotton, 
and Mr. Glasgow has some of the best crops in the 
county, having picked ten acres of cotton that 
averaged one and a fourth bales to the acre. They 
employ fi-om forty to 150 hands, and have about 
100 people on the place the principal part of the 
time. The firm has recently bought 825 acres of 
land on Sandy Bayou, of which they expect to open 
uj) KM) acres this fall. Mr. Glasgow has onions 
as large as breakfast plates, and has shipped 400 
barrels of potatoes from six acres of land, leaving 
fully one-third of them for the hands. He was 
married on the 20th of May, 1888, to Miss Ger- 
trude Ashburn, a native of Mississippi County, 
and the daughter of George Ashburn who came to 
Mississippi County, Ark., with his father when a 
boy (1829). Mr. Glasgow is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. Lodge No. 27, Osceola. 

J. P. Goodin, a well-known and popular young 
citizen of Golden Lake, was born in Fulton County, 
Ky., in 1866, and is the elde.st of two children 
born to Ephraim and Elizabeth Goodin. The father 
was a native of Kentucky, and was for a long time 
owner of the celebrated Nowlin farm in that State, 
and also a breeder of tine stock, his reputation for 
thoroughbred horses becoming known to turf-goers 
from Maine to California. He died in 1868; his 
widow still survives him. and is a resident of 
Dallas, Texas. J. P. Goodin was reared on the 
parental farm in Kentucky, and upon reaching his 
eighteenth year removed to Tennessee, where he 
remained two years. He then went to Texas, but 



not finding the advantages and prospects as bright 
as he anticipated, lie remained only a few months 
and retraced his steps northward. On reaching 
the State of Arkansas he stopped in Mississippi 
County, and finding the climate and people suit- 
able to his tastes he determined to locate at that 
place, where he immediately engaged in overseeing. 
In 1887 he bovight a trsict of 160 acres of land on 
Tyronza Bayou, which was all wild, l)ut he has 
now cleared and put four acres under cultivation, 
all the result of his own industry, besides acting 
as foreman of the tramway for Mr. Lee Wilson. 
His brother, J. E. Goodin, is also employed by 
Mr. Wilson, and Mississippi County certainly has 
no more energetic and industrious young men than 
these two. They are slowly but surely paving the 
way to future wealth, and before the hand of time 
has passed over many years, these two brothers 
will be among the leading men of Mississipj)! 
County. 

Alexander Goodrich, merchant and postmaster, 
Osceola. The public services of Mr. Goodrich, 
during his residence in the county, have been char 
acterized by a noticeable devotion to the welfare 
of this county, and his ability and fidelity in all 
positions of trust have made a lasting impression 
upon the sjshere of jniblic duty. For many years 
his name has not only been connected with the 
official affairs of the county, but he has also be- 
come prominent as a much esteemed citizen and 
a successful business man. His birth occurred in 
White County, 111., November 2. 1888, and he 
pursued the arduous duties of the farm and at 
tended the public schools of Illinois until twenty 
years of age. Afterward he worked in a sawmill 
owned by his father, for two years, and then, in 
1862, abandoned all work to enlist in Company K. 
Eighty-seventh Illinois Infantry, United States 
Army. He went to Memphis, Tenn., in May, 1863, 
was ordered to report to Gen. Grant at Vicksburg, 
and was there through the siege of that city. On 
July 5, the day after the surrender of that city, 
Mr. Goodrich went on the campaign to Jackson, 
Miss., and on the fall of that city, he returned to 
Vicksburg, but immediately left for Natchez and 
New Orleans. Late in September, 1863, he went 



502 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



on a campaign to Southwest Lonisiaua, and in 
December of the same year was ordered to report 
to the adjutant-general of Illinois, being then 
assigned to recruiting duty. In April, 1864, Mr. 
Goodrich joined his regiment in Louisiana, and in 
November of the same year, marched to White 
River, Ark. In January of the following year, he 
was ordered to Helena, Ark. , where the regiment 
remained until ordered home. He was mustered 
out in July, 1865. In 1866 he returned to Helena, 
Ark., where he remained two years engaged in the 
planting business, and then came to Osceola, where 
he commenced mercantile pursuits. He served the 
city seven years as its mayor, four years as post- 
master, and represented Missouri County in the State 
Republican conventions of 1884 and 1888. He was 
married on the 8th of May, 1872, to Miss Marjory 
McDonald Conway, of Scotland, and six children 
were born to this union : Margaret L. , who died at 
the age of two years; Leon A., born September 
15, 1875; Mary E., born May 10, 1878; Abaishai 
D., born December 29, 1879; Charles C, born 
August 23, 1882, and James M., born June 13, 
1884. Mr. Goodrich, aside from his stock of gen- 
eral merchandise, carries a stock of furniture, also 
undertaking supplies, and is engaged in planting, 
also in buying and shipping cotton. He received 
his commission as postmaster at Osceola about 
May 1, and is now filling that position for the second 
time. He is a member of the K. of H., Monroe 
Lodge No. 2167, at Osceola, and represented this 
lodge at the meeting of the Grand Lodge at Hot 
Springs, in September. 1888. He is at present 
presiding officer of the lodge. He takes a decided 
interest in educational matters, and has held the 
position of director for a number of terms. He 
was the seventh of ten children born to A.baishai 
and Margaret (Smith) Goodrich, the father a na- 
tive of Pennsylvania, and the mother a native of 
Scotland. The former was a successful tiller of 
the soil in Illinois, and died in that State in 1865. 
He was a descendant of William Goodrich, who came 
to America in about 1840, and the subject of this 
sketch is of the seventh generation. The great- 
grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. 
The mother died in 1871. 



Charles Goodrich, jeweler, of Osceola, Ark., 
was born in Carroll County, 111., in 1848, and was 
the eldest in a family of eight children born to 
Joseph and Louisa (Derouse) Goodrich, natives of 
Missouri and Illinois, respectively. The father 
follows the occupation of farming, and is at pres- 
ent residing in Iowa. Charles spent his youth in 
Iowa, till about fifteen years of age, when he at- 
tended the public schools, later going to Carroll 
County, 111., when he soon engaged with a 
jeweler and watch-maker to learn that trade in 
Galena. He remained at Galena four years, and 
during that time completed his trade; subsequent- 
ly removed to Iowa, where he worked at this call- 
ing in various localities till 1863. Returning to 
Illinois he enlisted in Company C, Forty-eighth 
Illinois Infantry, and was assigned to duty with 
Sherman, being wounded at the battle of Fort 
McAlister. He was in the hospital at Savannah, and 
at Beaufort, S. C, till June, 1865; then went to 
Washington City, and participated in the grand 
review, June 15, 1865, receiving his discharge at 
Louisville, Ky. , in October, same year. Soon after 
he again visited Iowa, working at his trade, and 
shortly after went to Canada, where he worked in 
Montreal for a time. He later became located at 
Chester, 111., remaining there till the fall of 1868, 
when he returned to Iowa, and was married at 
Red Oak Junction, in the fall of 1868. Then he 
went to Missouri, settling at Bethany, Hari'ison 
County, for two years; thence to Savanna, 111., 
remaining till the fall of 1871, and then to Sedalia, 
j Mo., for one year. Going back to Chester, 111., 
' he stopped about one year, and then lived at Cairo 
for three years, moving finally to Gayoso, Mo. 
! Here he engaged in business for himself. One 
year after he became a citizen of New Madrid, con- 
tinuing there till 1879. At this time his wife 
died. There had been six children born to this 
union, of whom three had preceded their mother 
to their heavenly rest : Maud died while at school at 
Bardstowu, Ky. , at the age of sixteen years; Lester 
died in Illinois; Frederick died in Osceola, in 1888, 
at the age of ten years; Birtell died in 1872 at about 
three years of age; Eugene died at the age of four- 
teen months, in 1872 ; Mabel died in 0.sceola at four 






MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



503 



years of age, in 1882. After his wife's death in 
1879, Mr. Goodrich engaged in the sewing ma- 
chine business in Pemiscot and New Madrid 
Counties, Mo., and Mississippi County, Ark., fol- 
hjwiiig this business for three yeaVs. In 1881 he 
married Cornelia Dowd, a native of Illinois, soon 
after which he settled in Csceola, where \n' has 
continued in business ever since. He commenced 
his career here in the sewing machine business, 
I nit after a year started a jewelry store, princi- 
pally repairing. From year to year he has been 
increasing his stock which is now very complete, 
and he enjoys a good trade. He carries a stock of 
about $3,000, comprising jewelry, watches, clocks 
and sewiutr machines. To his second marriage 
three children were born: Lena, Lillian and Char- 
ley. Mr. Goodrich is a member of Samaritan 
Lodge. A. O. U. W., of Osceola. His first wife 
was Mattie E. Conquest, a native of Indiana, 
and a daughter of Richard Conquest, who was an 
officer in the Mexican War, and quite a traveler. 
In the Civil War he was a lieutenant in the Second 
Colorado Cavalry. He died at Hastings, Neb., in 
18S7. 

Laurence W. Goshorn, a successful and popu- 
lar farmer of Canadian Township, is the second 
child of a family of seven children born to Russell 
B. and Kittie (Ward) Goshorn, of Ohio and Ten- 
nessee, respectively, and was born in Mississippi 
County, Ark., June 17, 1857. His grandfather 
was an eminent physician and druggist of Cincin- 
nati in the earlier days, and died in 1872, at the 
mature age of ninety-two years; and his father, 
Russell B., was one of the first physicians who 
settled in Mississippi County, having commenced 
to i>ractice medicine in Osceola in 1840, where he 
was very successful. The elder Goshorn bought 
considerable land in Chiekasawba. where he lived 
for .some time and then movr-d to the river at Bar- 
tield. From there he went to Hale's Point, Tenn., 
and .Taimary 1, 1869. transferred his home to Dy. 
ersburg in the same State. In 1875 he returned 
to Mississippi County, Ark., settling at Hickman's 
Bend, anil from there moved to Missouri, where he 
remained one year. He made a short visit to Ar- 
kansas again, and in November. 1878. went to 



Florida, where he died at Live Oak, December 31. 
1881. Laurence remained at home with his par- 
ents until the year 1874, and then moved with his 
uncle. William W. Ward, to Mississippi County, 
where he has since resided. In 1881 he bought 
eighty acres of land, and commenced cultivating a 
farm. On January 8, 1882, he was married to 
Miss Mary Ann Wetsel, a granddaughter of 
"Cedar"' James Williams, a celebrated character 
and pioneer of that county, but in the same year 
Mr. Goshorn lost his wife. He is principally en- 
gaged on his farm, but is interested to some ex- 
tent in land and timber speculation, in which 
direction he is well known for his shrewdness and 
good business ability. Mr. Goshorn does not take 
an active part in politics, and is independent in his 
belief, preferring to see the man who is be.st fitted 
to look after the interests of the country occupy the 
presidential chair than to side with any particular 
party. 

L. W. Gosnell. The life and character of this 
public-spirited citizen of Mississippi County will 
bear a much more detailed history and analysis 
than are presented on this page. Though a young 
man, he has wielded a remarkal^le influence, and 
to-day a review of his career since locating here, 
without a dollar, rising to a position of worth and 
affluence, demonstrates him to be an individual 
above the ordinary. Young Gosnell attended 
school at Jonesboro, Tenn., until eighteen years 
of age. always applying himself diligently to his 
studies. After clerking two years for an uncle he 
went to Middle Tennessee, and was occupied in work 
on railroad construction for about two years. In 
March. 1870, he concluded to seek his fortune 
farther west, and came to Arkansas, engaging as 
clerk in the store of Mr. Williams, at Barfield, for 
one year, after which he settled in Chiekasawba, 
where he was interested in wielding the ferule for 
about one year. This occupation not being entirely 
suited to his tastes, he I'esumed clerking, being in 
the employ of J. B. Tisserand. who had estab- 
lished the first permanent store in what is now 
Blythesville: and after one year spent in discharg 
ing the duties of that position, he was admitted as 
a partner, the firm taking the name of J. B. Tis- 



504 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



serand & Co. Subsequently it was changed to L. 
W. Gosnell & Co., under which title it still con- 
tinues. This house carries a stock of goods valued 
at SO, 000, and (>very transaction being thoroughly 
honest and reliable, the members draw to their 
establishment a large and lucrative custom. The 
builiiing in which they are now located was erect- 
ed in 1870. They also own extensive tracts of 
land in the county, 900 acres comprising what is 
known as the Cook farm, one and one-half miles 
west of Blythesville, 400 of which are under culti- 
vation. This place was the home of the old Ind- 
ian Chief Chickasawba, who had a hut on one 
of the mounds there, and where he died many 
years ago. Besides this tract, they have 400 acres 
under cultivation in various sections, and last year 
they shipped 970 bales of cotton. The entire 
amount of their superior land aggregates about 
3,000 acres, Mr. Gosnell owning j_a half interest 
and also an interest in another general store. He 
was married in 1879 to Miss Bettie Hill, an esti- 
mable lady, a native of Tennessee, and a daughter 
of J. W. Hill. They have three children: Mervin, 
Kate and Laura. The pleasant residence of Mr. 
and Mrs. Gosnell which was erected in 1882, in 
the village of Blythesville. is a home indeed, and 
at once a monument and a reward of patient con- 
tinuance in welldoing, hard toil and sober living. 
Mrs. Gosnell is a member of the Methodist Church. 
Mr. Gosnell ranks as a noticeable illustration of 
that indomitable push and energy which charac- 
terize men of determination and will. His success 
is unusual, but due largely to his excellent judg- 
ment, and strict honesty and upright dealings, 
and the proud position he now occupies as a rep- 
resentative citizen is a just tril)ute to his worth. 
W. P. Greene, a prominent farmer of Missis- 
sippi County, is the lifth in a family of eleven chil- 
dren born to Abraham and Elizabeth (Lathrage) 
Greene, natives of South Carolina and (ieorgia, 
respectively. The father was a well-known and 
extensive farmer, who died January 15, 1872, the 
mother surviving him until the year 1882. Mr. 
Greene was bom in Georgia, in the year 1839, and 
remained in that State luitil he reached the age of 
seven years, when he moved to the. Sta^e of Mis- 



sissippi, which he made his home until 1882. At 
the outbreak of the Civil War. he enlisted in Com- 
pany D. Fourth Mississipi)i Infantry, and took part 
in the battles of Fort Donelson and Port Gibson, 
was through the siege of Vicksburg, at Chickasaw, 
and in all the battles thiough the celebrated catu- 
paign in Georgia, with Johnston and later on with 
Hood. He also took part in the battle at Franklin, 
Tenn., and finally surrendered in South Carolina, 
on May 0. 1805, returning to his home in Mis- 
sissippi, after the war was over. On December 4. 
1804, he was married to Miss Anna Uay, of Ala- 
bama, and resided with his Ijride in Mississippi 
until 1882. He was engaged in government work 
for three years at Plum Point, and during this 
time lost his wife and three of their tive children. 
The names of the children are Charles Henry (de- 
ceased). John Wesley (deceased), Harvey Calhoun 
(deceased), Mary Ella, wife of Mr. Andrews, a 
resident of Mississippi, and Kate Elizabeth, who 
makes her home with the married sister. On Sep- 
tember 5, 1884, Mr. Greene was married a second 
time, his next wife being Mrs. Bettie Biales, a 
widow lady of Alabama, and this union has given 
them one child, a boy named Walter. His present 
home is a few miles south of Osceola, in Mississippi 
County, and during his five years' residence in 
Arkansas, he has never failed to make a good crop. 
During the summer of 1889, he bought and entered 
320 acres of land in the northern part of this coun- 
ty, intending to take possession of it in the fall, 
and to imjirove it on an extensive scale. Mr. 
Greene has been in the best of health during his 
five years' stay in Mississippi County, and speaks 
in the highest terms of this section and its produc- 
tions. In addition to his farms, he owns a small 
herd of very fine cattle, and a magnificent team, 
and his present prosperity has sprung from almost 
nothing, his first start in life finding him compara- 
tively poor. Mrs. Greene has one child l)y her 
previous marriage, Lee B. , and the entire family 
ai'e members of the Methodist Ej)isco[)al Chui-ch, 
South. 

W. H. Grider, the subject of this sketch, was 
born in Jackson County, Ark., in the year 1855, 
and, with the exception of an occasional trip to 



-("I ® 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



505 



Momphis, TeLUi., and othor rivtn' towns, he has 
spent his life within its borders. His paternal an- 
cestry can be traced back to the landing of the 
^[ayflower on the American coast. The lirst 
maternal ancestor of which he has record enrolled 
his name on the Declaration of Independence. 
His grand uncle, Henry Grider.of Kentucky, repre- 
sented the Bowling Green district in Congress for 
several terms, and while serving in this capacity 
won great distinction for his able statesmanship; 
he was contemporary with Clay, Calhouu, and other 
eminent men. An uncle, Jesse Grider, served in 
the Confederate army, and for gallant service on 
the battle lield was promoted to the rank of colonel. 
Frank Grider, the grandfather, came to Arkansas, 
about the time it was made a State, with his family, 
from Bowling Green, Ky. , lirst to Tennessee near 
Moscow, and thence to Jackson County, Ark. At 
this time his son. John H. Grider, was but eight- 
een years of age. The latter married Miss Maria 
L. Morris, a native of that county, about the year 
1846. He settled down to tilling the soil in Jack- 
son County, but afterward moved to Phillips 
County, where he spent the remainder of his days, 
dying in 1871, having lived a useful and honor- 
able life. At this time W. H. Grider was attend- 
ing school in Lebanon, Tenn. , and graduated 
about a year later; and after the death of his 
mother, who lived until 1875, he made his home 
with his uncle, Col. Jesse Grider, of Crittenden 
County, with whom he remained until the latter" s 
death some live years later. DiU'ing this time 
he was engaged in studying law with the firm 
of Adams & Dixon, of Memphis, Tenn., and in 
ISSO was married to Miss Sue J. McGavock, one 
of the wealthiest and most refined and cultivated 
young ladies of Mississijjpi County, Ark., she 
being a daughter of John Harding and Georgia 
(Moore) McGavock. The former (now deceased) 
was a mem!)er of a family of that name who be- 
came illustrious in the annals of Virginia, having 
come from Scotland to this country in the early 
part of the last century. After his marriage Mr. 
Grider took charge of the estate and at once identi- 
fied himself with the more advanced farming and 
stock raising interests of the county, a position 



which he has continued to occupy since that time, 
and to what extent may be inferred when the fact 
is mentioned that he now has 1,300 acres of land 
under cultivation, the most of which was cleared 
under his supervision. He rents out a large portion. 
He also owns several thousand acres of land heav- 
ily covered with timber, a portion of which he 
manages each year to bring under the plow, and 
when reduced yielding at least a bale of cotton to 
the acre. In addition to conducting his plantation 
he is also interested in merchandising, having a well 
stocked store, and operates a cotton gin and saw- 
mill, and in his different occupations employs from 
fifty to 100 men. His residence faces and is about 
one-half mile from the river. It wasl)uilt in 1855 
and is a building 54x74 feet, two stories in height, 
with a porch twelve feet wide running the whole 
length and breadth of the house, and at the time 
of its erection was considered a marvel of beauty 
and convenience, as all the timber was hand-sawed 
and the work well done. It was erected by Mr. 
McGavock' s slaves, of whom he had a great many, 
and each room was finished in a certain, distinct 
kind of wood, one being in black walnut, one in 
sassafras, another in red gum, and one in ash, each 
room being designated by these names. The house 
is approached by a handsome undulating lawn, 
200 yards in extent, over which are scattered soiue 
magnificent forest oaks, elms, walnut, maple and 
box elder trees, that are thoroughly appreciated 
by the family. They have also a handsome fiower 
garden near the house, and ornamental shrrtbbery 
assists in making their home all that the heart of 
man could desire, or that a refined and educated 
taste could wish. With a wife whose womanly 
graces and virtues are well known, and his two 
bright little daughters, Georgie and Josephine, Mr. 
Grider is happy and contented. He is assisted on 
his plantation by C. L. Mooj'e, who is the maternal 
uncle of Mrs. Grider. He is a gentleman of fine 
attainments, being a gi-aduate of the University of 
Mississippi, and ever since the war has lieen 
identified with the interests of Mississippi County, 
in which he has filled many offices of public trust, 
such as county and probate judge. He is at 
present postmaster of Sans Souci, the name of 



^. 



^ s 



r>(i() 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Mr. (iiiders ])lantRtion. During the war he did 
flood service for the Confederacy. 

William P. Hale. It cannot V)e expected, iu a 
WDvk of this kind, where but brief biographical 
sketches of prominent citizens of the county are 
pres(>nted. that a lengthy laudatory article should 
be written of each one, and yet at times there are 
met with some who have been so intimately and 
closely identified with the county, and whose 
names are so familiar to all, that it is only just to 
dwell upon what they have done, and the influence 
of their career on others, not as empty words of 
praise, but the plain statement of a still plainer 
truth. Mr. Hale was born in Maury County, 
Tenn., on the ;^(Hliof July. 183!l, and is the fourth 
in a family of elev»>ii children born to Bird S. and 
Martha Ann (Dyer) Hale. The father died in his 
fortieth year, and left this large family of small 
children. In ISrio. throe years after his death, 
Mrs. Hale, being desirous of keeping the family 
together, came to Mississippi County, and settled in 
Osceola, on the 2(Hh of November. Directly upon 
their arrival William P. Halo began gathering corn, 
and the next year rented fifty-four acres, on which 
he ]-aised a large crop. From this time on, until 
reaching his nuijority, he continued to farm on 
routed land, and succeeded in keeping the family to- 
gether. When tweuty-one years of age (IS(')O) he 
selected Miss Orlean J. MoKinney as his wife. Her 
father. Judge L. H. McKinney, is an old settler of 
this county, and one of its most prominent citizens. 
After his marriage Mr. Hale bought KU) acres of 
land, but the war breaking out about this time, 
agricultural pursuits were almost wholly suspend- 
ed, although they farmed enough to supply the 
wants of the family. In 1S(>(') Mr. Hale bought 
100 acres for §o.lHU\ with twenty-five acres under 
cultivation, and here he lived for nine years. He 
had built a number of cabins, an ice-house, and 
soon a cotton-gin. which brought him iu a large 
income, in addition to his own crops. He also 
cleared up all his farm, which is now wholly under 
cultivation. In 1870 he erected a store building 
in Osceola, engaged in mercantile pursuits, and 
thus continued in that place until 187i). when he 
sold the I'oods and has since rented the store. 



In 1875 he erected a tine residence in Osceola, 
at a cost of $4,000, and it is still one of the 
best residences in the town. One year later Mr. 
Hale, in partnership with his brother, F. B.. 
bought a large tract of land of 1 , 200 acres, 250 of 
which were cleared. The brother moved upon this 
place, and in four years time he had cleared up a 
large tract, all of which was yielding extensive and 
profitable crops. During eight years of this farm 
ing they made enough to jiay for the entire plan 
tation, and, in 1884, Mr. Hale bought his brother' s 
interest for §13,000, all of which was made on the 
place. He has since added f')t)0 acres, making his 
plantation now about 1,700 acres, and he has in 
this tract nearly 1,000 acres under cultivation. 
This extensive place is located two and a half 
miles above Osceola, and it is one of the finest 
in Mississippi County. He is also the owner of 
other tracts, iu all of which he has about 1,150 
acres under cultivation. He manages all the laud 
himself, and estimates that it brings him in an in- 
come of at least $12 [)er acre net. In 1872 he 
leased a building in Osceola, which he converted 
into a steam gin, and at the expiration of the lease 
bought the property, and soon built a large and 
good gin. This was destroyed by fire two years 
later, and, as Mr. Hale had bought a large tract 
in the upper part of the town, on which there was 
a large gin, he did not rebuild. From this tract 
he has sold most of the lots on which the upper 
part of Osceola is built. He has erected at least 
I ten buildings in the town, and has been active in 
contributing to its prosperity. Since living in 
town Mr. Hale has always been an active man in 
I the affairs that promised to promote the interests of 
I the locality. He has held the office of alderman, 
and served several times as school director. To 
his maiTiage were born fifteen children (six of 
whom are living): Bland William, married Miss 
Tee Driver, and lives in Tennessee ; Martha E. , died 
in infancy; Edward J., married Miss Carrie Bost- 
wick. and resides on his father's farm; Ida Maud, 
wife of S. M. -Jackson, of Dyersburg, Tenn. : James 
H., at present attending school; Maggie Lee. died 
at the age of three years; Franklin Bird, died ir. 
infancy; Harry Joplin. aged seven yeais; Beulah 



9 



> 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



5(17 



OrlouH, live years; Walter P., died at the age of 
three months, and four died aiiiianK>d. The fam- 
ily are members of the Baptist Churc;h. Mr. Hale 
is a member of the Masonic Lodge, Chapter and 
Commaiidcry. He is also a member of the K. of 
H. of Osceola. 

Hon. J. P. K. Hale, a prominent merchant of 
Osceola, owes his nativity to Maury County, Tenn., 
where he was born in 1842, being the sixth 
of eleven children of Bird S. and Martha Ann 
(Dyer) Hale. The parents were also natives of 
Tennessee, but were of Virginia stock. The father 
was a farmer and trader, and was well known in 
that section. He died April 17, 1852, leaving a 
family of eleven children, eight girls and three 
boys. Three years after his death, on November 
5, 1855, the widow of Mr. Hale started for Missis- 
sippi County, Ark., and arrived at Osceola Novem- 
ber 21, of that year. Since that time Mrs. Hale 
has died, and, also, one of the children. The fam- 
ily have made this county their home ever since, 
and the sons have worked very hard to keep the 
family together. Hon. J K. P. Hale was reared 
to comprehensive knowledge of the agricultural in- 
terests of the day, and in 1863 began farming on 
his own responsibility. In 1874 he was elected 
clerk of the circuit court, and ex officio clerk of the 
county, probate and common pleas courts, and re- 
corder of Mississippi County. On January 31, 
1 889, he was elected to the State legislature to fill 
the unexpired term of J. O. Blackwood (deceased), 
and has served one session. He also served as jus- 
tice of the peace for many years. In 1870 Mr. 
Hale, in partnership with his brother, W. P. Hale, 
opened a general store in Osceola, but the former 
sold out to his partner after a short time, and re- 
turned to the duties of the farm. In 1882 he 
opened a grocery store, and in 1S89 a drygoods 
store, and is conducting both establishments at this 
time. He chose for his life's companion Miss Ma- 
lissa A. Tucker, who became his wife in 1862. 
She died August 14. 1880. On March 21, 1881, 
he married his present wife, who was originally 
Miss Mary E. Pollard, of Posey County, Ind. 
Three children were born to this union; Lillian 
Bird, born May 12, 1882; Mary Pollard, born May 



27, 1884, and Helen, who was born February 29, 
1888, and died March 21 of the same year. Mr. 
Hale is a member of Osceola Lodge No. 27, A. F. 
& A. M. , and Osceola Chapter No. 57, now being 
treasurer of the Lodge, and H. P. of the Chapter. 
He has occupied every station in lodge, chapter 
and commandery, and has served as district deputy 
grand master for the Second district of Arkansas, 
and for the Western district of Tennessee. He 
has the name of being one of the brightest Masons 
in the State. He is also the moderator of the Os 
ceola Baptist Association, and clerk of the church 
at Osceola. Mr. Hale and most of the family are 
members of the Baptist Church. He was instru- 
mental in securing and assisting in the incorpora- 
tion of the town of Osceola. 

Franklin Bird Hale, another prominent farmer 
of Osceola, whose time thus far has been sf)ent in 
furthering the agricultural interests of the county, 
is a native of Maury County, Tenn., born January 
1, 1851, and is the tenth in a family of eleven 
children born to Bird S. and Martha Ann (Dyer) 
Hale [see sketch of J. K. P. Hale]. Franklin 
Bird Hale's experiences have been in the direction 
of agricultural pursuits, and in this calling he 
has met with the results due a lifetime of active 
energy. He began for himself at the age of nine 
teen, by renting land, and after one crop moved 
to Pope County, where he remained nearly a year. 
There he met and married Miss Mary M. Wells, a 
native of this State. Her father came to Arkansas 
about 1855, where he accumulated considerable 
property, but lo.st most of it during the war. He 
died about June, 1874. Mr. Hale then returned 
to Osceola, where he clerked for his brother, W. 
P. Hale, in a general store, for three years, aftei- 
which he engaged in a general store for himself, 
continuing this about one year. In connection 
with his bn)ther, W. P., he bought a tract of land 
known as the Witherspoon farm, consisting of ■ 
1,200 acres, 190 acres of which were cleared. They 
have since opened 400 acres of this. In the year 
1884 Mr. Hale sold his interest to his brother for 
$10,000. and then bought a tract of eighty acres 
adjoining the town, and .some town lots. This 
tract is under cultivation. Mr. Hale has purchased 



:rv- 



^- 



r)08 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



a fine residence iu town, and has now one of the 
most pleasant places in Osceola. He has also bought 
a tract of forty acres, one-half of which is under 
cultivation, and in 1S80 he bought another forty- 
acres tract, all under cultivation. He has also one- 
fourth interest in eighty acres of wild land. He is 
a member of the Osceola Blue Lodge No. '27; is a 
member of Osceola Chapter No. 57, and also 
of the Hugh De Payen Commandery No. 1, 
K. T., at Little Rock. He is Past Master of the 
Blue Lodge, and is Principal Sojourner in the 
Chapter. He has served as school director for a 
number of years. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
Hale were born eight children (four now living): 
James L. (attending school at Altus, Ark. ). Charles 
Franklin (deceased), Elizabeth Pearl (deceased), 
Emma Wells (died in May, 1888), Grace (died in 
March, 1882), Willie P., Pearl and Charles. The 
family are members of the Baptist Church. Mr. 
Hale is active in all matters that promise to con- 
tribute to the good of this section. He is improv- 
ing the grade of his stock; has some tine breed- 
ing animals, horses and cattle, and has quite a 
niiiiiber of thoroughbred Chester hogs. The 
beautiful residence and lawn of Mr. Hale are 
ornaments to the town, and the fine farm, under 
a high state of cultivation, is only another exam- 
ple of the enterprise of this prominent family. 

A. L. Harden. There is in the development 
of every successful life a principle which is a lesson 
to each man following in its footsteps; for let one 
be industriously ambitious, and honorable in his am- 
bitions, and he will rise, whether having the prestige 
of family and wealth or the obscurity of poverty. 
We are led to these reflections in looking over the 
life of Mr. Harden, who has attained his present 
enviable position as a leading agriculturist "of Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., by indomitable energy and 
pluck. He was born in Florida in 1838, being the 
second of three children bom to William and Mar- 
tha Harden, and is of German descent, as both his 
father and grandfather, John Harden, were born 
in Germany, the latter of whom l)ecame an exten- 
sive farmer of Georgia. A. L. Harden was reared 
on a farm in Tennessee, and received no educa- 
tional advantages in his youth, but iu 18(56 began 



farming for himself, and at once identified himself 
with the more advanced agricultural and stock 
raising interests of this community, a position he 
has continued to occupy since that time. Although 
his first efforts for himself were on rented land, 
since coming to Mississippi County, in 1859, 
he has prospered. In 1874 he purchased a small 
farm of forty acres on the river at Daniel's Point, 
but at the end of one year came to Chickasawba 
Township, and bought a timber tract of 160 acres, 
and while clearing his land farmed on rented ground. 
At the present time he has '200 acres in all — seventy 
acres under cultivation, with forty more soon to be 
put under the plow, and his land will readily 
yield a bale of cotton to the acre. He also runs a 
dry-goods store on his farm. He has built three 
dwelling houses on his place, and has set out a 
large orchard of choice varieties of fruit; also 
owning a house and lot in Blythesville. His mar- 
riage to Miss Rebecca Wilson, a native of Alabama, 
was consummated November 5. 1866, and they are 
the parents of the following children: Martha, 
who died at the age of nineteen years: MilHdge 
F., Arthur A., Malinda A. and Robert. 

R. G. Hardin. For a period now closely ap- 
proaching a quarter of a century, this highly hon- 
ored resident of Chickasawba Township has been 
identified with the interests of Mississippi County, 
his settlement here dating fi'om about 1865. He 
came to Osceola, Ark., by boat, in 1861, and in July 
of the same year he espoused the cause of tlie 
Confederacy, and proved a gallant soldier during 
the Rebellion. He became first lieutenant in Cupt. 
Charles Bowen's company, and with him partici- 
pated in the battles of Port Hud.son, Champion's 
Hill and others. After the battle of Shiloh, Capt. 
Bowen resigned his position, and Mr. Hardin was 
chosen captain, and in this capacity served in and 
around Vicksburg and was also at Jackson. About 
this time' he was promoted to the command of 
Company E, Ninth Arkansas Infantry, and was 
in all the battles of the Georgia campaign, but 
at Gadsden, Ala., on account of ill health, he 
was compelled to resign his position and return to 
Mississippi County, Ark. His youthful days, up 
to the age of about sixteen years, were spent at 



-C « 



9 W^ 



l±. 



]\riSSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



509 



Rome, io which place he acquired a fair knowledge 
of the common branches, and he then engaged in 
riatboatiug, continuing this occuijatiou for a num- 
ber of years, after which he acted as pilot for 
some time. After his return to Arkansas in Sep- 
tember, 1864, he opened a boot and shoe store in 
Osceola, which he conducted with fair success 
nearly ten years, then purchasing a farm on Pemis- 
cot Bayou, but three years later removed to his 
present farm, which is situated one mile northwest 
of Blythesville and embraces a tract of eighty 
acres, thirty -five being then under cultivation. He 
has made all the improvements, such as building 
fences, setting out orchards, etc. , and his land is 
capable of yielding one bale of cotton to the acre. 
He also raises some stock. On the 28th of Febru- 
ary, 1864, he was married to Miss P. A. Trout, a 
native of Indiana, and by her has had the following 
children: Nora, who died September 5, 1888; Ida, 
who died in infanc)'; Ara, Nina, Lou, who died at 
the age of four years; Samuel T., Emma (deceased), 
Robert G., John, who died at the age of two years; 
Herman, and Ojga. Mr. Hardin is a member of 
Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, F. & A. M., and 
was a charter member of Osceola Lodge, and in 
company with Dr. Fearing and Capt. Bennett 
went to Jonesboro for examination to secure the 
dispensation. He was afterward Master of the 
latter lodge for a number of years, which position 
he has also filled in the Chickasawba Lodge for a 
long period. He has always been interested in edu- 
cational matters, and is now serving as school di- 
rector. He was the fourth of five children born 
to Mark and Lavina (Lamb) Hardin, who were na- 
tives of Kentucky and Indiana, respectively; the 
former was a trader by occupation, and ran a pro- 
duce boat on the river. He died in 1837, and his 
wife in 1851. 

G. W. Harrington. Ever since locating in 
Mississippi County, Ai'k., Mr. Harrington has en- 
joyed the reputation of being a substantial and 
progressive farmer, and has also been considered 
an intelligent and thoroughly po.sted man on all 
the euiTent topics of the day. His father, L. R. 
Harrington, is a Tennesseean, and is now living in 
that State in retirement, although he had pre- 



viously followed the occupation of farming. He 
was married there to Miss Brunetta Binkley, also 
a native of the State, who gave birth to our subject 
in, 1836, he being the eldest of their four children. 
She died in 1873. G. W. Harrington was reared 
to a farm life in his native State, and it was here 
that he received his early scholastic training, it 
being only such as the common schools of his day 
afforded. At the age of twenty-two years he be- 
gan farming for himself, and as it was an occupa- 
tion with which he had always been familiar, his 
success was au assured fact. In 1857 he emigrated 
to Arkansas, and for ten years farmed on rented 
land near where he now lives, but purchased, in 
1865, a farm in North Chickasawba Township, 
amounting to eighty acres, partially improved, 
and on this fertile farm he has made many more 
improvements, and has it nearly all under cultiva- 
tion. At the breaking out of the war, he enlisted 
in the Confederate army. Company H, Fifteenth 
Tennessee Regiment, and was in the battles of 
Belmont, Shiloh, Perry ville and Murfreesboro; 
and after the last named battle, he returned to 
Arkansas, and was married at the close of the war 
to Miss Mary Crawford, of Mississippi County, by 
whom he became the father of the following chil- 
di'en: Lydia, Ida, Lizzie, Nannie, Larkin, Charles, 
Samuel, George and JefFerson. Mr. Harrington 
is quite an active politician, and a public-spirited 
citizen. His wife is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

Alexander Harris, a native-born son of Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., has become one of its most 
enterprising and reliable citizens, and, although 
young in years, he is yet old in experience, and has 
done much in a quiet, unassuming way to promote 
the advancement of its interests. His birth oc- 
curred on Crooked Lake in 1855, he being the 
second in a family of four children, and the son 
of John C. and Martha (Ford) Harris, who were 
Pennsylvanians by birth, and were there reared 
and married. After moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, 
Mr. Han-is engaged in pattern making, and shortly 
after began running a trading boat on the Ohio 
and Mississippi Rivers; and while on one of his 
trips down the latter river, ho learned of the ex- 



Ml 



510 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ceeding fertility of the soil of Arkansas, and here 
determined to "pitch his tent." which he accord- 
ingly did in the year 1850, settling on a tract 
of wild land on the shores of Crooked Lake in 
Mississippi County. After living on this property 
long enough to clear 100 acres of land and make a 
pleasant home, he sold out and made a new settle- 
ment in the vicinity, on which he made valuable 
and extensive improvements, and resided until his 
death in 1S70; he is still survived by his widow, 
who resides in the Blue Grass State. Like most 
of the youth of that vicinity, Alexander, as he grew 
uj>, devoted his time and attention to farming, but 
received very meager advantages for acquiring an 
education. After the death of his father, he went 
to Kentucky with his mother, but at the end of 
one year returned to Mississippi County, and in 
1877 made his first crop on rented land, after 
which he began clerking in a store for Mr. Robin- 
son. In 1885 he purchased a tract of land, forty 
acres in extent, partially improved, and now has 
seventeen acres under cultivation; and, besides 
this, only a short time ago he purchased eighty 
acres more. Since 1885 he has been clerking in 
Blythesville, in the mercantile establishment of L. 
W. Grassell & Co., but still looks after his farm to 
some extent, devoting the most of it to stock rais- 
ing, which enterprise has received the best part of 
his attention for some time. In 1886, he erected 
a pleasant and siibstantial dwelling-house in the 
village of Blythesville, in which he and his wife, 
whose maiden name was lona Lynch, and whom 
he married in 1885, are now living. Mrs. Harris 
is a daughter of Josiah Lynch, an old settler of 
this section, and is a consistent member of the 
Baptist Church. Mr. Harris is a member of Chick- 
asawba Lodge No. 134, of the F. & A. M., and 
is a representative young man of his township. 
He is energetic and enterprising, frugal in his 
tastes, and is expecting to reduce many acres of 
his farm to cultivation in the near future, and we 
can safely predict for him a bright and prosperous 
future. 

Dr. William K. Harrison. It is an historical 
fact that the first English immigrants to Virginia 
were a superior race, with enlarged views of gov- 



ernment, liberty and law, who sought out homes 
in obedience to impulse prompted l)y lofty ambi- 
tion, and sincere desire to benefit their race. From 
these ancestors sprang men in great numbers, who 
subsequently became prominent in different locali- 
ties. The Harrisons are from one of the oldest 
families of Virginia. Dr. William K. Harrison is 
a native of Crockett County, Tenn., born in 1849, 
and is the son of William Harrison and the grand- 
son of William Harrison, who was a native of Vir 
ginia, and who was left fatherless when a small 
boy. William, the father of the subject of this 
sketch, married Miss Ann Catties, daughter of 
Robert Catties, who, when a boy and while cross- 
ing the ocean, was shipwrecked. His father and 
mother were lost, but his sister and himself were 
saved, and bound out when very young. The peo- 
ple with whom he lived spelled his name Cattle, 
but he thought the name was originally Catlet. 
Dr. Harrison was reared to agricultural piu-suits 
in West Tennessee, and received such educational 
advantages as the subscription schools of that State 
afforded. Later he studied medicine and gradu- 
ated at the University of Medicine at Louisville, 
Ky., in the class of 1874. The same year he came 
to Mississippi County, Ark., and settled on French- 
man's Bayou, where he built up a good practice, 
and his reputation is surpassed by none in the 
county. The Doctor adds his evidence that Ar- 
kansas is as healthy as any State in the Union, and 
that if the people lived as they do anywhere else, 
instead of subsisting, for the most part, on bacon 
and cornbread, with black coffee and whisky, and 
paying no attention to cleanliness, they would en- 
joy as good health as in any other State. The 
Doctor is a man of ample business experience, full 
of enterprise and of safe judgment. He is now 
the owner of about 1,800 acres of land in this coun- 
ty, of which he has about 1,000 acres under culti- 
vation, 700 of which he has placed under the j)low 
himself. In addition to this he owns about 2,000 
acres in Greene County near Paragould. On his 
Mississippi County farm he keeps about 130 peo- 
ple. Dr. Harrison was married, in 1876, to Miss 
Ella Davies, a lady possessed of many estimable 
qualities of mind and heart, and the daughter of 



^c 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



511 



Dr. J. F. Davies. When a boy the latter came 
with his father, J. F. Davies, who was also a doc- 
tor, and a native of Virginia, to Mississippi Coun- 
ty, Ark. Prior to this and while living in Greene 
County, Ark., Dr. Davies, Jr., was elected to rep- 
resent his district in the State senate. After com- 
ing to Mississippi County, which was just after 
the war, he took part in all public enterjirisos, 
practiced medicine and establisli(<d a store which 
he conducted for years. He died in 188 1. Dr. 
and Mrs. Harrison are the parents of three bright 
children, viz. : William F., who is the fourth Will- 
iam Harrison in direct line; Cora and Ed. Davies. 
Dr. Harrison is a gentleman of very agreeable man- 
ners, of fine personal appearance; and being a man 
of wealth and good family he partakes of that easy 
refinement and culture which are to the manor Ijorn. 
Mrs. Harrison is also a stem of the same Virginia 
stock, and has a very commendable pride in her 
family. As may be expected they are people of 
superior tastes and habits, using their surplus 
wealth in the material improvement of the com- 
munity in which they live. The Doctor is a mem- 
ber of the I. O. O. F. , having joined a lodge in 
Tennessee, from which he took his Card. Mrs. 
Harrison is a worthy member of the Presbyterian 
Chnrch. 

•J. A. Hayes was a stripling of about sixteen 
years when the Rebellion l)roke out, yet he en- 
listed for active service in the war, and his strug- 
gles and the severity of his service are not to be 
overlooked. He was born in the " Palmetto State," 
in the village of Cheraw, on the Peedee River, in 
1846, and in 1861 enlisted in Coits' battery of 
light artillery, and for some time afterward was on 
duty in and around New Berne. From 1803 until 
September 27, 1864, he was at Petersburg; but in 
the latt(>r year he was taken prisoner at the iron 
l)ridgo near that city, this being the first time he 
was ever absent from roll-call except on one occa- 
sion when he was relieved from duty by his su- 
perior oflicer on account of a wound received while 
in the seven-days' tight at that place. After being 
captured ho was taken to City Point, then to Point 
Lookout, Va., and was kept in imprisonment at the 
latter place until the close of the war. In the 



summer of 1865 he made his way back to his home 
in South Carolina, the most of the journey being 
made on foot, and in the fall of the same year was 
engaged in contracting for ties for the Cheraw & 
Darlington Railroad. In October, 1865, he emigrated 
westward to Memphis, Tenn., where he engaged in 
agriciiltural pursuits, being an employe of Rev. A. 
H. Kerr, on Big Creek. Here he continued to 
reside until 1875, when he came to Mississippi 
County, and opened up a tract of wild land on 
Little River; but owing to the high water of 1882 
he sent his family to Virginia, and returned to 
Memphis, Tenn., where he engaged with Oggell 
Bros, in the hardware business. The following 
year he returned to Mississippi County, Ark. , and 
settled on a plantation belonging to J. W. Jeffer- 
son, where he has opened up about '2.C0 acres of 
land, and has now under the plow 1,0()0 acres, em- 
ploying about 125 hands to assist him in keeping 
the farm in good condition. The yield of his land 
is about three -fourths to one bale of cotton to the 
acre. Since coming to the county he has pur- 
chased 320 acres of land, and owns a good residence 
in the town of Osceola. He was married in 1872 
to Miss Lula Scott, a native of Prince Edward 
County, Va. , and a daughter of Samuel B. Scott, 
who was a descendant of the same family as Gen. 
Winfield Scott. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes are the 
parents of the following children: James M. , who 
died in infancy; Nannie L. and Algie, also died in 
infancy; Annie Gertie, Eddie, Pearl and liuby 
(twins, two years old), and Ernest, an infant. M*. 
Hayes belongs to Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M., at 
Osceola, and is also a member of the A. O. U. W. 
Will H. Hayes, sheriff of Mississippi County, 
and a prominent farmer, residing near Elmot, was 
born in Tennessee, in 1852, and while growing up 
was instructed in all the details of farm life. At 
the age of twenty he engaged in commercial pur- 
suits, which he continued for two years. In 1874, 
he came to Mississippi County, Ark., and was en 
gaged in a general store, at Osceola, where he con- 
tinued for a period of two years, but failing health 
caused him to abandon this, and he afterward 
engaged in agricultural pursuits on rented land. 
At the end of two years he purchased his present 



^1 



512 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



farm near Elmot, autl there he has since remained, 
engaged in the arduous duties of the farm. The 
success which seems to attend his efforts in this 
industry is well merited, for no one is more thor- 
oughly interested in this calling or gives it greater 
attention. There were 900 acres in the tract, 
with about ninety acres cleared, when he first pur- 
chased it. Now he has 300 acres under cultiva- 
tion, and this large tract is all capable of being 
cleared and cultivated, and is de-stined to become 
a fine plantation. Mr. Hayes has always been act- 
ive in politics, and in 1886 he was elected sherifF 
of Mississippi County, and so successful was his 
career in this office, and so well did he conduct 
the afPairs of the same, that he was re-elected in 
1888. He has always taken a deep interest in 
educational matters, and has served as director 
almost all the time that he has been a resident of 
this county. Mr. Hayes is a married man, his 
union with Miss Sallie McKinney having trans 
pired in March, 1876. She is a native of Arkan- 
sas, and the daughter of one of the early settlers 
of this county. They became the parents of these 
children: Lulu Maud. Harrie D. , Bessie G. and 
Lemon. Mr. Hayes' parents, S. D. and Martha 
(Smith) Hayes, were natives of North Carolina 
and Tennessee, respectively. The father was a 
successful agriculturist. 

J. R. Hearn. In endeavoring to trace the 
genealogy of Mr. Hearn, we find that his paternal 
ancestors came originally from the land of thistles 
and oatmeal. He was born on Blue Grass soil in 
1832, and was the fifth of sis children that grew 
to maturity, born to Joseph and Rebecca (Austin) 
Hearn, the latter being a Kentuckiau, in which 
State the father was occupied in tilling the soil. 
In the fall of 1834 they came to Arkansas, settling 
on the Mississippi River below Osceola, which 
country was then almost a complete wilderness in- 
habited by Indians and wild animals, and here 
Mr. Hearn opeued a woodyard, and began farming 
in a small way. Later he sold this property and 
bought some wild land near where Elmot now is, on 
which place he died in 1850, before having made 
any improvements. The opening of the farm then 
devolved upon oui- subject, who was then about 



eighteen years of age, and for five years he strug- 
gled manfully to get the property in good shape 
for farming, his labors being reasonably successful. 
He was married when about twenty three years of 
age, at which time Miss Eliza Boyles, a daughter 
of W. J. Boyles, became his wife. After the cele 
bration of this event he rented land and continued 
farming in this manner until the death of his 
wife's parents in 1871. when he moved on their 
old homestead, which embraced a tract of 160 
acres, only fifteen of which were under the plow. 
He has since cleared and put under cultivation 
forty acres, and owing to the fertility of the soil 
finds no trouble in raising a bale of cotton to the 
acre. In his conduct of this estate he gives each 
detailed portion of the work his personal close 
supervision, and this care and method ever exer- 
cised have contributed to place him among the 
foremost farmers of this vicinity, as he is one of 
the most intelligent citizens. He is not active in 
politics, but uses his own judgment in support- 
ing the various candidates for office. He is at 
present holding the office of justice of the peace. 
In 1868 he had the misfortune to lose his estima- 
ble wife, she having borne him three children: 
Howard Hazzard, William Akin Percy (who mar- 
ried a Miss Fleming, and resides on his father's 
place), and Thomas Elliot. His union with his 
present wife took place in the year 1872, her maid- 
en name having been Susan E. Morrow. The six 
children which have been given them are Editha 
Lee, Joseph Guilford, Luther May, James Hale, 
John Franklin and Lillie Bruce. 

Jerry L. Hearn is one of the native-born resi- 
dents of Mississippi County, Ark., and on account 
of long acquaintance and a thorongh knowledge 
of his many sterling qualities, he is held in high 
esteem by the residents thereof. He was born in 
the year 1851, and was one of the sons of Jerry 
Lynch, but at the age of eleven years was adojjted 
by G. A. Hearn, an old settler of the county, and 
spent one year in Osceola, attending school, then 
moved with his adopted father to Clear Lake, 
where G. A. Hearn died in 1881. Here Jerry 
L. Hearn spent the most of his youth, and after 
attaining manhood was married to Miss Sarah 






:±-jy 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



)]3 



Mobley, also a native of the comity. When twen- 
ty-two years of age he purchased a farm of 108 
acres near Clear Lake, and ever since then has 
devoted much of his time and energies to putting 
his farm in good condition, all necessary buildings 
forming a 2:)rominent feature of the improvements. 
By his perseverance and industry his lands now 
aggregate 300 acres, with forty acres one mile 
west of Blythesville, and the amount of land on 
these two farms comprises 120 acres. Ho has 
been the owner of the property where he now 
makes his home since 1875, his surroundings being 
exceptionally pleasant, and has everything conven- 
ient and comfortable about his home. He has 
always been active in politics, and in ISB-l secured 
the contract to carry the mail from Blythesville to 
Osceola; does also a good trade in carrying pas- 
sengers and doing business for the people of those 
places. He and his family are members of the 
Meth(3dist Episcopal Church, and he is a member 
of Chickasawba Lodge No. 13-4, of the F. & A. 
M. The following are the children born to his 
marriage: Lizzie, Mattie, Minnie and Harry. 

Dr. Elliott Hickman (deceased). On the 10th 
of December, 1858, there died at his home in Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., a man who was thoroughly 
conscientious in the discharge of every duty, and 
who had given to his county the best energies of 
his life. In the community in which he lived, and 
among the people who knew him best, the influence 
of his pure and noble life is still felt to a remarka- 
ble degree. His birth occurred in North Carolina 
in 1782, and, at the age of seven years, he was 
taken to the State of Tennessee by his father, who 
settled in the iminediate vicinity of Nashville. His 
father, William Hickman, was an old veteran of 
the .Revolution, and for services rendered during 
that war he received an extensive land grant in 
the State of Tennessee. Our subject attended 
school in Nashville, and in- early youth entered the 
drug store of his brother-in-law, Roger B. Sap- 
pingtou, who at that time was a leading physician, 
a prominent citizen, and the only druggist in the 
place. Ho remained with Dr. Sapi)ington, study- 
ing under his directions, and after the completion 
of his medical studies settled in Franklin. Will 



iamson County, where he entered upon the prac- 
tice of his chosen calling. After a residence of a 
few years in this place he was married to Miss 
Julia Ann Dudley, a Virginian by birth, and a 
daughter of Col. Guilford Dudley, of Revolution- 
ary fame. Col. Dudley wrote a history of that 
war, which was published in the Southern Literary 
Messenger, and it was pronounced one of the best 
of that period. During that war his property in 
North Carolina was entirely destroyed by the 
British, but he removed to Tennessee, retrieved 
his fortunes to some extent, and became one of the 
noted men of Middle Tennessee. In 1812-15, Dr. 
Hickman was appointed by Gov. William Carroll 
superintendent and surgeon of the war hospi- 
tal at Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tenn., and 
here he resided until 1835, when he moved his 
family to Memphis, where he was engaged in fol- 
lowing his profession up to the year 1840, when 
he bought a tract of land of about 1,000 acres, 120 
miles above Memphis, in Mississippi County, Ark. , 
the place being now known as Hickman's Bend. 
Here he instituted many improvements, and soon 
had his home surrounded by many comforts and 
luxuries. From the gallery of his old home could 
be had a most magnificent view of the river as it 
sweeps around the bend many miles above, and 
disappears in the south behind wooded points 
and fertile fields of cotton. In this lovely home 
among magnificent giant forest trees he dispensed 
his hospitality in an exceedingly liberal manner, and 
became noted throughout all the region for his 
polished manners. Although a slave-owner, he 
would never employ an overseer, and among his 
humble retainers, he was happy in making them 
happy. His advice was given freely to all, and in 
him they ever found a kind and liberal friend in- 
stead of a hard taskmaster. His memory is still 
loved and reverenced among his old servants who 
are still living. Hickman Township and Hickman's 
Bend were named in his honor. His estimable wife 
sui-vived him until November 11, 1862, when she 
too died. Their children's names are as follows: 
Frances, who married Col. Elliot H. Fletcher [see 
sketch]: Elizabeth, wife of Mr. Muri)hy, a mer- 
chant of New Orleans; William, Julia Ann, who 



^^ 



r.i4 



HISTOEY OF AEKANSAS. 



ilied when just entering womanhood; Sarah, and 
Thomas, who died in 1863; seven children died in 
infancy. 

D. W. Hicks. It was in 1873 that Mr. Hicks 
first became a resident of Mississippi Connty. Ark. . 
and since then he has become one of the truly hon- 
ored and respected residents of this section. His 
birth occurred on Blue Grass soil in 1845, and he 
was the fourth of a family of eight children born 
to Armstrong and Mary (Duerson) Hicks, who are 
both residing in Kentucky, and are each eighty- 
two years of age. The father was a miller. Like 
the majority of youths, D. W. Hicks learned his 
father's occupation, and attended the common pub- 
lic schools near his home until sixteen years of age, 
at which time he enlisted in the Confederate army 
under Jolin H. Morgan, and was an active partici- 
pant in the battles of Hartsville. Tenn. , Snow 
Hill, Tenn. , Lebanon, Ky. , and in numerous minor 
engagements. He was with Morgan on his Ohio 
raid in 1863, and was at the battles of Corydon and 
Buffington Island, but was captured at Richmond, 
Ind , and sent to Camp Chase, where he was held 
a prisoner for twenty-three months. After being 
released at the end of May, 1865, he returned to 
his home in Kentiicky, with the consciousness of 
having been one of the tried and true soldiers of 
the "lost cause.'" His career as a soldier was 
marked by fearlessness and courage. He worked in 
a roller factory for six months, then went to New 
Orleans, where he remained a short time, after 
which he returned to Kentucky, and made his 
home at Hickman for five years. Since that time 
he has resided in Mississippi County, Ark., the 
first five years of his residence here being spent in 
farming in the vicinity of Osceola. In 1878 he 
came to Chickasawba Township, where he farmed 
on rented land for some time, being also engaged 
in teaching school. His first purchase of land was 
in 1880, amounting to 113 acres, at Shady Grove, 
but he has since bought fifty at Hickman's Bend, 
a fine place, all of which is under cultivation. 
This year (1889) he is farming eighty acres of corn 
and cotton. He is always interested in enterprises 
that will reflect credit upon this section, and al- 
though not an active politician he has served as 



justice of the peace and school director for two 
years. He is a member of Chickasawba Lodge 
No. 134, of the F. & A. M. In 1882 his mar- 
riage with Miss Mary Lillard was celebrated. She 
was born in Tennessee., is a member of the Metli 
odist ChurcL, and has borne Mr. Hicks a son 
named James. Mr. Hicks is expecting soon to 
make a visit to his parents at Hickman, Ky. , whom 
he has not seen for sixteen years. 

J. N. Hill (deceased). In the year 1878 there 
died at his home in this county, J. N. Hill, who had 
been a prominent resident of the county since 
1867, and who, during his residence here, was 
closely identified with the agricultural interests of 
the community in which he resided. He had first 
come to the county in 1858, when a boy, with his 
father, John Hill, but in 1865 returned to his 
State of Tennessee, and was married there the 
same year, to Miss Julia Helmes, a daughter of 
William Helmes, of Mount Zion, Tenn., hci- 
birthplace being in Lebanon, Tenn. Upon per- 
manently locating in Mississippi County, Ark., at 
the above mentioned date, he settled on the Ellis 
place, which was owned by Maj. Ferguson, of 
Nodena, and in 1871 bought the place on which 
his widow is now residing, which continued to be 
his home up to the time of his death. He was an 
industrious, frugal farmer, and, with the assistance 
of his worthy wife, succeeded in accumulating con- 
siderable {jroperty. Endowed with good common 
sense, and of a sympathetic nature, he was among 
the foremost in every commendable enterprise, and 
his death was keenly felt by all who knew him. 
His first purchase was eighty acres of land, and 
his estate at the time of his death amounted to 
about 700 acres, of which 220 were under the 
plow, the principal crop being cotton. At the 
time of his death he left a widow and four chil- 
dren to mourn his loss, the eldest child being but 
nine years of age: Ella-E., a young lady; C. F. , 
who resides with his mother, and is an assistant 
on the plantation; G. W., a lad at home, ami 
Agnes, the youngest of the family. 

Joseph M. Hill, a prosperous farmer and en- 
terprising citizen of Frenchman's Bayou, was born 
at Nashville, Tenn., in 1857. He was the young- 



y\: 



est child liorii to John H. and Lina Ann (Cottlos) 
Hill, who moved to Mississippi County, Ark. , 
from Nashville, in 1858, and settled on French- 
man's Bayou, where he purchased 600 acres of 
land. The father cleared up about 100 acres of this 
land, and was engaged extensively' in stock rais- 
ing until his death, in ISOfl, his wife dying tlu^ 
same year. Joseph M. Hill attended the schools 
at home for some time, and then entered an acad- 
emy at Covington, Tenn., and later one at Canton, 
receiving in his youth as go6d an education as 
could be obtained. Upon reaching the age of 
eighteen he began farming for himself on rented 
land, and being a young man of perseverance and 
a determination to succeed in whatever he under- 
took, he soon placed himself in an independent 
position. In Feltruary, 1884, he was married to 
Mi.ss Mollie Woodward, of Tennessee, a daughter 
of Lewis Woodward, a well-known and prominent 
citizen of Tipton County, in both political and 
church matters, who died in 1880. This union 
gave Mr. and Mrs. Hill three children: Nellie, 
Mary and Joseph Nelson, comprising one of the 
happiest families in Mississippi County. Mr. Hill 
is a member of the K. of O. at Louise, Ark. , and is 
spoken of by his friends as certain to be one of the 
leading men in this county at some future day. 
His brother, Bethel L. , attended the same schools, 
and afterward farmed for a while. He was mar- 
ried to Miss Ralph, of Tennessee, and as he grew 
to mature age became a very prominent man in 
local circles. He served two years as justice of 
the peace, and in 1886 was elected assessor of Mis- 
sissippi County, remaining in that capacity until 
his death, in 1889. at the age of thirty four years. 
The father of these boys entered the pulpit after 
moving to this county, and attained a wide-spread 
celebrity for his foi-cible sermons and versatility 
as an expounder of the Gospel. 

R. D. Holt. Island No. 10, formerly in the 
Mississippi River, and the scene of a heavy artilh^y 
duel during the War of the Rebellion, was the 
birthplace of the subject of this sketch. There 
he was l)orn in 1848. and some years later he 
came with his father, R. J. Holt, to Mississippi 
County. Ark., and settled on his present property. 



Here the elder Holt died in 1863, leaving a wife 
and five children. The mother, whose maiden 
name was Miss Mary Bone, was a native of New 
Madrid, Mo., and there she grew to womanhood. 
R. D. Holt and his brother John, who now lives 
near, took hold of the home plac(< after the death 
of the father, and although there were but fifteen 
acres cleared at that time, they went to work and 
soon cleared about 10(1 acres, each Ijrother owning 
a half interest, in addition to which they each have 
a farm of from eighty to 160 acres. The farm 
lies on Lake Como, in the southwest part of the 
county, in what is called the Nauvoo settlement, 
named thus on account of the Mormons having 
settled there early in the 50' s. R. J. Holt, the 
father of R. D., was one of them at that time, he 
having previously been a Methodist, and after a 
few years of Mormonism he returned to his old 
faith, in which he died. Those who adhered to 
the faith went to Salt Lake, and among the last to 
go was one Sol. Spain, who got away just before 
the blockade in 1861. On the property of Mr. 
Holt there are eleven well-defined Indian mounds, 
which have never been explored. The largest is 
about fifteen feet high, and over 100 feet in cir- 
cumference at the base. This is now used as a 
burying place by Mr. Holt, whose father, mother, 
brother and sister, an uncle, a brother in- law and 
his wife and two children are buried there. His 
brother has one child buried there, and a sister 
has two children. Mr. Holt was married in 1871 
to Miss Sophrona Barney, of Mississippi County, 
and the daughter of John Barney, one of the 
pioneers of Mississippi County, Ark. Three chil- 
dren are the fruits of this union: I\Iary, Leroy and 
Mattie, all at home. Mr. Holt is a member of the 
Wheel. 

John C. Holt. In the sketch that precedes 
this has been given an outline of the life of Mr. R. 
D. Holt, brother of the subject of this sketch. 
John C. Holt was born at Nauvoo, Mississippi 
County, Ark., in 1858, his parents. R. J. and 
Mary (Bone) Holt, coming from Island No. 10, in 
the !Mississip[)i River, the year before. John C. 
Holt improved every opportunity for an education, 
but school facilities were not what thev are at the 




present day. After reaching mauhood Mr. Holt 
was absent for about fourteen months, but returned, 
firm in the settled lielief that Mississippi County 
was the place for him. In connection with his 
brother, R. D. Holt, Mr. Holt has opened up 160 
acres of land, and is now the owner of '226 acres, 
with about 112 acres under cultivation. His prin- 
cipal occupation is cotton raising, and he averages 
about three-fourths of a bale to the acre, at a cost 
of $6 per acre. He has progressive, modern ideas 
of farming, and is a man who will sivcceed in any 
undertaking. He was married, in 187S, to Miss 
Virginia Ashburn, daughter of Jason Ashburn, who 
came to Mississippi County in 1835, and who was 
one of the pioneer settlers of the county. To Mr. 
and Mrs. Holt have been born four children: 
Cordy, now a young man; Harry, Phinney and 
Ivey. Mr. Holt is a member of the Masonic lodge 
at Fi-enchman's Bayou, and also of the Methodist 
Church. 

Rev. James F. Jernigan, pastor of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South, of the Osceola Cir- 
cuit, was born in Henry County, Tenn., May 18, 
1851, being sixth in a family of seven children 
born to Rev. ^^'. H. and Dicy (Moore) Jernigan, 
natives of Middle Tennessee. There the father 
followed farming for a long time, but being con- 
verted, he began preaching nearly fifty years ago. 
James' paternal grandfather, Jesse, and his wife, 
Rebecca, were pioneers of Western Tennessee, go- 
ing there from Middle Tennessee in 1823, where 
the old gentleman lived, following farming and 
carpentering, till his death, which occurred in Jan- 
uary, 1857, at the age of eighty-three years. Rev. 
W. H. Jernigan later removed from Tennessee to 
Independence County, Ark., and settled near Sul- 
phur Rock, where he brought a tract of 200 acres. 
On this land he has made many improvements, pro- 
viding a comfortable home for the family till about 
1883. The mother died August 10, 1878, at the 
age of sixty-four years. The estate still belongs to 
the family, but Mr. Jernigan, Sr. , makes his home 
with his youngest son, L. C. Jernigan, a merchant 
at Sulphur Rock. In 1865 this estimable man 
(our subject's father) taught the first free school 
in Independence County. He was a teacher for a 



long time in Tennessee, and has always been active 
in school and church work. He has continued 
preaching up to the present, and during the sum- 
mer of 1888 assisted his son in a series of pro- 
tracted meetings, covering a period of nearly three 
months. On the 23d of July, 1889, at the house 
of his youngest son, he made the remark, that for- 
ty-nine years previous a chain of two links had 
been formed; subsequently seven links more had 
been added, and to this increasing chain thirty - 
eight more links, representing his grandchildren, 
were added, making in all a chain of fifty- four 
links. During this long period there have been 
but eight breaks in this family chain, the death of 
five children and three adults. This respected 
pioneer has lived in Northeast Arkansas thirty 
years, and during that time has never had a chill; 
in fact, as will be seen from the above, the health 
of the entire family has been remarkable. Our 
subject remained at home, working on the farm, 
till about the age of twenty three years, during 
which time he attended school in the vicinity of 
his home, and in 1872 was a student at a five- 
months' session at Spring Hill Academy, Henry 
County, Tenn. From his sixteenth year, when- he 
was converted, he has been a diligent student of 
the bible, and works on theology, feeling from that 
early age that there were fields for labor in the 
coming years, in which a knowledge of those books 
would be his greatest if not his only help; and so 
with these years of preparation, by private study 
and his father's help, he became well qualified for 
active usefulness. He entered the ministry of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, White River 
Conference, which was held in 1874 in Searcy, 
White County, Ark., his first charge being Salem 
Circuit, Fulton County, where he remained one 
year. He was then changed to West Point Cir- 
cuit, White County, and thence, after one year, to 
Pleasant Valley Circuit, Jackson County. In 1878 
he was changed to Newport Station for one year; 
thence to Lee County, for one year; in 1880 to Clay 
County, Boydsville and Oak Bluff Stations; in 1881 
to Corning Station, same county; in 1882-83, 
Jamestown Circuit, Independence County; in 1884 
-85, at Vanndale Circuit; in 1886-87, in Marion 



"TT 




^j{.nc 



-AWRE NCE 



Lauf 




\NSAS 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



oil 



Circuit, Crittenden County, and in 1888 back to 
Sulphur Rock Circuit, his old, boyhood home. 
In ISS'.I he was appointed to Osceola Circuit, in , 
Mississippi County, which charge he is filling at 
the present time. Brother Jernigan can justly be 
called a revivalist, for in all these years his min- 
istry has been marked with wonderful success. 
In 1882, 175 conversions resulted from his efforts, 
and two-thirds of this number united with the 
church; in other years nearly as many, and this 
year (1889) during about eight months' labor he 
had 1 1 S accessions to the church. He has held pro- 
tracted meetings at Carson's Lake, Golden Lake, 
Pecan Point, Mill Bayou, Dunavant's C^hapel, 
Louise Chapel, Elmot and Osceola, and at all these 
meetings great interest has been manifested, and 
many conversions made. Indeed, the degree of 
interest manifested among the people who have 
been attending his various meetings is sufficient to 
impress a thoughtful person as being wonderful. 
Religious matters have here been the chief topic of 
conversation, and the thoughts of almost all seem 
to dwell on the "big meetings." Brother Jerni- 
gan has been married twice; the first time Novem- 
ber 14, 1877, to Miss Kate D. Shoup, a native of 
Marshall County, Miss., who came to this State 
with her parents in her youth. She died Septem- 
ber 9, 1878. He married the second time, October 
11, 1881, Miss Lizzie I. Camp, a native of Tennes- 
see, born in Memphis, and the daughter of Dr. M. 
V. anil Sallie C. (Shed) Camp. Her mother died 
in 1888, but her father is at the present time a 
prominent physician of Walnut Ridge. He was 
on the editorial staff of the first secession paper 
published in Alabama, and later served as captain 
in the Confederate army. Brother Jernigan at 
present resides at Walnut Ridge, where he has a 
pleasant home, presided over by his estimable wife. 
In personal appearance, as will be seen by a glance 
at the accompanying portrait, he is a man of 
striking personal appearance, with an intellectual 
expression superior to the average. Slightly above 
the ordinary height, also incrlining somewhat tu 
stoutness, with an erect carriage, it is apparent 
that physically he has been generously endowed by 
nature, and as a result makes a commanding pres- 



ence in the pulpit. Such endowments, when com- 
bined with the earnest and entreating expression 
of the eye, and the ringing tones of eloquence as 
he expovmds the truths of the Divine Story, contrib- 
ute materially to the success which follows every 
meeting. He also strives to have the congregation 
see that what he says is not the labored production, 
studied for oratorical clfoct, Init that each word 
springs from the sincere heart, and that he feels 
with all an enthusiast's power, the truth and passion 
of the Holy Law. His preaching, at proper inter- 
vals, is often enlivened by an appropriate anec- 
dote, containing a moral, clothed in a few pleas- 
ing and often humorous sentences, which relaxes 
the tension of the hearer's mind, as it also points 
more directly to the open door of truth. In con- 
versation with various members of th(> different 
churches in Mr. Jernigan' s charge, it is found that 
his efforts are jiistly appreciated, for, from no one 
are heard words of censure or unkind criticism, but 
from all, terms of the highest praise. 

R. L. Joiner. It can not be denied that a man 
who lives according to the highest principles of 
what he conceives to be right, helping others and 
in a word, keeping as his aim the Golden Rule, 
will receive the most sincere esteem of his fellow 
creatures. Such a one is the subject of this 
sketch. Born in Shelby County, Tenn. , he is the 
son of R. S. Joiner, and the grandson of Jack 
Joiner, who emigrated from North Carolina when 
R. S. Joiner was a small boy. The latter was 
also a native of Shelby County, Tenn. R. L. 
Joiner was born on the corner of Poplar ami 
Second Streets, Memphis, Tenn.. and there re 
mained until eighteen years of age, receiving a 
good practical education in the schools of that 
city. At the above mentioned age he left the 
State of his nativity and journeyed to Crittenden 
County, Ark., where he remained for about five 
years. In 1868 he came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., and in the year 1880 .settled on what is 
known as the Parker place, west of Frenchman's 
Bayou, where he has cleared by contract about forty 
acres since coming to the county. Mr. Joiner is 
a wide-awake, stirring farmer, and his improve- 
ments about the place are all of a superior order. 



■v« 



nis 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



In 1880 he was united in marriage with Miss M. 
L. Price, daughter of Mrs. Mary E. Price, of 
Lee County, Miss., and the fi-uits of this union 
have been three chiklren: Ada Mary, Anna Ruth 
and Emma Blanche, all at home. Aside from his 
own farm, Mr. Joiner rents about sixty-two acres, 
and is engaged in cotton planting on the same, 
averaging about three-fourths of a bale of cotton 
to the acre. He is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel. 

Dr. Walter D. Jones, Osceola. There are few 
men of the present day whom the world acknowl- 
edges as successful more worthy of honorable men- 
tion, or whose history affords a better illustration 
of what may be accomplished by a determined 
will and perseverance, than Dr. W. D. Jones. He 
was born in Newburg, N. Y., in 1842, and was the 
fifth of eight children born to Dr. William and 
Charlotte M. (Wheeler) Jones, the father a native 
of Shoreham, Vt. , and the mother of New York. 
The paternal ancestors were of Welsh descent, and 
the maternal of German. Dr. William Jones be- 
gan the study of medicine at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 
in his youth, secured his diploma, and has been a 
practicing physician for over fifty years. During 
that time he has risen to the position of one of the 
leading practitioners among the Eclectic school of 
physicians, and is well known in the profession 
throughout the length and breadth of the United 
States. He has held the office of president, treas- 
urer, and has been one of the board of censors of 
the Eclectic Medical Society of the State of New 
York. He is now living in retirement at his fine 
home in Newburg, N. Y. Dr. Walter D. Jones 
passed his youth as a student in the public schools 
of Newburg, and naturally, perhaps, he evinced at 
quite an early age, a strong desire for the study of 
medicine, and a precocious ability for the practice 
of that profession. His greatest desire seemed to 
be to reach a proud position in the ranks of emi- 
nent medical men, with whom he has always been 
associated. He was solicited, in 1872, by the late 
Prof. R. S. Newton, Sr. , professor of surgery in 
the Eclectic Medical College of New York City, to 
accept the chair of professor of anatomy. In 1878 
he was proffered and .solicited by Prof. Frank- 



lin, professor of surgery in the Homoeopathic Col- 
lege of St. Louis, Mo., to occupy the chair of 
surgery in that institution, but having a few days 
previous closed his contract with the A. L. Clum 
Medicine Company, declined. At the age of seven- 
teen he entered the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, remaining there one 
year, after which he entered the Jefferson Medical 
College, where he spent but one j'ear, and then re- 
turned to the University. In 1861, after one year 
in the last mentioned institution, he enlisted as a 
private in the Third New York Infantry, and was de- 
tailed to the Hy geia Hotel Hospital, at Fortress Mon- 
roe. He was in the battle of Little Bethel, was then 
detailed to the Adams House Hospital, at Balti- 
more, Md. , and later mustered out at Albany, 
N. Y. At the end of one month he enlisted in the 
Fifteenth New York Cavalry, and was soon sent to 
Virginia, where he was in all the fighting of the 
Shenandoah Valley; was in the battle of Port Royal, 
Lynchburg, Winchester, Sheridan's raid from 
Winchester, Va. , to the White House, Waynesboro, 
Dinwiddle Courthouse, Five Forks, Appomattox 
Courthouse, Clover Hill, and was present at Gen. 
Lee's surrender, on April 9, 1865. He took part 
in the grand review at "\\'ashington, on the 23d of 
May, of that year, and was mustered out at Cloud's 
Mills, Va., in July. That year he returned to 
Philadelphia, entered the University, resumed his 
studies and graduated in 1860. He subsequently 
returned to Newburg and engaged in the practice 
of his chosen profession with his father, continu- 
ing there two years. After this he was in Brook- 
lyn two years, then in St. Louis four years, and 
then, in 1879, he came to Osceola, Ark. He discon- 
tinued the practice of his profession while in St. 
Louis, to accept a position with the A. L. Clum 
Medicine Company, of Red Wing, Minn., and came 
to Osceola in the interest of that company. Seeing 
a favorable opening, he located, and has remained 
here since, devoting his time entirely to the relief 
of suffering humanity. He has built up an exten- 
sive practice, and is one of the leading physicians 
of the county. He is of pleasing address and most 
agreeable manners, possessed of a mind clear, pen- 
etrating and comprehensive, thoroughly posted in 



'-^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



519 



his profession, and a practitioner of decided talent. 
He has bought a farm of '210 acres, fifty of whicli 
are under cultivation, and he is clearing up the 
remainder. The Doctor was married in 1868, to 
Mrs. Mary E. Wines, a native of Brooklyn, L. I. 
(at that time), and of English descent. She died 
in 1870, leaving one child, Edith Helen, who died 
in infancy. Dr. Jones took for his second wife 
Mrs. Frances Carrie Goff, a native of Georgia, and 
the daughter of William A.. (Toff, who followed the 
occupation of an architect. Mrs. Jones was a 
widow with one child, Jessie, when married to the 
Doctor. Dr. Jones is the only Eclectic practitioner 
in Mississippi County. He was chairman of the 
Republican executive committee for eight years, 
was president of the board of health for four 
years, was alderman four years, and has been 
United States deputy marshal. He affiliates with 
the Republicans in his political preferences, and is 
the leading member of his party in Mississippi 
County. 

Benjamin F. Jones, one of the most influential 
men in Mississippi County, and a man who, dming 
his residence here has not only become one of the 
largest and wealthiest landholders, but is also con 
nected with the well-known and prosperous mer- 
cantile tirm of Ward & Jones, is a native of Illi- 
nois. His parents, James and Elvira (Henderson) 
Jones, were natives of Kentucky, and some time 
before the war the father, with his family, consist- 
ing of his wife and small children, moved to Illi- 
nois. There both parents died, the father in 1860 
and the mother in 1868. In 1866 Benjamin F. 
Jones came to Mississippi County, Ark., and at the 
age of seventeen years commenced working on a 
farm, where he continued for several years. In 
1869 he embarked in mercantile pursuits in O.sce- 
ola, which he continued for about seven years, 
when, owing to financial difficulties, he sold out to 
his partner, the latter agreeing to pay all indebt- 
edness, which he did in full. After this, for a 
number of years, he was engaged in planting cot- 
ton, at which be was very successful. About 1885 
he bought the interest of L. Ward, of the firm of 
L. Ward & Son, located on Frenchman's Bayou, 
and formed a partnership under the firm name of 



Ward & Jones. Since that time the firm has been 
very prosperous, their annual sales running from 
$40,000 to $50,000, and in connection they also 
carry on cotton planting quite extensively, the firm 
being the owners of over 2,000 acres of the rich 
land about Frenchman's Bayou, which ranks among 
the most fertile tracts on the continent. They have 
about 300 acres under the plow, the r(<mainder yet 
in timber, but each year they adil greatly to their 
cleared land. Mr. Jones is the owner of over 1,000 
acres in his own right, and stands among the fore- 
most young business men in the county. He is al- 
ways ready with open hand to encourage any legit- 
imate enterprise, and is a benefit and an honor to 
any community in which his lot is cast. He is a 
member of McGavock Lodge No. '2754, Knights 
of Honor, located at Frenchman's Bayou. He 
wedded Miss Nannie Ashburn, daughter of Jack 
Ashburn, one of the pioneers of the county, who 
came with his father from Kentucky when a boy, 
or in the year 18'29. He died when his daughter 
Nannie was but a child. His wife was Mary Ball. 
Mr. and Mrs. Jones' union was blessed by the birth 
of six children, all living, and the eldest about 
fourteen years of age. They are named as follows: 
Harry, Cora, Maud, Pearl, Annie, and Francis , an 
infant four months old. In all his ideas and tend- 
encies Mr. Jones is progressive and enterprising, a 
useful member of society, personally and in busi- 
ness circles. 

T. B. Jones, a successful planter and a promi- 
nent merchant of Frenchman's Bayou, is a native 
of Illinois, and the son of James Jones, who died 
in Illinois. T. B. Jones obtained a good practical 
education in the schools of his native State, and 
afterward went to the Lone Star State, where he 
remained for two years. At the age of twenty- 
three years he came to Mississip[)i County, Ark. , 
located there, and although his means were very 
limited, he went to work with the determination to 
succeed, and is now the owner of 113 acres, of 
which he has sixty under cultivation. On this he 
averages about one bale of cotton to the acre, and 
in addition he has a general store in which he 
keeps a full line of goods necessary in a country 
neighborhood. He has placed about thirty acres 



■^^^=^Fr 



Si 



a w_ 



r)20 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



under cultivation, made all the other improve- 
ments, building a fine frame residence with about 
2, 000 feet of flooring and two stories high. He 
also has a fi'ame storehouse '20x50 feet, four tene- 
ment houses and a barn. His marriage occurred 
in 1881 with Miss Lizzie Hightower, of Mississippi 
County, where she was born and reared. Her 
father, William Hightower, settled in Mississippi 
County, Ark. , at an early day. He was origiuall}' 
from East Tennessee, his wife being a native of 
this county. They died in Mississippi County, 
Ark., when Mrs. Jones was small. To Mr. and 
Mrs. Jones has been born one child, a daugh- 
ter named Claudia. Mr. Jones is a member of the 
Masonic Lodge No. 157, Frenchman's Bayou. 
His wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Dr. D. C. Joyner. The people of Mississippi, 
as well as surrounding counties, are familiar with 
the name that heads this sketch, and for many 
years Dr. Joyner has been successfully occupied 
in the prosecution of his chosen piofession. Dur- 
ing that time his career as a practitioner and 
thorough student of medicine has won for him no 
less a reputation than have his personal character- 
istics as a citizen and neighbor. He was liorn in 
Stewart County, Tenn. (Dover), in 1838, and was 
reared in Smithland, Livingston County, Ky. He 
was educated at Bethlehem, and in the Presbyterian 
Academy, located at Salem, Crittenden County. 
In 1857 he commenced the study of medicine in 
the office of Prof. F. L. Sim. of Golconda, 111. . 
where he .studied for two years, and then entered 
the Louisville University, from which institution 
he graduated in 1861. Later he came to Missis- 
sippi County, commenced practicing on French- 
jnaa's Bayou, when there were but few planters, 
and soon built up a very lucrative practice. Not 
satisfied merely with his profession, the Doctor has 
engaged in other pursuits, and having built a large 
store room, sold goods for about fifteen years. 
He sold out his stock of goods in 1888 to W. 
H. PuUen & Co. , to whom he rents the building, 
and the Doctor now has a complete stock of drugs 
in a building which he has erected just across the 
way, and where he now keeps a full line of all the 



requisites necessary for a first-class store. He has 
also been interested in planting cotton, having 
owned a plantation of 240 acres, of which he put a 
considerable share under cultivation, but this he 
has recently sold. The Doctor agrees with other 
prominent medical men, that .\rkansas is as healthy 
as any other Southern State, and the people are 
as exempt from disease, if they use the same care, 
as in other States. Especially does this apply to 
those who keep all mud holes and stagnant pools 
filled up or drained off. Dr. Joyner was a Whig 
in his political preference before the war, and says 
he is the same now, but since coming south he 
has allied himself with the Democratic party. Dur- 
ing the war he enlisted in the Twenty-third Ar 
kansas, and served most of the tiine in the State. 
acting at one time as courier to some of Price's com- 
manders. His marriage with Miss Medora Ward, 
daughter of Capt. L. Ward, occurred in Memphis, 
and soon afterward they moved to Frenchman's 
Bayou, where they have lived ever since, with the 
exception of about six months, when they resided 
iu Arkansas County, near Dewitt. This union 
has been blessed by six children: Leon, at home 
and a cripple from birth; DeWitt C, at home; 
Effie L., Clide V., Constance (Birdie), and Ruth 
Kerr, an infant. The Doctor is a member of the 
K. of P., of Progress Lodge, Memphis, Tenn., 
and is also a member of McGavock Lodge No. 
275-1, K. of H. Mrs. Joyner is a member of the 
Methodist Church. 

W. C. King, a physician whose skill has won 
him a large practice, and a man who stands high in 
the estimation of his fellow citizens, was born Jan- 
uary 13, 1838, at Raleigh, Shelby County, Term., 
and was the fifth in a family of nine children. 
His parents were John R. and Dosha (Hector) 
King, of North Carolina and Missouri, respective- 
ly. The father was engaged in mechanical pur- 
suits, and had made Tennessee his home for fifty 
year.s, dying there in 1882, four years after the de- 
mise of his wife. In his youth young King re- 
ceived the best education obtainal)le, and attended 
school at home until his seventeenth year. He 
then took ten months" study at Bethel College, Mc- 
Lemoresville, Tenn.. and afterward attended school 



^-* 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



521 



iit Biirtlett for several years. In 1858 he began 
the study of medicine with Drs. Duncan and Pryor 
as his preceptors, both well-known physicians of 
that period, and in the fall of that year entered 
the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, 
where he remained until his graduation, in March, 
1S61. He then returned to Tennessee, and, the 
war having just about commenced, enlisted in Com 
pany D, Fourth Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers, 
remaining with them one year, and at the re-or- 
gauization was transferred to Company A. The 
Doctor took part in the battles of Shiloh, Murfrees- 
boro, Chickamauga and Missionary Pidge, being 
captured at the last named place and taken to 
Rock Island, 111., where he was held a prisoner 
until October 30, of the following year, and then 
escaped. He immediately returned home, and in 
the summer of 1805 began to practice his profes- 
sion in Raleigh, Tenn., where he remained until 
1867. He then moved to Coahoma County, Miss., 
and in 1868, was married to Miss Alice Burrow, of 
Georgia, a daughter of Rev. Reuben Burrow, a 
noted Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, whose 
ability as an orator and revivalist was often com- 
mented upon by the press. At the beginning of 
the war Mr. Burrow raised a company of men, and 
was placed at the head as captain. After a year's 
service he was promoted to the rank of major of 
his regiment, and from that to colonel, in which 
capacity he served in Gen. Forrest's command 
through all his battles. At the close of the war 
he again entered the pulpit, and continued preach- 
ing until his death, in 1888. This gifted man was 
early imbued with the spirit of oratory and began 
preaching when only nineteen years of age. Dr. 
King continued to make Coahoma his home until 
1879, practicing medicine all the while with great 
success, in the meantime engaging in planting 
and also merchandising. He lost his wife in that 
year, who died leaving him four children to cher- 
ish in her stead. Their names are Kate, wife of 
J. M. Rol)inson, of thiscounty ; Mal)el. Dosha, who 
died in infancy, as also did John R. Soon after 
the death of his wife, the Doctor returned to Ten- 
nessee, where he resided in the neighborhood of 
his old home until 1887. On June i>, of that year. 



he came to Mississippi County, Ark., and settled 
at Pecan Point, where he remained for six month.s, 
and then moved to Frenchman's Bayou, where he 
has located permanently, and purchased a residence 
in the most thickly settled portion of the place. 
He was an entire stranger on his arrival, but soon 
built up a tine practice and won many friends by 
his agreeable manners and genial disposition. The 
Doctor has been a Mason since 1865, formerl)' be- 
longing to Woodlawn Lodge at Bartlett, Tenn., 
and now a member of Frenchman's Bayou Lodge 
No 251, in which he is J. D. His wife was a 
woman of considerable literary attainments, and 
when only fifteen years of age she wrote the fare- 
well address to Company D, of the Raleigh Vol- 
unteers. It might be well to <juote a few of the 
Doctor's opinions upon a sul)ject that has agitated 
the Southern people to some extent. He takes 
great interest in the comparative difference between 
the white and colored labor of the South, and con-' 
tends that the result of white labor is much more 
satisfactory and pi'ofitable; that the climatic in- 
fluences are not particularly injurious to people of 
the North and East, and that they will tind the 
condition of health in this county equal to that of 
the western district of Tennessee, or any other 
point in the Mississippi Valley. He has practiced 
medicine .in both Tennessee and Mississippi, as 
well as in Arkansas, and states facts that have come 
under his immediate observation. He has noticed 
that the citizens of this county who take proper 
care of themselves enjoy as good health as the in 
habitants of almost any other locality, but such 
occupations as hunting, trapping, etc., are trying 
to the strongest constitutions, and people who in- 
dulge in such pursuits are subject to frequent at- 
tacks of illness. 

Louis A. Lafont, a prominent farmer near Os- 
ceola, was born in New Madi'id County, Mo., in 
1826, and was the third child in a family of nine 
children born to Anthony and Frances Lafont. of 
Missouri and Indiana, respectively. The father 
moved to New Madrid County in 1810, and was re- 
siding there at the time of the great earthquake in 
the latter part of that year, and during which he 
lost his first wife, who. like many others, died from 




fright on tliat occasion. Mr. Louis A. Lafont 
gives a vivid description and recalls many interest- 
ing experiences and incidents of that wonderful 
yet disastrous phenomenon, which he remembers 
having heard his father tell about. The elder La- 
font died there in 1848, his second wife following 
him in 1857. Louis remained in that section dur- 
ing his youth, and attended some of the best 
schools in that district, and also at New Albany, 
Ind., his education occupying about eleven years 
of his life altogether. He received his first com- 
mercial experience at Point Pleasant, Mo., in 
1848, where he engaged in general merchandise 
business, and 'remained at same for three years. 
In 1853 he moved to Metropolis, 111., and entered 
into mercantile life at that point, also manufactur 
ing brick and contracting for erecting buildings. 
His reputation was rapidly pushed to the front in 
that line, and soon afterward he built a large flour- 
mill for himself, which he put up at an expense of 
$30,000, besides many fine and expensive private 
residences. He continued in various business en- 
terprises at Metropolis for eighteen years, and dur- 
ing that time was one of the foremost men in ad- 
vancing and improving the town. In 1872 Mr. 
Lafont moved to Mississippi County, Ark. . and 
settled on Frenchman's Bayou, where he com- 
menced farming and dealing in merchandise. He 
remained there fifteen years, and then moved to 
Sans Souci, where he has resided ever since. In 
1853 Mr. Lafont was married to Miss Malinda 
Chote. of Massac County, 111., and nine children 
have been born to this union, of whom six have 
died. The names of all are Augustus (deceased), 
Eugene, Lina, Fannie, Mary (deceased), Willie 
(deceased), Charles (deceased), Walter (deceased), 
and Dickey (deceased). Mr. Lafont met with a 
sad misfortune in disagreeing with his wife, and 
was legally divorced; after a suificient period of time 
he was married to Miss lola Hanna, of Illinois, 
daughter of Dr. John Hanna, of Massac County, 
111. , from which union they have had three chil- 
dren: Clarence (deceased). Edgar (deceased) and 
Grover Cleveland. Sans Souci has a valuable citi- 
zen in Mr. Lafont and one to whom she can point 
with pride. No man has displayed more enter- 



prise and desire to see his county and his town 
(Osceola) take rank among the most important 
places of Arkansas than this gentleman, and cer- 
tainly no citizen enjoys a greater popularity than 
he does, both in business and social circles. 

Clarence Lafont. Nowhere in all Mississippi 
County is to be found any young man of more 
energy or force of character than Clarence Lafont 
possesses, and no young agriculturist is deserving 
of greater success in the conduct and management 
of a farm than he. His birth occurred near where 
Osceola now stands, on what is called Hill Place, 
and he is the son of N. B. and Viola V. (Willson) 
Lafont. The father was born in the State of Mis- 
souri, and moved to Osceola. Ark., in about 1867. 
Being a man alive to all business enterprises, he 
not only engaged in agricultural pui-suits, but in 
connection also carried on merchandising for two 
years. After this he continued farming, and in 
1870 purchased about 300 acres of land on French- 
man's Bayou, located there and cultivated about 
200 acres of land. He was a man well known and 
much respected for his many good qualities, and 
his death, which occurred in 1885, was universally 
regretted. He left two children: Miss Ella, now 
residing in Osceola, and Clarence. The latter re- 
ceived his education at Covington, Tenn., and in 
the public schools of Osceola. After the death of 
his father he cleared 100 acres of land, and now all 
together has 300 acres of cleared land and several 
hundred acres of timber. This year, besides his 
own land, he has rented 100 acres, and runs from 
thirty to seventy-five hands, whom he supplies 
from his store. This year he will raise on the 
home place some 200 bales of cotton, at a cost of 
about .$10 per bale. Mr. Lafont is only twenty- 
three years of age, but for good management and 
other business qualifications his equal is not to be 
foiind in the county. He carries on a farm of from 
100 to 300 acres, and, while cotton is the principal 
crop, he also raises enough corn to last through the 
year. 

F. R. Lanier. A lifetime of hard, earnest en- 
deavor, in pursuing the various occupations in 
which he has been engaged, especially in his 
farming enterprises, coupled with strict integrity. 



f 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



523 






honesty of purpose and liberality, has tended to 
place Mr. Lanier among the highly honored and 
.successful men of Mississippi County. H<! was 
born in the city of Nashville, Tenn., in 1829, and 
is a son of Isaac H. and grandson of Isaac Lanior, 
the latter being one of a large family that were 
born in the State of North Carolina. The mater- 
nal grandfather, Bernard Vanleer, was an iron 
manufacturer of Pennsylvania, but afterward re- 
moved to Tennessee, where he followed the same 
occupation, and made a large fortune, his son-in- 
law, Isaac H. Lanier, being associated with him 
in this business. When the latter had acquired 
sutKcient means he came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., in 1832, and purchased a tract of land, con- 
sisting of 1,500 acres, on which he moved his fam- 
ily four years later, his children being Samuel B. 
and F. R. His landed possessions increased until 
they finally reached an extent of 3,000 acres, all of 
which was acquired by strict perseverance, and at- 
tention to business. His death, which was lament- 
ed by all who knew him, occurred in 1847, but, 
unlike many men, he left his wife and two sons 
well j)rovided for. His eldest son, S. B. , died in 
1872, and his widow survived him until 1884, 
when she, too, died, having made her home with 
her son, F. R., up to the time of her death. The 
latter was favored with exceptionally fine educa- 
tional advantages, which he improved to the ut- 
most extent, and after attending the common 
schools of Nashville he went to school at Ran- 
dolph, and also to the Mountain Academy at Cov- 
ington, Toun. , becoming thereby well equipped to 
fight his own way in the world. At the age of 
twenty years he went to Brownsport. Tenn., and 
built what was known as Brownsport Furnace, it 
being the first hot-blast furnace built in the State, 
and was for many years one of the largest ftirnaees 
in the State. After managing this successfully 
for about four years he sold out, and moved back 
to the plantation, on which he remained until the 
breaking out of the war between the States. In 
1861 he was elected to represent the people of Mis- 
sissippi County in the convention that passed the 
ordinance of secession, which convened the 4th of 
March, 1861, and in which the State was withdrawn 



from the Union, and Mr. Lanier signed his name 
to this ordinance. Only two copies are in exist 
euce, one of which he has in his possession, and 
keeps in a safe in Memphis. In company with the 
late Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, who was afterward 
governor of Kentucky, ho volunteered as aid on 
the staff of Gen. Sterling Price, and it was but a 
short time until be was appointed inspector of 
mines and furnaces for the Confederate States, 
which position he held until he was captured at 
Selma, Ala., in April, 1865, by Gen. Wilson, from 
whom he succeeded in making his escape. He 
then, after the surrender of the Southern army, 
made his way home, which he reached without any 
means whatsoever with which to improve his farm 
and clear it of debt, it having become badly in- 
volved for security debts. He settled in Memphis, 
and engaged in the real estate business, in partner- 
ship with Mr. Monsarratt and Maj. R. C. Winter 
smith, the firm taking the name of Monsarratt. 
Lanier & Co. They did exceptionally well in this 
business for a few years, then Mr. Lanier em- 
barked in the oil industry, establishing the Bluff 
City Oil Company, the oil being manufactured from 
the cotton seed. He remained in this business 
until he acquired sufficient means with which to 
clear his farm from debt — it being involved to the 
extent of $75,000— and in 1885 settled on the old 
homestead, which he commenced to put in tillable 
shape once more, it having grown up to brush and 
wood during his absence. Since returning he has 
cleared about 300 acres in the home place and 130 
acres in a farm adjacent. He employs about lOd 
people on his plantations. In 1882 he made a trip 
to Europe, in the interest of the cotton-seed oil busi 
ness, and visited all the principal cities of Great 
Britain — Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manches 
ter, Leeds, Hull, on the North Sea, and took a 
pleasure trip to Paris. He investigated many of 
the cotton-seed oil-mills of the old world, and says 
that they make much more oil in Europe than thev 
do in the United States, although they get the 
most of their seed from this country, Egypt and 
India. In 1855 he was married to Miss Martha 
Norvell, a daughter of Moses Norvell, a merchant 
of Nashville, Tenn. . who died there the year be- 



A 



r)24 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fore his daughter's marriage, followed by his wife 
a few years later. Mrs. Lanier died in Memphis, 
Tenn. , in 1885, never having borne any children. 
Mrs. Lanier, the mother of our subject, died in 
1884, at her son's home in Memphis. Mr. Lanier 
has always been active in politics, and is a Democrat 
in his views. He also belongs to the I. O. O. F., 
and for many years has been a member of the Epis- 
copal Church. 

Felix R. Lanier, Jr., is a member of the well- 
knovm and .substantial mercantile tirm of L. A. 
Morris & Co., of Osceola, and although quite a 
young man he has attained a place among the 
mercantile interests of the county, which is by no 
means an inferior one, and one which many older 
in years and experience might well feel proud to 
occupy. His birth occurred in Mississippi County, 
Ark., in 1857, and he is the youngest child born 
to Samuel B. and Fannie (Falls) Lanier. [See 
sketch of Felix R. Lanier, Sr. ] His paternal 
grandfather, Isaac H. Lanier, was greatly inter- 
ested in iron manufacturing in Tennessee, and 
came to this county at an early day, being one of 
the pioneers of the county. Soon after coming 
here, he was joined by his sons, Felix and Samuel, 
and they purchased a large tract of laud on the 
river eight miles below where Osceola now stands. 
There they made many extensive improvements, 
but the old farm has since been entirely swept away. 
Upon the death of the grandfather, the estate be- 
came the property of the boys, and after the death 
of Samuel, his brother Felix became the owner of 
the property. Felix R. Lanier, Jr. , assisted on the 
farm and attended the school at Memphis until the 
age of eighteen years. He then returned to the 
arduous duties of the farm, and this occupation 
continued until a short time since. On February 
20, 1888, he was united in marriage to Miss Lloyd 
Taylor, a native of Osceola, and the result of this 
union has been one child, a son named Felix. In 
February of 1888, the year of his marriage, Mr. 
Lanier entered the business of L. A. Morris as 
partner, under the firm name of L. A. Morris & 
Co. They do a general commission business, buy- 
ing country produce, cotton, etc. Having been a 
resident of Mississippi County all his life, Mr. 



Lanier has seen many changes in the country, and 
always takes an active intei'est in all things per- 
taining to the welfare of the county. He is a 
member of the Presbyterian Church. 

J. A. Leatherwood is a man whom nature seems 
to have especially designed to be a planter, for, 
owing to his desire to keep out of the beaten 
path, and to his adoption of new and improved 
methods, together with industry and good judg- 
ment, he has met with more than the average 
degree of success in pursuing his calling. He 
was born in Tishomingo County, Miss., in 1858, 
and there received his education in the dis- 
trict schools, which, in his day, were not of the 
best. At the age of nineteen years he began clerk- 
ing in a store belonging to S. N. De Woody, who 
was afterward succeeded by J. J. Comon & Co. , of 
whom Gov. Stone, of Mississippi, was the ' ' Co. ' ' 
and the leading member of the firm. He remained 
with them for about three years, acquiring a 
thorough knowledge of the business in all its de- 
tails. In 1885 he came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., where he settled on a plantation with his 
brother, J. D. Leatherwood, thej- renting a tract 
of land consisting of 200 acres, which they devoted 
to the raising of cotton, and employed from twenty 
to thirty hands. Two years later they rented the 
Idaho Landing plantation, which place they have 
leased for seven years. They have a steam cotton- 
gin, and aside from this and farming they are quite 
extensively engaged in conducting a mercantile 
establishment, and are in possession of the landing 
at the river, where they conduct a large woodyard. 
J. A. Leatherwood is a member of Lodge No. 180, 
of the K. of H. J. D. Leatherwood is a native of 
Tishomingo County, Miss., where he was born in 
1861, his educational advantages being about the 
same as his brother's. On reaching manhood he 
engaged in the livery business in luka, Miss., but 
at the end of three years came with his brother to 
Mississippi County, Ark., where he has since been 
following the occupation of a jalanter and mer- 
chant. In 1887 he was married to Miss Dixie Dean 
of luka. Miss., by whom he had one child. Lloyd, 
who died in infancy. 

James Liston. There are many citizens of for- 



^ <i 



'.^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



525 



eign birth represented within the pages of this 
volume, but none are more deserving of mention 
than Mr. Liston, who was born in Irehmd in 1838, 
and was the youngest in a family of four children, 
the result of the union of Patrick and Julia (Ahern) 
Liston. The parents emigrated to the United 
States in 1847, settled in Kentucky and there the 
father followed agricultural pursuits. Thoy passed 
the balance of their days in that State, the mother 
dying in 1853 and the father in 18(57. James Lis- 
ton attended St. Peter's school in Louisville, un- 
til fifteen years of age, when he went to Iowa and 
was engaged in working on a farm for two years. 
He then came back to Louisville and clerked in a 
wholesale grain house until 18()'2, when he went to 
Nashville, Tenn., and was employed as wagon 
master until 186f). After this he returned to 
Louisville, where he commenced the grocery and 
general hauling business until 1870, when he discon- 
tinued this and commenced railroad contract work 
on the Louisville & Paducah Railroad, also the 
Brownville & Durham Railroad. He then resumed 
his former business in Louisville, which he carried 
on tor one year, and then, in 1873, came to Osceola, 
where he worked for W. P. Hale as general work- 
man for about six j^ears. During this time he started 
a small store, which was conducted by his family. 
In 1S7U he started his present extensive business, 
which has been growing larger every year. Mr. 
Liston purchased quite extensive town property, 
which is yearly advancing in value. He also owns 
a half interest in a tract of 100 acres in the south- 
ern part of the county. He is quite active, polit- 
ically, and has held the offices of justice of the peace 
and treasurer of the county, also the position of al- 
derman, with the exception of four years, ever since 
the incorporation of the town in 187-1. Mr. Lis- 
ton buys all country produce, cotton, etc., and has 
a well selected stock of goods. He met Miss 
Honora O'Donell, also a native of Ireland, and 
was united in marriage to her in 1857. This happy 
union has been blessed by the birth of three chil- 
dren, only one now living, Anna. The two de- 
ceased are Patrick and Michael. Mr. Liston is an 
active worker in school matters, and all things prom- 
ising to contribute to the good of this section. 



William Long is deserving the success which 
has attended his efforts throughout life, for it has 
been his aim to be upright and honest, and he has 
wronged no one but has aided many. He has 
always been frugal and industrious, those sterling 
qualities being inherited from his sturdy Scotch 
and German ancestors, and he is an acknowledged 
representative agriculturist of the county. He was 
born in White County, 111., in 1830, and was the 
fourth of a family of seven children born to the 
marriage of Harbart Long and Mrs. Elizabeth 
(Rutledge) Peak, the former being born in North 
Carolina and the latter in South Carolina. The 
father was a sturdy tiller of the soil, and met his 
death by drowning in 1835, followed by his wife's 
death five years later. Like so many of the sub- 
stantial citizens of this county at the present time, 
our .subject was initiated into farm "life from the 
very first, and this has continued to be the call- 
ing to which his attention has been directed. He 
settled in the northeast part of Mississippi County 
in 1853, and first worked as a farm hand, and later 
rented ground for a few years. In 1860 he bought 
eighty acres in Chickasawba Township, near the 
present town of Blythesville, on which he began im- 
mediately to make improvements, and soon had a 
house built and a number of acres under cultiva- 
tion, but the war interfered with his labors, for he 
was taken prisoner in 1864. After obtaining his 
release he entered the Confederate service, being 
a member of Capt. Sawyer's company. Twenty- 
third Arkansas Cavalry, and was on scout and 
skirmish duty. Since the cessation of hostilities 
he has given his time to developing and improving 
his property, and has fifty of his 160 acres of land 
under tillage. His farm is very advantageously 
situated, about one mile from Blythesville, and can 
nearly all be cultivated. On it, at the present 
time, is a splendid orchard with many varieties of 
choice fruits. In 1877 he and T. P. Davis built a 
horse-gin which they operated one year, then an 
engine was put in, and the next year Mr. Long 
became proprietor of the property, which he has 
since improved and enlarged considerably. In the 
fall of 1888 he ginned 464 bales of cotton. He 
was united in marriage in May, 1857, to Miss M. 



\ 



526 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



A. Turpin, and their union was blessed in the 
birth of the following family : Mary E. , wife of A. 
J. Nippin, of this county; Alice, who died at the 
age of three years; Hettie, who died in infancy; 
Martha Ann, Emma D.. John H. , and one that 
died in infancy unnamed. Mrs. Long is a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Long 
has inherited many of the sterling qualities of his 
father, and is in every way a conservative, public- 
spirited citizen. 

John A. Lovewell, a prominent farmer, and at 
present deputy sheriff of Mississippi County, Ark., 
is a native of Warrick County, Ind. , born in 1848, 
and the younger of two sons born to William A. 
and Charlotte (Bohall) Lovewell, natives of New 
York and Indiana, respectively. The father was 
a building contractor, and while following this 
business in Natchez, Miss., in 1850, he was taken 
sick and died. The mother followed him to the 
grave nine years later. She was married again 
after the death of her fir.st husband, and in 1856 
the family emigrated to Arkansas. John A. Love- 
well was taught the rudiments of farming in the 
State of Arkansas, and commenced for himself at 
an early age. He came to Osceola in 1863, and 
in 1870 rented land and made his first crop. Two 
years later he met and married Mrs. Margaret 
Murray, nee Edington, a native of Mississippi 
County, and the daughter of William B. Edington, 
who came to Arkansas at an early period, and 
bought from the Indians the land where Osceola 
now stands. He was extensively engaged in till- 
ing the soil there until his death. Since his mar- 
riage Mr. Lovewell has been engaged in farming 
on a .small scale, and the energetic and wide-a- 
wake manner in which he has taken advantage of 
all methods and ideas tending to enhance the 
value of his property has had a great deal to do 
with his obtaining the competence which ho now 
enjoys. In 1881-82, he was the county assessor, 
and prior to this he was constable for two years. 
At present he is serving as deputy under Sheriff 
Hayes. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Love- 
well have been born seven children, four now liv- 
ing: James H. , John Freeman, Poindexter Dunn 
and Hugh McVeigh. Those deceased are Lena 



who died August 28, 1874, at the age of three 
years; Margaret Lula, who died in infancy, and 
Harry G., who died July 16, 1886, at the age of 
three years. 

Dudley Lynch, another prominent tiller of the 
soil in Mississippi County, Ark., is a native of the 
Blue Grass State, where he was born on the 28th 
of March, 1815, and is one of sixteen children born 
to Jerry and Mary Ann Lynch, natives of South 
Carolina and Kentucky, respectively. The father 
was a prominent farmer in his native State, and 
died in Hickman. Dudley Lynch assisted his 
father in the necessary duties upon the farm until 
fifteen years of age, and then began working on a 
Government snag boat, which occupation he fol- 
lowed during the winter season for a number of 
years. On April 13, 1837, he came to Arkansas, 
settled in Mississippi County, where he was engaged 
in getting out cypress stave shingles, and was also 
engaged in the general lumber business. At the 
same time he entered a tract of land, 160 acres, on 
which he still resides. Mr. Lynch was married to 
Miss Wallace in 1846, and two children were the 
result of this union, both now deceased; Robert 
Dennis and Mary. His second marriage was with 
Elizabeth Hearn, a native of Kentucky, and the 
daughter of Joseph Hearn, an early settler of this 
county. Three living children are the result of 
this marriage: Beckey, wife of Mr. McKinney; 
Martha, wife of Mr. Martin, residing on our sub- 
ject's farm, and Dudley, who married Miss Jennie 
Lock, and resides at Lynch Landing. Mrs. Lynch 
died January 2, 1861. For his third wife Mr. 
Lynch chose, in 1865, Mrs. Martha Ann Bertt 
(widow of Joseph Bertt, a native of Wisconsin). 
Mrs. Bertt was a native of Missouri, and was the 
mother of one child by her first marriage, V. V. 
Bertt, who is at present mail agent on the Anchor 
Line steamboats. Mr. Bertt enlisted in the Con- 
federate army soon after his marriage, and served 
with Gen. Price. He was wounded at Springfield, 
and died there soon after. His son, V. V. Bertt, 
attended the public schools of Osceola for a num- 
ber of years, and spent his youth on his step- 
father's farm. In 1887 he was employed on the 
Government works at Memphis, and on February 



^31 - 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



527 



28, 1889, he secured his appointment as mail agent 
on the above named steamboats, which position he 
holds at the present time. Van. , as he is familiarly 
called, is a young man of pleasing manners, cour- 
teous and agreeable, and one of the rising young 
men of this section. To the marriage of Mr. and 
Mrs. Lynch these children have been born: 
Minerva Emma, wife of F. L. McGee, residing 
near Elmot; John D. , who died at the age of seven- 
teen years; Peter Calvin, who was accidentally shot 
on the 21st of November, 1884; Julia Ann, James 
L. and Lena Lillian. On the tract of land that 
Mr. Lynch originally entered he now has the en- 
tire tract under cultivation, all well fenced, with a 
good orchard. He has other farms which he has 
improved, and his children are residing on these. 
Lynch' s Landing, which was opened on Mr. 
Lynch's jilace in ISSl, was named in honor of him. 
Margaret L. McFadden, the widow of Kobert 
McFadden, and a daughter of John Hill, was born 
in Tennessee in 18-iO. Her father moved to Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., in 1858, and settled on 
Frenchman's Bayou, being one of the pioneers of 
of that section. Here he bought a tract of land 
which had very few improvements on it, but he 
soon put it in such good condition that he sold it 
at a handsome profit. He next bought IfiO acres 
of land, with about half of it cleared, on Carson's 
Lake, and after an active and busy life died, in 
1872, at this place, two years previous to his wife's 
decease. His daughter, Margaret, was married, in 
ISfifi, to Mr. McFadden. of Tennessee, in which 
State the young couple made their home until Mrs. 
McFadden' 8 father died, when they removed to 
Arkatisas, and settled in Mississippi County. One 
•hundred and sixty acres of partly improved land 
were purchased on Frenchman's Bayou, which Mr. 
^IcFadden added to during his life until he had 
all together 500 acres of the best land in that sec- 
tion, and 100 acres of it cleared. He was an ac- 
tive worker in educational matters, and served 
several terms as school director. His natural 
leaning toward oratory led him to adopt the pulpit, 
and shortly afterward he was ordained a ]\rission- 
ary Baptist preacher. It was in this capacity that 
he became widely known, and he was one of the 



most highly esteemed citizens of that section. His 
death occurred in 1884, and since his demise Mrs. 
McFadden has continued the farming interests; 
up to date she has cleared sixty additional acres, 
besides buying 200 acres more. She is a woman 
of tine business aliility, and understands thorough- 
ly how to conduct her various affairs. She also 
owns a herd of fine stock, and her natural shrewd- 
ness and good judgment in all matters of business 
are well known. Mrs. McFadden is a member of 
the Frenchman's Bayou Baptist Church, and lis- 
tens to sermons from the same pulpit in which her 
worthy husband preached in his life-time. Their 
union sfave them five children: Paulina, who died 
at the age of twelve years: Katie Lee. who died 
in her third year; James R., who died when 
three years of age; Laura and John R. , the latter 
attending school at Crardner, Tenn. In John 
H. Hill's family there were eleven children, of 
whom two died in infancy, and nine lived to ma- 
turity: Parthenia, married to Joseph Holmes, and 
died in 1877; Martha Ann, married in 1855, her 
husband being James Grant, and died August 25, 
1862; the next child was Mrs. McFadden; then John 
M. , who died in 1879; George Washington, who 
died from yellow fever in 1873; Andrew J., who 
died in 1877 ; Kate V. , wife of John Sissel, a resident 
of Frenchman's Bayou; Bethel, who died in 1889, 
and Joseph N. Mrs. McFadden is a charming 
lady, and very popular with her neighbors, and 
though often urged to change her widowhood and 
become once more a bride, she still remains true to 
the memory of her departed husband. 

Edward J. McGavock (deceased) was a man well 
known to the early settlers of Mississippi County. 
Ark., and was respected for his manly, straight- 
forward course through life, and beloved by all for 
his noble Christian qualities of mind and heart. He 
was a son of Jacob McGavock of Nashville, Tenn.. 
and was liorn in that city December 17, 1828, be- 
ing favored in his youth with exceptionally fine 
educational opportunities, which ho did not fail to 
improve. He entered the Nashville University, of 
which institution his grandfather, Felix Grundy, 
and his uncle, J. M. Bass, were trustees at the same 
time that Gen. Andrew Jackson was a member of 



:r 



A 



528 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the board, aud to his excellent natural abilities he 
added a line education. About the year 1832, Fe- 
lix Grundy, with his two sons-in-law, John M. 
Bass and Jacob McGavock, came to Mississippi 
County, Ark. , and purchased large tracts of land 
at and about Pecan Point, which included the 
Shawnee Village and Dickinson's Mill, the whole 
13urchase consisting of about 20,000 acres, besides 
about 3,000 acres on the lower end of Island No. 
35, lying opposite Pecan Point. All this property 
is still retained in the family, with the exception of 
1 , 500 acres, now owned by E. W. Friend of Pecan 
Point. Edward J. McGavock was the third child in 
a family of seven children born to Jacob and Louisa 
C. (Grundy) McGavock [a history of whom is given 
in the sketch of Dr. McGavock]. After leaving 
college, he was married to Miss Ella Young of 
Mississippi, aud soon after began taking charge of 
the Pecan Point plantation, which he successfully 
managed until the opening up of the war, when he 
enlisted in the Fifty-seventh Tennessee Regiment, 
Confederate States Army, and was an active par- 
ticipant in many fierce engagements. He was at 
Franklin, Tenn., where the Confederate troops 
made one of their finest charges, and during his 
military career was appointed to the position of 
assistant quartermaster-general, which position he 
held until the close of the war. He then returned 
to the Pecan Point plantation, in Mississippi Coun- 
ty, where he continued to make his home until his 
death, which occurred April 7, 1880, in New Or 
leans, La., having been, during life, among the 
foremost planters of Mississippi County, and a 
man of irreproachable moials. His first wife died 
in 1861, after giving birth to three children, all of 
whom grew to maturity : Frank Young McGavock, 
a sketch of whom appears farther on; Louise, 
the wife of Dr. Tyner, of Texas, where she died 
withoiit issue, and Ella, who was married to Shel- 
don Wilson, of New Orleans, and now resides in 
Florida, the mother of one child. While at Col- 
umbus, Miss., in 1866, Mr. McGavock was married 
to Miss Elizabeth Scott Eskridge, by whom he be- 
came the father of two children: Mary Eskridge, 
who is an accomplished young lady, and has been 
attending school at Baltimore, Md., and Ed. J., 



who is receiving his education at Hanover, Va. , 
and is now at Hot Springs, Ark., for his health. 
Mrs. McGavock' s father. Judge T. P. Eskridge, 
was a resident of Crittenden County, Ark., but 
originally came from Virginia, where he belonged 
to one of the first families of that State. He re- 
ceived a collegiate education, and shortly after (in 
1821) came to Mississippi County, Ark., the coun- 
try at that time being almost wholly a wilderness, 
inhabited by Indians and wild animals. He be- 
came a member of the superior court of the Terri- 
tory, and took an active part in all the affairs of 
the State until his death, which occurred in Crit- 
tenden County in 1835. He left two children: B. 
Byrum E. and Elizabeth Scott E. His death was 
deeply lamented by his widow and children, and 
by his many friends throughout the Territory. His 
wife was Miss Mary Byrum, a daughter of Benja- 
min S. Byrum, of Concordia Parish, La. They 
are of old French Huguenot stock, their ancestors 
having taken refuge in America in the last century. 
Mrs. McGavock and her family are pleasantly sit- 
uated on the bank of the Mississippi River at 
Pecan Point. The house is a large, old-fashioned 
biiilding, and is siuTounded by a large peach and 
apple orchard, back of which is one of the finest 
plantations in the county, consisting of 1,000 acres 
of land, of which 300 or 400 acres are in a fine state 
of cultivation. The sisters and brothers of E. J. 
McGavock are Mrs. J. B. Lindsley, Nashville: Mrs. 
James Todd, Louisville, Ky. ; Dr. F. G. McGavock, 
Ark. ; John J. McGavock, Fayetteville, Ark. 

Dr. F. G. McGavock, proprietor of the McGa- 
vock plantation, and whose postoflice is in the 
southern part of Mississippi County, is one of 
those rare characters now so seldom met. A real 
Southern gentleman, in his veins flows the best 
blood of America, and of this the Doctor is justly 
proud. His mother was the daughter of Felix 
Grundy, of Nashville, Tenn., who was contempo- 
rary with Andrew Jackson. Mr. Grundy, in com- 
pany with his two sons-in-law, Jacob McGavock 
(father of the subject of this sketch) aud John M. 
Bass, all of Nashville, made large purchases of 
land in the southern part of Mississippi County, 
Ark., about the year 1833, on which they opened 



^. 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



7^2U 



up large plantHtions with slave labor. At the same 
time they held their residence in Nashville, where 
Dr. F. G. McGavock was born in the year 1882. 
James McGavock, the great-great-grandfather of 
the Doctor, came from County Antrim, Ireland, in 
1728, and settled in Rockbridge County, Va., 
where he became acquainted with Miss Mary Cloyd, 
daughter of David Cloyd, to whom he was mar- 
ried in 1700. They then moved to Wythe County, 
Va. , where they raised a large family, and became 
very wealthy in the course of time. His son, 
Hugh McGavock, was proprietor of the Max Mead- 
ows estate, which is still in the family. Here was 
Ijorn Jacob McGavock, the father of the Doctor, 
in 171(0. At the age of twenty-two he went to 
Nashville, Tenn., acting as deputy in the circuit 
clerk's office for a few years, when he was ap- 
pointed United States circuit clei'k, which position 
he held until the breaking out of the Rebellion, 
when he acted in, the same capacity for the Confed- 
eracy. When the Federal troops took Nashville, 
Mr. McGavock was arrested for high treason, but 
was released on the evidence of Judge Catron, 
then of the Suisrerae Court of the United States, 
who testified that Mr. McGavock had turned his 
l)Ooks over to the United States intact, having hid- 
den them in his cellar, while other clerks allowed 
their books and records to be destroyed. Mr. 
McGavock was married to Miss Louisa C. Grundj', 
who was about ten years his junior, and both 
lived to a ripe old age, dying in Nashville, Tenn. , 
within one year of each other, he at the age of 
ninety -one years, and she at the age of eighty-one. 
They reared seven children, all of whom have had 
large interests in Mississippi County. Armie, wife 
of Judge Henry Dickenson, inherited the planta- 
tion known as the Dickenson Mills; it is now 
owned by Jacob McGavock Dickenson, her son, a 
rising young lawyer of Nashville, Tenn. Col. 
Randall W. McGavock was killed at the head of 
his regiment at Raymond, iEiss. , in the Confeder- 
ate cause; he was a graduate of the University 
of Nashville. Sallie, wife of Prof. J. B. Linds- 
ley,of Nashville, was given a large estate near Pecan 
Point, which is now owned by her son, J. McGa- 
vock Lindsley, who resides in Nashville, but spends 



part of his time on the estate. Ed. J. McGavock 
[see portrait and sketch]. F. G. , the subject of 
this sketch [see portrait]. John J., of Fayetto- 
ville, Ark., who recently disposed of a large es- 
tate in the county. Mary, wife of James Todd, 
of Louisville, Ky., owns 3,000 acres of the McGa- 
vock estate at the foot of Island 35, opposite Pe- 
can Point. Dr. F. G. McGavock graduated fi-om 
the University at Chapel Hill, N. C. , and also from 
the University of Nashville. Shortly after gradu- 
ating Dr. McGavock married Miss Mary M. Bos 
tick, daughter of John Bostick, of Triune, Tenn. 
On her marriage she came in possession of a large 
number of slaves, whom the Doctor used in open 
ing up the Shawnee Village estate, consisting of 
1,800 acres of woodland, on the ground that the 
noted outlaw, John A. Merrill, made famous by 
making it his stronghold. Previous to that it had 
been the camp of the Shawnee Indians, and there 
now stands on this estate one of the largest 
mounds in the county, which contains bones and 
pottery of a race apparently superior to and ante- 
dating the Indians. In plowing and digging on 
this place the remains of what appears to have 
been a brick pavement are found. In some in- 
stances large pieces of well-preserved brick, which 
had been buried for ages, have been brought to the 
surface. This is all within a square of about 
twelve acres, around which, on three sides, is a 
well-defined ridge. There were about three acres 
cleared at the time the Doctor took hold, and in 
1880 he made his only living daughter a present 
of the estate, with over 700 acres under a tine state 
of cultivation. The Doctor made his home in Tri 
une, Tenn., in summer, until after the death of 
his wife, which occurred at the Gayosa House, in 
Memphis, the day the Federal gun-boats were fight- 
ing in front of that city. He was at her bedside 
when he was made prisoner, but was given permis- 
sion to attend his dead. He took his two little 
daughters to Nashville, after which he returned to 
his plantation. About this time the people of the 
vicinity organized what was known as the Shawnee 
Legal Association, to protect themselves against 
outlaws and guerrillas. The Doctor was made 
leader and judge, and received the endorsement of 



\ 




Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut, in command of the 
Sixteenth Army Corps, at Memphis, and also of 
the Confederate general, Sterling Price. Vested 
with this authority the Doctor compelled every 
man to either join the conclave or get out of the 
neighborhood. Where a capital offense was com- 
mitted the culprit was secured and turned over to 
either the Confederate or Federal authorities, ac- 
cording to circumstances. For theft or other petty 
offenses, horsewhipping and an order to leave the 
county were deemed sufficient. If the culprit 
failed to leave, however, it generally went hard 
with him when caught again. During the war 
Dr. McGavock demonstrated the fact that cotton 
could be successfully cultivated with white labor, 
and that even delicate women could be brought 
from an entirely different climate to successfully 
work in the cotton-tield without injury to their 
health. The negroes were freed and scattered; 
white men would be conscripted by the Confeder- 
ate troojas; cotton was in demand and l)rought from 
70 to 90 cents per pound. The Doctor went to 
New York, where he engaged sixty-five Irish girls 
at Castle Garden, from fourteen to forty-five years 
of age, and with these made a contract for one 
year at $20 per month each, and board. Without 
experience, but with a little showing, these girls 
made a crop for the Doctor on which he cleared 
$45,000, after paying all expenses, and allowing 
rent for the land. He was watchful in regard to 
their health and comfort, and the large dining room 
was presided over by a corps of waiters who 
served meals prepared by the best skilled cooks 
and bakers to be found. A barrel of whisky, in 
which a few ounces of quinine were dissolved, was • 
issued to them at the rate of three drinks of two 
drams each, at intervals during the day. The 
Doctor always had a hospital with a skilled nurse, 
liut it was very seldom used, as very little sickness 
prevailed during the two years of their stay, and 
but one death occurred. These girls worked on 
the Pecan Point plantation, and during this time 
the Doctor paid the expenses of a Catholic priest 
to come and attend to their spiritual welfare, all 
being members of that church. A few years later he 
secured fifty- five German men from Castle Garden, 



and employed them successfully for one year on his 
Nodena plantation; but the best hands he ever 
worked were eighteen Chinamen, just from China, 
whom he secured in Chicago. These he employed 
on the Shawnee Village place, but they, like the 
others he imported, were enticed away by ill advis- 
ers or fiiends. In 1879 Dr. McGavock moved to his 
present place, known as ' ' McGavock ' ' (the gover- 
nor having so named the postoifice), which at that 
time was but a wilderness. It is now one of the 
finest plantations in the county, with about 640 
acres under cultivation. Here the Doctor used 
both white and colored labor, and thinks the white 
can stand the climate and work as well as the negro. 
Since moving to McGavock the Doctor has aban- 
doned the practice of medicine, which at one time 
was very extensive. He goes now only when called 
by another physician in consultation. When first 
coming to Mississippi County he established a 
nursery for the culture of fruits and flowers, experi 
menting with almost all the varieties from the 
leading nurseries of the East and North. He has 
successfully raised apples, peaches, plums, pears, 
api'icots, nectarines, cherries, figs, almonds, Eng- 
lish walnuts, filberts, and small fruits, and grapes of 
every known variety. For bees he thinks this is a 
perfect paradise, as all the flora of the woods are 
honey-bearing. He has raised within the county 
the following crops: Grass and vegetables, oats, 
rye, wheat, millet, buckwheat, tobacco, peanuts, 
white and sweet potatoes, clover, timothy, and all 
garden produce, with perfect success. The Doctor 
is now interesting himself in the improvement of 
the cattle of his district, having recently imported 
a fine Jersey bull from England, and now has 
about 100 head of the finest Jersey cows in the 
State. His daughter, Monoah, is the wife of 
William S. Bransford, of Nashville, Tenn., where 
they now reside. Mrs. Bransford is the owner of 
the Shawnee Village plantation. They have two 
bright little girls — Bessie and Louise. In 1881 
Dr. McGavock was elected to re]iresent the county 
in the State legislature, which he did to the satis 
faction of his constituents and the State, but, owing 
to his home interests, he refused to accept the 
second term. He is a member of the Odd Fellows 



-\^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



531 



and of the Masons; also of the Knights of Honor, 
of FriMiohman's Bayou, where McGavock Lodge 
was named in his honor. He is a man who has made 
fortunes, at one time being worth as much as 
$1,000,000, But wealth to him is but a means, 
and not an end, so he lavishes it as freely as he 
makes it. His hospitality is unbounded; all are 
welcome. To his equals he is courteous, to his in- 
feriors kind, and all receive that consideration due 
their station. Being a man of decided views and 
of an active temperament, he often shows his 
roughest side out, while those who know him best 
are his best friends. As he is probably better 
known than any man in the county, he has a host of 
friends, and can be classed as the most remarkable 
man in Mississippi County. 

John Harding McGavock (deceased). A glance 
at the genealogy of Mr. McGavock' s family will 
show that both his paternal and maternal ancestors 
have been extensive real estate owners, and great 
men of prominence. The McGavocks are of 
Scotch-Irish descent, and came to America before 
the Revolutionary War, settling in Virginia. 
About 1796. one of them, David, having married 
a Miss McDowel, moved with his family to 
Davidson County, Tenn., and purchased a large 
tract of land, upon a part of which the city of 
Nashville now stands. One of his sons, Frank 
Preston McGavock, married a Miss Amanda Hard- 
ing, a daughter of John Harding, and a sister of 
Gen. William G. Harding, the owner of " Belle 
Meade,"' a noted stock farm near Nashville. This 
couple became the parents of John Harding, the 
suljject of this sketch. He was reared in Nash- 
ville and educated in the State College in that city, 
receiving a diploma signed by Gen. Andrew Jack- 
son and other notables of the State. After grad- 
uating in Nashville he went to Harvard, where he 
again received a diploma signed by Edward Ever- 
ett, Greenleaf, Kent, and others. Upon his return 
to his home, his grandfather Harding, who some 
years before had come down the (Cumberland, 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in a skiff, and had 
made large purchases in Mississippi County, in- 
duced him to leave Nashville, and try the wilds of 
Arkansas. After this, although still claiming 



Nashville as his home, he spent a part of each year 
in Mississippi County, adding by purchase and 
entry to the already valuable tract given him by his 
grandfather, dividing his time between business 
and bear-hunting, in both of which he was emi 
nently successful. In 1853 ho married Mi^^ 
Georgia Moore, a daughter of Joseph I. Moore, of 
Columbus. Miss., she being a young lady of cult- 
ure and refinement, and of one of the first fami- 
lies of the State. He died in 1861, just at the 
outbreak of the Civil War, at his father's house, 
near Nashville. Of the four children born to 
him, only one remains, Mi's. Sue McGavock Grider, 
wife of Henry Grider. After the death of J. H. 
McGavock, his widow- married, in 1868, William A. 
Erwin, of Jackson, Miss., he belonging to a prom- 
inent family of that State, and who died in 1882, 
leaving one daughter, Georgia, now at school. 
Mrs. Erwin makes her home with her daughter, 
Mrs. Grider, at the old homestead "Sans-Souci," 
near Osceola, Ark. During the Civil War the 
hou.se was used by Gen. Pope as a hosjiital, the 
yard as a cemetery; though, since, the bodies have 
been removed and placed in a National cemetery. 
The fleet when it first came down the river to at- 
tack Fort Pillow, which is a few miles below Sans- 
Souci, was anchored in the river opposite the 
house. This house, which was built by John H. 
McGavock, has a broad piazza, 12x74 feet in front, 
the pillars of which are of swamp cypress, in 
their natural state, except having the bark stripped 
off, and being painted. They are fluted in the 
most beautiful and artistic manner, having the 
appearance of the work of a skillful artist, and are 
the admiration of every l)eholder. Mrs. Grider 
preserves as an heirloom the cradle in which all of 
her mother's children and her own have been rocked. 
This is a turtle shell, measuring four feet two and 
one-half inches by three feet seven inches, pol 
ished and varnished on the outside, and mounted 
upon rockers of mahogany, and wadded and lined 
on the inside with (juilted blue satin. The turtle 
was caught by Mr. McGavock, out of the Missis- 
sippi River at his own landing. 

Frank Young JIcGavock. For many years, or 
since locating in this county, Mr. McGavock has 



532 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



enjoyed the reputation of being not only a sub- 
stantial and progressive farmer, but an intelligent 
and thoroughly -posted man in all public affairs. 
He has always been noted for honorable, upright 
dealing, and has kept the name he bears, which 
has descended to him from a long line of illustrious 
and honored ancestry, pure in the sight of God 
and man. The first of the family of whom we have 
any knowledge was the father (name imknown) of 
James McGavock, who belonged to a wealthy 
family of Ireland, and who came to America in 
1728, settling in the State of Virginia, where he 
took a prominent part in the Revolutionary War, 
being a soldier in the Colonial army. James Mc- 
Gavock was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 
1720, and accompanied his father to Virginia, be- 
ing married in that State about 1760 to Miss 
Mary Cloyd, of Rockbridge County, that State. 
Their son Hugh was the original owner of ' ' Max 
Meadows," one of the finest estates of the "Old 
Dominion, ' ' which is still in possession of the Mc- 
Gavock family. His son, Jacob, the grandfather 
of our immediate subject, was born on that farm in 
1790, and in 1812 went to Nashville, Tenn., being 
appointed a short time afterward to the position of 
United States circuit clerk, which position he held 
until after the Rebellion. He was a very success- 
ful financier, and in company with his father-in- 
law, Felix Grundy, and his brother-in-law, J. M. 
Bass, all wealthy residents of Nashville, he came to 
Missi.ssippi County, Ark., about the year 1832, 
where he purchased tracts of land many thousands 
of acres in extent. He afterward bought out the 
others' interest, and subsequently a large portion 
of his fine estate fell to the late Edward J. Mc- 
Gavock, a sketch of whom appears in this work. 
The latter died in 1881, and his wife in 1861. 
Frank Young McGavock was but two years old at 
the time of his mother's death, and from that period 
until the close of the war he made his home with 
his maternal aunt, Mrs. Laura Whitfield, whose 
husband was the eldest son of ex-Gov. Whitfield, of 
Mississippi, and here he continued to make his 
home until the close of the war, when he was put 
in charge of his grandfather, Jacob McGavock, of 
Nashville, Tenn. , with whom he remained until 



eighteen years of age. His maternal grandfather 
was Frank Young, of Columbus, Miss., who was a 
leading man of his day. Mr. McGavock, our 
subject, was given every advantage for acquiring a 
good education, and was graduated from the Nash- 
ville University, at which institution his father had 
been educated, and of which his grandfather and 
great-grandfather were among the founders; and 
after leaving college he entered the wholesale gro- 
cery business at Memphis, Tenn. , continuing until 
he was twenty-five years of age. At that time he 
was married to Miss Theresa E. Perkins, a daugh- 
ter of Samuel and Theresa (Ewin) Perkins, of 
Franklin, Tenn., and after their marriage they re- 
sided in that place one year, then coming to their 
present tine estate, the McGavock plantation, which 
adjoins Pecan Point. Here they have a very pleas- 
ant home, and are the parents of one child, a bright 
little daughter, named Theresa P. , in whom all 
their affections and hopes are centered. Mr. Mc- 
Gavock belongs to the only family of his name and 
generation living in Mississippi County. 

Hon. H. M. McVeigh, attorney, Osceola. Mr. 
McVeigh is one of those men, too few in number, 
who fully recognize the truth so often urged by the 
sages of the law, that of all men, the reading and 
thought of a lawyer should be the most extended. 
Systematic reading gives a more comprehensive 
grasp to the mind, variety and richness to thought, 
and a clearer perception of the motives of men 
and the principles of things; indeed, of the very 
spirit of laws. This he has found most essential 
in the prosecution of his professional practice. Mr. 
McVeigh was born in Fauquier County, Va., in 
1839, and was the second in a family of ten chil- 
dren born to Hiram and Mary E. (White) Mc- 
Veigh, both natives of Virginia. The father was 
engaged in commercial pursuits until his death, in 
1865. The mother is still living and resides in her 
native State. Mr. McVeigh is a self-educated man, 
having had no advantages other than the common 
schools. His father, having failed in business, was 
not able to give him a collegiate education, and, 
when fourteen years of age, young McVeigh 
entered a printing office and learned that art. 
When about eighteen years of age, he began the 



*77 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



58:^ 



study of law and partly supported himself by act- 
ing as local editor of a daily paper. In 1800 and 
1801 lie studied law at Hanuibal, Mo., and was ad 
mitted to the l)ar at that place the summer before 
ho was tweuty-one years of age. While pursuing 
his legal studies he also edited, for a short time, the 
Hannibal (Mo.) Daily Messenger, and during his 
experience as a printer he worked at the cas(> in the 
office of the Hannibal Courier, Quincy (111.) Daily 
Herald, Keokuk (Iowa) Gate City, Palmyra (Mo.) 
Sentinel, Huntsville (Mo.) Citizen, and the Mexico 
(Mo. ) Ledger; also other papers. During this 
time he carefully studied the style in which the ed- 
itors expressed their thoughts, and paid particular 
attention to the style of the selected matter. When 
sixteen years of age he began to write paragraphs, 
which were accepted and printed by the editors. 
At the outbreak of the late Civil War, being a na- 
tive Virginian, and trained to believe that his 
State, like the king, "could do no wrong," he re- 
sponded to the call of Gov. Jackson, of Missouri, 
for troops, and went into camp under Gen. T. Har- 
ris, of Northeast Missouri. He was present and 
participated in several conflicts between the Federal 
and Confederate troops in Missouri, and after the 
siege and battle of Lexington, in which he took 
part, he was appointed assistant ordnance officer, 
with the rank of lieutenant. Upon the disbanding 
of the Missouri State Guards, he received author- 
ity to recruit a company for the Confederate ser- 
vice, but was captured in Northeast Missouri by a 
Federal cavalry regiment, and, after remaining a 
prisoner on parole for nearly a year, was finally 
exchanged. He again entered the Confederate 
service, and remained in active duty in the Trans- 
Mississippi department from the winter of 1802 until 
the surrender, at which time he was the enrolling 
officer of Missis'iippi County. After the close of 
the conflict, and immediately upon the organization 
of the courts of Arkansas, Mr. McVeigh began the 
practice of law iu that State. He also began a 
regular systematic cours(> of study, supplied him- 
self with books, and soon had in his possession 
translations of all the ancient classics, and the best 
English standard works on history! poetry and 
essays. A taste for reading thus acquired he con- 



tinues to this day, and has thus given himself an 
education particularly adapted to his situation and 
circumstances in life. It will be seen from this 
account, that though without a thorough early ed- 
ucation, he has so improved the later years of his 
life that he is now known throughout the State as 
a gentleman of literary ability and learning. He 
was married on November 1, 18R4, to Miss Susan 
Fletcher, a native of Mississippi County, Ark. , 
and the daughter of Col. Elliot H. Fletcher, a 
distinguished citizen of Arkansas [see sketch]. 
Mr. McVeigh continued to devote himself exclu- 
sively to the practice of law until 1872, when he 
was nominated by acclamation as the Democratic 
candidate to represent Mississippi County in the 
State legislature. He had been nominated by the 
Democrats in 1870, but. on account of a severe at- 
tack of malarial fever, which confined him to his 
bed, he declined to be a candidate at that time. 
However, he accepted the nomination in 1872 and 
at once entered upon his canvass, meeting in debate 
Judge Charles Fitzpatrick, then the leader of the 
opposite party iu Mississippi County. It was dur- 
ing the fall of this year that the race trouble broke 
out in this county, resulting in the death of the 
sheriff and the invasion of the town of Osceola by 
from 400 to 500 armed negroes, who threatened 
to burn and destroy the place. Mr. McVeigh was 
in the town when the negroes entered, and, moimt- 
ing a platform in fiont of a store (the same upon 
which the sheriff had been killed the day before), 
he called the insurgents around him and addressed 
them in the interest of peace and order. They 
listened attentively, although very menacing at first, 
and at the conclusion of a fifteen minutes' speech 
he put it to a vote as to whether they should 
peaceably disperse and go to their homes. They 
voted in the affirmative, and at the end of a half 
hour, the town was cleared of their ))resence, and 
the threatened damage averted, for at least the 
time being. It will l)e seen in the historical por 
tion of the volume the fiiuil result of this insur 
rection. In the fall Mr. McVeigh was elected to 
the legislature. During the session, which com- 
menced in January, 1N73, he introduced the bill to 
found the Arkansas a.sylum for the insane, a 




measure which originated with him, and which he 
had declared his inteation to bring about before he 
went to the capital. The bill was referred to the 
committee on ways and means, and, after many de- 
lays, that committee reported against the passage 
of the bill. Mr. McVeigh, through a friend, 
asked for a consideration of the bill in committee 
of the whole House, and on February 4, 1873, he 
made a speech in favor of the same that caused his 
name to be known throughout the State of Arkansas. 
The committee rose, and unanimously reported in 
favor of the bill. The next day it passed the 
House, almost unanimously, passed the Senate by a 
similar vote, was signed by the governor and be- 
came a law. The appropriation, owing to the de- 
preciation of State scrip, in consequence of the 
Brooks-Baxter war, which immediately followed, 
was insufficient to carry on the work, and the build- 
ing was not erected until Mr. McVeigh was re- 
turned to the legislature, in 1881. He brought the 
subject up again, and the legislature made a suffi- 
cient appropriation to complete the work. This 
magnificent structure was opened for the reception 
of patients in 1882, and the very first article 
to be placed in the parlor of the asylum was a 
life-size oil painting of Mr. McVeigh, placed there 
by the board of trustees in acknowledgment of 
his earnest and successful efforts in behalf of the 
insane of the State. Mr. McVeigh took a very 
active interest in the legislature of 1873, always 
aiming to advance the real interests of the State. 
He made an effective speech against Brooks' peti- 
tion to contest the right of Gov. Baxter to hold 
the office of governor. His speech against the 
metropolitan police bill, against the so-called 
civil rights bill and other extreme and revolu- 
tionary measures, introduced at this session, were 
highly commended by all parties at that time. 
Upon the adjournment of the legislature Mr. Mc- 
Veigh was appointed prosecuting attorney for the 
Eleventh judicial circuit, composed of Poinsett, 
Cross, St. Francis, Crittenden and Mississippi 
Counties. He held this position for nearly two 
years, or until the adoption of the present State 
constitution, and to the entire satisfaction of the 
good people of the circuit. He continued to prac- 



tice law with increasing success until the year 1880, 
when he was again urged to become a candidate 
for representative. He was elected by a large 
plurality, and served through the session of 1881. 
He was an active member of the House, and during 
the session induced the legislature to adopt the 
law limiting the right to donate the public lands to 
actual settlers. The measure was advocated while 
making his canvass before the electors of Mississippi 
County. On the 4th of July, 1881, by invitation, 
he addressed an audience of over 6,000 people at 
Ozark, Ark. , on the subject of Local Option. In 
1883 he was appointed by the governor as one of 
the board of visitors to the State University and 
there, by invitation of the students of the institu- 
tion, he delivered the commencement oration. His 
subject was "The Responsibility of Freemen." 
The governor of the State, the president. Gen. D. 
H. Hill, the faculty of the university, senators and 
representatives in Congress, judges and distin- 
guished men from different parts of the State were 
present, besides the students and citizens living in 
the vicinity. The address was highly commended 
both by the press and by all present. On Septem- 
ber 24, 1883, Mr. McVeigh was proposed and 
elected a member of the Pennsylvania Historical 
Society, an honor unsought and unexpected by him. 
He is also a member of the Arkansas Historical 
Society. He has written the "Primitive History 
of Arkansas'" during the French and Spanish oc- 
cupation; giving an account of the settlement in 
the State for the last century, beginning with 
Henry De Tonti's settlement at Arkansas Post, in 
1685. The work is in manuscript and was under- 
taken merely to preserve the early history of the 
State, and not from a desire for literary distinction. 
He has given a full account of the invasion of the 
country by De Soto, his line of march, and has 
taken great pains to identify the localities men- 
tioned by the historians who accompanied that 
expedition. Except the time Mr. McVeigh served 
in the legislature, he has been engaged exclusively 
in the practice of law, and no man in Eastern Ar- 
kansas has been more assiduous in his devotion to 
the duties of his profession. His business has al- 
ways been very good, and he has made it the aim 




,u 



of his life to deserve the implicit confidence of 
his clients. Had Mr. McVeigh's lot been cast in a 
more central or thickly .settled county, his 'ora- 
torical powers and literary attainments must have 
placed him in the prominent ranks of noted men; 
as it is, he is earnestly working in the practice of 
his profession and only ambitious for the good-will 
of his fellow-men. To the marriage of Mr. and 
Mrs. McVeigh were born nine children : Frances, the 
eldest daughter, married, June 25, 1889, the Rev. 
G. H. Smith, of Independence Coiinty, Ark., a 
talented young minister of the Methodist denom- 
ination; Elliot, Jesse, Anna Bland, Agnes, Rose, 
and Susan, are the ones now living; and those de- 
ceased are Sallie. at the age of four years, and 
Mary, who died at the age of fourteen. The fam- 
ily are members of the Episcopal Church. y 

Hugh R. McVeigh, of the firm of H. R. & E. 
F. McVeigh, real estate agents of Osceola, Missis- 
sippi County, Ark., was born in Hannibal, Mo., 
in 1854, and is one of the responsible men of Os- 
ceola, who has enlisted his service in the incessant 
activity of tht> real estate market and the magni- 
tude of that enterprise in this city. He is the 
ninth in a family of ten children born to Hiram 
and Mary E. (White) McVeigh, both of whom 
were natives of Virginia. The father followed 
commercial pursuits in Virginia until about 1850, 
when he moved to Hannibal, and was there en- 
gaged in business until his death, which occurred 
in 1865. Mrs. McVeigh is still living and resides 
in her native State. Hugh R. McVeigh attended 
the private schools in Missouri until thirteen years 
of age. and then moved with his mother to Balti- 
more, Md. , where he was employed as errand boy 
in a store for three years. In 1809 Mr. McVeigh 
went to Philadelphia, where he was engaged as 
stock keeper for Morgan Bush & Co., and there 
remained until in May, 1874, when he came to 
Osceola, Ark. He there studied law with his 
brother, Hon. H. M. McVeigh, and was admit- 
ted to the bar in 1879. On June 21, 1876, he 
was appointed deputy clerk, of the Mississippi 
County circuit court, which position be held un- 
til October 30, 1884. On September 6, of the 
same year, he was elected circuit court clerk, and 



was comj)liniented by being re-elected to the same 
position in 1886. At the expiration of this term 
he declined to be re-nominated, and has since 
been engaged in the real estate business. The 
firm does a general business, buying and sidling 
land, and investing capital in landed property. 
These gentlemen are using every inducement, and 
are doing all they can to advertise the advantages 
of investment in thi.s section. Mr. McVeigh takes 
an active interest in all things that will contribute 
to the advancement of the county, and is a liberal 
supporter of all worthy enterprises. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, Osceola Lodge No. 
27, Osceola Chapter No. 57, and Memphis (Term). 
Commandery No. 4. 

Elliot Fletcher McVeigh, a member of the real 
estate firm of H. R. & E. F. McVeigh, is a young 
man whose energy and sense mark him as an effi- 
cient factor in the consummation of the firm's many 
enterprises. He was born in Mississippi County. 
Ark., in 1867, and is the second in a family of 
nine children born to H. M. and Susan (Fletcher) 
McVeigh [see sketch of Hon. H. M. McVeigh |. 
Elliot McVeigh .secured a good practical education 
in the public schools of Osceola, and when sixteen 
years of age he engaged as clerk with N. L. Avery 
& Co. , with whom he continued for three years. 
He then went to St. Louis, but only remained 
there a short time. On January 1, 1886, he was 
appointed by County Clerk McVeigh as deputy, 
and upon the accession of Mr. Driver to the office 
of county clerk, Elliot McVeigh was retained, and 
he is now engaged in that office. Nowhere in the 
county is there to be found a young man of more 
energy or determined will or force of character 
than Mr. McVeigh; and in no locality is there 
any one who is more worthy the esteem and con- 
fidence of the community than he. He possesses 
marked artistic ability, inherited from a long line 
of ancestors, many of whose descendants are noted 
artists, and in Mississippi County, which is noted 
for its self-made men, Mr. McVeigh gives every 
promise of rising to distinction. 

Daniel Mann is a native-born resident of Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark., and as such is looked upon 
with respect and esteem by those who know who 



V 



536 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and what he is. His birth occuned in 1853, he 
being one of a large family of children born to 
William W. and Nancy Mann, the former a native 
of Kentucky and the latter of Arkansas. "William 
Mann spent his youth and early manhood on his 
old home farm in his native State, coming in 1848 
to Arkansas, and settling on Clear Lake, in Mis- 
sissippi County, where he entered and purchased a 
tract of land embracing 600 acres. He improved 
this farm in a great measure, but, in addition to 
following the plow, was engaged in blacksmithing 
and tanning, giving these occupations his whole 
attention after Daniel was large enough to attend 
to the farm, which enterprises proved a decided 
success. He died in February, 1882. Daniel 
Mann was married, at the age of twenty-one years, 
to Miss Sarah Carter, a Tenuesseean by birth, and 
afterward began residing on a portion of his 
father's farm, becoming the possessor of 16(1 acres 
in 1879, thirty of which he has cleared. Upon 
the death of his father the old homestead was di 
vided, and sixty-four acres of wild land fell to Dan- 
iel. On this property he has built a good house, 
and has about ten acres under the plow. In the 
fall of 1887 he took a trip to Illinois, and Iwught 
a pair of fall-blooded Poland-China hogs, the only 
ones in the township, and intends soon to purchase 
a thorough-bred Durham animal, Iteing interested 
in improving the stock of the county. His leisure 
moments are devoted to hunting and fishing, and 
he has won quite a reputation as a bear-lumter, 
having killed large numbers of them. During the 
hunting season his house is the resort of hunting 
parties from Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, 
who always have good sport, and bag plenty of 
game when Mr. Mann is the leader. He is a pa- 
tron of education, believes in elevating the stand- 
ard of the schools in Mississippi County, and is 
now serving as school director. He and wife have 
become the parents of seven children, those living 
being Martha Agnes, William W. , Lula F. and J. 
Hugh. Those deceased are William I., and two 
who died unnamed. 

S. M. Marks. Nowhere within the limits of 
Mississippi County, Ark. , can there be found a man 
who takes greater interest in its agricultural and 



stock affairs than Mr. Marks, or who strives more 
continually to promote and advance these interests. 
Like so many native-born Kentuckians, he has 
been energetic and enterprising, and since 1879 
has been the owner of a good farm of 160 acres in 
Chickasawba Townshi]). which was at the time of 
his purchase heavily covered with timber. He has 
opened up about thirty acres, has erected substan- 
tial buildings on his place, and for some time has 
been interested in the propagation of stock, having 
in his possession a fine young horse of Highland 
and Cleveland Bay stock. His land yields a bale 
of cotton to the acre, and sixty bushels of corn. He 
was born in 1846, being the third in a family of 
seven children burn to Samuel and Sarah (Keesee) 
Marks, who were also Kentuckians. During his 
infancy his parents moved to Missouri, where the 
father died a few years later: and from the time 
he was able to work until 1861 he assisted in the 
support of his mother and a sister. In the fall of 
that year he enlisted in Company G, Sixth Illinois 
Cavalry, and was in the Second Brigade, Fifth 
Division of the Fourth Army Corps of the Depart- 
ment of the Cumberland, and took an active part 
in the engagements at Port Hudson, Nashville and 
Franklin, and in a number of campaigns and minor 
engagements. He was mustered out of service at 
Selma, Ala., November 5, 1865, and received his 
discharge at Springtield, 111. The three following 
years he was engaged in farming in tbe vicinity 
of the latter city, and up to 1874 was employed in 
tilling rented land. At that date he came to Ar- 
kansas and made a crop on Carson' s Lake, but then 
returned to Illinois, and for two years was engaged 
in following various occupations. Since that time 
he has resided in Mississippi County, Ark. , where 
he was married, in 1879. to Mrs. Amelia Ellen 
Lawrence, nee Bowen, a daughter of John M. C. 
Bowen. His wife is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and Mr. Marks is a member of 
Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, of the F. & A. M. 

Capt. Daniel Matthews (deceased). From 
among the many estimable citizens of Mississippi 
County who have passed to their long home, but 
who, from an early day. were intimately and prom- 
inently associated with the county's development, 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



53-; 






the name of Capt. Matthews cau not be omitted. 
Of Pennsylvania nativity. h(^ was horn in Hunting 
don County in the year 1814, and about 1835 came 
to Arkansas, and lived fur some time at what is 
now known as Milliken's. Subsequently he ran a 
boat from Cincinnati to New Orleans, which call- 
ing he continued to pursiie until 1850, engaging 
at that time in the mercantile trade in Osceola, 
Ark., at which place he conducted a store until his 
death, in 1884. He was one of the best-known 
men that ever ran on the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, and throughout Mississippi County, Ark. . 
his name was synonymous with integrity, industry, 
and perseverance. For two years he was engaged 
in business in New Madrid. Mo., investing money 
in that place to the amount of $25,000. but met 
with heavy losses, and became involved to the ex- 
tent of $7,000. He left that town with only $15 
in his pocket, and went to New Orleans, where, 
through the kindness of friends, he was again 
started in business, and had paid all his debts and 
also had his goods paid for at the end of a few 
years. In 184'.l he was married to Miss Mary 
Young, a daughter of Andy and Elizabeth Young, 
and located at Osceola, in Mississippi County, 
where they became the parents of three children: 
T. A. . MoUie C. and Beulah, Mollie C. being the 
wife of H. D. Tomlinson, of Osceola, and the 
mother of two children. Beulah is married to O. 
B. Ferguson, of Ripley, Tenn. , and is the mother 
of one child. Mr. Matthews was in business at 
Osceola for thirty four years, and during this time 
accumulated a property valued at $75,000. No 
one unacquainted with him can realize what a ben- 
etit his life was to this county, or what an influence 
he exerted upon all those around him. His etforts 
in behalf of the poor and oppressed, without re- 
gard to race or color, will long be remembered, 
and his methodical business, coupled with strict 
integrity, may well be emulated by the rising gen- 
eration. After his death, which occurred on the 
2d of May, 1884, his body was taken in charge bj' 
the Masons, of which he had long been a member, 
and was buried by that order in Elmwood Ceme- 
tery, at Memphis, Tenn. His son. T. A. Matthews, 
was educated in the Christian Brothers' Institiite, 

34 



at St. Louis. Mo., from which institution he was 
graduated in 18(58. Capt. Daniel Matthews, dur- 
ing his life, had but one serious accident, and that 
back in the 30' h, in an eastern railroad collision, 
near Harrisljurg. his native State, where he lost a 
leg, afterward making his way through life with a 
cork leg. Mostly through his exertions the St. 
ISIatthew's Catholic Church at Osceola was built. 
This is a very fair frame structure for a town of 
such proportions as this. One of his relatives was 
living at Johnstown, which was lately destroyed by 
the great Pennsylvania Hood. 

M. B. Maxwell. Although this gentleman has 
been a resident of Mississippi County, Ark. , only 
for a short period, he has been an important factor 
in the growth and prosperity of the same since 
1878, and has been identified with all worthy en 
terprises. He was born in the State of Tennessee, 
in 1855, and was engaged in raising cotton in Tip- 
ton County of that State until the above mentioned 
date, at which time he came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., and first rented a plantation, putting in a 
crop of cotton, amounting to about forty acres in 
all. He now has 260 acres of land which he rents, 
200 acres being in cotton and the rest in corn, and 
the most of the land he has opened up himself. 
He employs about twenty-five hands to attend to 
the crop, and by economy and close adherence to 
his occupation he has become possessed of consid- 
erable means. Miss Mollie Freezer became his 
wife in 1877, she being a daughter of Peter and 
Rebecca Freezer, who were born in Tipton County. 
She died in 1885, leaving two children, Lurenda 
and Lena. His present wife was Miss Emily 
Bringle, of Mississippi County, a native of Teniies 
see, her parents, John and Sarah Bringle. l)eing 
also natives of that State. 

L. A. Morris, the subject of the portrait ap- 
pearing on another page of this volume, and the 
head of the mercantile firm of L. A. Morris & Co., 
general merchants at Osceola, Ark. , can justly be 
recorded among the self-made men of Mississippi 
County. No one is more justly entitled to an 
enviable place in the history of Mississippi County 
than he, for, though young in years, he has been 
usefully and honorably identified with the interests 



» v^ 



538 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of this county, and with its advancement in every 
worthy particular. Mr. Morris owes his nativity 
to Alabama, where he was born in 1855, and is the 
second in a family of six children born to the Rev. 
F. C. and Sallie A. (McFeat) Morris. The par- 
ents were respectively from Alabama and South 
Carolina, were married in South Carolina, but 
soon afterward moved to Alabama, where they 
remained a short time, thence came to Osceola, 
in 1857. The father preached throughout Mis- 
sissippi County and West Tennessee for many 
years, and was a man remarkable for his Christian 
purity and benevolence and high sense of honor. 
He died in 1876. The mother had died of cholera in 
1866. L. A. Morris spent his youtli in Osceola, 
attending private schools mostly, and in 1872 he 
began clerking in the store of Capt. D. Matthews, 
where he continued for seven years. He then 
went to Pecan Point and clerked for R. W. Friend 
for eighteen months, at which time he became a 
partner in the business under the firm title of 
Friend & Morris. In December, 1883, he bought 
a tract of 1,000 acres, well improved, with 200 
acres under cultivation, and a store that had been 
establii^hed several years at Plum Point, Tenn. 
He soon withdrew from the firm of Friend & Mor- 
ris to conduct his large interests at the above men- 
tioned place, where he continued in business until 
January. 18SU, when he leased his farm, and sold 
stock, etc., in the store to Johnson Bros., who are 
conducting it now. Mr. Morris was postmaster at 
Plum Point for a number of years, and filled that 
position creditably and well. On the subject's 
large farm there are 300 acres under cultivation, 
1 00 of which were opened by himself. He erected 
a tine residence at a cost of $2,000, also put up a 
cotton-gin, outbuildings, and a number of cabins, 
etc. Since buying the estate the Government has 
built a levee, and is at present engaged in revet- 
ing the bank along the river front, which improves 
his place to a great extent. On October 1, 1887, 
Mr. Morris opened a branch store at Osceola, and 
since closing at Plum Point, he has centered his 
whole attention at the Osceola store, which is con- 
ducted in partnership with F. R. Lanier, Jr. 
He has an extensive stock of general merchandise. 



and does a commission business, also, of buying 
cotton and all farm produce. To Mi'. Morris' 
marriage have been "born three children: Carrie 
E. : Maggie May, who died at the age of three 
years, and Plumie E. Mr. Morris is a member of 
the A. O. V. W. Lodge, Osceola. Though still a 
young man, Mr. Morris' business capacities, and 
extensive experience with the resources of this 
county, have enabled him to take a foremost place 
in its affairs, while his pleasing, social qualities 
and gentlemanly manners make him a jileasant 
companion and friend. 

F. M. Mosley. It was in 1849 that Mr. Mos 
ley first became a resident of Arkansas, having 
come from his native State of Tennessee, where he 
was born in 1832, with his parents, of whom he was 
the fourth of their nine children. Harrison Mos- 
ley and Mary Davis Evans, the parents, both Vir- 
ginians, were married in their native State, and 
soon after moved to Tennessee, where the father 
followed the life of a farmer until his death, in 1849. 
In the fall of that year the remainder of the family 
came to St. Francis County, Ark., where F. M. 
Mosley resided until 1859, when he came to Mis- 
sissippi County, where he farmed on rented land 
until the close of the war; then, in partnership with 
H. T. Blythe, purchased a tract of land in Chicka- 
sawba Township, on which they erected a horse 
cotton-gin. A few years later they put in steam 
machinery, but in 1873, Mr. Mosley sold his in- 
terest in the gin, as well as his farm of 160 acres, 
and purchased his present property, one mile west 
of Blythesville, which comprises a tract of eightj' 
acres, of which fifty are under cultivation. He took 
possession of this place in 1879, all of which was 
covered with woods at that time, and since then he 
has cleared fifty acres and built an excellent dwell- 
ing house; he also has a tine collection of fruit 
trees. It is one of the most pleasant places in all 
the neighborhood, and is the result of thrift and 
energy, which are among the leading characteristics 
of Mr. Mosley. His land is exceptionally produc- 
tive, and readily yields a bale of cotton to the acre. 
He has been married twice, first in 1854, to Mary 
Thompson, of Arkansas, who died in 1872, leaving 
one child, Tabitha Ellen, the wife of Dr. Jones. 



"a* 



,u 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



W.) 



His second union took place in the fall of 1872, 
and was with Miss Alice Williams, a daughter of 
James H. Williams, whose sketch apjiears in this 
work. They have three children : Francis M. , who 
died in infancy in 1875; James H. and Willie 
Bacchus. He i.s a patron of education, is a prac- 
tical and successful farmer, and by reading and 
observation has become well posted in business af- 
fairs. 

Thomas H. Musgrave. The following is a brief 
sketch of the career of Mr. Musgrave, a man whose 
present substantial position in life has been reached 
entirely through his own perseverance; and the 
facts connected with his agricultural operations, 
and their results, only show what a person with 
courage and enlightened views can accomplish. 
He first saw the light of day in the Old North 
State, in 1847, and eleven years of his youth and 
early manhood were spent in attending .school. His 
primary training was received in the schools of 
Branch ville, Charleston and Columbia, S. C, and 
in 1855, he came with his father to Somerville, 
Teun. , where he attended the academy three years; 
in 1859 he went to Peoria, 111. , and attended the 
High School one year; in 1863 he entered the St. 
Louis University, where he remained till he com- 
pleted his collegiate career, graduating in 1868. 
He came immediately to his home in Arkansas, 
where he rested for a short time, and then obtained 
employment at Hale's Point, Tenn., as a book- 
keeper, which position he held until 1873, when he 
returned to his farm in Mississippi County. His 
property then consisted of 560 acres of land, with 
about twenty acres in cultivation, but with an 
incumbrance of $1,700, part of the purchase money 
due the vendor. He set earnestly and persistently 
to work to clear his land of debt, which he soon 
did, and then began to clear it of the timber and 
pre[)are it for cultivation. He not only succeeded 
in paying for his land and clearing 150 acres more 
on the same farm, but also added to his lands from 
time to time, until he has owned over 4,000 acres, 
and now owns about 2,500 acres of superior laud, 
with 150 acres this year in cultivation, and two 
small farms "lying out" for want of tenants. He 
has sold considerable property, some of which was 



well improved, and a part of which he cleared. On 
his extensive domains is some of the choicest land 
to be found in the State. A bale of cotton can 
easily be raised to the acre, some of his tenants 
occasionally making more. Nine families now live 
on and cultivate his lands, but Mr. Musgrave says 
he has room for and would gladly furnish fifty more 
with homes. A large area, which, twenty five years 
ago, was the bed of the Mississippi River, has been 
added to this tract of land by the river shifting its 
channel, and now, where a few years since steam 
boats plowed the turbid waters of this mighty 
stream, can be seen some of the finest fields of cot- 
ton and corn in the State. Mr. Musgrave possesses 
decided literary tastes, and has been quite an ex 
tensive student of both law and medicine. He has 
never taken a very active part in the political affairs 
of his county, though he served three terms as 
justice of the peace, but refused to qualify after 
having been elected the fourth time. He was nomi- 
nated by the Democratic convention for county sur- 
veyor, and fully indorsed by the Republican con- 
vention for the same position, all without his knowl- 
edge; but, when elected, declined to discharge the 
duties, preferring the quiet and easy life on his 
farm. Although not an active politician, he is a 
close and diligent student, keeping well posted and 
fully abreast with the times; possessing a bold and 
vigorous mind, he does not swerve one iota from 
what he deems to be just and right. His reputa- 
tion for honesty and integrity has been often tried 
and found pure, and his financial ability has been 
more than once put to the test, but never without 
credit to himself; his social (jualities are well known 
and appreciated, and he has hosts of friends whose 
confidence and esteem are his highest eulogium. 
An excellent portrait of him appears in this work. 
He was the second of three children born to Will- 
iam R. and Mary E. Musgrave, both of whom were 
born in North Carolina, and were there reared and 
married, moving shortly after to South Carolina, 
where the father engaged in the steamboat busi 
ness, and later worked in the machine shops at 
Charleston. He afterward became connected with 
the railroad business, which he discontinued in 1857. 
prior to coming to Arkansas, following this occu 



540 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



pation in Somerville, Tenn., to which State he 
removed in 1855. Upon coming to Arkansas he 
located in Mississippi County, and there engaged 
in the saw mill business, which was continued until 
I860. At that date he bought 556 acres of land 
in Hickman Township, a portion of which land 
was cleared and under cultivation. He continued 
to improve his pro{)erty, and soon had over 100 
acres in cultivation, the rest being devoted to rais- 
ing stock. In 1862 the war put an end to these 
operations, and he engaged in commercial life, 
operating mainly in Lauderdale County, Tenn., 
though he bought large quantities of cotton in the 
adjoining counties of that State, and some in the 
northeastern counties of Arkansas. He died at Co- 
lumbus, Ky.. June 14, 1864, ending an active and 
well spent life. William R. Musgrave was a very 
affable and well-known man, greatly esteemed by 
numerous friends. His widow died in the spring 
of 1884, at Rocky Mount, N. C. 

F. Musick. It is a well known fact that cir- 
cumstances in life may make or mar the prospects 
of man to a certain extent, but a determined spirit 
will bend even the force of circumstances to its 
will. The career of Mr. Musick since his arrival 
ujwn the stage of human action is abundant proof 
of this trite saying. He was born in Virginia, and 
his parents, Russell and Elizabeth (Dowell) Mu- 
sick, who came from Virginia to Mississippi Coun- 
ty, Ark., in 1855. located on Frenchman's Bayou, 
where they purchased 160 acres of land, with 
about five acres cleared. Here, with the help of 
his sons, six in number, Mr. Musick cleared about 
eighty acres, but sold out previous to the war, 
and, in 1864, moved to Alexander County, 111. 
There the father and mother passed their last 
days, dying within four days of each other, and 
only a short time after reaching Illinois. The 
children, four sons and one daughter, came back to 
Mississippi County, in 1865, and here F. Musick, 
the subject of this sketch, commenced planting 
cotton. In 1870 he purchased 180 acres of land, 
with about sixteen acres cleared, to which he after- 
ward added about eighty acres more. This place 
he sold to Henry Criegher, and then purchased 
his present property, consisting of 160 acres on 



the Bayou, with about sixty acres cleared. To 
this he has since added about eighty acres more, 
which he has under a fine state of cultivation, and 
raises about one bale of cotton to the acre. He 
has built five houses on the place, one barn, and 
two store buildings, one 16x70, and the other 
20x24, in which he carries a well-selected stock of 
general merchandise, valued at from .f3,000 to 
$7,000. This business he established about seven 
years ago in company with his brother. In 1885 
the firm dissolved partnership, and F. Musick con- 
tinued the business. His sales run from 18,000 
to $10,000 per annum. Mr. Musick's first mar- 
riage was to Miss Martha Barham, daughter of 
James Barham, a native of Tennessee. ' Mrs. 
Musick died in 1874, leaving two children: J. A. 
F. , a young man at home assisting his father in 
the store, and C. C. , who died when seventeen 
years of age. Mr. Musick's second marriage was 
to Mrs. E. M. Young, whom he wedded in Octo- 
ber, 1884. She is a daughter of Mrs. Lierley, of 
Lawrence County, Ark. Two children were the 
result of this union: Callie (a son) and Clara. 
Mr. Musick is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
also of the K. of H. , and he is a memlier of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Silas F. Myers has been a resident of Missis- 
sippi County, for the past thirty-six years, and 
has spent a lifetime in pursuing the noble voca 
tion of agriculture, having learned this occupation 
of his father who was an extensive tobacco planter 
in Kentucky. His life has not been without ad 
venture or self-denying experiences, yet success 
has attended him both in material affairs and in 
the esteem which has been accorded him by those 
among whom he has so long made his home. He 
was born in Macon County, 111. , but at the age of 
eighteen months was taken by his father to Davis 
County, Ky. , and remained on the latter' s tobacco 
plantation until 1852, or until he was twenty -two 
years of age. His father, who bore the name of 
Levi Myers, died about 1837, and the mother, 
whose maiden name was Elizabeth Campbell, 
was a daughter of Henry Campbell, of Virginia. 
Abraham Myei's, the paternal grandfather, was a 
German. To Levi Myers and wife a family of 



^?1«- 





l/irla^, kt', J/£4^yy7e0^ 



%.ml 



Mississippi CouNTr,ARKAMSAS. 



<5 !^ 



.4 3> 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



541 



nine children were born, of whom Silas F. Myers 
is the only surviving member. The latter came to 
Missi.ssippi County, Ark., and raised a crop of cot- 
ton the same year on rented land, and has since 
raised a crop of from 50 to 125 acres of cotton 
each year. He has nearly always worked on new 
ground, and has cleared sixty-three acres in one 
place, fifteen in another, and ten, twenty five, eighty, 
twenty and sixteen acres, respectively. In 1876 he 
purchased land to the amount of 118 acres, all of 
which he has under the plow. He is very pleasantly 
situated, and his residence is substantial and roomy, 
being 72x34 feet, with a hallway running through 
the center, and a large porch extending around 
the house. It was built by his individual labor 
with the exception of about one week's work, when 
a carpenter was employed, and is excellently fin- 
ished inside and out. Four families and three 
single men are employed to keep the farm in order, 
and on the place are five good workmen's cabins. 
He has a large orchard, well stocked with different 
varieties of peaches, apples, pears, plums, etc. 
Two years after coming to Mississippi County, 
he was married to Miss Sarah T. Williamson, 
a daughter of Richard and Harriet (Willing- 
ham) Williamson, who were formerly from Ala- 
bama, but removed to Tennessee when Mrs. Myers 
was a small child, and when she was fourteen 
years of age came to Mississippi County. Mr. 
and Mrs. Myers' children are as follows: Joseph 
B. , a commercial traveler for a Memphis, Tenn., 
house; James H. , a planter residing at Nodena, is 
married, his wife's maiden name being Nora Cis- 
sell, a daughter of Levi Cissell; and Minnie O. , 
Nancy Ardella, and Cora Elizabeth, at home. 
Three children died in infancy, and one son died 
when eleven years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Myers, 
their daughter, Nancy Ardella, and son, James H. , 
are members of the Presbyterian Church at No- 
dena, while Miss Minnie O. belongs to the same 
church at Osceola. Mr. Myers is a member of 
Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M., of Osceola. 

George W. Neel, a prominent farmer near 
Blythesville, Ark., was born in Obion County, 
Tenn., in 1858. He was the eleventh in a family 
of fifteen children born to John T. and Martha A. 



(Simmons) Neel. Both parents were natives of 
Tennessee, where the father's occupation was 
farming, and where he died on December 12, 
1864. The mother still resides in that State. 
George W. Neel attended the public schools of 
that period, but his educational advantages were 
very limited, and he did not receive the schooling 
his ambition desired. He remained at home until 
his majority, and in November, 1882, was married 
to Mrs. Nancy J. Ray, a young widow lady of that 
vicinity. After his marriage Mr. Neel purchased 
a farm, and settled upon it with his bride, where 
he resided until the year 1886, when he exchanged 
his Tennessee farm for one in Arkansas, a fine tract 
of forty acres, all under a high state of cultivation, 
and bearing grass, clover, corn and cotton ; has also 
a splendid orchard, with which he has taken great 
pains to bring to as near perfection as possible. 
He is a member of the Masonic order and the Ag- 
ricultural Wheel, and is one of the most enterpris- 
ing and energetic of the younger farmers in this 
section. Mr. Neel is held in the highest regard 
by his neighbors, and deserves the success that has 
come upon his efforts. To the union of Mr. and 
Mrs. Neel were born four children: Elizabeth La- 
vina, Georgie Elnora Belle, Flora Dora Lee and 
James Edwards. 

William H. Oglesby, M. D. Since Dr. Ogles- 
by's location in Mississippi County, Ark., he has 
shown himself eminently worthy of the confidence 
and trust reposed in him by all classes, and has 
proved himself to be a physician of decided merit. 
He was born on Blue Grass soil in 1854, and up 
to 1860 resided on a farm in the country, but at 
that date his father, W. A. Oglesby, departed this 
life, and the family then took up their abode in 
Owensboro, whore William H. attended school un 
til about fifteen years of age, making good use of 
his time while opportunity offered. Imbued with 
a determination to secure a good education, he en- 
tered the Kentucky Wesleyan University at Mil- 
lersburg, which institution he attended two years, 
and then clerked for two j'ears in a store, his leis- 
ure moments being given to the study of medicine, 
for which science he had a predilection. The 
years of 1875-76 were spent in Slaughtersville, 



9 li^ 



542 



HISTOET OF ARKANSAS. 



where he pursued his medical researches, and he 
then entered the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Louisville, taking lectures during the 
winter of 1876-77. In the latter year he came to 
Mississippi County, Ark. , and began clerking for 
J. B. Tisserand; but some live months later he en- 
tered upon the practice of his profession, which he 
has continued with a rapidly increasing practice, 
up to the present time. In the winter of 1884-85 
he attended lectures at the Memphis Hospital Med- 
ical College, graduating from that institution in 
March, 1885. Dr. Ogle.sby is a hard student, and 
keeps thoroughly apace with the strides which are 
being constantly made in his profession, and takes 
a number of leading medical journals. He has a 
very pleasant and comfortable home in the village 
of Blythesville, his residence being erected in 1881 ; 
and in addition to this has eighty acres of arable 
laud, of which sixty are under cultivation. The 
Doctor is a man-ied man. Miss Cullie Waggoner 
becoming his wife in 1879. She is a daughter of 
James Waggoner, an old settler of the county. 
She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and she and the Doctor are the parents of two chil- 
dren, Gipsy and Mary Lorine. Dr. Oglesby has 
always been a patron of education, and is at pres- 
ent a member of the school board of Blythesville. 
His parents, W. A. and Katie (Harding) Oglesby, 
were the parents of five children, of whom he was 
the fourth. Both parents were Kentuckians, the 
father being a planter of that State, which occupa- 
tion he followed throughout life. 

J. B. Perkins, a gentleman of wonderful ability, 
was born in Tennessee in 1849, and is the oldest 
living child of George W. and Elizabeth (Herron) 
Perkins, of Tennessee. The father was a farmer, 
and emigrated to Arkansas in 1859, where he set- 
tled in Randolph County, and entered a tract of 
land upon which he made a home for his family 
until the first alarm of war brought a distressing 
separation. He enlisted in the Confederate army, 
and, after a brave struggle for the cause he under- 
took, met death like a soldier should at Memphis, 
in 1862. The family continued to reside in Ran- 
dolph County until 1864, when they moved to Mis- 
sissippi County and settled at Beaver Point. There 



they farmed and rented land for several years, and 
in 1875 came to Cross Bayou, where they settled 
on fifty acres of wild land, which has since then 
become greatly improved through the efforts of J. 
B. Perkins. He has erected several substantial 
buildings, and put about forty acres under a high 
state of cultivation. His land will yield three- 
quarters of a bale of cotton to the acre; and, besides 
this, he has raised a fine orchard. In 1874, Mr. 
Perkins was married to Miss Sarah Starling, a na- 
tive of Columbia County, Ark. , and a daughter of 
John Washington Starling, an old settler of that 
county. Four children were born to the parents: 
Sallie, George Washington, Eddie and Minnie, the 
two latter deceased. John Perkins, a brother of 
Mr. Perkins, moved to this county at the same 
time with the latter, and both brothers bought 
land adjoining. John bought sixty-six acres, on 
which he made a great many improvements and 
erected buildings, and cleared about thirty-five 
acres, which he put under a good state of cultiva- 
tion. He was married in 1873 to Miss Mary Ben- 
nett, a daughter of John Bennett, one of the pio- 
neers of Mississippi County. Eight children were 
born to this union, of whom two have died. The 
names of their children are John F. , Mary E., 
William, Rosa Lee, James Troy (deceased), Cor- 
delia (deceased) and Nancy. Mr. Perkins was a 
representative citizen of Mississippi County, and 
took an active part in educational matters, serving 
as school director for several terms. He was also 
a member of the Agricultural Wheel, as was also 
his brother, J. B. Perkins. His death occurred 
on December 16, 1887, leaving a large circle of 
friends and his family to mourn their loss. The 
mother of these two brothers is still living in this 
vicinity, and enjoying the best of health, at the 
age of sixty years. 

C. H. Powell, farmer and merchant, Osceola. 
The father of Mr. Powell, Joseph Powell, was a 
native of Virginia, who, after reaching manhood, 
was united in marriage to Miss Eliza Ann Walton, 
a native of Kentucky. The father followed agri- 
cultural pursuits for many years, and in about 
1859, moved to Mississippi Coimty, Ark., where 
for a year or two he made his home with Mr. 




Lynch. He then rented land and continued tilling , 
the soil, and, in connection, also handled cord-wood 
for the steamboats. He was killed during the war 
by a neighbor. He was the father of seven chil- 
dren, of whom C. H. Powell was the third. The ' 
latter was born in Hindman, Ky., in the year 
1847, and was but seventeen years of age when 
his father was killed. He then sent his mother 
back to Kentucky, while he engaged as clerk at 
Hindman for a time, and later returned to Arkan- 
sas, where he was united in marriage to Miss 
Sarah Harrington, a native of Mississippi County, 
and the daughter of Whiting Harrington, one of 
the leading settlers of this section. After marriage. 
Mr. Powell opened a tract of land belonging to his 
wife, and began tilling the soil. He has made 
many improvements, cleared about thirty acres, 
wliich are in a high state of cultivation, has a fine 
orchard, and in 1888 he erected a good residence. 
In 1887, he purchased two acres near the town, 
and on this has erected four tenant hoiLses. He 
began a general grocery business at Lynch's Land- 
ing in 1884, and remained there four years, with 
a constantly increasing trade. In 1887, he leased 
a lot a short distance up the river, erected a build- 
ing, and still continues his former trade with un- 
usually good success. The fi'uits of his union with 
Miss Harrington were fourteen children (six now 
living): William Joseph; Sallie, wife of Joseph 
Violet, and resides with her parents; Eula, wife 
of William Mitchell, and lives in the vicinity; Fan- 
nie, at home; Lucy, died at the age of five years; 
John (deceased), Elisha, at home, and Cornelius 
Prewitt. The remainder died in infancy. Mr. 
Powell is not active in politics, biit votes with the 
Democratic party. He is deeply interested in local 
improvements, and also in school matters, having 
served as director for six years. 

G. W. Pratt is a name familiar to residents of 
Mississippi County. Its owner is a prominent 
saw- mill operator at Pecan Point, who was born in 
Decatur County, Tenn., in 1843, and was the old- 
est child in a family of nine children born to Rich- 
ard T. and Mildred (Walker) Pratt. The father 
was one of the leading farmers, and a pioneer of 
West Tennessee, where he resided up to the time 



of his death, in 1 874, ten days after the demise of 
his wife. This was an incident that ke])t firmly 
imbedded in the minds of their children, and did 
not remove its melancholy impression for many 
years afterward. Upon ret\irning home from the 
funeral of his faithful wif<( the father seemed to 
have a presentiment of his coming fate, and, weighed 
down by the grief and sadness of his Ixuvavemont, 
told his children that death would claim himl)efore 
many days. Exactly ten days afterward he passed 
away, and his words were verified. G. W. Partt 
remained at home until sixleen years of age, when 
he commenced flat- boating on the Mississippi Kiver, 
and continued at that employment until 1860. 
He then went to clerking on one of the large river 
steamboats until 1861, when the rumors of war 
came penetrating through hills and valleys, and 
calling the men to arms. Like many other chival- 
rous young men of the South, he cast his fortunes 
with the Confederacy, and enlisted in Company 
K, Fifth Tennessee Regiment, commanded by Col. 
Travis, and was elected to the rank of corporal. 
At the liattle of Shiloh he received a terrible wound, 
and was granted a furlough of sixty days. At the 
end of that time, having recovered, he organized a 

cavalry company with Capt. D commanding, 

and served as first lieutenant for three months, 
when the company was divided into two, and he 
received the rank of captain. He then joined Col. 
Cox's regiment, and campaigned through East 
Tennessee, and was in almost innumerable skir- 
mishes and minor engagements during the entire 
time. In the spring of 1865 the company dis- 
banded after almost continual fighting throughout 
its entire service, and he returned home. After 
the death of his wife he went to Bartlett, Tenn., 
and engaged in carpenter work to some extent, but 
afterward moved to Brunswick, where he remained 
seven years. In 1873 he was married to Miss 
Ella Johnston, of Fayette County, Tenn., who 
lived but two years after marriage, and died, leav- 
ing one son, John, who is now attending school at 
Princeton, Ky. In 1876 Mr. Pratt was married, 
at Oakland, Tenn., his second wife being Miss 
Nannie, a sister of his former wife. This lady 
lived but eighteen months, and after her death he 



^1 




spent several moDths seeking a location in which 
to settle. He finally decided on Pecan Point, and 
moved to this point in 1882, entering at once 
into his trade of carpentering and building with so 
much success that now almost every building in 
that place can truthfully be said to have been 
erected by him. In February, 1888, he purchased 
a saw-mill, which he erected on the river bank, 
that has a capacity of 10,000 feet of lumber per 
day, and the demand largely exceeds the supply. 
Mr. Pratt has also built a tramway two miles in 
length, extending to the timber region, and as soon 
as the woods become exhausted he will build it 
farther out. He has several tramcars running, 
and a force of fourteen men at work constantly. 
Mr. Pratt is a member of the Masonic fi-aternity, 
Pecan Point Lodge, under dispensation at the 
present time. He is also a member of the K. of 
O. , Pecan Point, and Eastern Star, and attends the 
Methodist Episcopal Church at this point, taking 
an active interest in all afiFairs of the Sunday-school. 
He has been one of the leading spirits in all things 
that promise to be to the advantage of this section, 
and is one of Mississippi County's most enterpris- 
ing and valued citizens. Mr. Pratt is a good busi- 
ness man, and an admirable mechanic and archi- 
tect. He is a great friend of the children for miles 
around, and it is a pleasure to see the little tots 
leave everyone else and flock around him whenever 
he puts in an appearance. His own pluck and 
determination have placed him in an independent 
position, and his courteous manner has won him 
many friends. 

Dr. Robert C. Prewitt, a prominent physician, 
of Osceola, Ark., was born in Missouri in 1844, 
and from an early age displa^'ed an eagerness for 
study and a desire for a professional life. He was 
the eldest of six children born to Joseph E. and 
Naoma (Nash) Prewitt, natives of the ' ' Blue Grass 
State." The father was a successful tiller of the 
soil, and followed this occupation in his native 
State until his removal to Missouri, which took 
place in 1838. He located in Pike County, and 
was one of its earliest settlers. The paternal 
grandfather, Robert C. Prewitt, was a native of 
Virginia, and came to Kentucky at an early day, 



where he followed farming. He participated in 
the War of 1812, was taken prisoner at the battle 
of Raisin River, and was held by the Indians all 
winter. He afterward returned to Kentucky, but 
subsequently emigrated to Missouri, where he died 
in 1850. The maternal grandfather, William N. 
Nash, was a native of Virginia, but emigrated to 
Kentucky, where he died and is buried. Dr. 
Robert C. Prewitt improved the educational ad- 
vantages offered him in the common schools, and 
in 1861 began the study of medicine with his uncle, 
Dr. Robert C. Prewitt, in Pike County, Mo. Dur 
ing 18(52-08 he attended lectures at St. Louis 
Medical College, but the year previous to this he 
enlisted in the Confederate army, was sent to 
Southwest Missouri, where he participated in the 
battles of Fulton, Mount Zion Wilson Creek and 
Lexington. He was taken prisoner at the last- 
named place, but became ill, and soon returned 
home. In January, 1864, the Doctor went to 
Kentucky, and located at Athens, Fayette County, 
where he began the practice of his profession. In 
October, of the same year, he married Miss Lottie 
C. Stephens, a native of Kentucky, and the daugh- 
ter of Edwin Stephens, also a native of the " Blue 
Grass State," and a merchant of Lexington, who 
died of chol(<ra in 1849. Dr. Prewitt remained in 
Athens until 1873, when he went to Helena, Ark., 
and bought a farm on Old Town Ridge. He re- 
mained there for four years, and then came to 
Osceola, Ark., where he has been practicing ever 
since, and has acquired no inferior reputation for 
his ability as a physician and surgeon. In 1877 
he opened a line drug store in the place, which 
was practically the first in Osceola, and ran this 
for eight years. In 1879 he took a course of lec- 
tures at Louisville, Ky., and graduated from the 
Kentucky School of Medicine the same year. Tbe 
Doctor is a member of the county examining board, 
is ex-president of the Mississippi County Medical 
Society, is a member of the State Medical Society, 
and is ex-president of the Tri- State Medical Asso- 
ciation, of Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. 
To Dr. and Mrs. Prewitt were born six childi'en ; 
Joseph E., Laura (attending school at Richmond. 
Ky.), Robert C. and Sarah. Two were born dead. 



^' 



<5 k^ 



.k 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



545 



W. H. Pullen. It was in the capacity of a mer- 
chant that Mr. Pullen tirst became acquainted 
with the people of Mississippi County, aud they 
with him, and such has been his record as a 
business man, that his success is assured. He 
came to Frenchman's Bayou from Memphis in 
July, 1888, and bought out Dr. Joyner's store, 
since which time he has enlarged the build- 
ing and added to the stock, so that now he has 
the largest and best selected stock of goods in 
the county outside of Osceola. Mr. Pullen has 
been recently appointed postmaster at Bardstown. 
He was born in Sardis, Panola County, Miss. , but 
moved with his parents to Memphis, where he was 
reared and educated. When but sixteen years of 
age young Pullen embarked in business for him- 
self by working for the Hernando Insurance Com- 
pany for a number of years. He was also engaged 
with Lemon & Gale, of Memphis, in the dry goods 
business. At the age of twenty seven he came to 
Mississippi County, and, as above .stated, bought out 
the store of Dr. Joyner. He carries a stock of gen- 
eral merchandise valued at about $6,000, and is one 
of the promising young business men of the county. 
He chose his life companion in the person of Miss 
Lou Haynes, daughter of Samuel H. Haynes, a 
Kentuckiaii by birth, who was colonel in the Union 
army during the war, and who had two brothers in 
the Confederate army. To Mr. and Mrs. Pullen 
has been bom one child. King Haynes Pullen, a 
bright baby boy, the delight of the family. Ben- 
jamin K. Pullen, father of W. H. Pullen, was a 
native of North Carolina, who came to Memj^his, 
Tenn. , before the war, and during the war was in 
the Confederate service. He occupied a position 
as captain of the commissary department in a Mis- 
sissippi regiment. When Memphis fell into the 
hands of the Union army, he brought his family to 
Panola County, Miss. After the war the family 
moved back to Memphis. A lirother of our sub- 
ject, Charles Lesslie Pullen, now one of the editors 
of the Sunday Times of jNIemphis, has been elected 
an honorary member of the Folk- Lore Society, of 
London, England, a very exclusive club, he being 
among the few members receiving that honor in 
the United States. 



J. L. Quarles, who is numbered among the 
prominent agriculturists of Mississippi County, 
Ark., is a native of Tallahatchee County, Miss., 
where he remained until the breaking out of the 
late war, when he enlisted in Company D, Twen 
ty-seventh Mississippi Volunteer lufantrj^ and 
served in Alabama and Tennessee, also taking 
part in the Perry ville. Ky., battle. He was in the 
battles of Murfreesl)oro, Chickamauga, and in the 
latter battle was wounded, by having a minie ball 
enter his neck aud come out near the spinal col- 
umn. He next took part in the battle of Lookout 
Mountain, where the company went in thirty-seven 
strong, and only six returned unscathed. He was 
at Missionary Ridge, Resaca (Ga. ), New Hope 
Church, Atlanta, Jonesboro, and Franklin (Tenn.), 
and was mustered out and paroled at Grenada. 
Miss., after which he returned to Tallahatchee 
County, and there followed agricultural pursuits 
for two years. From there he went to Carroll 
County, of the same State, and after tilling the 
soil until December, 1887, he and family took pos- 
session of Shawnee Village, for Mrs. W. S. Brans- 
ford, of Nashville, Tenn. Mr. Quarles superin 
tends the whole place, which consists of 1,400 
acres, with 700 under cultivation. He thinks Ar- 
kansas one of the best countries in the world in 
which to raise live stock, especially mules, and 
says he has twenty head on the place for which he 
would not take $140 per head. These muJes have 
lived entirely on the range, winter and summer, 
with no expense except a little attention in the way 
salting, etc. Mr. Quarles says you may take a 
mule out of the plow in July, when it is almost 
worked to a shadow, and in a few weeks it will be 
fat and in good condition. The above mentioned 
gentleman is a member of the firm of Quarles 
Bros., who are now renting 300 acres of the War- 
ner farm, in this county, near McGavock. Mr. 
Quarles chose for his life companion Miss L. F. 
Merrill, of Carroll County, Miss., where their chil- 
dren were all born. These are named as follows: 
B. W. , now at home; Anna Merrill, J. L., Jr.. 
Merrill, Oliver P. and Lucy F. They lost one 
child, the eldest, at the age of three years. Mrs. 
Quarles is the daughter of J. W. S. Merrill, of Car- 



-7- 



54fi 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



roll County, Miss., where he is a civil engineer of 
considerable note He has been elected assessor 
and collector of Le Flurf County, and has been 
surveyor of the United States laud office for many 
years. Mr. Qiiarles has been a member of the 
Masonic Lodge of Greenwood, IMiss. , for the past 
eighteen years, and he and wife and three eldest 
children are members of the Christian Church. 

J. W. Quinn. Since locating in Mississippi 
County, Ark., Mr. Quinn has enjoyed the reputa- 
tion of being, not only a substantial and progres- 
sive planter, but an intelligent and thoroughly- 
posted man in all public affairs; and a short sketch 
of his life will be of more than passing interest to 
the people of this locality. He was born in the 
"Palmetto State,'' in the year 1854, and was the 
eldest of four children born to the marriage of 
Lawson Quinn and Sarah Hampton. The father 
was an energetic tiller of the soil until the break- 
ing out of the Rebellion, but at that date he laid 
down the implements of peace, to don the weapons 
of warfare, and was a faithful soldier in the Con- 
federate army until he was killed at the battle of 
Petersburg, in 1864. His widow afterward became 
the worthy companion of W. P. Miller, and re- 
moved to East Tennessee, coming in 1874 to Mis- 
sissippi County, Ark. J. W. Quinn, the subject 
of this sketch, remained with his mother until 
1877, when he was taken sick, and went to East 
Tennesspe for medical treatment, and after recov- 
ering his health, to some little extent, he attended 
school for a short time. In 1878 he made a trip 
to the home of his liirth, where he remained for a 
.while, then after a brief visit in Tennessee, he 
returned to Mississippi Coimty, Ark. The follow- 
ing spring (1879) he rented thirty acres of land 
hei'e, and made his first crop, and so well did he 
succeed that he has since continued to follow that 
occupation. As rent he gave every fifth bale of 
cotton, and realized on the crop exactly $1,000. 
He was very successful the next year also, so that 
in 18S3 he was able to purchase a tract of eighty 
acres, three miles north of Osceola, for which he 
paid the sum of 11,750. Thirty acres were under 
cultivation, and since then he has put the entire 
tract under the plow, erecting good buildings, and 



making other valuable improvements. Finding 
this farm insufficient to keep him employed 
throughout the year, he rented land of his neigh- 
bors, and, notwithstanding the Hoods and other 
discouraging features, he succeeded in raising 
good crops and did well. In January, 1886, he 
made a trip to Texas, thinking to improve his 
health by a change of scene and climate, but not 
liking it in the " Lone Star State," he returned to 
Arkansas in September of the same year, and lie- 
gan working for William P. Hale, with whom he 
entered into partnership about Christmas, being 
engaged in managing the latter' s large planta- 
tion, five miles above Osceola. They have (1889) 
700 acres in cotton and corn, and realized on 
their last year's crop $6,000, their farm giving 
employment to twenty-seven families, numbering 
over 100 people. They are also quite extensively 
engaged in raising a good grade of stock, and 
have some of the finest Durham cattle in this 
vicinity, as w(>ll as blooded Berkshire hogs. In 
November, 1883, Miss Mattie Spred, of this coun- 
ty, became his wife, she being a daughter of one 
of the pioneer settlers of this section. Their union 
resulted in the birth of three children: Eddie 
Lawson, and Earl and Eleanor (twins), the latter 
dying in infancy. Mr. Quinn is a member of 
Lodge No. 27 of the A. F. & A. M., of Osceola. 

John H. Rainey. There are few men, if any, 
who have occupied a more prominent jjosition or 
contributed more toward the development of the 
resources of Mississippi County, than Mr. Rainey, 
a man whose history has been so intimately con 
nected with the affairs of Chickasawba Townshi]). 
that to mention one necessitates a sketch of the 
other. He was born in Jackson County, Ala., in 
1833, the son of Samuel H. Rainey. a prominent 
farmer of that State. The latter removed to the 
State of Arkansas, in 1844, with his wife, whose 
maiden name was Sarah Kelso, and his family of 
six children, and settled in Mississippi County, near 
where our subject now resides. He remained one 
year on this place, then moved to Osceola, and en- 
tered a farm of 160 acres two miles north of the 
town, on which he made many necessary improve- 
ments, and soon had a pleasant and comfortable 



^; 



'^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



Ml 



home ill the woods. On this farm ho resided un- 
til bi.s death in ]8r>4, his wife havinjr departed 
this life two years earlier. John H. Rainey was 
reared ou his father's woodland farm, and hia 
character was so molded in yonth that it was 
perhaps natural for him to look upon farming as 
the only calling with which he should identify 
himself in after life. At the age of twenty one 
years he left homo to carve out his own fortnius 
and for a number of years worked as a farmhand, 
but in 18fiO he was appointed by Sheriff Charles 
Bowen, to the oflice of deputy sheriff of the 
county, and was given entire charge of affairs 
when the war broke out. as Mr. Bowen was anxious 
to join the army. He continued to discharge his 
duties very satisfactorily until 1862, when the 
Federal troops took possession of the county, and 
he was then compelled to turn his attention to 
other matters. He took no part in the war. but 
during hostilities met with several stirring adven- 
tures. He continued to farm on rented land until 
1S66, then purchased a tract of land embracing 
160 acres near Osceola, nearlj' all of which place 
he succeeded in clearing, and soon after Ijought 
320 acres adjoining, on which he cleared another 
1 60 acres, thus making 320 acres under plow. In 
1881 he sold the latter farm and moved to Chicka- 
sawba Township, purchasing wild land to the ex- 
tent of 660 acres, on which he moved, and began 
immediately to improve with good buildings and 
by clearing his place from brush and timber. He 
has continued from time to time to purchase laud 
until he is now the owner of about 4,200 acres, 
with some 300 acres under cultivation, and has 
the timber of 700 acres deadened for removal. In 
1885 he removed to a farm he had piirchased in 
Cooktown, and two years later bought one and one- 
half acres in North Chickasavvba, on which are 
a cotton gin. a store house and a small residence. 
Mr. Rainey has cleared over 600 acres alone, 
which is a tine record for one man. His life has 
been one of unremitting toil, and though he com- 
menced for himself without much means be is now 
in possession of fine property, the result of honest 
industiy and perseverance, and thoroughly deserves 
the respect which is accorded him. He has now 



attained the age of tifty-six years, and for the re- 
mainder of his days can take the world easier, and 
enjoy the fruits of his early toil. On his lands 
are extensive tracts heavily covered with valuable 
timber, which will prove a source of wealth as 
soon as it can be put on the market. Mr. Rainey 
contemplates the immediate erection of a saw- 
mill, as he will require large (juanties of lumljer 
in erecting numerous houses on his own farm. He 
was married in 1879 to Miss Sarah H. Brown, a 
native of the State and a daughter of one of the 
old pioneers of this section, and to their union 
have been born the following interesting little 
family: Sarah J., Samuel H. and John H. He 
always voted the Democratic ticket, and is an act- 
ive advocate of public schools, having served in 
the capacity of director for a number of years. 
He commands the respect and esteem of all for 
his sterling integrity, sober and sound judgment, 
broad intelligence and liberal and progressive 
ideas. His wife is a consistent member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Rainey has 
also held the following offices: In 1873-74 he 
was county assessor, in 1875-76 county surveyor, 
and is now a member of the Board of Equaliza- 
tion, to equalize the assessment of county property. 
To this office he was appointed by Gov. Eagle. 

Pamic Reed is one of the leading agriculturists 
of Mississippi County, Ark., and since locating 
here, many years ago (in 1845), has seen. many 
changes in the growth and development of this 
community. He was born in the " Hoosier State " 
in 1820, and was reared to the occupation of black- 
smithing, but after leaving home, on the 8th of 
June, 1843, he spent two years in flat-\)oating cm 
the river, and after a short time spent in Illinois, 
came to Mississippi County, Ark., locating at 
Hickman's Bend, where he was engaged in l)oating 
and rafting, and kept a wood yard. At that time 
all the white settlers lived contiguous to the river, 
the interior lieing still occupied by the Indians, 
and wild animals of all kinds roamed the woods at 
will. After residing in this locality until the 20th 
of May, 1854, he moved to Kansas, where he fol- 
lo\yed teaming for some time, and during the Kan 
sas War was in the battle of Ijawrence, and a 



^'. 




uumber of other engagements in the spring of 
1856. The following year he loaded all his effects 
on a flat-boat and floated down the Missouri and 
Mississippi rivers to Hickman" s Bend, in Mississippi 
County, Ark., at which place he landed on the 
22dof December, 1857, then buying land on Buford 
Lake, where he soon had a good home. The 
most of his attention was given to stock farming, 
in which enterprise he was verj' extensively en- 
gaged during the Rebellion. He continued to 
make this his residence for about twenty years, 
opening up some sixty acres in the meantime, but 
sold out in 1875 and came to Clear Lake, where 
he purchased the farm on which he is now residing, 
which comprises a tract of about 100 aci'es under 
cultivation of some of the best laud in this sec- 
tion, the most of which he devotes to the raising 
of corn and cotton. He has been so unfortunate 
as to lose four wives, but is at present living hap- 
pily with his fifth wife. His lirst union was to 
Miss Nancy J. Cotton, whom he married Novem- 
ber 9, 1847. She was a native of Missouri and 
died in Hlinois, February 12, 1849, and was buried 
with her child. His second marriage was to Miss 
Ellen Pints, of Mississippi County, whose death 
occurred on the 11th of April, 1851, she leaving a 
daughter named Elner, who died in the State of 
Kansas at the age of six years, on the 30th of 
June, 1857. Susan Sawyer, a native of Tennessee, 
and a member of a well-known family of that 
State, became his third wife February 12, 1852, 
but she left him again a widower on the 12th of 
April, 1874. Mr. Reed next espoused Miss Caro- 
line A. Mannen, a native of Mississippi County, 
who died a short time after her marriage, in 1875, 
also being buried with her child. His fifth and 
present wife, was Mrs. M. J. Rackley, a Kentuckian 
by bii-th, who was the mother of four children by 
a previous marriage. She and Mr. Reed have one 
child, a daughter, named Rebecca Susan. Mr. 
Reed's various occupations through life have been 
somewhat diversified, but unlike the old saying, 
"jack of all trades and master of none," he has 
been reasonably prosperous in every enterprise to 
which he has given his attention, and now, during 
his declining years, can look back over a useful 



and well-spent life. He has always been quite an 
active politician, and has affiliated with the Demo- 
cratic party. 

E. D. Rhea, M. D.. a physician and surgeon 
of more than ordinary ability, was born in the 
State of Tennessee in 1835, and like the majority 
of the farmers' boys of his day acquired only a 
common school education. At an early age, how- 
ever, he evinced an eageme.ss for study and a desire 
for professional life, and acquired the taste for 
scientific learning, medicine having a particular 
fascination for him. When twenty five years of 
age he went to Missouri, having previously studied 
medicine, and was engaged in practicing his profes- 
sion there until 1862, when he enlisted as a surgeon 
in the Fourth Missouri Regiment, Confederate cav- 
alry, and served in the Trans-Mississippi Depart- 
ment, in Marmaduke" s division, until the close of the 
war, after which he came to Arkansas and located 
in Fulton County, near Salem, remaining there in 
the active practice of his profession until 1876. 
During 1874-75 he represented Fulton County in 
the first Democratic legislature convened after the 
Reconstruction Act, and was an active member of 
that body during the stormy times of the Brooks- 
Baxter war. Since 1876 he has practiced his pro 
fession in Mississippi County, and has acquired no 
inferior reputation as a physician and surgeon. 
When the village of Blythesville was laid out 
he purchased property and built one of the 
first bouses in that place, and has since been 
quite extensively engaged in fruit raising (in con- 
nection with his practice), in which he has had 
remarkable success. Since 1881 he has owned 
an eighty-acre farm near Blythesville, thirty of 
which he has opened, and on which he has 
built a house and made other improvements. In 
1879 he was married to Miss Sarah Walker, a 
daughter of John Walker, one of the early pioneers 
of the county, but in March, 1885, was called upon 
to mourn her untimely death. She left two chil- 
dren, Maggie, and Lizzie, the latter dying at the 
age of nine months, six months after the mother. 
Miss Fannie Blackwell, of Lauderdale County, 
Tenn., became his wife September 17, 1886. The 
Doctor was the youngest of a family of twelve chil- 



^ 



".i:. 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



o49 



dren l)oiu to Joseph M. and Kittie (Myers) Rhea, 
who were horn in Tennessee and Maryland, respect- 
ively. The father was a school teacher for many 
years, and also followed the occupation of farming. 
They both died in 1860. he in August and she in 
February. 

J. W. Rhodes is one of the more recent acquisi- 
tions to the agricultural and mercantile interests 
of Mississippi County, Ark., but he has already 
been found to be one whose leading characteristics 
are progr(>ssive and enterprising in their nature, 
and thus of much worth to the people of this com- 
munity. A native of Hines County, Miss. , liorn 
near Vicksburg. he was only four years old when 
his father (in 1857) removed with him to the "Lone 
Star State." Here the latter died in 1866, his 
wife and children, consisting of seven boys and 
three daughters, removing to the State of Tennes- 
see the following year. J. W. Rhodes resided at 
home with his mother until sixteen years of age, 
spending his boyhood days as other youths of the 
community, and received a fair education in the 
common schools. He then obtained a position with 
Cunningham, Wicks & Malone, commission mer- 
chants of Memphis, Tenn., with whom he remained 
two years, then went to Bay Springs, Miss., and 
worked as a book-keeper for J. M. Nelson & Co., 
for one year. He again returned to Memphis, 
Tenn., and secured employment with the Charles- 
ton & Memphis Railroad Company, where he kept 
books, and afterward clerked on the river for the 
Memphis & Osceola Packet Company, and was em- 
ployed in this capacity on different steamboats of 
that line for about four years. In 1876, he leased 
the Crowell Landing for a term of five years, but 
bought the landing in 1878. This was washed 
away in the freshet of 1883, biit Mr. Rhodes soon 
jiurchased thirty-seven acres of land, on which he 
is now living, and established a landing called 
Golden Lake, which took its name from the post- 
office, which he had established, and of which he 
has been postmaster since 1885. He first estaVi- 
lished a store in 1883, at Crowell Landing, but 
when the land began to be washed away at that 
point, he moved his goods t)ack farther inland, to 
his present location, where he and I''. .\. Norton 



formed a partnership under the linn name of 
Rhodes & Norton, which continued until tiieir es- 
tablishment caught fire, and was consumed, Janu- 
ary 22, 1888. Their loss was estimated, over and 
above their insurance, which amounted to $2,000, 
at $5,000. Directly after the fire. Mr. Rhodes 
erected a substantial fi'ame building, 36x()0 feet, 
on the site of the burnt building, and is now carry 
ing one of the largest and most complete stocks of 
goods in the county, valued at $5,000. He also 
owns a fine cotton-gin, and is now replacing the 
old machinery with the latest improved in the 
market, its capacity being twenty-five bales per 
day. He has iu bis plantation aliout 120 acres, 
eighty five of which are under the i)low, and is 
improved with good buildings, his residence being 
an exceptionally tine one. His peach orchard is 
also one of the l)est along the river. In the year 
1877, he was united in marriage to Miss Clara M. 
Pulliam, a daughter of E. Pnlliam, of Bartlett. 
Tenn. Mrs. Rhodes is a lady of culture and re- 
finement, and she and Mr. Rhodes are the parents 
of the following children, two girls and two boys: 
Ella Nelson, Lucy Pulliam, Joseph Wicks, Jr., 
and Charles Robert. A great deal of liusiness is 
done at Golden Lake, Mr. Rhodes acting as agent 
for the steamboats at that point. He is a mem- 
ber of the K. of H. , and his wife is a njember of 
the Methodist Church. 

Leon Roussan. editor and publisher of the 
Osceola Times (which he purchased in 1870). is a 
gentleman of ciolture, of large general information, 
and has proven himself to be a man of good judg- 
ment in directing the editorial policy of his paper. 
He was born in Ste. Genevieve, Mo., in 1838, and 
was the second in a family of seven children l)orn 
to Michael and Sophia (Janis) Roussan. Tlie 
parents were natives of Missouri, but were descend- 
ants of early French pioneers iu tliat section. 
Leon Roussan attended the public and private 
schools of his native town until sixteen years of 
age, when he entered the newspaper office of the 
Ste. Genevieve Plain Dealer, and there remained 
one year. He then clerked in a store until 18(51, 
when he enlisted in Company C, First Confederate 
Battalion, and was assigned to Mississippi River 



> ^> 



^1 



550 



HISTOEY OF ABKANSAS. 



division. He was in the siege of Island No. 10, 
was there captured and taken to Johnson's Island, 
Lake Erie, where he remained some six months, 
and was then exchanged at Vicksburg. Later he 
joined the Forty-second Tennessee Regiment, and 
was elected lieutenant of Company C. He was in 
the Georgia campaign, and was wounded at At- 
lanta. After the close of the conflict Mr. Roussan 
went to St. Louis, where he clerked for a year, 
and then moved to Randolph, Tenn. , where he en- 
gaged in commercial pursuits. In 1870 he came 
to Osceola, and bought the paper which he now 
conducts. The Times is one of the old and well- 
established papers of this portion of the State, and 
has ever exerted a potent influence in public af- 
fairs and the general interests of Mississippi Coun- 
ty — never more so than in late years, whilst under 
the supervision of its present editor. It has a 
good patronage, and commands the respect and 
confidence of the entire reading public among 
whom it circulates. At the incorporation of Osce- 
ola, in 1872, Mr. Roussan was active in promoting 
a harmonious organization, and was elected its 
first mayor. Since then he has been justice of the 
peace, and is at present county examiner. In 1879 
his marriage was consummated with Miss Adah 
L. Pettey, a native of the " Lone Star State." and 
the daughter of Dr. F. M. Pettey. Mr. Roussan 
is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Lodge No. 
27, of Osceola, and is also a member of the Arkan- 
sas Press Association. 

Hon. L. D. Eozell. Every life has a history of 
its own, and although in appearance it may seem to 
possess little to distinguish it from others, yet the 
political career and experience of Mr. Rozell, as 
well as his connection with the agricultural and 
stock raising affairs of this community, have con- 
tributed to give him a wide and popular acquaint- 
ance with nearly every citizen of Mississippi Coun- 
ty, if not personally, then by name. He was born 
in Davidson County, Tenn. , in 1836, and was the 
second in a family of seven children born to Rev. 
A. B. and Henrietta (Burnett) Rozell. The father 
was an extensive farmer, and was also a well-known 
and popular Methodist preacher in Middle Tennes- 
see, where he died in 1886. The mother died in 



I 1845. The paternal grandfather, Solomon Rozell, 

I was a native of North Carolina, and was one of the 
pioneers of West Tennessee, settling near Mem- 
phis, which at that time was composed of less than 
half a dozen huts. The maternal grandfather was 

! a very early settler in Middle Tennessee, and both 
families became well known in the localities where 
they cast their lot. As L. D. Rozell was reared as 
an agriculturist, it is but natural that he should 
permanently adopt that calling as his life occupa- 
tion, and he has always followed it. He attended 
the common schools when a boy, and at his major- 
ity engaged in tilling the soil for himself. In 
1862 he enlisted in Company C, First Tennessee 
Confederate Cavalry, and participated in the bat- 
tles of Holly Springs, Spring Hill, Chickamauga, 
Atlanta, Jonesboro, Franklin, Nashville and others. 
In 1865 Mr. Rozell came to Mississippi County, 
Ark., and settled on the river about ten miles 

! above Osceola, on a tract of land purchased by his 
father in 1855. In 1867 Miss Margaret Bowen 
became his wife. She was born in Mississippi 
County, and was the daughter of Reese Bowen, 
who died in 1856, and was one of the earliest set- 
tlers in this county. The year previous to his 

j marriage Mr. Rozell purchased a tract of 100 acres 
of partially improved land, to which be has since 
added, until he now owns 1,200 acres of excel- 
lent bottom soil, with 350 acres under cultivation. 
He has erected good buildings, fences, etc., and is 
now enjoying the result of his labor. He has a 
good grade of stock mixed with Darham, and has 
a fine bull for breeding purposes. He has taken 
an active interest, politically, in the affairs of the 
county, and has held many positions of public 
trust. He was elected justice of the peace in 1868, 

I and in 1871 represented his county in the Legis- 
lature, to the satisfaction of his constituents and 
the public in general. In 1886 he was elected 
county judge, was re elected in 1888, and is hold- 
ing that position at the present. He is active in 
school matters, and has served as director for many 
years. In all things that promise to contribute to 
the good of this section the Judge may be counted 
upon to take a leading part. By his marriage to 
Miss Bowen, he became the father of eight chil- 






drtMi. two of whom are deceased. Those living 
(ire Ashley. William, Martha, Bascom, Lockey 
and Shoemaker. Margaret aud Emma died in in- 
fancy. The Judge is a member of Lodge No. 27, 
A. F. & A. M. 

A. A. Rounsaville. The occupation which this 
gentleman now follows has received his attention 
the greater part of his life, and it is Ijut the truth 
to say that in it he is thoroughly posted and well- 
informed, and his labors in this direction have con- 
tributed very materially to the reputation Missis- 
si [>pi County enjoys as a rich farming region. 
Like many of the residents of the county he is a 
Tennesseean by birth, having been born in 1839, 
and was the eighth of eleven children born to 
Clayborn and Elizabeth Rounsaville, who were 
horn, reared and married in the State of Alabama, 
and shortly after removed to Tennessee. In 1851 
they resolved to move still farther to the west, and 
accordingly settled in Mississippi County, Ark. , 
where they opened up a large section of land, on 
which they spent the remaining years of their 
lives, the father dying in ISHT, and the mother in 
1854. From earliest youth A. A. Rounsaville has 
been familiar with the duties of farm labor, and 
up to the breaking out of the late war he was en- 
gaged in following this occupation, aud in attend- 
ing the old time subscription schools. He espoused 
the cause of the Confederacy and joined Capt. 
Fletcher's company, aud was a participant in the 
battles of Shiloh and Farmington, but after the 
latter battle was discharged from service on ac- 
count of sickness, and returned home. In 1864 he 
re-enlisted in Price's command, and accompanied 
that general on his raid through Missouri, taking 
an active part in all the battles of that campaign. 
After his surrender at Shreveport, La., in 1865, 
he returned to Mississippi County, Ark., where, un- 
til liS()8, he was engaged in rafting and wood- 
chopping. The three following years he farmed 
the old family homestead, and in 1871 bought a 
tract of forty acres, one mile east of Blythesville, 
on which farm he has since built a commodious 
and substantial dwelling house, and has reduced 
twenty-five acres to cultivation and otherwise 
added greatly to its improvement. He has pur- 



chased forty more acres of land, and also is the 
owner of some valuable town property. His lands 
are fertile, and will produce one bale of cotton to 
the acre, and forty bushels of corn. He also 
gives considerable attention to the propagation of 
a good grade of stock. He was married in 1868 
to Mrs. Nancy Hudgins, formerly Miss Synclear. 

H. T. Rounsaville is a brother of A. A. Roun- 
saville, whose sketch appears above, and like his 
brother, is careful and painstaking in the cultiva- 
tion of his land, and thorough in everything con- 
nected with its management. It is, perhaps, not 
to be wondered at that he is meeting with success 
in his chosen calling, for he has always attended 
strictly to the details of farm work, and is one of 
the intelligent and enterprising class of citizens 
who would give life to any community in which 
thej' might settle. His birth also occurred in Ten- 
nessee, in the year 1842, he being the youngest 
child living born to his parents, and up to the age 
of twenty-one years his time was divided between 
working on the farm and in attending school, where 
he received a good practical education, and from 
that time until he arrived at the age of thirty-one 
years, he traveled about through thirteen different 
States. After his return to th(< State of Arkansas, 
in 1871, he purchased a small but exceedingly fer- 
tile farm of forty acres, one mile east of Blythes- 
ville. which was then heavily covered with timber, 
and now has twenty-six acr(>s in a high state of 
cultivation; has built good fences and made other 
improvements, securing a pleasant and comforta- 
ble home, which he is enjoying with his wife 
(whose maiden name was Amanda Sawyer, and 
whom he married in 1873) and his three children, 
Margaret Ann, Franklin Monroe and Joel Alvin. 
Mrs. Rounsaville is a daughter of William Sawyer, 
a pioneer settler of this section. 

Rucker Brothers. Nowhere in Mississippi 
County, Ark. , are there to be found individuals of 
more energy, determined will, or force of charac- 
ter than these young men possess, aud no merchant 
or agriculturist is deserving of greater success in 
the conduct of his store or the management of 
his farms than they. The firm comprises Albert 
Ct. and Egbert E. Rucker, both of whom were born 






— rf i' 



552 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



in Lauderdale County, Term., the former's birth 
occurring November 19, 1855, and the latter' s 
December 1, 1856. Like most of tlie youths of 
their county, as they grew up they devoted their 
time and attention to farm life, receiving in the 
meantime good common school educations. After 
attaining his majority Albert engaged in farming 
for himself, following this occupation until tv\renty- 
eiglit years of age, when he engaged in commercial 
business at Bartield, in connection with Egbert E. , 
who had been following that business ever since 
attaining his majority, and succeeded Carr & Co. 
On the 20th of November, 1888, they purchased a 
tract of land, comprising eighty acres, of Z. T. 
Williams, the most of which was under cultivation, 
and about the same time they purchased forty 
acres of J. \V. Buckner. In May, 1889, they 
bought Kifl acres two miles west of Bartield, which 
they intend improving and clearing at once. Their 
stock of general merchandise is valued at about 
$4,(100, and in connection with this work, which is 
proving quite remunerative, they buy and ship cotton 
and all farm products, and own a half interest in a 
cotton-gin at Hickman's Bend. While engaged in 
farming, Albert raised 4,500 bushels of corn on 
seventy-two acres of land, at Hickman's Bend, 
this crop only requiring his time and attention for 
about sixty days, and shows the productiveness of 
the soil at this point. In the vicinity of Bartield, 
the cotton crop has averaged one bale to the acre 
for the past five years. There are three saw- 
mills within a radius of three miles from their 
home, each having a capacity of 50,000 feet of 
lumber per day, and this lumber is moslly shipped 
from Rucker Brothers' landing. Bartield is the 
best business point between the northern limits of 
the county and Osceola, being the main shipping 
station for Chickasawba, and last year 2, 500 bales 
of cotton were shipped from that point. The 
Rucker Brothers have acquired an enviable repu- 
tation for safe, thorough, and reliable transactions 
in the affairs of every day life, and have done 
much to increase and extend the trade and intiu- 
ence of Bartield. They are members of the Bap- 
tist Church, and are men who have always endeav- 
ored to follow the teachings of the golden rule, 



and have gained the esteem and approbation of 
their fellow men. Egbert was married, February 
15, 1884, to Miss Florence Chambers, a native of 
Tennessee, and is now tilling the duties of post- 
master of Barfield, and prior to the year 1888, 
held the office six years. Their parents. James 
M. and Julia A. (Chadwickj Rucker, were born in 
Virginia and Ohio, respectively, and while a yoving 
man, the former moved to Tennessee, and after- 
ward to Arkansas, his marriage taking place in 
Mississippi County in 1847. They subsequently 
made their home in Tennessee, where the father's 
death occurred in 1879. His widow is still resid- 
ing on the old homestead in that State. 

Hon. J. F. Ruddell. Among the citizens of 
Mississippi County, Ark., long and favorably iden- 
tified with its social and business interests, is Mr. 
Kuddell. whose biography will no doulit lie read 
by old and young, for there is always an instinct- 
ive curiosity to know the true and inner history of 
men who have had such a close association with 
the affairs of this county from primitive date. Ho 
was born in Miami County, Ohio, in 1826, being 
the fourth in a family of five children born to 
Archibald and Ann (Neal) Ruddell, who were en- 
gaged in following agricultural pursuits in the 
" Buckeye State. " Later they removed to Boone 
County, Ky. , where the father remained until his 
death, in 1838. His widow afterward became the 
worthy companion of Jordan Bass, and in 1836 
emigrated to Arkansas, and died at the home of 
our subject in 1873. J. F. Ruddell, brought up 
to a knowledge of farm duties, very naturally chose 
that occupation as his calling in life when it be 
came necessary for him to select some permanent 
industry, and the experience he has since had has 
proven the wisdom of his judgment. He attended 
the common schools until 1836, then made his 
home in Kentucky with an uncle until 1840. after 
which he worked as a farm hand for several years. 
In 1843 he made a trip to Arkansas, Imt in 1847 
located permanently at Osceola, Mississippi Conn 
ty. where he ran a trading post on the river 
for one year. In the fall of 1849 he came to 
Chickasawba Township, entered eighty acres of 
Government land, and after making many improve- 



^1 



'A^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



55:5 



nionts and living on this Iract for many ycM's. hi> 
sold out and bought \W acres at Clear Lake. 
Three years later he came to Blythesville, where 
he now has 120 acres near the village, all under 
cultivation, with fair building.s and a good small 
orchard. The laud is very productive, and will 
readily yield one bale of cotton to the acre. He 
also owns eighty acres on Dogwood Ridge, twenty 
being under the plow. When the Keliellion broke 
out he joined Capt. Fletcher's company, which 
was known as the Fletcher Rifles, and was in the 
battle of Shiloh, where he was wouuded; was 
captured at Murfreesboro, being afterward ex- 
changed; Chickamauga and Decatur, Ala., where he 
was again taken prisoner, and was kept in captivity 
until the close of the war. After leaving the bat 
tie field he returned home, and again took up the 
implements of farm life. From 1854 to 1801 he 
liUed the office of justice of the peace, and after 
returning from the war was again tendered that 
position, which he accepted. In IST-l he was 
chosen to represent his county in the State legis- 
lature, and served to the entire satisfaction of his 
constituents for one term. At the present time he 
is a member of the Tax Equalization Board, and 
as he has always been an active advocate of schools, 
he has served many years as school director. In 
1850 he married Miss Nancy Mobely, a daugh- 
ter of John Mobely, one of the old pioneers 
of Mississippi County, who came here in 182(5 
fi'om Missouri. Mrs. Ruddell died in 1862, leav- 
ing five children, who are now also dead: John 
T. , Louisa A. , Charles A. , Emily E. and Sarah E. 
In 1867 he man-ied Amanda Mobely, a sister of 
his first wife, but she. too, died leaving him again 
a widower with two children to care for: Thomas 
O. (deceased), and Martha A., who is attending 
school at Lexington, Ky. Mr. Ruddell married 
his present wife, who was Mrs. Margaret Walker, 
in 1889. In 1888 he made a visit to relatives in 
Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, but saw no coun- 
try that, in his estimation, was so desirable as 
Mississippi County, Ark. , and here he is contented 
to pass his declining years among his many tried 
and true friends. 

Elisha Sawyer. The father of <iur subject. 

3S 



Noah Sawyer, is well remembered by th(* early 
citizens of this county as a man worthy the re- 
spect and e.steem of all, and a short sketch of his 
life will be interesting to his relatives and numer- 
ous friends. He was born in North Carolina, and 
went to Tennessee at an early day, being married 
there to Miss Martha Henderson, also a native of 
th(» ' ' Old North State. " They resided in the State 
of their adoption until 1852, at that time coming 
to Arkansas, and settling at Daniels' Point, on the 
river, where they entered KiO acres of land, fifty 
of which he cleared and ])ut under cultivation, and 
made a comfortabl(> home until 1857. Ho then 
sold out, but later bought a farm of 200 acres 
on Long Lake, which at the time of his purchase 
was a wilderness, and on this farm Elisha Sawver 
cut the first cane for clearing. They soon had a 
house erected, and here Mr. Sawyer lived until 
1873, respected and esteemed by all who knew 
him. In 1871 he bought 100 acres near what is 
now Blythesville, and on this made his home un- 
til 1878, when he quietly breathed his last. His 
entire course through life had been one marked 
with singular honesty and fidelity of purpose, and 
to every charitable object he was a liberal contribu 
tor, and was a man held in high esteem by all who 
knew him. He held the office of justice of the 
peace for a number of years, and when a mere boy 
united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
lived up to its rules throughout his whole life. 
He was a member of the Masonic fraternity. His 
wife departed this life in 1865. Elisha Sawyer 
attended the common schools for a short time, 
learned the details of farm work on his father's 
farm, and after the close of the Rebellion began 
farming for himself. When the mutterings of 
war began to be heard throughout the land, he 
espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and joined 
Capt. Fletcher's company, participating in the 
battle of Shiloh, in which engagement he was 
wounded three times. He was sent to the hospi- 
tal, l)eing shortly after discharged, and returned 
home. After farming with bis father for two 
years, he bought a piece of land which he began 
to improve, and in 1881 purchased a farm of 160 
acres on Clear Lake, which he cleared, and made 







his home until tlu" winter of 1889, when he moved 
to his present pl.ice of abode. At the death of his 
father he inherited one half of the old homestead, 
amounting to 140 acres, and with what he has 
purchased his lands comprise 500 acres, with 180 
under the plow. He has a good orchard on his 
old Clear Lake farm, and says his fruit is of choice 
varieties. Miss Missouri A. Chisum, a native of 
Tennessee, became his wife in 1804, and to them 
were given two children, of whom one is dead — 
Rebecca. Mi's. Sawyer and daughter are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

William H. Scarboro. It is an undeniable 
truth that the life of any man is of great benefit 
to the community in which he resides, when all his 
efforts are directed toward advancing its interests, 
and who lives according to the highest principles 
of what he conceives to be right, helping others, 
and caring for those who are unable to do for them- 
selves. Mr. Scarboro is one of these men. He 
was born in Tennessee in 1856, being the third of I 
eight children of Calvin R. and Mary J. (Hodges) 
Scarboro, who were also Tennesseeans, where the 
father carried on the business of a saddler and 
farmer. He is still residing in that State, his home 
being at Mifflin. William H. Scarboro received 
the advantages of the common schools in his youth, 
and was an intelligent and studious pupil. Al- 
though he was reared a farmer's boy, he has never 
given that occupation his attention until within the 
last year, since which time he has entered upon 
that calling with a perseverance that can not fail 
of favorable results. At the age of twenty-one he 
secured the United States mail contracts in Hen- 
derson County, of which he was deputy sheriff and 
constable for five years, and was married there Sep- 
tember 30, 1879, to Miss Ada A. Clay, a native of 
that State. In 1882, under the impression that he 
could better his fortunes, he came to Arkansas, 
settling at Blythesville, where he engaged as a clerk 
for Richardson & Triplett, with whom he remained 
until 1884, when he embarked in business on his 
own responsibility, and successfully conducted a 
general mercantile establishment for two years. 
The two following years were spent at carpenter- ; 
ino-. in the "Lone Star State," but in the winter 



of 1888 he returned to Mississippi County, Ark., 
where he purchased a farm i-mbracing 280 acres of 
land, and since that time has attended to his adopted 
profession with care and perseverance, and is now 
in possession of a competence which has more than 
realized his most sanguine expectations. He is 
one of thi> representative young men of the county, 
and will, without doubt, be among the foremost 
men of his times. He and wife became the parents 
of four children: Nellie Lorance, Ellie Lee (de- 
ceased), Willie Harris and Mary Ethel. 

Samuel Spencer Semmes, eldest son of Adminil 
Raphael and Ann E. (Spencer) Semmes, was liorn 
in Cincinnati, Ohio, March 4, 1838. While a youth 
he received his education at the Jesuit College 
(Spring Hill), near Moliile, Ala., fi-om which in- 
stitution he graduated in 1855. He was reared in 
South Alabama, and was admitted to the bar in 
Washington County, of that State, in 1859, sub- 
sequently graduating at the law school in New Or- 
leans, La., in 1860, in which city he was residing 
and practicing his profession when the war broke 
out. True to his convictions, he enlisted in the 
Confederate service, as second lieutenant in the 
First Regiment of Louisiana Infantry (regulars), 
commanded by the late Gen. A. H. Gladden, and 
was promoted to the rank of captain. He went 
through the war under Gen. Bragg, in the Army 
of the Tennessee, and was a participant in the bat- 
tles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Mis- 
sionary Ridge, Atlanta, etc. At the close of the 
war he engaged in agricultural pursuits in South 
Alabama, and in the practice of law, which he con- 
tinued imtil 1874; then he removed to Mississijipi 
County, Ark., where he has since resided, occupied 
in the practice of his profession. He was elected 
county judge in 1882, and held the office one term. 
Mr. Semmes was married to Miss Pauline Semmes, 
a daughter of the late Gen, Paul J. Semmes. of 
Columbus, Ga. (who was killed at the battle of 
Gettysburg), in 1863, and the fruits of this union 
are five children, three sons, Paul J. , Raphael and 
Oliver, and two daughters, Mary and Anna. The 
first two named are living in Osceola, Ark., and 
Oliver is at Macon. Ga. , where he is studying for 
the priesthood as a Jesuit. Mr. Semmes lost his 






^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



000 



wifi' in 1S77, and his second marriage took place 
inliSSI, to his present wife, who was originally 
Miss Frances H. Morris, diuighl cr of the late Rev. 
F. C. Morris, a Presbyterian minister of Osceola, 
Ark. To this union were born three children: 
Spencer, Frank Morris, and Catherine. Mr. 
Semmes' homo, just outside the town of O.sceola, 
is one of the most comfortable and attractive in 
Northeast Arkansas, and is a tine example of what 
can i)e accomplished in the way of ornament and 
usefulness by a little taste and indu.stry. His 
father was the late Admiral Raphael Semmes, of 
Confederate fame, whose ancestors came to Ameri- 
ca with Lord Baltimoi'e, and settled in Maryland. 
Admiral Semmes entered the United States Navy 
as a lad of fourteen, where he remained until he 
resigned his commission, to take part in the late 
war, in behalf of the Confederates. At that time 
he was commander, and on duty at Washington 
as a member of the lighthouse board. His career 
as commander of the Confederate States steamers 
' ■ Sumter ' ' and ' 'Alabama ' ' have already become 
a matter of history. The mother of the subject of 
this sketch is a daughter of the late Rev. Oliver 
M. Sjiencer, of Cincinnati, Ohio, whose father re- 
moved to that place as one of the pioneer settlers 
from Elizabeth. N. J., in the latter part of the last 
century. Mrs. Semmes (the mother) resides in 
Mobile, Ala. Cai)t. Semmes is the eldest of six 
children born to his parents. His eldest brother, 
Oliver J. Semmes, and eldest sister, Mrs. Colston, 
reside in Mobile, Ala. His next two sisters, Mrs. 
Luke E. Wright and Mrs. Charles B. Bryan, and 
youngest brother, Raphael Semmes, live in Mem- 
phis, Tenn. It is not strange that during the years 
of ('a]>t. Semmes' residence in Mississippi County, 
he should have become one of its best known and 
most valued citizens. Gifted by nature with an 
indomitable spirit of perseverance, and a refined 
taste, a thorough and complete collegiate education 
expanded these, teaching him to see a beauty and 
harmony in nature, while the study of law and the 
practice of that profession illustrated by many 
valuable examples the study of mankind. It was 
with an education thus completed, and a fortune 
shattered in the Civil War, as qualifications for 



future usefulness, that ho turned his steps toward 
Mississippi County. Here, amid an impoverished 
pojmlation, and where strife and turmoil reigned 
for many years, fortune was hard to win, and many 
trials lay beside his path; yet, from the first, his 
ability, moral courage, purity and truth of charac- 
ter were recognized by all. His indomitable will 
soon won him a leading place at the Osceola bar, 
while his election to the office of county judge was 
an unsought expression of the people's confidence 
aad esteem. The economy in the administration 
of the county affairs during his term of office, in 
which time the court-house was erected under his 
supervision, was the redeemed pledge of his faithful- 
ness and care. Now, as the years are rolling by, a 
glance at the home life of Capt. , or Judge, Semmes, 
as he is familiarly called, would reveal a pleasant 
cottage, which his horticultural tastes have literally 
surrounded with ornamental plants and Howers, an 
interesting family, presided over by Mrs. Semmes, 
a lady of education, with many refined and pleasing 
graces, happy children, whose merriment dashes 
across the path of troubled life like sunshine through 
the rift of drifting clouds. And so, amid an atmos- 
phere of peace, respected and esteemed by all, 
diligently pursuing his professional duties, while 
perhaps finding greater pleasure during his leisure 
hours in the cultivation of his garden, and the 
adornment of his home, the subject of this sketch 
(and of the accompanying ]>ortrait) passes his days, 
receiving the well earned praises of his fellow 
men. 

Ra])hael Semmes, second son of S. S. Semmes 
[see sketch], was born in Mobile, Ala. , in the year 
1867, and is one of the promising young business 
men of the county. Ho attended the public schools 
of O ceola but a short time, and while still a small 
boy secured employment in a baker's shop, at very 
small pay, and there remained for six months. At 
aliout sixteen years of age he went to Pecan Point, 
where he engaged as clerk for L. A. Morris, and 
continued in that capacity for one year. He then 
came to Osceola, and worked with N. L. Avery as 
clerk in a subordinate capacity, and at a small sal- 
ary. His capabilities were recognized, and he was 
advanced year by year, and in 1888 was admitted 



556 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



in the business as a partner under the firm title of 
N. L. Avery & Co. Mr. Semmes chose Miss Lulu 
Sullivan for his companion during the chiingiug 
scenes of life, and was united in marriage to her 
on June 6, 1888. She was born in Mississippi 
County, and is the daughter of one of the old set- 
tlers of this county. This union has been blessed 
by the birth of one child, Norman L. The fam- 
ily are members of the Catholic Church. Mr. 
Semmes' life, as may be seen, is an example of per- 
severance, indiistry and energy; rising under unfa- 
vorable circumstances as far as education and home 
assistance are concerned, he has shown by his grad- 
ual advancement, step by step, that he possesses 
business capacity of an unusually high ordei-. 
Now, as a partner in a large store, the future has 
rich promises for him. 

J. M. E. Sisk is a man well known to the early 
settlers of Mississippi County, Ark., and is re- 
spected for his straightforward course through life, 
and beloved by all for his noble, Christian qualities 
of mind and heart. His birth occurred in Jackson 
County, Ala., in 1833, he being the third of eight 
children born to Willis Sisk and Frances (Money) 
Sisk, who were originally from North Carolina. 
The father was a farmer and mechanic, and died 
in Alabama in 1873, followed by his wife in 1886. 
The knowledge that J. M. E. Sisk acquired was 
only such as could be learned on the home farm, 
for his school days only amounted to about thirteen 
months. At the age of nineteen years he com- 
menced a mercantile career in Tennessee, but one 
year later abandoned this occupation to take up 
farming in his native State, which received his 
attention until 1856: Two years later he came to 
Mississippi County, Ark., and settled in Chicka- 
sawba Township, where he purchased eighty acres 
of land, on which he erected a house, added other 
improvements, and made his home until 1869, be- 
ing one of the well-known and respected residents 
of the community. At the latter date he purchased 
another farm, which embraced 160 acres, which 
bv industry and good management he soon made 
into a pleasant home, but in 1882 he sold this farm 
also. Since that time he has resided on a 140- 
acre farm on North Chickasawba, where he has 



erected good fences and a residence, and has one of 
the best orchards in the county. In the spring of 
188U he started a grocery store in Blythesville, 
and by his agreeable and pleasant manners, and 
fair dealing, he is securing a good patronage. He 
entered the Confederate service in 1863, Capt. 
Barton's company, and served in the Trans-Missis- 
sippi Department, participating in the battle of 
Helena. He was sent home in July, 1884, and did 
not again enter the service. In 1875 he was ap 
pointed constable of Chickasawba Township by the 
Governor, and was afterward elected lo the office, 
serving in all about nine years. He has also been 
school director six years, and assisted in organizing 
the school districts and churches. He was married 
in 1858, while a resident of Alabama, to Miss 
Nancy L. Temple, of that State, and to them have 
been given the following children: James P., who 
is married and lives in the county; Hiram W., 
also married and residing in St. Francis County; 
John W., married and residing in Chickasitwba: 
Jesse D., married and making his home in Osceola; 
Evan W. , Benoni, Frances (widow of Thomas 
Perry), Sarah (deceased), Susa (wife of B. J. Rook). 
Charlotte, Roberta (deceased) and Alice. Seven 
of the family are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

Carroll L. Smith. In the early settlemeut of 
Arkansas, and among the families who were closely 
identified with its material affairs and associated 
with its progress and development, were the 
Smiths. A respected representative of this family 
is found in the subject of this sketch, who was born 
in Tennessee in 1839, and in 1841 was brought to 
Mississippi County, Ark., by his parents, James 
M. and Edna (Jones) Smith, who were born, reared 
and married in North Carolina, removing shortly 
after the latter event to East Tennessee, and still 
later to West Tennessee, and thence to Arkansas. 
After coming to the latter State they resided for 
nearly two years on Mill Bayou, where they landed 
in 1845, and in 1847 removed to Clear Lake, set- 
tling on a tract of 157 acres. At that time there 
were only three families on the Lake, and there were 
not more than twenty acres under cultivation. Mr. 
Smith began at once to make imjirovements in the 




way of clearing land and l)ailding, and made his 
lioiun on this property until liis death, in 18(54, at 
the age of fifty-three years; the mother expiring 
the following year, aged about fifty-five years. 
Like so many of the substantial citizens of this 
county at the present time, he was initiated into 
the mysteries of farming fi'om his earliest youth, 
and to this calling he has since given his attention. 
As there were no schools near his home until he 
was twelve years of age, his early educational 
advantages were very limited. When the mutter- 
ings of war began to be heard throughout the land 
he joined Capt. Fletcher's company, and was at 
the battle of Shiloh when that captain was killed. 
He also took part in the engagements at Mur- 
freesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Missionary 
Ridge, and in the Georgia campaign. He was cap- 
tured at Franklin, Tenn. , and was kept a prisoner 
until the close of the war, when he returned home 
and resumed the peaceful pursuit of farming. In 
1868 he sold the old homestead and bought his 
present home farm of 160 acres, now owning in all 
400 acres with 160 under the plow. On this place 
he has a good residence and outbuildings, and near 
the house is an extensive orchard of choice varieties 
of frnit. He votes with the Democratic party, and 
in the various affairs of the county he exerts an 
influence which is felt by all, being particularly 
active in supporting the cause of education. He 
has been married three times, the first time in 
October, 1860, to Miss Mary Ann Renfro. who 
died in 1862, leaving one child, which also soon 
died. He then remained a widower until 1870, at 
which date he wedded Miss Mary E. Murry, a 
native of Mississippi County, her death occurring 
in 1883. Three children blessed this union: Will- 
iam, Norah and Rebecca. In 1884 his marriage 
to Miss Amanda Langley was consummated, and 
by her he has also had three children: lona, 
Albert Sidney Johnson and Grover Cleveland. 
Mr. Smith has one of the finest places in the 
county, and has surrounded his home with many 
conveniences and comforts. His farm is rapidly 
increasing in value under his able management, 
and he is looked upon as one of the leading agri- 
culturists of this section. 



Thomas H. Starling, a gentleman who has won 
the confidence and respect of his neighl)ors since 
his arrival at Cross Bayou, was born in Columbia 
County, Ark., in 1851, and is a farmer by occupa- 
tion. He is the elde.st child of John W. and Sallie 
Ann (Hood) Starling, natives of North Carolina and 
Tennessee, respectively, who came to Arkansas at an 
early period. The father was a prosperous farmtu- 
until the outbreak of war, when he gave up his 
home and family to take up the cause of the Con- 
federacy. He fought gallantly in some of the 
noted battles now portrayed in the pages of his 
tory, until he received his discharge on account of 
ill health. In 1863, he removed with his family to 
the northern part of Missoiu'i, and remained there 
until 1866; but thinking the outlook along the 
Mississippi River more promising in which to re- 
build his shattered fortune, he placed his family 
and possessions on a flat-boat, and spent one year 
on the river looking for a suitable location. He 
finally settled in Mississippi County, where the 
father and son togrether bought 100 acres of land 
on Cross Bayou, in which place there were but 
few settlers at that time, and immediately began 
improving and cultivating his purchase. The 
land was then in a wild state, but since then they 
have added to it, and now have about 350 acres 
cleared and fenced. Thomas owned fifty acres 
himself, and in 1886, he bought his father's tract, 
upon which there were about twenty acres under 
cultivation. The land will easily average three- 
quarters of a bale of cotton to the acre, and, in ad- 
dition to this, he has forty head of tine cattle, and 
pronounces this section to be a splendid cattle 
range — a piece of information which may be of in- 
terest to farmers in other portions of the State. 
His first marriage was with Miss Sarah Ratton, of 
this county, who lived but two years after their 
union, and died without leaving any children. 
His second wife, Mrs. Sarah Robinson, he married 
in 1876. an amiable widow lady, who bore four 
children: Jacob Wishy, Thomas Jefferson Will- 
iam Cornelius and Jesse Brooks. Mrs. Star- 
ling had three children liy her former marriage: 
James Alfred, Mary L. and an infant, the two lat- 
ter deceased. The family are members of the 




Baptist Church, and Mr. Starling is a member 
of the Agricultui'al Wheel. He has also served 
two terms on the school board, and is a prominent 
man in his section. 

George W. Stewart. Of Hickman County, Ky. , 
nativity, Mr. Stewart, from the date of his birth, 
in 1830, has resided either in Kentucky or in Ar- 
kansas. Up to the age of fourteen, his days were 
spent in his native State, but he was not favored 
with much of an education. His father, Thomas 
Stewart, was married, after growing up, to Miss 
Nancy Jane Johnson, both of whom were Ken- 
tuckians, and followed the occupation of farming 
in their native State until their death, which oc- 
curred when George W. was a small lad. In 1845, 
the latter moved to Arkansas, and spent the first 
year and a half on Island No. 30, after which he 
came to Mississippi County, Ark. , and lived above 
Osceola for a few years, engaged in the cord-wood 
business. He was married in 1855, to Miss Mary 
E. Boole, a native of Tennessee, and a daughter of 
one of the old settlers of this county. After his 
marriage, he came to Clear Lake, where he farmed 
on rented land for a few years. At that time the 
country was a wilderness, and Mr. Stewart had but 
few neighbors. In 1871 he bought a farm of eighty 
acres on Clear Lake, of which eighteen were under 
cultivation, and shortly after bought nearly 180 
acres more, and now has a tract of 100 acres under 
cultivation. His land is favorably situated in a 
good community, and under favorable circum- 
stances, he can easily make a bale of cotton to the 
acre, and from fifty to sixty bushels of corn. On 
this farm are to be seen largo numbers of cattle, of 
which he makes a specialty. His union with Miss 
Boole has been blessed in the birth of seven chil- 
dren: James, who died at the age of twenty-five 
years; Virginia, who died in 1888; George, who 
died in 1874; Sallie, wife of Jesse Deason; and 
Robert, Lucy and Ollie, who reside with their 
parents. 

A. L. Tansil, a tri^e type of the progressive 
farmer and enterprising merchant, was born in 
Dyer County, Tenn., in 1845. He is the eldest 
in a family of seven children born to John B. and 
Nancy (Finly) Tansil, of Tennessee, where the 



father was a well-known farmer who died in 1868, 
the mother soon following him! In early youth 
Mr. Tansil had few educational advantages, but 
attended school for several years after the war. 
On reaching maturity he began life as a farmer, 
and though still following that occupation, he es- 
tablished a store which was the first place of busi- 
ness in what is now the thriving town of Finley, 
Tenn. His business grew to considerable propor- 
tions under his judicious management, and in ad- 
dition to it he built a cotton-gin which gave an impe- 
tus to the place, and soon the town of Finley grew 
and became an active, busy trading center. In 
1874, thinking to better his then prosperous con- 
dition, and always on the lookout for more promis- 
ing fields, he moved to the State of Missouri, and 
from there to Texas, remaining, however, only one 
year in the latter place, and then returned to Fin- 
ley. Here he formed a partnership with an 
uncle, A. Finley, under the firm name of A. Fin- 
ley & Co., and continued in commercial life 
under these conditions for two years, when his 
spirit of independence prompted him to seek other 
fields, and he again turned his attention to Texas. 
In that State he did not find as favorable an open- 
ing as he had hoped for, and believing that he had 
passed over a better country on his way, he turned 
backward and settled in Mississippi County, Ark. 
Here he located on Mill Bayou, and commenced 
farming with great success, and two years after 
started the first Imsiness house at this point. He 
started a small store, which, from the first, was 
a pronounced success and grew rapidly from year 
to year until the spring of 1885, when his in- 
creased trade demanded larger quarters, and he 
built an extensive store, filling it with a com- 
plete and judiciously assorted stock of general 
merchandise. The star of Mr. Tansil" s success 
seemed to be shining the brightest at this period, 
when, without any warning, the results of his 
many years' patient toil and industry were swept 
away by fire on the night of December 5, 1885. 
His new store with its recently accumulated stock, 
several bales of cotton, and a large crib containing 
over 1,000 bushels of corn, were burned to the 
ground. This misfortune rendered him almost 



w ^ 

¥ 



-U © 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



559 



peiiiiiloss, iiad instead of starting in business again 
at tills ]K)iiit, he removed with his family up the 
White Kiver; but seeing no advantages to be de- 
rived there that would equal his former home in 
Mississippi County, he soon returned and settled 
one mile south of Barfield, where he leased a cot- 
ton gin and forty acres from the Williams estate; 
and the same industry that characterized his early 
days is now starting him on the road to foitune 
again. In 1889 he bought 100 acres of good land 
with about thirty acres under cultivation, and soon 
after purchased forty acres of wild land, which he 
will immediately put under cultivation also. He has 
again commenced in business at Barlield, of which 
he intends to allow his son Guy to take the manage- 
ment, while he devotes the greater part of his time 
to his cotton-gin and crops. On June 18, 1868, 
Mr. Tansil was married to Miss Sarah H. Spence, 
of Finley, Tenn., a daughter of George E. Spence, 
whose father, ilai'k, was one of the pioneers of 
Dyer County, that State, where he amassed a 
large fortune. To this union were born eight chil- 
dren: Belle, wife of J. H. Daniels; Annie; Min- 
nie, who died in 1885; Guy, Dixon, Nannie, who 
died in 1888; Frankie and Susie. Mr. Tansil is 
certainly one of the self-made men of Mississippi 
County. He is held in high esteem by his neigh- 
bors, has served four terms as magistrate, takes an 
active interest in all matters that promise to be 
for the county's good, and in school affairs, and 
is the possessor of a happy and interesting family. 
G. W. Thomason is not only one of the most 
successful and enterprising planters of Mississippi 
County, but be is also a lawyer of thorough pre- 
paratory training, both literary and professional. 
His boyhood was passed in assisting on the farm 
and attending school. He was studying at college 
at the Ineakine out of the war, but he flung aside 
his books to enter the Confederate Army, enlisting 
when nineteen years of age in Company H, Fifth 
Tennessee Volunteers, and was assigned to the 
Western army. After participating in the de- 
structive battle of Shiloh, he was transferred to the 
Fifty second Tennessee Kegiment, and promoted 
to the rank of third lieutenant. After this he par- 
ticipated in the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, 



and then in that most disastrous battle at Franklin, 
Tenn. Just jH'evious to this battle he was pro- 
moted to captain, his command being fragments of 
five regiments, and was the only officer left of that 
company. He was captured during that engage 
ment, and was sent to Johnson's Island, where he 
remained for about seven months. After his re- 
lease, the war being over, he returned to his 
brother' s law office at Paris, Tenn. , and began the 
.study of law. He remained in that city until 1808, 
when he was admitted to the bar in that place, 
but soon afterward left for Dyersl)urg, where he 
remained one year, engaged in the practice of his 
profession. On the 5th of April, 1869, he came 
to Osceola, Mississippi County, Ark., and here re- 
sumed his practice. As a lawyer Mr. Thomason 
possesses solid, substantial talent, and is a man 
who will succeed under any and all circumstances. 
His practice is steadily and substantially increas- 
ing, and covers a wide extent of territory. In 
1871 he was united in marriage to Mrs. C. J. Josey, 
wee Borum, a native of Kentucky. She died on 
the 31st of May, 1887, leaving one child, a daugh- 
ter, Lola Maud. He is active, politically, and 
votes with the Democratic party. He was the 
fifth of nine children born to Richard Lee and 
Elizabeth (Smith) Thomason, natives of North 
Carolina. The father's people were pioneers in 
Tennessee, and there the father cultivated the soil 
and passed his last days. 

H. D. Tomlinson owes his nativity to Fort Don- 
elson, Tenn. , where he was born in 1859, his parents 
being Uriah Douglas and Mattie (Outlaw) Tom- 
linson, who were also Tennesseeans. The latter is 
dead, but the father is still living, and resides near 
Clarksville. After his mother's death, which oc- 
curred when he was about fifteen years of age, H. 
D. Tomlinson began making his home with an 
uncle, J. J. Tomlinson, at Canton, Ky., where he 
remained until nineteen years of age; then went to 
Memphis, Tenn. (in 1879), and engaged as clerk 
with the Lee line of steamers, remaining in this 
capacity on these boats until 1SS3, at which date 
he became accjuainted with Miss Mary Matthews, 
a daughter of Capt. Daniel Matthews, and their 
marriage was consummated on the 31st of May, 



560 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1883. The following November tJiey settled ia 
Osceola, since whicL time Mr. Tomlinson has con- 
ducted hi.s father-in law's plantation in so satisfac- 
tory a manner that he is realizing a handsome profit 
thereby. He and wife are the parents of two chil- 
dren: Beulah Patience and Daniel Douglas. Mr. 
Tomlinson is a member of Lodge No. 27, of the 
A. F. & A. M., at Osceola. As stated elsewhere, 
Mrs. Tomlinson' s father, Capt. Daniel Matthews, 
was one of the bi^st and most favorably known in- 
dividuals in Mississippi County, prominently con- 
nected with the farming interests of this region 
over a long period of years. A personal acquaint- 
ance with nearly every citizen of the difPerent 
townships in this county tended to make him 
very popular, for he lived an honest, upright life 
in the sight of his fellow men. After reachino- 
manhood he was united in the bonds of matrimony 
to Miss Mary Young, whose mother was Elizabeth 
Young, of Hickman's Bend, Mississippi County. 
Ark. , which town was washeii away in the flood of 
1883, and, for a number of subsequent years, her 
father ran a merchant's boat on the river. Upon 
selling out, he embarked in business in Osceola, 
having previously anchored his boat at the landing 
known as the Stone Boat Landing, and purchased a 
fine farm of 162 acres, nearly all of which was 
under cultivation at that time. The purchase was 
made about the year 1856, and the farm was just 
west of the town, and now comprises a tract 550 
acres of which are under the plow. It is managed 
by his son-in-law, Mr. Tomlinson, who rents out 
a portion of the land. Seventy-five people, black 
and white, are employed to keep the place in good 
farming condition, and the average yield of cotton 
to the acre is about three-fourths of a bale. Ten 
acres are also devoted to raising timothy hay and clo- 
ver, which will average about three tons of cured hay 
per acre. Off of one acre of ground has recently 
been gathered 150 bushels of potatoes. Capt. 
Matthews died May 2, 1884; his death left a void 
in the hearts of all impossible to fill, for he was a 
man above most men, and one esteemed for his 
sincere worth. 

Samuel S. Triplett, whose life has been an act- 
ive one, and who has by his own industry and intelli- 



gent management secured a substantial footing 
among the citizens of this community, was born 
in Frankfort, Ky., in 1856, being the fifth in a 
family of seven children. His parents, George 
W. and Mary E. (Spotts) Triplett, were born in 
Kentucky and Alabama, respectively, and were 
married in Frankfort, in the former State. The 
father was a noted river man, and was a well- 
known steamboat captain for many years on the 
Kentucky and Ohio Rivers. His death occurred 
at Atlanta, Ga., in 1867, his widow dying in Ar- 
kansas, in 1883, while on a visit to her son, Sam- 
uel S. During the latter' s youth he attended 
school in the neighborhood of his home, but at the 
age of fourteen years, he began making his home 
with an uncle, who was a tiller of the soil, and 
when the latter removed with his family to St. 
Joseph, Mo., he accompanied him. In this State 
he was engaged in clerking with vari9us firms for 
a period of three years, and in 1877 he came to 
Arkansas, and settled in Chickasawba Township, 
where he worked as a farm hand for H. T. Blvthe, 
for about one year, then embarked in the business 
for himself on rented land. After continuing thus 
employed for some time, he entered the mercan- 
tile store of J. L. Edrington, as clerk, securing at 
the end of one year an interest in the business, 
the firm taking the name of Edrington, Triplett & 
Co., which partnership continued for two years. 
He then became associated in business with Z. W. 
Richardson for a short time, but during these 
years had been engaged in the occupation of farm- 
ing, to which he began devoting his entire atten- 
tion in the year 1884, continuing until 1887, when 
he resumed his mercantile career again, only to 
abandon it in the fall of the following year, selling 
out to N. L. Avery & Co. However, he has since 
been associated with the above firm in the capa- 
city of clerk. In 1885 he purchased a tract of 
wild land amounting to 120 acres, and of this he 
cleared forty acres, which is now under cultivation. 
the soil being very fertile, and the whole tract till 
able. The place is improved with a good house 
and other buildings, and in addition to this, he has 
since purchased 500 acres of laud. His wife, 
whom he married in 1885, and whose maiden nam." 



UriSSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



r)f)i 



was Kittie Snow, inherited 800 acres of land from 
her father's estate, of which 130 are being tilled. 
Mr. and Mrs. Triplett are the parents of a son 
named Blythe. Mr. Triplett is not an active poli- 
tician, but in 1S88 was elected one of the levee 
commissioners. Mrs. Triplett' s father, John M. . 
Snow, was a pioneer of Mississippi County, and 
had a landing on the river known as Snow' s Land 
ing, which was situated a short distance above 
Barfield. Iii 1882 he came to BIythesville and re- j 
sumed merchandising, which calling he pursued ' 
until his death, in December, 1884, ho being the 
oldest merchant in the county at that time, and 
was one of its best known and most highly respect- 
ed citizens. 

T. E. Turner. Within the limits of Missis- 
sippi County, there is no more successful planter 
to be found than Mr. Turner, who is thoroughly 
identified with the farming interests of the same. 
His birth occurred six miles east of Brownsville, 
Haywood County, Tenn., and he is the son of Ed- 
ward N. Turner, who came with his father, Gerry 
Turner, a native of North Carolina, to Haywood 
County, Tenn., at an early date. Here Edward 
N. Turner chose, for his life companion. Miss Caro- 
line Cpckrum, the mother of T. E. Turner. The 
latter remained with his parents until nineteen 
years of age, and received a common- school edu- 
cation. His father, being one of the wealtliy plant- 
ers, wished to give his son an excellent education, 
but the latter was of a different mind, and was 
married instead to Miss Almeda Barham, of Mc- 
Nairy County, Tenn. Gf the seven interesting 
children born to this marriage five died in infan- 
cy, and two are now living: James Lee and John 
Edward, both of whom are living on Buffalo Island, 
with their grandmother, Mrs. Barham. In 1885 
Mrs. Turner was riding in a wagon with her 
mother and brother, the latter driving; the brother 
was accidentall}' thrown from a spring seat, which 
so frightened the spirited team, that they ran 
away, throwing Mrs. Turner and her mother to 
the gi'ound. Jlrs. Turner received injuiies from 
which she died, after having suffered fourteen days. 
The boy had his arm broken, and Mrs. Barham 
received injuries from which she will never re- 



cover. Mr. Turner, whose standing as a success- 
ful planter and a much esteemed and respected 
citizen, is well established in the county, is now 
principally engaged in the raising of cotton. 
He has rented 150 acres of the Cissell place, about 
six miles southwest of Gsceola, and employs from 
ten to twenty hands. In a good year he raises 
over a bale of cotton to the acre, and at an expense 
of about 10 to the acre. He is a member of the 
K. of H., located at Osceola, and is also a mem- 
ber of the A. G. TJ. W. of the same place. 

John W. tlzzell. Among the many estimable 
citizens of Mississippi County, Ark., who have 
passed to their long home, but who, from an early 
day, were intimately and prominently associated 
with the county's development, the name of John 
W. Uzzell can not be omitted. He was born in 
Columbia, Tenn., and is the son of Elisha and 
grandson of Thomas TJzzell, who commanded 
a vessel in Gen. Lafayette's fleet when coming to 
the succor of Gen. Washington during the Revolu- 
tionary War. After that war Thomas Uzzell set- 
tled in Isle of Wight County, Va., where he se- 
cured a large tract of land, married, and became 
the father of two childi-en, a son and a daughter. 
The family all died with the exception of Elisha, 
the son, who inherited the property. The father 
had emancij)ated all his slaves before he died, and 
after Elisha came into possession of the property 
he sold it, and moved to Columbia, Tenn., where 
he remained until 1859. He then went to live with 
his son, John W. Uzzell. in Mississippi County, 
Ark., and died there in 1864 at the age of eighty 
four years. John W. Uzzell was married in 1859 
to Miss L. T. Evans, daughter of George H. 
Evans, who was the nephew of Gen. Tipton, for 
whom Tipton County, Tenn., was named. Jesse 
Evans, father of George H. Evans, came in the 
canebrakes from Tipton County, Tenn., to Missis- 
sippi County. Ark., about the year 1841, and 
brought only his servants with him at that time. 
He opened a small tract of land where the widow 
of George H. Evans now lives, and there died in 
1844. At that time his son, George H. Evans, who 
was living in Tipton County, Tenn., in order to 
hold his place, moved his family on it, while 



^ 



5G2 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



be went to Helena to prove up, which he did 
the same winter. Mrs. Uzzell, whose memory is 
very good, remembers the first meeting she ever 
attended in the ueighliorhood, her fatlier and the 
preacher being the only men in the congregation 
who wore coats, all the rest, and there was a house 
full, wearing hunting jackets, and all carried guns. 
Upon entering the chm-ch they would dejjosit 
their guns in a corner behind the preacher. The 
men also carried side-arms, generally knives, and 
were prepared for all emergencies. On coming to 
Arkansas in 1844, the family came in a barouche, 
and on the trip from the river over to her grand- 
father's Mrs. Uzzell r(fmembers that th(>re was but 
one opening from the river ferry to the farm, a 
distance of twelve miles. The cane on each side 
of the road was so high that it would form an arch 
over the top of the barouche. In 1859 they selected 
the spot where Mrs. Uzzell' s house now stands to 
erect a bailding, and in choosing a spot to dig the 
well, which they wanted a certain distance from 
the road, they were oljliged to stand Mrs. Uzzell in 
the saddle on the back of a gentle horse to make 
an object for her father to go by, on account of the 
cane. The place is now one of the pleasantest and 
most desirable to be found in the county, and the 
velvety lawn and brilliant beds of flowers attract 
the eyes of all beholders. In the rear of this 
stands the large double log-house. Back of the 
house is a large cistern which will hold 500 barrels, 
and there is also a good well. Mrs. Uzzell owns 
now, with her family, about 2,000 acres of land, 
with about 300 acres under cultivation, and keeps 
about ten families on the place. They raise nearly 
three-fourths of a bale of cotton to the acre, al- 
though they sometimes run more than a bale to the 
acre. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Uzzell were 
born ten children, nine of whom are living at the 
present. The father of these children died in 1884. 
He was a member of Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M. , 
of Osceola, Ark. 

George Walker. As might naturally be ex- 
pected, mention is made in the jiresent work of 
many citizens of Missii-sippi County, Ark., now 
prominent in their different callings, who were 
born in the county, and whose homes have always 



been here. Mr. Walker is one of these, and his 
experience refers to the agricultural interests of 
the county. He was born in 1850, and was the 
fourth in a family of seven children born to John 
and Sarah AValker, nee Chadwick, both of whom, 
with their parents, were early pioneers of this por- 
tion of Arkansas. The father was engaged in fur- 
trading with the Indians during the primitive 
period of the county's history, but later embarked 
in cutting and selling cord-wood, which enterprise 
he continued to make his chief calling until the 
breaking out of the Rebellion. From that period 
until 1862 he settled on a farm in Chickasawba 
Township, which place continued to be his home 
until his death, in 1875. George Walker has 
given farming his time and attention from <>arly 
boyhood, and in this work has met with substan- 
tial results. His first purchase of land was made 
when twenty one years of age, and comj)rised a 
tract of thirty-foiir acres, one mile west of Blythes- 
villc; but in 1881 he made a piu'chase of forty 
acres, about the same distance ea.st of th(> town. 
His home property is well improved with excellent 
buildings (his residence being erected in 1885), or- 
chards, etc., and during all these years, in addi- 
tion to managing his land, he has been in the tim- 
ber business, rafting this product down the river, 
which business he is now engaored in. Helen, a 
daughter of William Buckner, an old pioneer of 
the county, became the wife of Mr. Walker when 
he was about twenty-one years of age, but only 
lived about one year after marriage, giving liirth 
to a son, James B. , now aged sixteen. His second 
marriage took place in 1876, and was to Miss 
Emma Thompson, of Mississippi County, Ark., a 
daughter of William Thompson, also a pioneer of 
the coiuity, who was killed during the lat(» war, in 
the battle of Shiloh. Mr. Walker is a member of 
Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, of the F. & A. M., 
and he and his wife are the parents of an inter- 
esting little family of three children, whose names 
are as follows: Cora, Charles and Sarab. 

Luther Walker is recognized as one of the pros- 
perous agriculturists of this region, where he was 
born in 1855. His grandfather, Hardiman Walk 
er, was one of the earl}' pioneers of Missouri, and 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



r.fi:} 



was residing near Cotton Plant, in that Stat(\ dur- 
ing the earthquakes of ISll. His son, John 
Walker, was born in the State of Virginia, and at 
the age of about fifteen years began to hunt and 
trap in the woods of Missouri, and until about twen- 
ty-five years of age, followed this occupation for 
his father, having under his management several 
Indians, who were expert trappers and hunters. 
At the above mentioned age, he was married to 
Miss Sarah Chadwick, who was born in Ohio, and 
moved to Hickman Bend, where he settled on some 
land and began farming in a limited way, being 
also engaged in operating a wood-yard until 1861, 
at which date he removed to Chickasawba Town- 
ship, and bought 160 acres near where Blythes- 
ville is now situated. On this tract he made some 
valuable improvements, in the way of buildings, and 
here resided until his death, in 1876, his wife hav- 
ing died in ISOO. They were the parents of eight 
children, of whom Luther is the fifth, and after his 
father's removal to Chickasawba Township, he 
went to Illinois, and made his home with an uncle 
for ten years. During this period his time was 
employed in assisting at farm labor, and in attend- 
ing school; he also traveled some through Iowa 
and Minnesota, with his relatives, but upon the 
settlement of his uncle in Northwest Missouri, he 
returned to his father's home in Arkansas, and the 
same year made a crop on his father's plantation. 
The next year he came down the river and rented 
laud above Barfi^ld, on which he lived until 1882, 
then went to Blythesville and purchased a lot, and 
built a house in the village. In 1888 he purchased 
a tract of land comprising sixty-six acres, on which 
he cleared fifteen acres and resided until three 
years ago, since which time he has resided in Bar- 
field. He now has 320 acres, with 100 under cul- 
tivation, which will yield a bale of cotton to the 
acie. The dwelling house is in excellent condi- 
tion, and near it is a fine apple and peach orchard. 
His marriage lo Mi.ss Bell Buckner was celebrated 
in 1874, but she died the following year, and in 
1878, he wedded Kittie Buckner, a sister of his first 
wife, and a daughter of Bill Buckner, an old pio- 
neer of this section. The last union has resulted 
in the birth of four children: Billie, Maud, Lizzie. 



and Berde Jesamine. Mr. Walker has always 
been a patron of education, and is now serving as 
school director. 

AVilliam \V. AN'ard, an extensive stock raiser 
and farmer, was born in Tennessee in 1836. He 
was the fourth in a family of five children, and is 
the son of William L. Ward, of Kentucky, who 
first settled in Tennessee, and in 1831 moved to 
Mississippi County, Ark., where he started a large 
wood-yard and cultivated a farm. The father, 
meeting with good success and making a great 
many improvements on his farm, after a few years' 
residence sent for his family, and proceeded to 
make their future home in this county. His farm 
in Canadian Township was, at that time, one of 
the finest on the river, and he resided on this 
place until hi.s death, in 1851, his estimable wife 
following him in the year 1881, at the age of 
eighty-two years. William W. Ward attended 
Parker's Academy at Richmond, Ohio, in his 
youthful days, which was then one of the best in- 
stitutions of learning in Ohio, accessible to both 
sexes, and where Mr. Ward' s two sisters were also 
educated. After the father's death he took charge 
of the farm, which he has operated ever since, and 
may be called a general farmer, as ho aims to pro- 
duce a variety of crops, and has been very success- 
ful in that desire. In addition to his farm, which 
consists of sixty acres under a tine state of cultiva- 
tion, he also deals in stock, and owns a herd of 
fine cattle and hogs. At one time the river 
threatened to absorb a good portion of his farm, 
but at present it has changed, and is tilling and 
adding a number of acres to the place instead. 
The elder Ward during his life was an active man 
in politics and a brilliant speaker. He was several 
times elected and held various offices in this 
county, being at different periods justice of the 
peace, county judge and representative, but his 
son William does not seem to follow his father's 
footsteps in that direction, and takes little interest 
in politics, although at one time he served iis mag 
istrate in his county. He is alive to the interests 
of Mississippi County, and is active in promoting 
its welfare by enterprise and good citizenship. 

W. P. West. This name carries with it an 






564 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



essence of fortitude and courage, aud the owuer 
of it is a man who has gone through the dangers 
of war and the vexations of after-life, and come 
out triumphant at the end. He is a planter near 
Pecan Point, and was born in 1839 at Selma, Ala. 
He was the oldest child born to John and Louisa 
(McLean) West, the father being a well known 
planter and merchant in Alabama, and the grand- 
father one of the pioneers of Dallas County, 
Ala. Mr. West remained at home and attended 
school until his twentieth year. At the outbreak 
of the war he entered the Confederate army and 
enlisted in Company A, Fourth Infantry, and was 
assigned to duty in Virginia. At Manassas his 
regiment had the honor of supporting Gen. Jack- 
son, when the remark was made that gave that gen- 
eral the soubriquet of ' ' Stonewall, ' ' and made him 
famous in history, namely; "There stands Jack- 
sou and the Virginians like a stone wall." Mr. 
West was badly wounded at this battle, and 
unable to fight any longer. Conseqiiently he was 
discharged and returned home to recover. In 
October of the same year he re-enlisted, becoming 
a member of Compan}^ E, Seventeenth Alabama 
Regiment, and was assigned to the Western army 
under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. He took part 
in the battle of Shiloh, and was again severely 
wounded and sent home to recuj)erate, but though 
on the brink of death in two instances, it did not 
damjjen his ardor for battle in the least, and he 
joined the army a third time, entering into the 
ranks of the Twenty-fourth Alabama Battalion as a 
lieutenant of cavalry, and taking part in the battles 
of Resaca, Ga. , Kenesaw Mountain, New Hope 
Church, Peach Tree Creek, Jonesboro, and in 
an almost innumerable number of minor engage- 
ments. His bravery won for him the rank of 
adjutant-general of his brigade, and at the cessa- 
tion of war he was surrendered by Gen. Lee at 
Columbia, S. C. After peace had been estab- 
lished he returned to his home in Autauga County, 
Ala., where he was engaged in planting and farm- 
ing for five years. On the 14th of April, 1861, he 
was married to Miss Bettie Zeigler, who died in 
1865, and left one son, William McLean, now a 
contractor on the Georgia Pacific Railroad. His 



second wife was Miss Laura Hoffman, of Alabama, 
whom he married on the 11th of October, 1868, 
but after a short and happy married life of nine 
months this lady died. In 1869 Mr. W'est moved 
to the State of Mississippi, and settled on the 
Yazoo River, where he met and was married to Miss 
Matilda Booth, of Mississippi, a daughter of Will- 
iam Booth, who built the first frame house on the 
Yazoo River above Yazoo City. Mr. Booth was 
also one of the projectors of the Mi.ssissippi Central 
Railroad, and after its completion was for several 
years a director of that road, and one of the most pop 
ular railroad men in the South. He held the office 
of sheriff of Carroll County a number of terms, and 
was also representative from that county, and later 
on State senator. Mr. Booth came originally from 
New York State to Mississippi, in 1818, and was 
one of its most influential and valued citizens for 
many years. Capt. West left the Yazoo River in 
1880, aud moved to Coahoma County, where he 
bought a plantation of 1,800 acres, and placed 1150 
acres under cultivation, besides making a great many 
improvements. In 1886 he sold out his place and 
came to Mississippi County, Ark. , settling at Pecan 
Point, where he farmed on rented land for one 
year, and then moved to Phillips County. After a 
short residence in the latter place, he returned to 
this county and bought 600 acres of land, which 
he is now clearing, and expects to have 500 acres 
under cultivation next year. The Captain is very 
striking in appearance, and would not fail to be 
noticed in any company. He is six feet tall, hearty 
and robust, and carries with him that courteous, 
pleasing addi'ess, that is always evident iu the true 
Southern gentleman. He has not escaped his full 
share of misfortune, and on one occasion he was 
almost ruined by the Yazoo River floods, being 
compelled to sell a fine plantation in Le Flore 
County, Miss., in order to obtain a fresh start. 
But he possesses that spirit of enterprise and an 
indomitable will that are steadily overcoming all 
obstacles, and carving a fortune out of the green 
woods of Mississippi County. Capt. West has but 
recently purchased his land, but on every side 
men are at work clearing away the timber, and 
erecting buildings for the crop of 1890. He will 



^ 





^^ 



. 7C, /^ eyi>^yCrzi/ 



Lawrence County, Arkansas 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



'my 



erect a iiue dwelling for bimself on an elevated 
site near the river bank, with a grove of noble trees 
to make a natural park, and expects to have one of 
the most comfortable homes on the Mississippi 
River. His present crop of 300 acres of cotton 
has been well cultivated, and shows the watchful 
eye of a man who has made cotton -planting the 
business of his life. Mr. and Mrs. West are the 
parents of seven children, three of them having 
died in infancy: Henry, Minnie and Robert; and 
those still living are Ludie, Ida, Robert and Mary. 
He has an interesting family, in which he takes 
great pride, and wants nothing to complete his hap 
piness, unless it is to have his two daughters, who 
are attending school in Kentucky, by his side at 
home. Capt. West is a member of the K. of O., 
and Mrs. West, a devout Christian lady, attends 
the Presbyterian Church. 

O. S. Wigley, who stands in the front rank of 
Mississippi County's prominent farmers, was born 
at Atlanta, CJa., in 1847. His parents were George 
W. and Mahala (Kyle) Wigley, of that State, where 
the mother died in 1854. The father married 
again, in 1856, and in 1859 moved to the State of 
Arkansas, settling in what is now Cross County. 
He began farming in this locality until 1865, when 
he moved to Mississippi County, and remained 
there until his death, in 1872. George W. Wigley 
attained a high degree of popularity wherever he 
made his home, and at the time of his death, was 
one of the most substantial citizens of Mississippi 
County. O. S. Wigley remained at home until 
the first outbreak of war, and as the tales of battle 
came to his home, his bosom was fired with the 
ambitions and longings indulged in by every triie 
soldier. He enlisted in Dobbin's regiment, and 
took part in many a hot skirmish and gallant 
charge, and also accompanied Gen. Price in his 
noted raids through Missoiui. He can relate many 
an incident of these dark and bloody times, which 
thrills the ears of his listeners, and would fill a vol 
ume. Mr. Wigley returned to Arkansas with Gen. 
Fagin, and surrendered in April, 1865. He then 
went home, and joined his father in moving to 
Mississippi County, Ark., and for awhile was en- 
gaged with him in farming. In 1869 he was mar 



ried to Miss Savauah Bennett, of Tennessee, a 
daughter of Capt. B. F. Bennett, a prominent 
planter and merchant, who met his death from 
being kicked by a savage horse. After his marriage 
Mr. Wigley was retained by his f.ither-in-law as 
ovi>rseer, and remained with him in that capacity 
for (>ight years. He then rented land and farmed 
for five years, aft(»r which he bought a farm neai' 
Pecan Point, and after improving it, sold the land 
to R. W. Friend. In 1886 he moved to his pres- 
ent residence, where he farms some 170 acres, 
and this year has had about 185 acres in crops. 
Mr. Wigley farms on purely scientific principles; 
he makes a study of it, and the crops he produces 
are among the finest in Mississippi County. He 
is also engaged, quite extensively, in stock raising, 
and has made a success of that business by jjrop- 
erly feeding his stock, and taking good care of them. 
To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Wigley were born 
seven children: Florida Ann (wife of Charles 
Bell), Mamie Frances (wife of Johnson St. Clair), 
Georgie Franklin, Walter (who died in infancy), 
as did Oliver and two others, unnamed before their 
deaths. Mr. Wigley has lately joined the Melli 
odist Episcopal Church, and has always held the 
esteem of his fellow-citizens. 

John W. Williams, the son of William Will- 
iams and Sallie Philips, was born in the county 
of David.son and State of Tennessee, in the year 
1821. He immigrated to, and settled in. the good 
County of Mississippi, State of Arkansas, in 1841), 
subsequently being married to Anna Fletcher, eld- 
est daughter of Elliott H. Fletcher and Frances 
Hickman, in the year 1858. By this marriage, 
and at this time of writing, there are three living 
children: Susan F. , Elliot and Sallie P. He now 
resides on his farm, one mile above Elmot, h'ont- 
ing on the Mississippi River. 

James H. Williams. The entire life of Mr. 
Williams has been one unmarked by any unusual 
occurrence outside of the chosen channels to which 
he has so diligently and attentiveh- given his time 
and attention. A native of the State of Tennessee 
(born near Nashville in 1826), he has given his at- 
tention to tilling the soil, and the manner in which 
he has acquired his present estate denotes him to 



1 



:^(>(\ 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bp an energetic, successful agriculturist. His early 
scholastic advantages were received in bis native 
State, and, after attending the common schools, he 
entered a college in that State, which he attended 
niitil twenty years of age, after which he engaged 
in the lumber business in the city of Nashville. 
His wife was formerly Miss Mary E. Finley, of 
Lebanon, Teun., whom he married in LS-IT, she 
being a sister of Jesse J. Fink'y, a United States 
senator from Florida. After making several an- 
nual trips to Mississippi County, Ark., he settled 
here in 1849, and on the first of January of the 
following year he took possession of a tine tract of 
land, comprising 480 acres, situated about four 
and a half miles north of Osceola. It was at that 
time covered b}' a dense cauebrake, with the ex- 
ception of twenty acres which were cleared, and 
here Mr. Williams entered actively upon his work, 
and his career since that time has been marked by 
industry and strict attention to his calling. He 
has 100 acres under cultivation, and in'addition to 
this property has KiO acres of cleared land on Big 
Lake. In ISSO he erected a tine residence on his 
estate, which is now one of the pleasantest homes 
in this section of the country; and everything 
about his home indicates the enterprise and thrift 
which have ever characterized his efforts. He has 
always taken an active interest in the develojiment 
and improvement of Mississippi County, and has 
also been quite an active politician. In 1856 he 
was chosen justice of his township, and in 1876 
was elected to represent his county in the State 
legislature, having filled, since completing his 
term of service, the offices of school director and 
justice of the peace. Mr. Williams' wife departed 
this life in 1858, leaving a family of four children: 
William F. , married to Miss Kizer; Sallie, wife of 
N. G. Cartwright, of Osceola; Alice, wife of F. M. 
Moseley, of Blythesville, and Katie, wife of Ben. 
H. Bacchus, a druggist of Osceola. In 1861 Mr. 
Williams married his second wife, Miss Nellie 
Heath, of Illinois, who died in 1872, leaving four 
children: Edward H., who is married to a Miss 
Dunn, of Florida, and is a merchant of Elmot; 
Henry E. , who is superintendent of Goodrich Iron 
Works, belonging to James C. Warner; Zerlena 



W. and Maggie. Miss Mary Dunkle, of Missouri, 
became Mr. Williams' third wife, but died the 
third year of her marriage. He wedded his pres- 
ent wife in 1882, she being a Mrs. Sarah A. Dun- 
navant, wee Alexander, of Crockett County, Tenn., 
widow of Leonard Dunnavant. Mrs. Williams was 
the mother of three children by her first marriage, 
who are as follows: Robert, a pilot on the Missis- 
sippi River; Reid and Lillie, all of whom make 
their home with Mr. Williams. His wif^ belongs 
to the Cumberland Presbyterian (Jhuroh, and he 
to the Presbyterian. He is also a member of 
Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M., of Osceola. He 
was the seventh of a family of cbildi'en born to 
Josiah F. and Margaret (Phillips) AVilliams, the 
former a planter of Tennessee, who purchased, in 
1837, a large tract of land in the southern part of 
Mississippi County, Ark. , which he conducted for 
abovrt eight years, then selling out to Mr. Lanier 
in 1843. Mr. and Mrs. Josiah F. Williams were 
very fortunate in the growing-up of their children, 
twelve of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. 
The three eldest daughters married Ewings (three 
brothers), jirominent men. The fourth daughter 
married Dr. Henry Whitaker; the fifth married 
Mr. I. C. Warner, the great "Iron King of the 
South;'' the sixth married Mr. John A. Dunkin, 
a wholesale merchant, of Nashville, Tenn, ; the 
seventh married Dr. Kennedy, of Chattanooga. 
One granddaughter married Mr. Henry Watterson, 
editor of the Courier Journal, of Louisville. The 
sons were all good men, and married well. Mrs. 
Williams died near Nashville, in the year 1845. 
Mr. J. F. Williams died at the same place, in the 
year 1852, having been a great sufferer for five 
years with cancer in his eye. He left a noble 
record for his family. 

Edward H. Williams. He whose name heads 
this brief sketch is one of Mississipjii County's 
most active and enterprising business men, alive 
to all current topics, and public-spirited and pro- 
gressive in all matters tending to benefit the com- 
munity. He was born near Elmot, in 1859, his 
parents being James H. and Nellie (Heath) Will- 
iams [for whose history see sketch of James H. 
Williams], As Edward grew toward youth and 



-Jl 9 



i^ 



MISSISSIPPI COUNTY. 



507 



I'iirly iiKUihood lie attended school in tlie iieigb- 
horhood of his home, siiid worked on tlie farm 
for his father until lie was twenty-one years 
old, at which time he enyajjed as a clerk for 
A. Goodrich of Osceola, with whom he remained 
one year. After icntini^ and tillinif his father's 
farm for two years, he started from home with the 
int-ention of going to Florida, tint stojiped in Ala- 
l);ima, and attended school at Florence for some six 
niiinths, after which he concluded that his native 
.State was good enough to suit him, so he returned 
and went into business with D. T. Waller, which 
partnerslii]) was dissolved at the end of twenty 
months. Mr. Waller purchasing his inti-rest. He 
then liDUgllt out N. W. Goodrich, and for two years 
was associated with A. Goodrich, purchasing his 
partner's interest at the end of that time; he has 
conducted affairs in a very satisfactory manner, 
|>roving himself toi)e a man of rare business aliility 
and etliciency. He keeps an excellent assortment of 
general merchandise, his stock being valued at about 
$4,000. and has w'on the re|)ntation of being one 
of the first business men in Mississii)pi County. 
He is enterprising and energetic, studying largely 
the interests of the people, and fully justifies the 
confidence and esteem which are bestowed upon him. 
In connection with his mercantile interests he is 
managing his father's farm, growing cotton, and 
has been [Kjstmaster at Fjlmot since INlay, 1885. 
His estimable wife was formerly Mi.ss Maude Dunn, 
of Pensacola. Fla., to whom he was married on the 
17th of March, 1885, and by her he has one child, 
Edward James. Mrs. Williams is connected with 
the Catholic Church. 

William F. Williams is one of the best known 
and most highly respected i-esidents of Mississippi 
County. Ark., and is a man whose life has been an 
active one. and not without the substantial rewards 
of success. His grandfather, Josiah Williams, was 
a resident of Nashville, and a man of enterprise 
and discretion. He liecame an extensive landholder 
in Mississippi County, purchasing his y)roperty at 
what was then known as Social Bend, about the 
year 1835, which property was managed by his 
sons, James H. and his brothers, who were then 
young men. the place b(>ing well stocked with 



slaves. About IS51), .James H. Williams puichased 
a farm near Elmot, above Ost^eola, and with the 
help of his slaves, h(( opened up about 200 acres, 
and on this farm he is still residing. William F. 
Williams was the eldest of eight chililren born to 
his parents, and received some educational ad- 
vantages in the schools of Osceola. After reaching 
manhood, he was united in tl)(^ bonds of matri- 
mony to Miss Christina Kieser, a daughter of 1''. 
W., and granddaughter of John Kieser, who came 
from Germany to the United States in 1881, bring- 
ing with him his wife and two children, F. W. 
Kieser being the only one of the latter that is liv- 
ing. The grandfather is still living, at the ad- 
vanced age of eighty-nine years, and divides his 
time about equally between Kentucky and Osceola, 
Ark. F. W. Kieser is also living, in Kentucky. 
William F. Williams, after his marriage, which oc 
curred in 1875, moved onto his father-in-law's 
place, which adjoins Osceola, and is now manag- 
ing BOO acres of land. He pays an annual rental 
of $3,000 for his land, and his principal crops are 
1 cotton and corn, the yield of the former l)eing 
about three-quarters to one bale, or forty bushels 
of corn, to the acre. There is nothing that he has 
ever tried to make grow on his land that has not 
thrived, whether grain or fruit. He is also en- 
giiged in stock dealing, and thinks the farmers of 
this region have thoroughly awakened to the fact 
that it -pays to raise a good grade of stock. The 
mules of Mississippi County are becoming espe 
cially noted; Mr. Williams has also some Holstein 
cattle, which he considers a better breed for 
this region than any other. He has a fine male 
animal, which was imported from Holland, and al 
though but two years old, weighs 1,218 pounds. 
His hogs are of the Berkshire breed, brought from 
Kentucky, and are very fine. He keeps a few 
sheep, which he finds fairly profitable, but thinks 
the country here too level for them to thrive well. 
Mr. Williams has acted as school director for a 
number of years, anil from his own observations 
has seen a decided improvement in the standard 
of schools since the year 1S70. and (consequently a 
decided improvement in the people of this section. 
The education of his three children. May, Fred 



:^i 



568 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and James, is being attended to by their mother, 
who is a lady of culture and refinement, and was 
educated at Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Memphis, 
Tena. Mrs, Williams is a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South, at Osceola: Mr. 
Williams has passed the Blue Lodge and Chapter 
of the A. F. & A. M. , of Osceola, and is a charter 
member of Apollo Commandery at Forest City, 
Ark. He is also a member of the K. of H. 

William R. Williams, although still a young 
man, has risen to a position in the agricultiiral af- 
fairs of the county which many men older in years 
and experience might envy. His life has been 
without any material change from the ordinary 
pursuits of farm toil, but yet has not been devoid 
of substantial results. He was born in Memphis, 
Tenn. , in the year ISS-t, and in 1861 came, with 
his father, to Mississippi County, Ark., where the 
latter resided until his death, in 1880. William 
E. Williams received educational advantages far 
beyond the average, and these advantages he did 
not fail to improve, but applied himself diligently 
to his books, and acquired an excellent education 
which proved of great benelit to him in later years. 
His plantation, which is situated in the southern 
part of Mississippi County, comprises 300 acres, 
of which eighty are cleared and under cultivation, 
and in good seasons average about one bale of cot- 
ton to the acre. He has several good log houses 
on his property, and is doing a fairly prosperous 
business. In Mississippi County, Ark., he was 
married to Miss Sallie Baskin, of Phillips County, 
Ark. , and by her became the father of two inter- 
esting children — Anna, who died at the age of 
three years, and Ella, a little girl of seven years, 
at home. Mr. Williams is an agreeable and intelli- 
gent gentleman, and one who is ever ready to 
reach out a helping hand to the needy, or to engage 
in any legitimate enter) irise which might tend to 
benefit the county. 

B. A. Williamson (deceased) was a prominent 
farmer of Mississippi County, Ark. , and was born 
in the Blue Grass State, in 1820. He passed his 
youth on his father's farm, and subsequently 
learned the brickmason's trade. Later in life he 
went to Louisville, Ky. , worked at his trade for 



about eight years, and then in 18ri.") he came to 
Arkansas, where he settled on the Mississippi River, 
about three miles al)ove Osceola. He located on a 
tract of wild land, which he soon submitted to a 
course of improvement, and which was transformed 
into a remarkal)ly pleasant home. After making 
many improvements he sold out in 1861, at a large 
advance, and then bought a choice location in the 
vicinity, which Mrs. Williamson still owns. Mr. 
Williamson was married in November, 1861, to 
Miss Lithe Jane Hale [see sketch of Hale Bros,], 
and immediately afterward the war broke out. 
Farming was almost suspended, but Mr, Williamson 
found employment at his trade, and nearly all the 
brick chimneys of that time were of his construc- 
tion. He made many improvements on his farm, 
erecting buildings and clearing about seventy acres. 
In 1871, after an unusually active and prosperous 
life, Mr. Williamson received his final summons. 
Since then Mrs. Williamson has opened up about 
twenty acres, has conducted the home place, and 
now has no trouble in renting the farm for $600 or 
$700 annually. This land is very productive, and 
has often yielded one and a half bales of cotton to 
the acre. In 1884 Mrs. Williamson bought a 
pleasant residence in Osceola, which she has im- 
proved and made into a pleasant home. To the 
marriage of Mr. ^nd Mrs. Williamson were born 
six children, only one now living: Eliza Ann died 
at the age of ten years; Alary Elizabeth is the wife 
of Ahner Driver, and resides in this county; James 
Edward died at the age of seven years; Levina 
died at the age of fifteen years, and two died in 
infancy. Mrs. Williamson has since married her 
deceased hu.sband's brother. Bland W. Williamson. 
The family are now living in a very pleasant cot- 
tage in Osceola. 

Robert E. L. Wilson is numbered among the 
younger of the successful and rising agriculturists 
of this county, and none will have a brighter fu- 
ture, or will make better use of their advantages 
than he. The citizens of Mississippi County are 
proud to claim him as one of its sons, for he was 
born here in the year 1863. His father, Josejjh L. 
Wilson, came from Tipton County, Tenn.. in 1847, 
and purchased a tract of land in Mississippi County 



comprising several thousand acres, the most of 
wliieh has descended to his son, Robert E. L. . who 
owns 2,700 acres. The latter has cleared and pnt 
under the plow over 200 acres, l)ut has 260 under 
cultivation, on whic^h he has erected thirty houses, 
which are used by his tenants. His r(>sidence is a 
handsome structure, covering an area of over 3,00t) 
square feet, is beautifully and comfortably fur 
nished inside, and is in the center of a large and 
well kept lawn. Among the other buildings which 
Mr. Wilson has erected is a saw mill, which is sit 
uated about four miles from the river, at Idaho 
Landing, and has a capacity of 14.000 feet per 
day. From this mill he has a tramway of about 
six miles in length, extending from the river back 
into his timber lands, and here he has some thirty 
men engaged in lnml)ering. He ships large (pian 
titles of lumber from his mill to Chicago annually, 
the principal demand being for ash lumber, of 
which he has a large sujiply still in the tree. The 
gi'eater part of his cultivated lands he devotes to 
the raising of cotton, which enterprise gives em- 
ployment to about 100 people; and one year he 
gathered eighty bales of cotton from eighty acres 
of land, and at another time nineteen bales from 
eighteen acres of land, each bale weighing over 
500 pounds. The expense of cultivating an acre 
of cotton and laying it by is about $7. In the 
year 1885 Miss Lizzie Beall became his wife, she 
being a daughter of S. A. Beall, of Mississippi, 
formerly of Pennsylvania, who came to Mississippi 
County, Ark., in 1805, and settled on Frenchman's 
Bayou. He is now engaged in managing his son-in 
law's mill and mercantile e.stablishment, the latter 
comprising a large and well-selected stock of gen- 
eral merchandise. Two children were born to the 
marriage of Mr. Wilson, only one of whom is 
living, Mabel Victoria. Tiny died at the age of 
eighteen months. Mr. Wilson is one whose in- 
tegrity and honor have never been ijuestioned, and, 
although a young man, his views relating to matters 
of Inisiness, as well as on general and po|inlar 
topics of the day, are considered unusually sound. 
He is a member of McGavock Lodge, K. of H. , at 
Frenchman's Bayou, and his wife is a consistent 
member of the Presbyterian ("iiurch. She is a re- 

36 



fined and well-educated lady, and shows unusually 
good taste in the arrangement of her home. This 
young couple bid fair to become not only one of 
the wealthiest, but, what is of far more importance, 
one of the most highly honored, families in the 
county. 

Andrew B. Young, who is now successfully 
following the occupation to which he was reared, 
and which has been his life-work, a calling that 
has for ages received undivided efforts from many 
worthy individuals, and one that always furnishes 
sustenance to the ready worker, now resides on his 
large plantation near Osceola. He was born in the 
northern part of Mississijipi County, in 1844. and 
was the tenth in a family of eleven children born 
to James and Elizabeth (Gallaway) Young. The 
parents were natives of Indiana and Kentucky, and 
were married in the last named State. They emi- 
grated to Mississippi County at a very early day, 
and at the time of their settlement here their near- 
e.st neighbor was eight miles distant. Mr. Young 
conducted a ferry, sold a few goods to the Indians, 
and supplied the wants of the few people who 
passed that way. He entered 160 acres, made all 
the improvements, and had it all under cultivation 
at the time of his death. His wife survived him 
several years, and died in 1867. Andrew B Young 
aided in clearing the farm, and received a good 
practical education in the common schools. He 
enlisted in the Confederate service in 1S64, and 
participated in the battles of White River, Austin, 
and several skirmishes. He started on the Missouri 
raid with Gen. Price, but was taken sick and returned 
home. His three brothers, James, Erasmus and 
George, were also in the service; the former served 
the entire time, but the latter died in Kentucky. 
In 1865, Andrew rented land, and began farming 
on his own responsibility, continuing until 1872. 
Previous to this, in 1871, he liought 160 acres, two 
miles north of Osceola, with only twenty acres 
cleared, and the following year he built a gooil 
residence, moved on his own farm and began im 
provements on an extensive scale. He has good 
barns, etc. , and has the entire tract under a high 
state of cultivation at the present. In 1884 he 
purchased 300 acres adjoining, on which there wei-e 



9 'y 



J^^ 



570 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



about twenty acres cleared, aud siuce then Mr. 
Young has opened up nearly 160 acres more. He 
is also (juite exteasively engaged in stock raising, 
both cattle and mules. Mr. Young's farm is one 
of the best in the county, and all of the land, with 
proper cultivation, will yield a bale of cotton to 
the aero. He was married, in 1867, to Miss Cath- 
erine Bowen, a daughter of Reece Boweu. one of 



the earliest settlers in this section [see sketch of 
Capt. Bowen]. Six children were bom to them 
(two of whom are deceased) : Nena died in infancy : 
Austin also died in infancy; Logan A., attending 
school at Brigham, N. G. ; Fannie Lee, attending 
school at Anchorage, Ky. : James Reece and Joseph. 
Mr. Young is a member of the Methodist Church, 
and Mrs. Young of the Presbyterian. 



» < <- 



m(M 



I 



> ♦ < • 



Poinsett County— The Records of the Courts— Formation or the County and Selection or the 
Seat of Law— List of Local Officers— Election Statistics— Centers of Population— 
SociETiiis, Etc. — Local Instruction — Moral Organization.s— The Southern 
Confederacy— TnK County Bounded— Its Tofogkaphy and Geology- 
Its Wonderful Soil and Its Products— Population — 
Railroads— Names of Early* Settlers- 
Private and Family Records. 




Lo! I declare I deem him blest 

Whose foot, here puu.«ing. findeth rest. — Anaii. 



S a consequence of the de- 
struction of the eai'ly rec- 
ords of Poinsett County, 
by fire, but little can be 
said pertaining to its early 
courts. Inasmuch as the 



kerson, by Robert Thomas, followed by the killing 
of James Hamilton, at the hand of James Staats. 
Two murders of a more recent date have occurred 
here. With the exception of these and some minor 
crimes, a peaceful progress has been enjoyed. 

Poinsett was organized in accordance with the 

^1^^ creative act was approved j provisions of an act of the General Assembly of the 

February 28, 1838, it is ' State, approved February 28, 1838. Its territory 

originally belonged to Lawrence County, and sub- 
sequently, and up to its formation as a separate 
county, to Greene. 

Bolivar, a point about three miles north of the 
present site of Harrisburg, was chosen for the seat 
of justice, and here, in 1838, the first court-house 
and clerk's oflice, consisting of a log cabin, was 
erected. The county seat thus remained until 
September, 1856, when it was moved to Harris- 
burg, where it has since continued. The first 



evident that the county court was or- 
ganized soon thereafter, or in the 
spring of that year, and that the cir- 
cuit court was held also in the same 
year. The county belongs to the Sec- 
ond judicial circuit, of which J. E. 
Riddick is the present judge. 
The first murder committed in Poinsett Coun- 
ty was the killing, in 1848, of Parker Furnish, by 
John Edwards. The next was that of John Wil- 



^ 




commissioners of the uew coiiuty seat were A. B. 
Scott and A. B. Puckett. Here, also, a log-cabin 
court-Lonse was erected in 1857, and in 1859-60 
a fine brick court-house was constructed, costing 
18, 800, by A. Hamilton, contractor. In the spring 
of 1872 this building, together with the public 
county records, was destroyed by fire. Then, for 
a year or more, the building now known as Sloan's 
boarding house was used as a court-house, after 
which the Methodist Episcopal Church edifice and 
one other structure served a similar purpose. In 
1875 the court-house was rebuilt, by Contractor 

A. Hamilton, and is still standing. The Poinsett 
County jail was erected in 1886, at a cost of 
$1,600. It is a one story frame, containing two 
rooms, and a hallway six feet wide running length- 
wise of the building. Prior to its construction 
the prisoners were kept in a cage, constructed for 
the purpose, in the court-house. 

The following is a list of the names of the 
county officers, with dates of their terms of ser- 
vice, from organization to the present: 

Judges: William Harris, 1838-40; Richard 
Hall, 1840-44; Rollis Perry, 1844-46; W. H. 
Harris, 1846-48; G. W. M."stacy, 1848-50; W. 
H. Harris, 1850-54; S. H. Henton, 1854-56; W. 
H. Harris, 1856-63; W. C. Malone, 1863-64; A. 

B. Scott, 1864-66; B. Harris, 1866-68; G. W. 
Sloan, 1868-72; H. A. Hays, 1874-76; D. .W. 
Beecker, from April, 1876 to end of Hays' term; 
J. T. Haley, 1876-78; N. J. Willis, 1878-80; J. 
T. Roy, 1880-82; T. H. Jones, 1882-84; A. A. 
Cojjpage, from March 4, 1884, vice Jones, left the 
county; E. A. Owens, 1884-86; Jasper Wright, 
1886-88; J. T. Roy, present incumbent, elected 
in 1S8S. 

(Jlerks: Thomas Jones, 1838-40; William 
Thrower, 1840-42; L. H. Suftin, 1842-48; R. H. 
Stone, 1848-60; M. W. Lewis, 1860-62; O. Y. 
Neely. 1862-64; W. C. Malone, 1861-68; G. W. 
Mott^. 1868-70; J. T. H. Mayors. 1870-73: T. H. 
Sparks, 1873-78; T. H. Jones, 1878-80; W. G. 
Godby, 1880-86; T. A. Stone, 1886-88; A. A. 
Coppage, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Sheriffs: W. G. Arledge, 1838-40; James 
Staats, 1840-44; R. H. Stone. 1844-48: J. David- 



son, 1848-56; T. S. Stanley, 1856-60; J. David- 
son, 1860-62; J. Shen-od, 1862-64; W. B. Staf- 
ford, 1864-68; A. Thorn, 1868-72; A. S. Thorn, 
1872-74; J. S. Smith, 1874-78; J. H. Hall. 
1878-80; T. B. Sparks, 1880-86; Add Han-is, 
present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Treasurers: Richard Hall, 1838-40; Charles 
Shaver, 1840-42; William Smith, 1842-46; Sam- 
uel Read, 1846-48; J. P. Mardis, 1848-52; J. M. 
Hale, 1852-56; B. Brown, 1856-62; A. J. Good- 
loe, 1862-65; J. Z. H. Mayors, 1865-66; William 
Ainsworth, 1866-68; James P. Jones, 1868-72; 
H. J. Thorn, 1872-74; E. Mitchell, 1874-80; J. 
J. Smith, 1880-82; W. C. Landers, 1882-86; 
William Ainsworth, present incumbent, first elect- 
ed in 1886. 

Coroners: J. C. Shaver, 1838-40; B. McCaven, 
1840-42: B. P. Marcum, 1842-44; T. F. Arledge, 
1844-46; Daniel McMiUin, 1846-48; J. M. Broad- 
way, 1848-50; G. J. Ward, 1850-52; E. Robinson, 
1852-54; J. E. Dukes, 1854-56; J. M, Cross, 
1856-58; W. H. Smith, 1858-62; B. Brown, 1862- 
64; J. H. Hall, 1864-65; W. S. Griffin, 1865-68; 
John Jones, 1868-74; F. Walbrink, 1874-78; J. 
P. Jones, 1878-80; W. J. Sligh, 1880-82; S. G. 
Stone, 1882-84; Lewis Minton, 1884-86; James 
Houston, 1886-88; James Aston, present incum- 
bent, elected in 1888. 

Surveyors: A. T. Robertson, 1840-42; J. D. 
Carnes, 1842-44; H. Scott, 1846-50; M. Halk. 
1850-60; J. E. Sparks, 1860-62; M. Halk, 
1862-66; J. E. Sparks, 1866-68; T. B. Smith, 
1868-72; E. A. Owens, 1872-74: J. M. Steel, 
1874-76; B. Harris, 1876-78; J.M. Steel, 1878-80; 
H. Scott, 1880-84; A. W. Scott, 1884-86; W. 
Scott, 1886-88; Winfield Scott, present incum- 
bent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: E. Hindman, 1862-66; J. S. Smith, 
1866-68; M. S. Godly, 1868-70; W. H. Cook, 
1870-72; V. J. Bradsher, 1872-74; W. Ainsworth, 
1874-76; A. W. Thornton, 1876-78: W. H. Wade, 
1878-80; Shelby Bottis, 1880-82; D. C. Powell. 
1882-84; H. H. Houghton, 1884-86; Eli Bickley, 
1886-88; Paul McLean, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

The Democratic party is the mo.st popular ia 



:rz 



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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Poinsett County, judging from the results of the 
recent election. At the September election, 1888, 
for the office of governor, James P. Eagle, Demo- 
crat, received fi40 votes; C. M. Norwood, com- 
bined opposition, 161. At the November election, 
1888, for president of the United States, Cleve- 
land. Democrat, was given 402 votes: Harrison, 
Republican, 119; Streeter, United Labor, 21. Lo- 
cal politics, of course, occupy considerable atten- 
tion at different times, surpassed only by the promi- 
nence of more important questions than party loy- 
alty. 

Harrisburg, the county seat, is situated on the 
Helena Branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & 
Southern Railroad, near the geographical center 
of the county, on lands formerly owned by Benja- 
min Harris, one of the pioneer settlers, and after 
whom it was named. A postoffice was estalilished 
here in 1857, the first postmaster V)eing William 
Thrower, who erected a log- cabin, which he used 
as a hotel and postoffice. The same year James 
Davidson and Joab Hale opened the first store in 
the place. The town had a slow but substantial 
growth until 1882, when the road referred to 
reached it, and since that time its advance has 
been more rapid. It now comprises five general 
stores, three drug stores, one restauiant, a meat 
market, two hotels, three blacksmith and wood- 
shops, and the Kennedy-Moreloek' s Stave Com- 
pany' s factory, said to be the largest stave factory 
in the State; also the hardwood lumber factory 
of D. C. & I. R. Cole, two grist-mills and cotton- 
gins, two church edifices, a public school-house 
and a full complement of doctors, lawyers and 
ministers: also a real estate firm. It is pleasantly 
located, and does a large amount of business. Its 
population is about 700. 

Bay Village, a little town ten miles southeast 
of Harrisburg, lies in both Poinsett and Cross 
Counties, with the postoffice in the latter. Its 
site was settled by Charles Shaver, in 1826, but the 
village was not estalilished until 1874, when Eli 
Rooks opened the first store. The second store 
began an existence under the management of J. G. 
Hamilton, and the postoffice was located there in 
1876. The town was named by Col. Wheat on on 



account of its nearness to the bay. It now con- 
tains seventeen families, two general stores, a 
blacksmith and wood-work shop, a cotton-gin and 
grist-mill and a Methodist Episcopal Church edi- 
fice, the church organization having been estab- 
lished over fifty years ago; this has now a mem- 
bership of 180, with Rev. J. I. Maynard, pastor. 

Greenfield and White Hall are stations on the 
same railroad with Harrisburg. the former being 
north and the latter south of that place. 

Weiner, in the northwest part of the county, 
is a station on the St. Louis. Arkansas & Texas 
Railroad, and contains a depot, postoffice, general 
store and hardwood factory. 

Fisher, in the southwest part of the county, 
on the last-mentioned railroad, is made up of a 
depot, postoffice, general store and a stave factory. 

Marked Tree and Tyronza are stations on the 
Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, in 
the eastern part of the county. The former in- 
cludes a depot, postoffice and a general store, and 
the latter a depot, postoffice, two general stores, 
and a stave factory. 

Secret societies apparently thrive here. Poin- 
sett Lodge No. 184, A. F. & A. M. , was organized 
under a dispensation granted by the Grand Lodge 
of the State in 1865. The first principal officers 
were Eli Hindman, W. M. ; James E. Sparks, S. 
W. ; Jefferson Wright, J. W., and J. S. Brook- 
field, Sec. The membership at this time is forty- 
five. H. H. Houghton is the present W. M. 

Harrisburg Chapter No. 76, has a membership 
of twenty- two. The present officers are T. B. 
Sparks, H. P. : E. L. Jacobs, K. ; James Aius- 
worth, S. 

Harrisburg Council has a membership of fif 
teen. 

Eastern Star Chapter has thirty- five members. 
It is named Evergreen Chapter No. 76. 

Harrisburg Lodge No. 55, I. O. O. F., was 
organized March 18, 1873, with five charter mem- 
bers. The first officers were J. H. Hull, N. G. ; T. 
W. Eskridge, V. G. ; W. M. Elsberry, Treas., and 
L. E. Stancell, Sec. This lodge has been discon- 
tinued, and another. White Hall Lodge No. 77, 
was organized at White Hall, and since moved to 



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POINSETT COUNTY. 



573 



Harrisburg. It- has thirty members, and is now in j 
a prosperous condition. 

Bolivar Lodge, Knights of Honor, was organ- 
ized in January, 1889, with sixteen charter mem- 
bers. Its membership is now twenty-one, and it 
is in a flourishing condition. 

The report of the State superintendent of pub- 
lic instruction for the year ending June 30, 1888, 
indicates beyond question the progress the county 
is making in reference to popular education. At 
the time mentioned the scholastic population was: 
White, male 62'2, female 511, total 1,133; colored, 
male 111, female 89, total 200. Number of pupils 
taught in the public schools — white, males 304, 
females 270, total 57-i; colored, males 40, females 
31, total 71. Number of school districts, 16. 
Number of teachers employed — males 15, females 
5, total 20. Average monthly salaries paid teach- 
ers — first grade, males $45.00, females $35.00; 
second grade, males $30.00, females $28.50. 
Amount expended for the support of the schools — 
for teachers' salaries $3,868.50, building and re- 
pairing $1,265.44, purchasing apparatus, etc., 
$233.90. treasurer's commissions $247.80, total 
$5,615.64. 

Accoi'ding to this showing, only 50 per cent of 
the white, and 351 per cent of the colored scho- 
lastic population were taught in the public schools. 
However, only six out of the sixteen school dis- 
tricts, failed to report the enrollment in the schools. 
Eight of the school districts have built new houses 
since 1886. All are well fmnished with patent 
seats, blackboards, and other necessary apparatus. 
The average length of term taught per year is five 
months. In a majority of districts a tax of five 
mills is voted. The public school system is re- 
garded much more favorably than formerly, and, 
;dl things considered, very good results are being 
obtained. 

The first Baptist Church in Poinsett County 
was organized in 1840, at Bolivar, then the county 
seat. The first Missionary Baptist minister was 
Rev. John A. Nutt, whose circuit extended from 
Wittsburg to Chalk Bin IT. The result of his la- 
bors was the organization of all the pioneer 
churches in Greene, Poinsett, and St. Francis 



Counties. In 1858, a small uunil)er organized' 
themselves into a Baptist Church under the leader- 
ship of Elder Pierce. These continued intact, 
worshiping in the court-house until the summer of 
1809, when they erected a frame edifice, called 
Bethel, two miles south of Harrisburg. It still 
continues a strong and prosperous church, with 
about 100 members. The j)re.seut pastor is Rev. 
J. W. Bell. In October, 1887, a number of mvm 
bers withdrew from this church, and organized a 
church in Harrisburg, the next year building their 
present frame church edifice. The church has 
grown to a membership of twenty- five. Rev. J. S. 
Edmonds is pastor in charge. There are three Bap- 
tist Churches in the county, one in Bolivar, one in 
Harrisburg, and another two miles south of Har- 
risburg. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at 
Harrisburg, had its origin in 1840. It grew out 
of the work of Parson Shook and wife, who traveled 
throughout this section from 1840 to 1844. In 
1845 he was joined by Rev. John M. Steele, an 
old pioneer preacher, whose labors ended here in 
1880. He was the leading spirit in founding 
Methodism in this section of country. At first 
services were held in groves and settler's homes, 
later in the court-house, and the first house of 
worship was built in 1859, at old Bolivar, and the 
first at Harrisburg in 1868. The old edifice at 
the former was a two-story fi'ame, with Masonic 
hall above. It was consumed by tire in 1882. 
Another two-story frame structure was built at 
Harrisburg in 1884, in connection with the Ma 
sonic fraternity. Rev. R. G. Brittaiu is now the 
pastor in charge. The membership is 153, and 
the Sunday-school membership is about 100. 
There are eleven organizations of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, here. 

A Christian Church organization is in existence 
at Greenfield — making fifteen church organizations 
within the county. Many of these have Sunday- 
schools connected with them, and all are doing good 
service in the cause of Christianity. A majority 
of the heads of families are connected with one 
or another of the denominations. A few church 
organizations exist among the colored people. 



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574 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



The approach of the War of 1861-65 found 
the people of Poinsett County generally in sym- 
pathy with the proposed Southern Confederacy, 
and in favor of its establishment. The first com- 
pany of soldiers raised here for the Confederate 
army was organized early in 1861, by Capt. Smith, 
and was mustered for three years. The next com- 
pany was raised soon after by Capt. Ben. Harris, 
for the twelve months' service. The former was 
assigned to Col. Adams' regiment, the Fifth Ar- 
kansas Infantry, and the latter to Col. Tappan's 
regiment, the Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry. At 
the expiration of twelve months, Capt. Harris re- 
signed and the company re-enlisted for three years, 
or during the war, electing J. M. LeVesque cap- 
tain and A. J. Willis first lieutenant. After the 
battle of Shiloh, these companies were consolidated 
and assigned to the Fifth Arkansas Mounted In- 
fantry. Subsequently Capt. LeVesque returned 
to the county and recruited another company, 
which was assigned to the Twenty-ninth Trans- 
Mississippi Mounted Infantry. Prior to the battle 
of Helena, this company had lost forty-one men, 
and it entered into that engagement with fifty nine 
men, and came out with only twenty-seven, having 
lost twenty-eight killed and four captured. Three 
of the regimental officers were killed in this en- 
gagement: Col. Hart, Maj. Joseph Martin and 
Adj. W^illiam Rector. The remaining members re- 
ceived an additional force, recruited by Capt. W. 
G. Godbey, making their number eighty, and it 
served to the close of the war. Cajit. William 
Trator organized a company in 1861. in what is 
now Cross County, then in Poinsett, which was 
also assigned to the Fifth Arkansas Infantry. It 
lost during the war 80 per cent of its enlistment. 
No company was raised here for the Union army. 

The position of Poinsett County, in Northeast 
Arkansas, is a favorable one. It is bounded north 
by Craighead, east by Mississippi, south by Crit- 
tenden and Cross Counties, and west by Jackson, 
comprising all the territory emliraced in Townships 
10, 11 and 12 north, in Ranges 1 to 7 inclusive, 
east of the fifth principal meridian of the United 
States surveys; tbus making its length from east 
to west fortv-two miles, and its width from north 



' to south eighteen miles. Its area, therefore, in- 
cluding the beds of its lakes and streams, is 756 
square miles, or 483,840 acres. The State owns 
about 10,000 acres in the county, and the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Com- 
pany about 3,000, the balance being owned by in- 
dividuals. 

About one-fourth of the county's surface is 
hilly and broken, and the balance comparatively 
level, much of it being prairie. Crowley's Ridge 
runs north and south through the center, varying 
in width from three to five miles. The St. Fran- 
cis River runs from north to south through the 
eastern part of the county, the Bay River from 
north to south on the east side of Crowley's Ridge, 
the L'Anguille from north to south west of Crow- 
ley's Ridge, and Bayou De View from north to 

I south through the extreme western portion. These 
streams and their various tributaries furnish the 
drainage of the entire county. The St. Francis 
River widens out, especially in the northern part, 
and covers a large tract of territory known as the 
' ' Sunk Lands, ' ' which were sunk beneath the level 
surface in the earthquakes of 1811-12. The 
L'Anguille bottom is mostly a bluish clay, and on 
the "crab-apple barrens" a white clay. The 
prevalent timber in L'Anguille bottom is red and 
white oak, small scattering sweet gum and post 
oak on the ' ' post oak land. ' ' The growth on the 
adjacent ridges is white and black oak, poplar and 
occasionally some pine; on the branches, poplar, 
gum, ash, elm and dogwood. 

In Townships 10 and 11 north. Ranges 5 and 6 
east, there is a peculiar soil of extraordinary fer- 
tility, occupying a portion of the St. Francis bot- 
tom, known as the "black wax land," which was 
formerly overflowed by the backwater of the Mis- 
sissippi. This soil will produce from fifty to sev- 
enty-five bushels of corn to the acre. The soil of 
Morell prairie is sandy, biit is also good C(3rn land, 
yielding forty to fifty bushels of corn to the acre, 
while the adjacent uplands of the Crowley Ridge 
produce from thirty to forty bushels. From the 
Narrows of the Crowley Ridge to Bolivar and 
Harrisburg, the quarternary gravel is quite con- 
spicuous on the higher grounds, and of a coarse 







character; some pieces woi;ld weijrh several pounds. 
On Spencer Creek, some little sandstone is seen 
underlying the gravel and resting on sandy clay. 
At Hurricane Creek, near Harrisburg, the Crowley 
Ridge is about three miles wide. The material 
passed through, in sinking wells in the L'Anguille 
bottom, is usually twenty feet of yellow clay, under- 
laid by thirty to forty feet of light-colored sand, a 
moderately soft water being generally obtained at 
sixty feet. Immediately at the foot of the ridge, 
water is often obtained at twelve feet, the water 
getting gi-adually deeper for one mile into the bot- 
tom, where it is generally the deepest seated.* 

The low, level surface in the eastern part of 
the county is covered with a heavy growth of cy- 
press, oak, gum and ash. Its western part was 
re-surveyed for the United States in the winter 
of 1856-57, by William Ainsworth and Granville 
McPherson. From the streams, wells, springs 
and cisterns, good water sufficient for all purposes 
is liberally furnished by nature. 

A rich vein of coal extends north and south 
through Poinsett, ranging along Crowley's Ridge. 
The strata, which has a thickness of seven feet, 
can be reached at a depth of forty feet. Deposits 
of ferruginous earth and iron ore are found in 
various localities. A mineral spring called Entoba 
Spring, is situated four miles east of Harrisbiirg. 
The waters of this spring have been subjected to 
a chemical analysis and found to contain valuable 
medicinal properties. 

At present, and for many years, the lumbering 
industry of Poinsett County is and will be a great 
source of income, especially to those engaged in 
the business, and to those owning the timber. 
There are a number of saw-mills here engaged in 
cutting the timber into lumber, for which the 
shipping facilities are excellent. The permanent 
industry and source of income to the people in 
general is agriculture, coupled with the raising of 
live stock, for which the county, on account of the 
great fertility of its soil, the mildness of the 
climate, and its abundant supply of water, is so 
well adapted. In 1X80, according to the United 
States census, there were but 297 farms, with 

•Quotations from State Geological Report. 



only 7,979 acres of improved lands within this ter- 
ritory, and from the number of acres cultivated in 
1879, the loading cereal and vegetable productions 
were as follows: Indian corn, 87,133 bushels; 
oats, 3,490; wheat, 1,529; Irish potatoes, 1,869; 
sweet potatoes, 2,634; cotton, 1,514 bales. The 
same census report shows the number of head 
of live stock then in the county to be as fol- 
lows: Horses, 500; mules and asses, 206; neat 
cattle, 3,676; sheep, 288: hogs, 6,361. These 
figures show that in 1880 Poinsett County was 
but slightly improved and developed. 

At this writing the prices 'of land hereabouts 
are from $5 to $15 for improved, and from $3 to 
15 for unimproved lands. With proper cultivation 
the uplands will yield 900 pounds of seed cotton, 
thirty-five bushels of corn, fifteen bushels of wheat, 
and forty bushels of oats to the acre; while from 
the bottom lands 1,500 pounds of seed cotton, fifty 
to sixty bushels of corn, twenty bushels of wheat, 
and fifty bushels of oats, to the acre, may be ob- 
tained. Tobacco will yield 1.600 pounds, and 
Irish and sweet potatoes from 200 to 300 bushels 
per acre. These amounts, however, are only ac- 
quired by thorough cultivation. Clover, millet, 
and the tame grasses succeed well, but as yet 
have not been cultivated to any considerable extent. 
Fruits of all kinds, common to the latitude, es- 
pecially small fruits, succeed admirably. 

The population of Poinsett County, at the end 
of each census decade, as given in the reports of 
the United States census, has been as follows: 
1840, 1,320; 1850, 2.308; 1860, 3,621; 1870. 
1,721; 1880, 2,192. Originally the county con- 
tained much more territory than at present, which 
accounts for the larger population in 1860. The 
immigration since 1880 has been large, so that the 
next census will show a great increase. It is now 
estimated at 5.000. 

Three railroads cross the entire territory of the 
county. The Kansas City, Fort Scott &, Memphis 
traverses its eastern portion in a southeasterly di- 
rection; the Helena liranch of the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern Railroad passes north and 
south a few miles west of its center, by way of Green- 
field, Harrisburg and White Hall, and the St. 



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576 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad passes through 
the western portion of the county by way of 
Weiner and Fisher, ia a direction a little west of 
south. The combined length of the main lines of 
these railroads within these boundaries is at least 
sixty-two miles. The railroad property forms a 
large proportion of the taxable wealth of the 
county. 

The territory of Poinsett, lying as it does in 
the flat country between the Mississippi River and 
the hilly and mountainous country to the westward, 
was not settled so early as the latter. The early 
immigrants, being mostly from the hilly and roll- 
ing countries of the East, sought a country of like 
contour west of the Mississippi, and consequently 
passed over the rich lands of the valley proper to 
the more elevated lands found to the west- 
ward. The settlement of the territory now em- 
braced within the county began during the decade 
of the 20' s, and progressed very slowly until 
recently. Prominent among the early settlers was 
Richard Hall (subsequently county judge), who 
came from Mississippi in 1828. The next year 
came William and Benjamin Harris, from Alabama. 
William afterward served as first county judge. 
Dr. Theophilus Griffin was a prominent pioneer 
settler, as was also Dr. John P. Hardis. Harrison 
Ainsworth and family came from Mississippi in 
1836, and Robert H. Stone from Tennessee in 
183'J. Ainsworth settled near Bolivar. Owing to 
the slow settlement of the country the few pioneer 
settlers for many years had to live with their fami- 
lies isolated from society, without near neighbors, 
and comparatively like hermits. Too much praise 
can not be given to the brave and noble men and 
women who penetrated the "western wilds," for- 
saking the old home and all its dear associations, 
and endured the hardships and privations of fron- 
tier life, in order to provide pleasant homes and a 
competency for their posterity. 



James Ainsworth, a farmer by occupation, is a 
Mississippian by birth, and has inculcated in him 
the sterling qualities of the better class of citizens 



of that State. He was born in Monroe County in 
1831, and is the eldest of ten children born to Har- 
rison and Susan (Spencer) Ainsworth, a brief his- 
tory of whom is given in the sketch of William 
Ainsworth, treasurer of Poinsett County. James 
became familiar with farm life through his father, 
who was a successful agriculturist, and his early 
scholastic advantages were only such as could be 
obtained in the common schools. After remaining 
under the parents' roof until thirty years of age, as- 
sisting in clearing the old home farm, he concluded 
it was time for him to start out in life for himself, 
and after purchasing and selling several farms, he 
bought his present place, consisting of 138 acres, 
of which fifty are under cultivation. In addition 
to what he raises he is engaged in buying and sell- 
ing stock, and finds this a profitable way in which 
to invest his money. He has taken quite an inter- 
est in local politics, and in his views is a Democrat. 
Socially he is a member of Lodge No. 184, A. F. & 
A. M. , of which he has been treasurer for the past 
fifteen years, and he also belongs to Chapter No. 
74, R. A. M., in which he holds the position of 
scribe. He was married in Poinsett County, in 
1868, to Emily Hale, but her death occurred ten 
years later, and he was mamed, in 1879, to Sarah 
Stevens, by whom he has three children: James 
Thomas, Katie Bell and Ollie Lou. Mrs. Ainsworth 
is an intelligent lady, a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, and is a daughter of 
Moses and Marion Stevens, who were born in Geor- 
gia and emigrated to Arkansas at an early day, 
and both died in Craighead Coiinty, Ark. 

William Ainsworth. The name borne by this 
substantial citizen is not an unfamiliar one. 

My footsteps press where, centuries ago, 

The red men fought and conquered, lost and won. 

The Ainsworth family was first represented in Ar 
kansas, in 1836, by Harrison Ainsworth, who was 
born in the State of South Carolina, and was there 
married to Susan Spencer, whose birth also occurred 
in East Tennessee. On coming to Arkansas, they 
settled on a farm north of where Harrisburg is 
now situated, the county at that time being a vast 
wilderness of woods and canebrake, and was filler! 
with roaming tribes of hostile red men and wild 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



-14* 



animals. Here the father, by the aid of his faith- 
ful wife, succeeded in clearing his farm, and this 
place was his home until his death, in 1S45, his 
wife surviving him, and making her home on the 
old farm until her demise in 1866. William Ains- 
worth aided his parents materially in clearing the 
farm, but his youthful days were also spent in ac- 
quiring a thorough knowledge of the "three R's" 
in the public schools near his home. His birth 
occurred in Pontotoc County, Miss., on March 23, 
1835, a short time prior to his parents' removal to 
this State, and at the age of twenty-three years, 
on the 6th of March, 1859, he was married in 
Craighead County, Ark., to Miss Martha White, 
and soon after purchased a timber tract, embracing 
160 acres, which he immediately commenced to 
clear, and now has eighty-five acres under the 
plow. He has added to his original purchase, his 
acreage at the present time amounting to 600. 
His property is well improved, with good buildings 
and orchard, and for some time he has been acting 
as agent for a number of companies in the pur- 
chase of real estate, and is doing well in this busi- 
ness. He has always taken an active interest in 
politics, and has almost invariably voted the Dem- 
ocratic ticket, as the principles of this party thor- 
oughly coincide with his views. He was elected 
on this ticket to the office of county treasurer, in 
1868, and served one term, being elected again in 
1886 and 1888. He was county assessor in 1872 
and 1873. He has always been interested in edu- 
cational matters, and as a member of the school 
board Mr. Ainsworth has done a great deal to 
raise the standard of education in his community. 
He has filled nearly all the chairs in the Masonic 
order, and is now a member of Poinsett Lodge 
No. 184. In 1878 he was called upon to mourn the 
death of his excellent wife, she having borne him a 
family of five children: Sarah E. (Mrs. Rice); 
Charles Thomas, married, and residing near his 
father: Margaret Jane (Mrs. Graj'), also residing 
near her father; John Calvin and Lee Garland. 
Mrs. Ainsworth was a daughter of Rev. Thomas S. 
and Sarah White, who were natives, respectively, 
of Tennessee and Alabama. They came to Greene 
County, Ark., in 1S3S, and settled near Jonesboro, 



where they spent their declining years, his death 
occurring in 1868, and hers in 1878. In 187'.t, 
Mr. Ainsworth was married, in Poinsett County, 
to Miss Martha Ellen Gray, a native of Alabama, 
and their union has boon blessed by the birth of 
three children: Richard Baxter, Poindexter D, 
and Logan Cleveland. Mr. Ainsworth can well 
remember the time when it took eight days to go 
to Memphis, Tenn., for supplies, and can see great 
changes in the country since that time, he having 
been one of the leading men to institute these 
changes. He has been a member of the Methodist 
Church for many years, and his wife also belongs 
to the same church. 

J. H. Allen, farmer and teacher, Harrisburg, 
Ark. It has long since been acknowledged that 
no matter what a man' s occupation in life may be, 
a very necessary element to his success is a good 
education, and doubtless this is one cause of Mr. 
Allen's success in life. He was born in Mecklen- 
burg County, N. C, on the 30th of September, 
1839, and is the sou of Col. William Allen, one of 
the early settlers of North Carolina, and a native 
of that State. When a young man, the latter was 
united in marriage to Miss Sarah Hunter (subject's 
mother), also a native of North Carolina. After 
his marriage the Colonel settled a large plantation 
in Mecklenburg County, N. C, and entered land 
in the Catawba purchase. The grandparents of 
J. H. Allen, on both sides, were natives of Dublin, 
Ireland, and the grandfathers were Revolutionary 
soldiers, and fought for American liberty. The 
ancestors on both sides were among the Irish 
peasantry. Grandfather Hunter was in the battle 
of King's Mountain. J. H. Allen's time in early 
life was divided between assisting on the farm and 
in attending the common schools. Subsequently 
he entered Davidson College, and graduated from 
that institution in the freshman class of 1856. 
Mr. Allen is one of three survivors of that class of 
twenty-two, who left the college on that memor- 
able June day. One, James Steward, a farmer 
in Brazil, South America; anoth<>r, George Mor- 
row, tilling the soil in South Carolina, and the 
subject of this sketch, are the ones living; the rest 
are with the honored dead of the late struggle. 



^f> 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Mr. Allen took the course of 1858-59 in Cokesbury 
Theological Institute, in South Carolina, and left 
that institute to marry Miss H. R. Thrower, a 
beautiful lady, to whom he had been betrothed for 
seven years, but only reached her bedside in time 
to see her die. In 1861 he enlisted in the cause 
of the South, was in the battle of the Wilderness, 
and was severely wounded at Malvern Hill; was a 
brave and gallant soldier. He was paroled at 
Richmond, at the general surrender in 18(35, and 
returned home, only to find all his property de- 
stroyed. He then engaged in his chosen profes- 
sion, teaching, and followed this in Mississippi 
and Arkansas for many years. He has been three 
times married, and is the father of fourteen chil- 
di'en. He came to Arkansas in 1870, and has 
taught in the schools of this State for eighteen 
years. He has 160 acres of land, forty acres 
under cultivation: is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and of the I. O. O. F., Lodge 
No. 77, White Hall. He takes much interest in 
public enterprises. His word is his bond, always 
careful to perform his promise, and "owes no man 
anything," thereby fulfilling the Divine injunc- 
tion. 

W. T. Beatty is a general merchant, post- 
master and magistrate at Perkins, Ark., and has 
been engaged in the first mentioned business since 
February, 1888. He keeps a full line of groceries, 
dry goods, boots and shoes, and shelf hardware, 
and, in addition to this manages a steam cotton- 
gin, of which he is the owner. His store building 
and residence are in one, and, although he is now 
living quietly, his life has been rather an eventful 
one. He was born in Madison County, Tenn., in 
1844, and is the seventh of ten children born to 
John and Martha A. Beatty, who were born in the 
' ' Old North State. ' ' They removed to Madison 
County, Tenn., at an early day. and here the 
father ojaened up a good farm, on which he resided 
until his death, in 1854, his excellent wife passing 
from life in 1865. John Beatty was of English 
descent, was a Democrat in politics, and a Mason, 
and held office in this order. The maternal grand- 
father, Joseph Tarburton, was a German, and was 
a soldier in the Mexican War. W. T. Beatty re- 



ceived his early schooling in Tennessee, and when 
war was declared, although only sixteen years of 
age, he enlisted from Madison County. Tenn. , in 
Company E, Sixth Tennessee Infantry, for three 
years, or during the war, and went into service at 
Spring Creek, in that State. He was in the battle 
of Shiloh, but was afterward discharged at Tupelo, 
Miss., being under age. He remained inactive 
for about four months, a portion of the tin;e being 
sick with typhoid fever; but after 7'ecovering he 
enlisted in the State Militia of Mississippi, and was 
then transferred to the Fifteenth Tennessee Cav- 
alry, under Gen. Forrest, and remained with him 
until the close of the war. He returned to Ten- 
nessee in 1866, and for some time was engaged in 
farming and saw-milling, and also followed rail- 
roading, being on the Belmont branch of the Iron 
Mountain road from 1874 to 1880, with headquarters 
at Columbus, Ky. From that time until 1882 he 
was in the Government employ, working on the Mis- 
sissippi River, and made his headquarters at Plum 
Point, Tenn. In the spring of 1883 he came to 
Marked Tree, Ark., and after following the occupa- 
tion of saw-milling for one year he went to Harris- 
burg, and embarked in the hotel and livery busi- 
ness. This enterprise he abandoned in 1885, and 
removi^d to Cross County, where he followed mill- 
ing, but returned in 1886 to Marked Tree. Here 
he has since been engaged in general merchandis- 
ing. He is a Democrat, and since September, 
1888, he has held the office of magistrate, and 
since May of the same year has been postmaster at 
the office called Perkins. He belongs to the school 
board in District No. 14, and has always taken an 
interest in matters pertaining to education, being 
now the president of the Union Debating Society. 
He was married in Madison County, Tenn. , in 
1869, to Miss Nancy Ann Williford, of that State, 
and her death occurred in Columbus, Ky. , October 
1,1880. She left two children: Wyatt Jefferson 
and Martha Ada (Mrs. Lucas), both of Paragould. 
In November, 1883. Mr. Beatty wedded, in Harris- 
burg, Miss Cynthia Ann Maynard, a native of Ten- 
nessee. She is a member of the Baptist Church. 
Since the construction of the railroad through Lit- 
tle River Township land has greatly increased in 







^ 



viiliKN and it is only a question of a few years when 
this township will be one of the best farming regions 
in the county. 

Elijah Bennett, farmer and stock raiser, Buf- 
falo Lick, Ark. All his life Mr. Bennett has fol- 
lowed, with substantial success, the occupation to 
which he was reared and in which be is now en- 
gaged — fanning — and is recognized as one of the 
prominent tillers of the soil in Greenfield Town 
ship. He is the fourth in a family of ten children 
born to Thomas and Martha (Rollins) Bennett, na- 
tives of Alabama. Thomas Bennett was a farmer, 
and in this occupation continued all his life. He 
came to Craighead County in 1867, settled near 
Jonesboro, and bought a tract of partly improved 
land, where he remained until his death, in 1882. 
His excellent wife stills survives him, and resides 
in Craighead County. Elijah Bennett was born in 
Russell County, Ala., in 1839, and, naturally per- 
haps, early exhibited taste for farm life, which was 
cultivated on a tract of land in Alabama. He re- 
ceived his education in the district schools of Cal- 
houn Count}', and in 1801 was married, in Chambers 
County of that State, to Miss Celia Smith, a na- 
tive of Alabama. Her death occurred in 1873, 
and she loft four children: J. F., W. W., Lutie 
(now Mrs. Smith) and Robert. In 18(31, the same 
year of his marriage, Mr. Bennett enlisted in Capt. 
Earl's Company Second Alabama Cavalry, and en- 
tered the service at Montgomery, Ala., in Fergu- 
son's Brigade. He was on skirmish duty most of 
the time, but was in the battle of Atlanta, Ga. 
He was paroled at Augusta, Ga. , in 1865, after 
which he returned to AlaV)ama, and in 1869 emi- 
grated to Poinsett County, where he purchased a 
timber tract of 160 acres. He at once commenced 
to improve forty acres, and is now one of the rep- 
resentative farmers of the county. He raises con- 
siderable stock, horses, cattle, hogs, etc., and 
makes a success of this. He was married again in 
1874. to Delia Goodlow, a native of Harrisburg, 
Ark., and her death occurred in 1870. Mr. Ben- 
nett's third marriage took place in Craighead 
County, in 1879, to Mi.ss Martha Wimpey, a native 
of Floyd County, Ga. Her father moved to Craig- 
head County, Ark. . when she was quite yoimg. 



Eight children were born to this union: Lydia, 
Thomas, John, Isabella, Jennie. Ella, Elsie and 
R. Zella. Mr. Bennett, though not an office-seeker, 
takes an active part in politics, and votes with the 
Democratic party. He al.so takes great interest in 
school matters, and has been a member of the 
school board. He is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and is a substantial supporter of all pul)lic 
enterprises. Mrs. Bennett is a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. 

Bledsoe & Tillery, dealers in general merchan- 
dise, also millers and ginners. Bay Village. Ark. 
The field of enterprise opened up in the mercantile 
t line is a large one, and many prominent citizens of 
I Bay Village are engaged therein. Among the 
representative houses that of Bledsoe & Tillery is 
entitled to due recognition. The above firm was 
established in Bay Village in 188-4, by the present 
proprietors, who bought out Stone, Shaver & Co. , 
and since then they have refitted the machinery, 
and made everything new except the corn buhrs. 
The individual members of the firm are W. L. Bled- 
soe and F. F. Tillery, the former being the senior 
member. He was born on the 18th of July, 1849, 
and is the son of Stephen and Mary Nichols (Jen- 
nings) Bledsoe, natives of Middle Tennessee, and 
both members of the Baptist Church. The father 
was an enterprising agriculturist, and in his polit- 
ical views affiliated with the Whig party. He was 
the fat'ner of three children: Sarah A., who died in 
1883, was the wife of D. H. Pitman; Susan F., is 
the wife of G. H. Grubbs, a farmer, and lives in 
Lincoln County, Tenn., and William L. , one of 
the subjects of this sketch. He was left fatherless 
at the age of nine years, and during the ten years 
of his mother's widowhood he remained with her, 
and secured but a limited education in the com- 
mon schools. After her second marriage, in 1808, 
he started out on the broad highway of life for 
himself, and became a sturd}' son of toil, continu- 
ing at this in Tennessee for ten years. In Febru- 
ary, 1870, occurred his mam age to Miss Calister 
Moore, daughter of James and Martha Moore, na- 
tives of Marshall County, Tenn. This happy 
union resulted in the birth of three children: AVil- 
lie, James and Orah. Their mother died in 1886, 



lil! 



580 



HISTOBY OF ARKANSAS. 



and Mr. Bledsoe took for his second wife Miss 
Fannie Roy, daughter of Judge Roy, and a native 
of Tennessee. Two childi-en were the fruits of this 
marriage: Maud and Elmer. In 1878 Mr. Bled- 
soe left the farm and embarked in the grocery busi- 
ness, which he carried on in Middle Tennessee for 
two years. In 1880 he moved to Harrisburg, 
Poinsett County, Ark., tilled the soil here for a 
year, and then moved to Bay Village, where he 
still continued farming. Three years later he en- 
gaged in his present business, and is making a 
success of the same, having erected new buildings 
etc., and secured a lucrative [)atronage. The firm 
own a tract of land of sixty -three acres, and are 
engaged extensively in the raising and selling of 
stock. They also farm extensively, and have this 
year over 150 acres of cotton, seventy-five acres 
in connection in Poinsett County. Aside from 
this they own live acres in Bay Village, and 210 
acres, 180 under cultivation. In their mercantile 
business they carry a stock of goods valued at 
$2,000, and their annual sales equal $20,000. 
F. F. Tillery, junior member of the above men- 
tioned firm, was born October 16, 1856. in Ala- 
bama, but was reared in Middle Tennessee, where 
he received but a limited education. His parents, 
William and Jane (Cunningham) Tillery, were also 
natives of Alabama. AVilliam Tillery followed till- 
ing the soil in early life, and at the age of thirty 
years, being fairly well educated, he entered the 
ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 
which work he continued with successful results 
for thirty five years, or until his death, which oc- 
curred in 1863. He was an honored member of 
both the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities, 
and was a much revered gentleman. Although he 
never enlisted in the service, he went with those 
of the soldiers with whom he was acquainted to 
wait upon and attend to their wants, and died 
while thus striving to do good. Mrs. Tillery sur- 
vived her husband twenty-five years, reared her 
children to maturity, and during the last five years 
of her life lived happily with them. She united 
with the Methodist Episcopal Church at the age 
of sixteen, and lived a consistent member of the 
same until her death, in 1888, having been a mem- 



ber of the same for fifty-foiu' years. She reared her 
family at a time when educational opportunities 
were vei"y limited, and the training and instruc- 
tion she gave them were all they ever received. F. 
F. Tillery was the twelfth of thirteen children, 
seven of whom are now living — six daughters 
and one son — all married, viz. : Mrs. Francis Van 
Martindale, Mrs. Sarah A. McKenney, Mrs. Mar- 
garet Roper, Mrs. Mary Bledsoe, Mrs. Harriet 
Smith and Mrs. Julia Goodloe, the subject of this 
sketch being the only son living. He started out 
in life at the age of eighteen, and entered the em 
ploy of a saw-mill man, with whom he remained 
for some time. After this he embarked in agri- 
cultural pursuits, and continued at this until No- 
vember 30, 1880, when he made a visit to Harris- 
burg, and although he had no intention of a per- 
manent stay, his practical eye soon saw that right 
there was a chance for a man with progressive 
ideas to make a start in life. He first began by 
teaming, and in connection with this carried on 
farming and trading, which he continued until 
1884. He then embarked in merchandising with 
Mr. W. L. Bledsoe, at Bay Village. On Febru- 
ary 14, 1879, he was first married to Miss Lebecea 
Merrill, who was a daughter of Garrett and Amy 
(Walker) Merrill, natives of Alabama and Middle 
Tennessee, respectively. Mrs. Tillery lived about 
twenty -three days after marriage, and in Febru- 
ary, 1880, Mr. Tillery married Miss Mellie A. 
Merrill, sister to his first wife. They have the 
following, family: Mary F., Robert Lee, Minnie 
O., Arthur B., Tillie M., died in infancy; Willy 
D. and Pearl. Mr. Tillery casts his vote with the 
Democratic party, and is a member of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, as is also Mrs. Tillery. 

Theo Brownfield is one of the progressive, in- 
telligent and enterprising agriculturists of Poinsett 
County, and was born in Warren County, Middle 
Tennessee, in 1846, and of his parents' nine chil- 
dren he was the eldest. His youthful days were 
spent in the State of Illinois, and he received a 
good j)ractical education in the schools of Jackson 
County. He started out in life for himself, by 
driving stock through Illinois, Iowa and Minne- 
sota, but after his marriage, which occurred in 






-I — ^s\^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



581 



Jaekaoii County, 111., in 1865. to Miss Ellon Dale, 
he settled down to farming. Growiriw dissatisfied 
with that location, and thinking he could better his 
financial condition, he came to Harrisburg, Ark., 
in November, 1809, and, after residing in the town 
for one month, he purchased a timber tract of 160 
acres, in Greenfield Township, and in a compara- 
tively short time had forty acres fenced and partly 
cleared. He sold this property in 1872, however, 
and bought another farm, adding, in 1881, eighty 
acres more — this being the farm on which he is 
now residing. He has been an active member of 
the Democratic party, and belongs to the school 
board of his district, the Agricultural Wheel, and 
is a member of Lodge No. 184, of the A. F. & A. 
M. He and wife are the parents of the following 
family: Fayette. William and Oscar (twins), Mary 
Edna and Anna — living; those deceased are Free- 
man A., whose death occurred in 1882; Zella S., 
who died in 1875, and Estella, whose death oc- 
curred in 1879. Mr. Brownfield is a son of Robert 
and Edna (Kerby) Brownfield, the former a native 
of .Mabama. and the latter of Warren County, 
Tenti. They were married in the latter State, and 
in 1849 emigrated to Marion County, 111. After a 
short residence in St. Francis County, Mo., they 
returned to Illinois, in 1852, and resided there and 
in Jackson County until 1865, and from that time 
until the father's death, in 1875, they resided in 
Clay County. The mother died in February, 1862. 
Mrs. Isabella F. Burt, is the relict of John M. 
Burt, who was born in South Carolina in 1807. 
Her father, John, and her mother, formerly Letta 
Meltage, were born in Rutherford County, N. C. , 
and moved to Northern Alabama about 1825, in 
which State the father's death occurred in 1840, 
his death being preceded by his wife's about one 
year. He was a hatter by trade, but also followed 
the occupation of farming, and he and his wife 
were active and worthy workers in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. Their children were as 
follows: William, who was born about ISIO, was a 
farmer by occupation, and about 1856 came to Cross 
County. .\rk. H(> was a Master Mason, a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and liecame the 
father of a large family of children, seven of whom 



live in Cross Coimty at the present time. He died 
in 1859; Isabella F. (Mrs. Burt), was their second 
child, and llacjjel, their last, she lioing the widow 
of Allen Burt, a farmer who died in Lonisana in 
1851. His wife and six children survive him, and 
in the year 1856, came to Poinsett County. Ark., 
and here the mother is still living at the age of 
seventy-seven years. Mrs. Isabella F. Burt spent 
her girlhood days in her native State, and there 
received a good education in the common schools. 
In December, 1829, she was married to John M. 
Burt, a son of William and Mehathalona (Mosely) 
Burt, whose native State was South Carolina. 
They were farmers there, and in 1856 moved to 
Arkansas, where they became the owners of 640 
acres of land, and at the time of the father's death, 
in 1861, they had about 130 acres under cultiva 
tion. To them were born four children: Martha 
A., -wife of J. H. Hall, a sketch of their son, John 
W. Hall, being given in this work: Mary J., wife 
of Eli A. Bradner (she died in 1870, and her 
husband and four children survive her): Lucy I., 
who first married Green Hall, and afterward 
Thomas W. Eskridge, and died in October, 1874, 
and John W. , who died in Alabama at the age of 
four years. Mrs. Isabella Burt can distinctly re 
member many interesting anecdotes connected with 
the early history of Poinsett County, and can re- 
member when Memphis, Tenn. . was their nearest 
market of any importance, and when "Old Farm 
Hill " was the nearest church, and Old Bolivar the 
county seat. The houses of the settlers were 
mostly of logs, hand-sawed by the men, and Mrs. 
Burt's old home contains a floor of split logs, and 
another of whipsawed logs. Tiieir clothing was 
all home-made, and a suit of jeans was considered 
a very stylish attire in those days. Mrs. Burt was 
left a widow with four children, just on the eve of 
the late war, and during that time, her slaves, 
numbering abotit twenty -five, left her. Owing to 
the respect and liking, which her intelligence and 
kindly manners always inspired, she was left tin 
molested by the Union soldiers, and devoted her- 
self to rearing her children, and the manner in 
which this noble woman fulfilled her trust is evi 
dent in looking upon her children who have grown 



sfv" 



Ai 



582 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



to mature years. She is remarkably well preserved 
in years, the ' ' ravages of time ' ' having had but 
little effect upon her vigorous intellect. Since 
1874, she has been spending her time under the 
loving care of her children and grandchildren, 
and is at present making her home with her grand- 
sou, John W. Hall. 

D. C. & I. R. Cole are prominent lumber 
mauufacturers of Poinsett County, Ark., and have 
been established in business since May, 1^86, their 
mill having a capacity of 1,500,000 feet per year. 
They are situated two and one half miles north of 
Harrisburg, and have their own tramway of three 
and one-half miles, and employ from fifteen to 
twenty men, to whom they aim to give employment 
the year round. Isaac R. Cole, the senior mem- 
ber of the firm, was born in Darke County, Ohio, 
in 1833, and inherits a fair share of the energy and 
push which are so characteristic of the inhabitants 
of that State. He was the sixth of eight children 
born to James and Sarah (Rupple) Cole, who were 
born in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, respect- 
ively, at an early day they settled in Darke County, 
Ohio, and in February, 1836, emigrated overland 
to St. Joseph County, Ind., where they settled on 
a farm and made their home the remainder of their 
clays, the former's death occurring iu July, 1856, 
and the latter' s in October, 1860. In this county 
and State Isaac R. Cole received his education and 
was initiated into the mysteries of farm work. 
After having farmed for himself for a number of 
years he, in 1871, engaged in the milling business 
in North Liberty, Liberty Township, St. Joseph 
County, and in 1886 moved his mill to Poinsett 
County, Ark. , where he has his present plant. Be- 
ing a man of excellent business qualifications and 
experience, he has built up an extensive business 
and readily disposes of immense quantities of lum- 
ber annually, as his shipping facilities are good. 
In 1850 he was married, in the " Hoosier State,"' 
to Miss Eliza J. Rush, but she was called to her 
long home three years later, leaving a son, James 
Arthur. Miss Mary Ellen Reamer became Mr. 
Cole's second wife, their union taking place in 
1860. She was born in the State of Indiana, and 
she and Mr. Cole have an interesting little family 



of three children: Alma Alice (Mrs. Nelson, a 
resident of St. Joseph County, Ind.), Benjamin 
F. and Mabel B. at home. Mr. and Mrs. Cole are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Chiuch, at 
North Liberty, Ind. , and he was Worshipful Mas 
ter of Lodge No. 266, of the A. F. & A. M., at 
North Liberty, Ind. During his residence in this 
county (since 1886) he has noticed a gradual im- 
provement each year, and has taken an active in- 
terest in promoting the growth and improvement 
of the same. Churches and schools always receive 
his patronage, and on his and his brother's land, 
which amounts to 2,600 acres, many homes are 
being erected and clearings made, and a school- 
house will soon be erected thereon. 

L. J. Collins, M. D., is one of Poinsett County's 
most trustworthy physicians and surgeons, and as 
he has obtained a liberal share of public favor, it is 
one of the best of proofs of his skill and care. He 
was born in Fulton County, Ky. , in 1857, and is 
the third in a family of three children, born to 
Leroy and Evaline (Murphy) Collins, who wore 
Tennesseeans, and emigrated to Fulton, Fulton 
County, Ky., at an early day, where the father 
followed the trade of a mechanic. He still resides 
in Fulton, but his wife died many years ago, when 
our subject was Imt a small lad. L. J. Collins 
was taken to Carroll County, Tenn. , after his 
mother's death, and there remained until he at- 
tained his eighth year, when he returned to Ful 
ton County, Ky., and was educated in the schools 
of that county. From earliest manhood the study 
of medicine always had a fascination for him. and 
he determined to make that his calling through 
life; and in order to fit himself for active work he 
entered the Hospital Medical College of Louisville, 
Ky. , and was graduated from that institution in 
1877. His first experience as a practitioner was 
gained in Hardeman County, Tenn., but he only 
remained there a short time when he entered upon 
the practice of his profession in Wittsburg, Cross 
County, Arl^ After a short stay of three months 
in this place he located in Bay Village of the same 
county, remaining here until the first of January, 
1881, when he came to his present location, and 
has a paying practice in the town and surrounding 



rFl^ 



' >£. 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



583 



country. He has been an active politician for years, 
and always vote.s the Democratic ticket, and in 
I81S8, was elected by that party to the State legis- 
latui'e from Poinsett County, and is now ably dis 
charging the duties incumbent upon this office. 
Socially he is a member of the A. F. & A. M. In 
1876 he was married, in Hardeman County, Tenn. , 
to Miss Amanda Hurst, a native of Hardeman 
County, Tenn. To their union were born the fol- 
lowing children: Henry, Dixie and LaFayette. 
Although the Doctor has resided here only a few 
years, he has noticed a decided change for the bet- 
ter in the public-school system, and in the growth 
and prosperity of the county. 

A. A. Coppage, clerk of the county and pro- 
l)ate court, and also county recorder, was born in 
Marion County, Ky. , on the I'ith of January, 
1847, l)eing the seventh of twelve children born 
to the union of Hardin Coppage and Sally C. 
Robertson, both natives of Marion County, Ky. , 
the former a farmer and stock dealer by occupa- 
tion. He died in Davis County, Ky. , in 1886, at 
the age of seventy-five years, his excellent wife's 
death occurring two years earlier. A. A Coppage 
received the education and rearing which usually 
fall to the lot of the farmer's boy, and in April, 
1877, he left home and came to Greene County, 
Ark., where he engaged in general merchan- 
dising at Bethel, and after successfully con- 
tinuing there for three years he moved to Harris- 
hxvcg. He had also been engaged in teaching 
.school while in Greene County, and after his locat- 
ing in Poinsett County, he was elected to the of- 
fice of deputy county clerk, serving from 1883 to 
November, 1S88, and discharged his duties in so 
efficient a manner that in the fall of the latter year 
he was elected to his present office. By appoint- 
ment he was made county judge in 1884. and filled 
the position with ability for six mouths. He has 
shown his approval of secret o.rganizations by be- 
coming a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and 
the I. O. O. F. , holding the position of secretary in 
the latter. He was married at Bethel, Greene 
County, Ark., in 1880, to Mrs. Bettie Going, form- 
erly Betty Sloan, a native of East Tennessee, roared 
in Poinsett County, Ark. Three children have 



been born to their union: Effie and Abl)ie, being 
the only ones living. He has two step- children: 
Clyde and May Going. 

Prof. Robert L. Cowan, educator, Harrisburg, 
Ark. Originally from Warrick County, Ind., 
where his birth occurred on the 14th of March, 
1852, Prof. Cowan is possessed of those advanced 
ideas and progressive prinei[>les regarding educa- 
tional matters which make his name familiar 
throughout this part of the State. His parents, 
Rev. John D. and Elizabeth (Knight) Cowan, were 
natives of Tennessee and Indiana, respectively. 
The father was a graduate of Princeton College, 
New Jersey, and about 1849 or 1850 ho was ordained 
to the Pre.sbyterian ministry. He at once re- 
ceived the appointment of principal of Newburg 
Academy, at Newburg, Ind., which position he 
filled with honor until 1858, when he was made 
financial agent of Union College, at Virginia, Cass 
\ County, 111. He remained in this position until 
near the close of his life, in 1865. At the age of 
sixteen, in company with two others of about the 
same age, he rode from Holly Springs, Miss., to 
Texas, and was forty days making the journey. 
They lost themselves in the wild and unbroken for- 
ests of Eastern Arkansas, wandered around for sev- 
eral days, and at last found Crowley's Ridge, 
which they followed north for some distance; then 
crossed over White River Valley, thence south to 
the Arkansas River, and after crossing this stream 
were near the present site of the city of Little 
Rock. From there they went to Shreveport, and 
then to Texas. Mr. Cowan remained in that State 
for four years, and during that time served as a 
soldier in the Texan army. He was wounded by 
arrows, and carried the scars to his grave. As pay 
for his services in the army he received a quarter 
of a league of Texas land (about 320 acres). In 
the meantime he had united with tiie Presbyterian 
Church, and was sent by the presbytery to attend 
Princeton College, as before stated. Prof. Cow- 
an's paternal grandfather, David Cowan, was a 
native of Tennessee, and a farmer by occupation; 
was one of Gen. Jackson's soldiers in the battle of 
New Orleans, and met his death by being accident- 
ally shot during a bear-hunt in 1832. His father, 



:fv~ 






^J. 



584 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



John Cowan, was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
and an early settler of Virginia, although later in 
life he drifted westward to Tennessee. His Inother, 
David Cowan, came to America with him, and 
made his home in Pennsylvania. His son, Edgar 
Cowan, was United States senator from Pennsyl- 
vania during the war. Prof. Cowan's maternal 
grandfather, Isaac Knight, was a native of Penn- 
sylvania, and emigrated with his father, Abraham 
Knight, to Henderson, Ky., in the year 1790. Two 
years later he was captured by the Indians, by 
whom he was kept a prisoner for two and a half 
years. He then escaped in the Straits of Macki 
naw, by being hidden on a English trading vessel 
by a colored cook. He lauded on terra firma in 
Detroit, and made his way home, after a perilous 
trip of six months. He followed agricultural pur- 
suits, and opened up several large farms in South 
ern Indiana. His death occurred in 1858. Rev. 
John D. Cowan and Elizabeth Knight were mar- 
ried on the 20th of May, 1851, and Prof. Robert 
L. Cowan is their only child. His mother died on 
the lyth of August, 1854, and the father was 
married the second time on the 28th of December. 
1859, to Miss Mary A. Bell, daughter of A. W. 
Bell, a prominent farmer of Central Illinois. To 
this union was born one child, Alex. B., whose 
birth occuiTed on the 2d of March, 1861, and who 
is married and has two children. He is the pres- 
ent manager of the Western Union Telegraph 
Company, at Quincy, 111., and he, with his son, 
four years of age, and the subject of this sketch, 
are the only survivors bearing the family name. 
Prof. Cowan passed his boyhood days in poring 
over his books at home, and later attended the 
Presbyterian Academy in Macon County, 111. Af- 
ter completing his studies in that college, in 1875, 
he went to Evansville, Ind., and tilled the position 
of professor in the scientific department of the 
public high school of that city for five years. In 
1880 he was elected county examiner of Vander- 
burgh County, which position he held until 1SS8, 
and then accepted the position of assistant engi- 
neer of the Danville, Olney & Ohio Railroad, 
while making the survey fi'om Olney to Paducah, 
Ky. After this he was an engineer in the sub-ma- 



1 rine work in the building of the bridge across the 
Ohio River, at Henderson, Ky. Following this 
Prof. Cowan was assistant engineer in the Ijuilding 
of the Toledo, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad, 

1 between Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis. He 
then returned to Decatur in poor health, and re- 
mained in that city one year, when, in November, 

' 1886, he came to Poinsett County, Ark. After lo- 
cating here he followed the timber business, and 
then engaged in teaching, having charge of the 

I Harrisburg schools in 1887 and 1889. His mar- 
riage occurred on the 20th of December, 1889, to 
Miss Maud Sloan, daughter of Judge G. AV. 
Sloan, who keeps a hotel and is undertaker at Har- 
risburg. Prof. Cowan is a member of the Presby- 
terian Church, and Mrs. Cowan belongs to the 

I Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a member of 
the A. F. & A. M., Lodge No. 64, Evansville, and 
holds the position of reporter of Lodge No. 3380, 

1 Knights of Honor (Bolivar Lodge). He takes an 

! active part in jiolitics, votes with the Republican 
party, is chairman of his county committee, and is 
a member of both the State Central and Congres- 
sional committees. He takes an active interest in 
and gives his support to all public enterprises. 

L. H. Davis, M. D., physician and surgeon, 
Harrisburg, Ark. The above mentioned gentleman 
is one of the most successful and prominent phy- 
sicians in Poinsett County, and is ever to be found 
by the bedside of sick and suffering humanity. He 
was born in Ozark County, Mo., on the 22d of 
December, 1858, and is the son of Dr. Newland A. 
and Eliza N. (Drake) Davis, natives of Tennessee. 
[For further particulars of parents see sketch of 
John C. Davis. ] Dr. L. H. Davis was the fifth of 
six living childi'en born to his parents and their 
names appear in the following order: Mrs. E. 
Frierson, wife of J. C. Frierson, and now residing 
in JonesVjoro, Ark. ; Mrs. Alice Legg, wife of D. 
H. Legg, who is a descendant of one of the oldest 
families of Cross County, and is magistrate of that 
county; Mrs. M. A. Gilliland, wife of the present 
school commissioner of Poinsett County; Thomas 
L., married and living in Harrisburg, is a medical 
student; L. H. , and John C. , a druggist at Harris- 
burg. Dr. L. H. Davis always had delicate health, 



"?; 



la. 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



585 



and spent much of his time during l)oyhood in 
attending school. At the age of seveuteiui years 
he entered as clerk the drugstore of Dr. D. A. 
Graves at Forest City, and lemained in that posi- 
tion for three years. During his twenty- tirst year 
the Doctor taught school in Woodruff County at 
Pum[)kin Bend, and at the same time liegan the 
study of medicine. The following year he read 
medicine under the tutelage of I'r. Whitsett, at 
Marion, Ark . and during 18S2 and 1883 he at 
tended the Memphis Medical College He then 
practiced one year in the Little River Country, in 
Eastern Poinsett County, after which he returned 
to the same college and graduated in the class of 
1885. In the same year he came to Bay Village, 
Cross County, and began the practice of his pro- 
fession, which he continued for eighteen months. 
He then came to Harrisburg, where he has remained 
ever since, and where he enjoys a large and paying 
practice. In February, 1887, he wedded Miss 
Lillian Florence Watkias, daughter of Prof. Wat- 
kins, president of Marshall Institute. They were 
married at Memphis, where Mrs. Davis' family 
still reside. Mrs. Davis' sister, Mrs. Fanny Ander- 
son, of Millington, Tenn. , is the possessor of one 
of the most noted madstones in that State. It is 
an heirloom of the Watkins family. To the Doc- 
tor and wife has been born one child, Willie 
Mary W. , a sweet little girl of about twelve 
months. Dr. Davis is medical examiner and a 
member of the K. of H. . at Harrisburg, and is a 
conservative Democrat. 

John C. Davis, druggist and apothecary, Har- 
risburg, Ark. One of the most popular and effi 
cient druggists in the town of Harrisburg is Mr. 
John C. Davis, whose flourishing establishment is 
located in one of the busiest portions of that town. 
He established his present business in 1888, and 
carried a general stock of drugs, patent medicines 
and fancy groceries. His birth occurred on the 
2'2d of September, 1867, in Crittenden County, 
Ark., and he is the youngest in a family of five 
children born to Dr. N. A. and Eliza M. (Drake) 
Davis, natives of Tennessee. Dr. N. A. Davis was 
reared in the country, and received his education in 
the common schools of Tennessee. He learned the 

37 



printer's trade, and followed that for some years, 
when he began the study of medicine, and gradu- 
ated from the St. Louis Medical College in the 
class of 1850. He first began the j)ractice of his 
profession at Ozark, Christian County, Mo., and 
was married at Bolivar, Mo., on the 1st of Decem- 
ber, 1843, to Miss Eliza :\[. Drake, daughter of 
Jacob and Anna (Williams) Drake, natives of East 
Tennessee. Mrs. Davis is a distant relative of J. 
Q. Adams, and a second cousin of Oovernor Taylor, 
of Tennessee. After his marriage. Dr. Davis re- 
moved to Christian County, Mo. , where he remained 
iintil the spring of 1S61. He was outspoken in 
all his political views, and when the war broke out 
he joined Gen. Price's army as surgeon, and held 
that position during the entire struggle. In 1866 
his family joined him in Louisiana, and from there 
they moved to Crittenden County, Ark. , where they 
made their home until 1870. In that year they 
moved to Cross County, and from there, in 1873, 
he moved to Forest City, where his death occurred 
in 1876. The mother remained on the home place 
until 1878, and then made her home with her son, 
John C. Davis, until her death, in 1888. The latter 
was reared in town, and spent his schoolboy days 
in Forest City and the schools of Marion and Crit- 
tenden Counties. In 1882 he entered the drug 
store of his uncle. Dr. T. C. Whitsett, of Marion, 
as a clerk, and continued with him two years. He 
then went to Jonesboro', and worked as a clerk 
until 1886, after which he was on the railroad until 
Februarj', 1887. He then came to Harrisburg, 
and purchased a half- interest in the drug business 
of M. D. Simmons & Co. , with whom he continued 
until March, 1888, and then withdrew, and estab- 
lished himself in his present business, which he is 
now prosperously conducting. He is a conserva- 
tive Democrat, and gives his support to all enter- 
prises for the good of the county. 

W. R. Dedman, postmaster, Greenfield, Ark. 
This much respected citizen has been postmaster 
at the above mentioned place ever since the oflSce 
was established, which was in 1886, a flag station 
on the Helena branch of the Iron Mountain Rail- 
road. In connection with his official duties he 
is also engaged in agricultural pursuits, an occupa- 



=^ 



A: 



586 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tion to which he was reared. His birth occurred in 
Madison County, Ala., in 1851, and he was the 
only child born to the union of F. D. and S. A. 
(Thacker) Dedman, the father a native of Alabama, 
and the mother of Virginia. F. D. Dedman was 
reared to manhood in his native State, and here 
tilled the soil. In 1869, he emigrated to Poinsett 
County, Ark. , settled in Bolivar Township, entered 
land, and there made a permanent home. At pres- 
ent he is residing in Craighead County, Ark. . W. 
R. Dedman became familiar with the duties of the 
farm, and received the rudiments of an education 
in the district schools of Tennessee. He com 
menced farming for himself in Poinsett County, 
in 1869, and later bought a timber tract of land of 
200 acres, which he immediately commenced im- 
proving, building a good frame house, setting out 
an orchard, etc. , and he now has about twenty- 
eight acres under cultivation. The Iron Mountain 
Railroad runs through his land. Mr. Dedman 
was married in Poinsett County, Ark., in 1871, to 
Miss A. H. Schockley, a native of Cherokee County, 
Ala., and the daughter of A. J. and Frances 
Schockley, natives of Alabama. Her parents came 
to Poinsett County, Ark., in 1869, settled in 
Bolivar Township, and there purchased land. Her 
father died in 1870, but the mother survives him, 
and is residing on the old homestead. Mr. Ded- 
man, after marriage, settled in Bolivar Township, 
and in 1880 purchased his present property. He 
was engaged in the grocery Ijusiness here in 1886 
and 1887, but closed out in the latter part of the 
last mentioned year. He has taken quite an active 
part in politics, votes with the Republican party, 
and is a prominent man. He has been a member 
of the school board for about seven years or more, 
and has held other offices of public trust. Socially, 
he is a member of White Hall Lodge, No. 77, 
I. O. O. F., at Harrisburg. To his happy mar- 
riage have been born six children : Eudora, Miuuie 
Bell, William Oliver, Ida Lou, Nellie M. and 
Sarah Frances. Mr. Dedman has always taken an 
interest in all that pertains to the good of the com- 
munity, and is a liberal supporter of all laudable 
enterprises, 

J. A. W. Ellzey is salesman and book keeper 



for the general mercantile firm of A. S. Thorn 
& Co., of Marked Tree, Ark. He was born in 
Pontotoc County, Miss., in 1851, being a son of 
Dr. James Ellzey, of Georgia. The latter, in con- 
nection with his practice, was an extensive planter: 
he was married in his native State to Miss Martha 
A. Stevens, whose birthplace was the "Old North 
State." The father, 'vho was a Democrat in pol- 
itics, died in 1869 in Pontotoc County, Miss.. 
whither he had moved at an early day. His widow 
passed from life in 1882. To them were born 
eleven children. Our subject, J. A. W. Ellzey 
(one of the seven sons), was engaged in school - 
teaching in the State of Mississippi, and in the 
spring of 1879 he went to Milam County, Tex., 
where he followed the same occupation for nearly 
one year. In November. 1879, he came to Poin- 
sett County, Ark., and was engaged in teaching 
and farming up to 1884, when he accepted his 
present position with the above mentioned firm. 
He is not a very active politician, but usually votes 
the Democratic ticket, and socially is a member of 
the Masonic order. He was maiTied in Poinsett 
County, in January, 1881, to Miss Mollie C. Will- 
iams, who was born in Poinsett County, and is a 
daughter of B. D. and A. J. (Mardis) Williams, 
who were born in Alabama and Tennessee, respect- 
ively. The father's death occurred in 1862, and 
his widow, now Mrs. Thorn, still survives and 
makes her home at Marked Tree, Ark. Mr. and 
Mrs. Ellzey became the parents of five children 
(three of whom are now living) : Birdie ; Beatrice, 
who died in May, 1886: Thaddeus and Willie 
(twins), the latter dying in July, 1885, and Willie. 
Foster Freeman is the efficient postmaster at 
Harrisburg, and is now serving his second consec- 
utive term, having previously served in this capac- 
ity under Garfield's administration. For about 
twelve years he was editor and proprietor of Free- 
man's Express, the last paper being issued on the 
15th of October, 1888. He was born in Griffin, 
Ga. , in 1842, and is the eldest of a family of six 
children born to Robert K. and Mary E. (Sessions) 
Freeman, who were also natives of the State of 
Georgia, but moved to Northern Alabama in 1850, 
where the father became a well-known medical 



!.£: 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



587 



practitioner. In IcSHG he came to Jonesboro, Ark. , 
but bis death occurred in Poinsett County, two 
year.s later, his excellent wife surviving him until 
1888. Their children are L. C. (Mrs. G. W. 
Baxter, residing in Stanton, Tenn.), Robert K. 
(deceased). Mary N. (Mrs. Griffin). L. D. (who re- 
sides at Wynne, and is editor of the Wynne Rip- 
saw), and Foster. From his earliest recollections 
up to 186], the latter's time was occupied with 
the monotonous duties of farm life, and in the 
meantime he acquired a fair education in the pub- 
lic .schools in the vicinity of his home. Upon the 
bursting of the war cloud which had threatened 
the country for some time, he laid down the im- 
plements of farm life to don the rebel uniform, 
and enlisted from St. Clair County, Ala., in Com- 
pany A, Tenth Alabama Volunteer Infantry, Con- 
federate States Army, and went directly to Vir- 
ginia, becoming a member of Wilcox's Brigade. 
He was in the entire Virginia campaign, and sur- 
rendered on the "Jth of April, 1865, at Appomat- 
tox Court- House. Mr. Freeman then returned to 
St. Clair County, Ala. , and was married there, in 

1867, to Miss Elizabeth J. Gibson, a native of that 
State. He was engaged in farming there until 

1868, when he removed to Tennessee, and the fol- 
lowing year settled in Poinsett County, Ark., where 
he purchased and improved a farm of 160 acres. 
He also gave considerable of his attention to grist- 
and saw-milling, but recently exchanged his mills 
for the old homestead in Alabama. He is rather 
conservative in politics, but usually casts his vote 
with the Democratic party, and is now a memljer 
of the county central committee; he has been 
county school examiner two terms, and in this ca 
pacity did much to raise the standard of schools. 
He has always been interested in every worthy 
movement, and has aided materially in the general 
development of the county. He is a member of 
Lodge No. 184 of the A. F. & A. M., and is now 
holding the position of s(<cretary of that lodge. 
He and wife were members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, and to their union were born 
the following children: R. L. . Elizabeth D., S. C, 
Sally B. and Foster. Elizabeth D. is the wife of 
Mr. Beards, and is residing in the county. 



W. F. Furnish is a farmer, and is also en 
gaged in the saw-milling business, his mill being 
located in Bolivar Township, and is in operation 
the most of the year, giving employment to about 
nine men. Mr. Furnish was born at Old Bolivar, 
in 1846, and was the elder of two children born to 
Parker W. and Annice (Smith) Furnish, who were 
born, respectively, in Missouri and Teimessee. 
Parker W. Furnish removed to Arkansas, in 1844, 
while still a single man, but was married soon 
after, and in addition to opening up a farm was en- 
gaged in carpentering until his death, which oc- 
cun-ed in August. 1848, he being killed. His 
widow survived him until 1885, wh(>n she, too, 
passed to her long home. The early youth of our 
subject was spent in following the plow and in 
attending the district schools, where he acquired 
sufficient education to lit him for the duties of 
everyday life, and from the age of fifteen up to 
twenty-two years of age, he assisted in the support 
of his mother. He was man-ied in 1868 to Miss 
Barthena Ainsworth, a daughter of Harrison Ains- 
worth, one of the pioneers of Poinsett County. 
The year following her death, which occvu-red in 
1872, Mr. Furnish wedded Miss Mary E. Hall, of 
Louisiana, a daughter of Philip and Martha (Hicks) 
Hall, who were Tennesseeans, and came to Ar- 
kansas, in 1856, engaging in farming. Mr. Fur- 
nish farmed in Bolivar Township until 1879. then 
went to Dunklin County, Mo. , remaining there, 
engaged in the occupation of farming until 1880, 
when he returned to Poinsett County, .\rk. , and 
has since matle the farm where he now lives his 
home. He owns 160 acres, with fifty under 
cultivation, raising corn, and also stock. He 
is a Democrat, and belongs to Lodge No. 77 of 
the I. O. O. F. He served in the Rebellion from 
1863 until the close, being a member of W. G. 
Godfrey's company, was a participant in a 
number of skirmishes, and after the cessation of 
hostilities he returned home. He and his wife are 
the parents of four children: Walter Lee, James 
Logan, Willie Gertrude and Thomas Richmond. 
He has also taken to raise three childn>n belonging 
to his wife's brother: Martha Elizabeth, Thomas 
Joiner and Philip Addison. 



A 



-^ V 



■)88 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



Gant Bros., general merchants, Harrisburg. 
Ark. One of the leading characteristics of our 
commercial fabric is the size and extent of the 
mercantile business in the various cities of Poinsett 
County. A vast capital is invested in this import- 
ant industry, and many persons, are furnished re- 
mimerative employment. Among the leading es- 
tablishments of this kind, none are more desoiving 
of more favorable mention and consideration than 
that of Gant Bros., the individual members of 
the firm being J. G. , J. B. and J. W. Gant. 
They are the sons of James W. and Sarah (Keller) 
Gant, natives of Tennessee and North Carolina, 
respectively. The parents were married in Ten- 
nessee in 1852, and the father opened a drug 
store in Memphis, which he conducted successfully 
until 1856, when he removed with his family to 
what is now Craighead County, Ark., where he 
bought land, and opened up a large plantation. 
In 1857 he was elected school commissioner, served 
one term, and after this he acted as surveyor and 
sheriff until 1801. Ho was then appointed as 
Government purchasing agent, serving in that 
capacity until his death, in 1868. He was a prom- 
inent member of the Masonic fraternity, and a 
devout Methodist. Ho was noted for liberal and 
progi'essive ideas, and was a strong Democrat. He 
was one of eighteen children, and his brothers are 
as follows: John, farmer, of Texas; Benjamin, 
presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and who died in his pulpit, at Nashville, about 
1860; Howard, blacksmith, in Missouri; William, 
merchant, at Spring Hill, Tenn. There are a 
number of others supposed to be living, but their 
exact location is not known. His only sister, Mrs. 
Polly Hall, is the wife of a farmer, and lives in 
Izard County. Ark. Mrs. Sarah (Keller) Gant is 
the daughter of Uriah and Julia Keller, natives 
of South Carolina. Her father was a tiller of the ' 
soil. Mrs. Gant is one of a family of eleven chil- 
dren, eight of whom lived to be grown, and these 
are now living: John, farmer; Julia, wife of Mr. 
Gayor, and is living at luka. Miss.; Mattie I., 
wife of Mr. Hughes, a hotel-keeper at Jonesboro, 
Ark., and Henrietta M., wife of Mr. Whisenhunt, 
a farmer of Craighead County, Ark. To the mar- 



riage of James W. Gant and Miss Sarah Keller 
were born the three sons, J. G. , J. B. and J. \V., 
and one daughter, Julia E., wife of J. W. Rooks, 
a hotel-keeper at Harrisburg, Ark. Mrs. Gant 
was left a widow just on the eve of the groat Civil 
War, with four small children to support. How- 
ever, she bravely undertook the task, and first 
engaged in farming, and then kept a boarding 
house. The children were able to assist her after 
a little, and later relieved her of their support alto 
gether. She now makes her home with them, and 
no mother is thought more of than she is by her 
children, who vie in making her declining years 
happy and comfortable. She is the owner of 
several good homes in Craighead and Poinsett 
Counties, and is living for her children, bestowing 
all the wealth of a mother's love on them. .1. G. 
Gant, the senior member of the firm of Gant 
Bros., was born in 1853, reared to farm life, 
educated at Jonesboro, and at the age of eighteen 
embarked in the grocery business. He sold out, and 
then returned to farm work, which he continued 
for three years. He then entered the saloon busi 
ness, which he followed with success until 1883, 
when the above firm was organized. They carry 
a large stock of general merchandise, and buy 
and sell grain and cotton. J. G. Gant was mar- 
ried, in October, 1888, to Miss Lena Lewis, of 
Woodruff County. J. B. and J. W. were educated 
at Jonesboro and Harrisburg, and also took a 
commercial course at Ledding's Commercial Col- 
lege, at Memphis. In 1884 J. B. was married to 
Miss Jennie Mitchell, of Harrisburg. They have 
one child, Nellie, who is now four years of ago. 
J. W. is unmarried. All are members of the 
Masonic fraternity, and all Democratic in their 
political views. J. B. is a member of both the I. 
O. O. F. and K. of H. orders. The brothers are 
all members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and give their unqualified support to all move 
ments conducive to the good of the community. 
In addition to their mercantile pursuits they are 
the owners of 1,200 acres of land, 300 acres under 
cultivation, and are extensively engaged in stock 
raising. They are experimenting in several lines 
of stock, have Holstein cattle (graded), Short- 



:7i 




r 



/s. 




^X.. ^-/^-^.^^ 



Osceola . 
MissiSBiPPi County, Arkansas . 



7' 



.^ 5) 



^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



589 



horn, Durham (large red), and handle Berkshire 
and Poland-China hogs. They also raise horses, 
common cattle, sheep and Angora goats. 

G. T. Garvey. Among the best-known houses 
engaged in the grocery business in Harrisburg, is 
that of G. T. Garvey, who, in connection with his 
store, conducts a restaurant, his business having 
l)een established in 1888. Although he is a young 
man, and has only been in business in the town but 
a few years, yet his name has already become .syn- 
onymous with upright, honorable dealing, and his 
establishment is a favorite resort for those who 
wish to procure the best brands of the articles he 
keeps in stock. He was born in the "Old North 
State" in 1861, was the younger of two children 
born to W. F. and Sarah (Burgess) Garvey, who 
were also born in that State. The father was a 
salesman in a store, but gave up this work in 1861 
to enlist from Edgecombe County in the Thirtieth 
North Carolina Infantry, but died in 1865 from ex- 
posure during his service. His widow still survives 
him, and resides in Poinsett County, with her son, 
G. T. Garvey. The latter' s early days were divided 
between farming and learning the painter's trade, 
his education in the meantime being received in the 
district schools of Halifax County, N. C. After 
reaching manhood he went to Baltimore, Md. , but 
removed from there to Poinsett County, Ark., in 
1886, and was first engaged in the milling business 
for D. C. Cole; he was married here, in December, 
1888, to Miss Annice Usery, a native of the county, 
having in February prior to his marriage em- 
barked in his present enterprise. He is a member 
of Lodge No. 3380 of the K. of H. . of Bolivar, 
and is a Democrat: his wife is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He belongs 
to the Methodist Protestant Church, having his 
membership still in North Carolina. 

James M. Gilliland. county examiner and 
teacher, Harrisburg, Ark. Since his residence in 
this county, Mr. Gilliland has l)een very promi- 
nently identified with the material affairs of this 
community, indeed, far more so than the average 
of men. Particularly in educational matters is 
this true. He was originally a native of Tennes- 
see, where his birth occun-ed in Tipton County, on 



the 14th of December, 1844, but he was reared 
in Shelby County of the same State. He is the 
son of Samuel and Eliza (McFerrin) Gilliland. 
the father a native of Virginia, and the mother 
of Alabama. Samuel Gilliland was one of the 
very early settlers of Shelby County, and, at the 
time of his first residence, remembers seeing 
Memphis when it was a very small village. He 
was a farmer, and opened a large tract of land ; he 
was also a minister in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and labored in that field until forty-five 
years of age, when he was forced to abandon his 
chosen profession on account of ill health. He 
was a Democrat, though conservative in his views. 
His death occurred in Tennessee in 1856. His 
excellent wife survived him, and in 1860 removed 
with her family to Poinsett (now Cross) County, 
Ark. , where she bought a large tract of land, 200 
acres of which she cleared and put under culti- 
vation. She erected good houses and barns, set 
out orchards and otherwise improved the plantation. 
Mrs. Gilliland was the sister of the late lamented 
Rev. John B. McFerrin, general manager and field 
agent of the Methodist Book Concern, of Nash- 
ville, and possessed his sterling qualities. Her 
death occurred at Wittsburg, Cross County, Ark. , 
in 1871. She was an esteemed member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. James M. Gilliland 
was the third of seven children born to his parents. 
Mrs. Anna Wilson, who died in 1867, at the age of 
twenty- four, leaving her husband and four chil- 
di'en; Mi-s. Sallie Elvers, widow of R. E. Rivers; 
James M. ; John W. , a farmer, who died and left 
a wife and one child in 1881 ; Mrs. Alice Thomas, 
Mrs. Ella Durham, and Samuel, who was accident- 
ally drowned in St. Francis River. The shock of 
this event caused the mother's death on the day 
following. James M. Gilliland became familiar 
with the details of farm life in his youth, and re- 
ceived the rudiments of an education in the com- 
mon schools of Tennessee. Later he attended 
Marshall Male Academy, at Marshall, Miss., but 
his studies were interrupted by the breaking out 
of the late war, which caused him to leave school 
in order to assist his mother during that struggle. 
As the excitement increased, however, he deemed 



Aj 



590 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



it best to join the army, and accordingly in the 
year 1862, at the age of seventeen, enlisted for 
one year in Company B. Twelfth Tennessee In- 
fantry, under Col. Preston Smith, and was with 
his regiment at the battle of Corinth. After the 
retreat from that city Mr. Gilliland was discharged 
on account of age, under the provision of the 
Confederate Congress, and returned to Arkansas 
for a short time. He then enlisted in McGee's 
Battalion (cavalry), under Gen. Marmaduke, and 
participated in the battles of Helena, White River 
and numerous skirmishes in White County. Here 
during an encounter with the Third Iowa Cavalry 
Mr. Gilliland had his horse killed, and he was 
taken prisoner. He was conveyed to Camp Doug- 
las, Chicago, where he was kept a prisoner for 
about two years. On the 12th of April, 1865, 
they were started to the mouth of Red River, and 
arrived at Cairo on the night that President Lin- 
coln was assassinated. From there they were sent 
to New Orleans, thence returned to Shreveport, 
where they were placed on board a Confederate 
transport, and were ordered to report to their 
command. There being no command to which to 
report, on arriving at the mouth of Red River, 
about 200 of the soldiers, including Mr. Gilliland, 
started on foot to their homes in Northern Ai'kan- 
sas. This tiresome and perilous journey was ac- 
complished, with great labor but without serious 
loss, in about one month. On his arrival at home 
Mr. Gilliland engaged in farming, and March 14, 
1872, was the occasion of his marriage to Miss 
Anna Davis, daughter of Dr. N. A. and Mrs. 
Eliza M. (Drake) Davis, natives of Tennessee. 
The fruits of this union were the following chil- 
dren: Eliza Alice, Mary E., John D., who died in 
infancy; Anna V., J. Landon, Florence C. and 
Lillian M. Mr. and Mrs. Gilliland are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and he 
is a member of the following orders; Masonic, 
Odd Fellows and K. & L. of H. He, like his father, 
is a Democrat, but is conservative. He has served 
in different official capacities in the county, iirst 
as mayor of Wittsburg, from 1871 to 1872, then 
as justice of the peace in Cross County, two years, 
was a member of the board of registrars for two 



\ years, andisone^of Poinsett County's representa- 
tive citizens. He moved to Harrisburg, in Novem- 

I ber, 1886, and has followed the profession of 
teaching a portion of the time since. He was ap- 
pointed county examiner in January, 1888. and is 
the present incumbent. He has taught in the 
schools of Cross, Woodruff, Craighead and Poin- 
sett Counties, and is one of the progressive edu- 
cators of this county. He is an earnest advocate 
of improved methods in education, and under his 
direction the schools of Poinsett County, are in 
a very prosperous condition. He is the owner of 
127 acres of land in Cross County, fifty acres of 
which are under cultivation, and he also owns a 
house and lot in Harrisburg. 

James M. Griffin, planter and proprietor of a 
grist and saw-mill and cotton-gin, resides in Bolivar, 
near the county seat of Poinsett County, and has 
been a resident of this county from his birth, which 
occiarred in 1850, being the fifth of seven children 
born to Theophilus and Eliza Ann (Thrower) 
Griffin, who were born in the " Old North State " 
and the "Blue Grass State," respectively. They 
both removed from Poinsett County, Ark., at a 
very early day, and after their marriage settled 
near where our subject is now residing, where they 
cleared and improved a farm. The father was also 
a practicing physician and surgeon, and in early 
times he was called upon to attend the sick in all 
parts of the county, and well as in the counties ad- 
joining. He was successful in alleviating the suf- 
ferings of his fellow-mortals, and was a man who 
was esteemed for his many worthy qualities of 
mind and heart. His wife was called to her long 
home in 1877. James M. Griffin received such 
education as Poinsett County afforded in his youth- 
ful days, and from his earliest recollections he has 
been familiar witli the details of farm labor. At 
the age of twenty years he began doing for him- 
self, and after his marriage, in Poinsett County, in 
November, 187-1, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Freeman, 
of Alabama, he settled down to tilling the soil, and 
now owns an exceedingly fertile tract, embracing 
200 acres, with eighty acres under cultivation. He 
devotes the greater part of this to the raising of 
cotton and corn, and has 100 acres under fence. 






i^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



591 



He is a Democrat, and socially is a member of the 
K. of H. He and wife belong to the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, at Pleasant Valloy, of which 
he has been steward, trustee and superintendent. 
He has been an active worker for churches, schools 
and, in fact, all worthy enterprises, and is in every 
respect a public-spirited citizen. He and wife be- 
came the parents of the following children: Eva 
Engeuia, Louis Christopher, Mattie Lon, Jim and 
Hubbard Hugh, living, and Nora Bettie, who died 
September 2, 1888, at the age of four years. 

Wilson Hall is a farmer and blacksmith, and also 
the proprietor of a cotton-gin and gristmill in 
Bolivar Township. He was born in this county on 
the 6th day of January, 1836, and is the youngest 
of eight children born to Richmond and Mary 
(Cook ) Hall, the former a native of North Carolina, 
and the latter of Mississippi. They were married 
in the latter State, and came to what is now Poin- 
sett County, Ark., in 1828, when it was a wilder- 
ness of woods and canebrake, and entered a large 
tract of land, on which they settled and began 
clearing. Mr. Hall took a great interest in the 
improvement of the county, and was also quite 
active in politics, and the able manner in which he 
discharged the onerous duties of the offices to 
which he was elected won for him the respect and 
confidence of his fellow-men. He tilled the office 
of county and probate judge for many years, was 
sheriff of the county for some time also, and in the 
fall of 1844 was elected to represent his county in 
the State legislature. His death occurred in 1863, 
his wife having passed away in 184(); they had 
been members of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
for many years. Wilson Hall, our subject, has 
followed in the footsteps of his father, and has 
been a farmer all his life. His early education 
was received in the district schools of Poinsett 
County, but he afterward supplemented this by 
attending school at Batesville, Ark., where he 
acquired a good practical education. At the age 
of twent3'-two years he began tilling the soil on his 
own responsibility, having at that time married 
Miss Rebecca G. Bradsher, a native of Tennessee, 
and a daughter of John and Cynthia (Stafford) 
Bradsher, of North Carolina, who were early emi- 



grants to this county, the father dying many years 
ago; the mother is a resident of this county. Mr. 
Hall's first purchase of laud was a timber tract con 
sisting of 320 acres, and hero he settled in the tim- 
ber, where he cleared some fifty acres. He now has 
nearly 100 acres under the plow, and devotes a por- 
tion of the remainder to his stock, the raising of 
which receives much attention. Socially, he is 
a member of Lodge No. 154, A. F. & A. M., at 
Harrisburg, and his political views are in accord with 
the Democratic party, but he is not a strict partisan. 
He served a short time during the Rebellion, and 
from 1862 to 1863 he was a member of W. G. 
Gobey's company. He was called upon to mourn 
the death of his estimable wife in 1877, she having 
borne him a family of ten children, eight of whom 
are living: John Wesley, who is married and 
resides near his father; Joseph Franklin, also 
a married man, living near by; Thomas Jefferson, 
who makes his home with his father; William 
Price, married and residing in Craighead County ; 
Richmond, who died in 1886, at the age of twenty- 
one years; Lama Ann, died in 1862, at the age of 
four years; James Henry, Wilson, Mary Cynthia 
and Nancy Clementine. During Mr. Hall's resi- 
dence of half a century in this county, he has wit- 
nessed almost incredible changes for improvement, 
and where once was a vast wilderness of woods now 
can be seen finely cultivated farms and comforta- 
ble homes. 

John W. Hall, though still comparatively a 
young man, has become well known in agricultural 
circles, and is recognized as a careful, energetic 
farmer, who by his advanced views and progres- 
sive hal)its has done much to improve the farming 
interests of his section. He was born in Limestone 
County, Ala., in 1852, and was the only child ijorn 
to J. H. and Martha A. (Burt) Hall, who were also 
from that county, the father being one of its 
progressive agriculturists. In 1856 they emi- 
grated to Poinsett County, Ark., and the father's 
career has been a somewhat checkered one, as he 
has been engaged in a number of different occupa- 
tions, and has resided in several different States. 
After being engaged in land speculations in this 
countv until 1864, he went to Memphis. Tenn., 



r 



A 



592 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and, although he conducted a farm near there, he 
made his home in the city. Leaving there in 1808, 
he removed to Omaha, Neb. , where he worked at the 
carpenter's trade, but shortly after returned to 
Poinsett County, and opened a farm of 100 acres, 
on which his son, John W., is now residing. In 
1878 he gave up active farm work and removed to 
the town of Harrisburg, where, two years later, he 
was elected to the ofl&ce of county sheriff. In 
1889, when the much-talked of Oklahoma lands 
were thrown open to the settlers, Mr. Hall removed 
there, and is now keeping a hotel. His wife died 
March 12, 1888, John W. Hall received a good 
education in the city of Memphis, but did not en- 
gage in farming until the age of eighteen years. 
He then settled on a woodland farm, which he com- 
menced immediately to improve, and now has 363 
acres, with 225 under cultivation, and also oper- 
ates a horse cotton gin. He always votes the 
Democratic ticket, but is not an active politician. 
He is a member of Lodge No. 184, of the A. F. 
& A. M. , at Harrisburg, and in this order also 
belongs to the Chapter, No. 70. He was made 
a Maaon on his twenty-first birthday. He also be- 
longs to Lodge No. 77 of the I. O. O. F. He 
was married in Cross County, November 24, 1887, 
to Miss Mamie S. Meacham, a native of Mississippi, 
and a daughter of John and Minta (Pennell) Mea- 
cham, who were also born in that State, but re- 
moved to Poinsett County, in 1878, where the 
father died in 1885. The mother is now residing 
near Bay Village. Mr. Hall and his father have 
opened up several farms, which they have sold at 
a good profit, and he (as well as his father) owns 
a claim in Oklahoma. The latter enlisted in Capt. 
Benjamin Harris' company of infantry, of the 
Thirteenth Arkansas Regiment, in 1801, becoming 
first lieutenant of this company. He participated in 
the battles of Belmont and Shiloh, but returned 
home after his term of enlistment had expired, at 
the end of one year. Our subject and his wife are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
Rev. J. T. Haly, farmer and stock-raiser. 
White Hall, Ark. This njuch esteemed and re- 
spected citizen is the sou of Charles and Mary 
(Walker) Haly, natives of North Carolina and Vir- 



ginia, respectively. Charles Haly is of the old 
English stock of Halys, who were early settlers of 
North Carolina. He followed farming, and he 
and wife were members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Chiu'ch. In his political views he affiliated with 
the Democratic party. Rev. J. T. Haly is the 
ninth of eleven children born to his parents. 
Thomas, a mechanic, was one of the first settlers 
of Houston, Tex., where many monuments of his 
handiwork, in the shape of buildings, etc. , may 
still be seen; he died there about thirty years ago, 
and a large number of descendants . still reside 
there. Mrs. Susan Rily was the wife of Martin 
Rily, a farmer of Dunklin County, Mo., where she 
died about 1860. Charles died in North Carolina 
at the age of twenty-one years. Stephen D. went 
from North Carolina to Tennessee, thence to Mis 
souri, where he dealt in fine stock; he moved with 
Thomas Benton to Oregon at an early day and has 
never been heard from since. The third child, 
Mary, wife of a farmer of Middle Tennessee, died 
there about forty years ago. William, a farmer, 
mechanic and a Methodist minister, died in Ten- 
nessee, in 1881. Julia was the wife of Hugh 
Austin, a farmer of Lincoln County, Tenn. ; she 
died at Harrisburg, Ark., about 1879. Benjamin, 
a farmer with a large family, died about thirty- 
four years ago in (now) Conway County, Ark. , and 
part of his family still reside there, and the others 
in Oregon. Patsey married Reuben Willbanks, a 
farmer and mechanic, who died in Saline County, 
Ark. Rev. J. T. Haly was born in Rockingham, 
eleven miles east of Danville, N. C. , on the 5th of 
October, 1812, and was reared and educated in 
Middle Tennessee. He began life for himself at 
about the age of twenty-two years, and in 1S34 
was united in marriage to Miss Mary Austin, a 
native of North Carolina and of Irish descent. By 
this union he became the father of these children: 
Matilda, wife of Joseph Hall, died in Poinsett 
County, Ark., in 1879; Betty, wife of Thomas 
Hawkins, both of whom died in this county; Mollie, 
wife of Alex. Steward, a farmer, and lives in Poin 
sett County, Ark. ; Rachel, wife of Stephen Haly, 
lives in Oregon; Julia, wife of John Howard, also 
lives in Oregon; Pinckney, died at the age of three 



^. 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



593 



years, and McHaly, who joined the army at the 
age of eighteen years and was killed at the battle 
of Atlanta, Ga. , in 1864. The mother of these 
children died in Poinsett County, Ark., in 1876, 
and was a worthy and consistent member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Haly took for 
his second wife, in 1879, Mi-s. Martha Wiley, 
widow of William Wiley, by whom she had four 
children: Mary, wife of John Rily, a farmer, and 
lives in Cross County, Ark. ; Greene died in 1870, 
at the age of eleven years; Anna, wife of Abijah 
Williams, a farmer, lives in Poinsett County, and 
Martha Jane, wife of John Sears, a miner, and 
lives near Santa F6, N. M. Mr. Haly moved to 
Arkansas in 1856, and found this part of the State 
wild and unbroken. He bought 100 acres, and 
began to open new land, there being but twenty 
acres cleared, and has added to and sold land until 
he now owns 140 acres, with about fifty acres 
cleared and under a high state of cultivation. He 
has a good orchard, and is in every way fixed to 
pass his declining years in comfort. He can tell 
many interesting stories of early life in Arkansas, 
and says that at the time of his first residence 
here it was a common thing to see fifty or 100 
deer in a day, and occasionally one might find a 
bear. Turkeys, raccoons and wolves were very 
plentiful, but, as be was a man of industrious 
habits, Mr. Haly did not follow hunting to any 
great extent. When he first came here there were 
but five small farms between his place and Harris- 
burg, and, with the exception of Joseph Reeves, 
there are none living here now who were residents 
at that time. About the year 1859 Mr. Haly was 
elected school commissioner, and held that position 
until 1862. In 1877 he was elected county judge, 
and served one term in that ofiice. He votes with 
the Democratic part}'. He and family are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for 
fifty years he has been a class-leader in the same, 
and for five years has been an elder. 

A. Hamilton, blacksmith and wagon-maker, and 
proprietor of an undertaking establishment, is one 
of the leading business men of the county, and was 
born in West Tennessee in 1830, being the eldest 
of three children born to James and Elizabeth 



Hamilton, who were natives, respectively, of South 
Carolina and Kentucky. When a young man the 
father went to Tennessee, where he followed the 
occupation of farming, and where his wife died, a 
number of years after their location. He afterward 
removed to Arkansas, and died in Harrisl)urg in 
1876. A. Hamilton acquired a good practical edu- 
cation in the schools near his home in Tetmessee, 
and like the majority of boys, followed in the foot- 
steps of his father and learned the blacksmith and 
wagon-maker's trade. He was married in that 
State, in 1853, to Miss Annie E. Huddleston, and 
there continued to make his home for three years, 
at which date he moved to Arkansas. While en 
route, on the 7th of September, he passed through 
a dense timber land, where the corner stone for 
the present town of Harrisburg was being placed, 
and, liking the locality, he determined to make 
his home in the vicinity. He erected a log house 
that year, and in March, 1865, put up a good 
frame dwelling-house and store-house, in which he 
is doing his business at the present time. He has 
been engaged in merchandising for the past thirty- 
two years, and during bis long career here has estab- 
lished himself firmly as a substantial citizen and an 
honest and reliable business man. Ho has always 
voted the Democratic ticket, but is not a strict 
partisan. He assisted in incorporating the town, 
and was a member of the town council for some 
time. He is a member of the A. F. & A. M., and 
the I. O. O. F. , and has been a member of the 
former lodge since 1859. In addition to conduct 
ing his store he is interested in the milling busi 
ness, and has built up a paying trade. Upon the 
opening of the war Mr. Hamilton remained at home 
the first year, but in 186'2 enlisted in a company 
under Col. Dobbins, and was an active participant 
for about eighteen months. He is the father 
of two children: Pleasant M. , and N. E. (Mrs. 
Clounch). 

William C. Harris, farmer and miller, Harris- 
burg, Ark. ^\'orthy reference to the agricultural 
affairs of Poinsett County would be incomplete 
without due mention of Mr. Harris, among others 
engaged in tilling the soil, for he is not only 
prominent in that respect, but, as a citizen and 



594 



HISTORY OF AEKANSAS. 



neighbor, is held in the highest esteem. His 
birth occurred in Poinsett County, Ark., on the 
21st of July, 1848, and he is the eldest of eleven 
children, eight now living, born to Benjamin and 
Martha (Thomas) Han-is, natives, respectively, of 
Alabama and Kentucky. Benjamin Harris figured 
prominently in the afPairs of both State and coun- 
ty, first being elected to the office of magistrate, 
then representative, and afterward filled the posi- 
tion of senator. He came to Arkansas with his 
parents at an early date, and it was for this family 
that Harrisburg received its name. He was a 
memlier of the Masonic fraternity, a Democrat in 
his political princijales, and, with his family, was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 
eight childi-en now living of the eleven born to his 
marriage are as follows: Schuyler, died at the age 
of thirty-three years; Addison, sheriff of Poinsett 
County; Mrs. Elvira Merchant, at Harrisburg; 
Mrs. Mary Wrice; Benjamin, present senator of 
the Twenty-ninth district; Sophia, Fanny, Irvin, 
farmer and merchant; Lee, died in 1888. at the 
age of twenty-five years, and Mrs. Melvina Perry, 
at Paragould, Ark. Early in life William C. 
Harris was taught the principles of farming, and 
when it became necessary for him to start out in 
life for himself, he very natVirally and wisely chose 
the occupation to which he had been reared. From 
that time to the present his success has been such 
as only a thorough acquaintance with his calling 
and years of experience might lead him to achieve. 
His education was received in the common schools 
of Poinsett County, and in 1862 he enlisted in the 
army, Company K, Twenty-third Arkansas Cav- 
alry, Adams' command, and jwrticipated in these 
battles: luka, Corinth, Port Hudson, and others of 
minor note. At the last mentioned place his com- 
mand was jsaroled and came home. After this Mr. 
Harris performed scout duty until the close of the 
war, when he was mustered out of service, under 
Col. Lisle, at Wittsburg, in 1865. After the sur- 
render Mr. Harris returned to his farm, and in 
September of the same year his marriage with 
Miss Virginia Hays took place. She is the daugh- 
ter of Henry and Mary (Stencell) Hays, natives of 
North Carolina, who came here in 1855. To the 



marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Harris were born the 
following family: Walter, who died in 1885, at 
the age of twenty years; Mittie, died in infancy; 
Melvira, Grace, Willie, died at the age of five 
years, and Maggie. In 1870 Mr. Harris began 
opening a tract of land, and now has 140 acres, 
with forty under cultivation. In addition to this 
he is senior member of the firm of W. C. Harris 
& Co. , owners of 440 acres of timber land, and the 
owners also of a saw-mill, cotton gin and grist- 
mill, with which they do a good business. The 
mill was established in 1888. 

J. M. Harris is a native-born resident of the 
county, his birth occurring in 1843, and ever since 
starting in life for himself he has enjoyed the 
reputation of being not only a substantial and pro- 
gressive planter, but an intelligent and thoroughly 
posted man in all public matters. His brothers and 
sisters are as follows: Mary F. (Mrs. Johnson), 
Calvin H. , who was killed at the battle of Cbicka- 
mauga; W. S. , a resident of the county; J. M., 
B. F., who is married and resides near by: C. H., 
S. A. (Mrs. Settle, residing in Cross County, Ark. ); 
Susan (Mrs. Magee, of Scott Township), and Alice 
(deceased). The parents of these children, W. H. 
and J. P. (Copeland) Harris, were born in Ala- 
bama, and in 1829 the father removed to Arkansas, 
and squatted on a tract of land near where our 
subject now lives. He took an active part in the 
early history of Poinsett County, and always voted 
the Democratic ticket. He was elected by that 
party to the office of county judge, serving a num- 
ber of years. His death occurred here, in March, 
1879, but his widow is still living, and resides on 

! the old homestead. J. M. Harris was educated in 
the schools of the county, and in 18(32 dropped 
both farm work and schools to engage in the Ee- 
bellion, serving in Company K, Adams' regiment, 
and was a participant in the battles of Corinth, 
Port Hudson and numerous skirmishes. After the 
final surrender, he returned to Poinsett County, 
with the consciousness of having served his cause 
faithfully and well, and was married here the same 
year, to Miss C. A. Staucell, a native of North 

• Carolina, but her death occurred in 1870, she hav- 
ing borne one child, C. H. , who is at home. Mr. 



Is li^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



595 



Harris took for his second wife (in 1873) Miss R. 
D. Reeves, a daughter of J. F. Reeves, one of the 
early pioneers of the county, but he mourned her 
death the follovs^ing year. He took for his third 
wife Miss N. E. Conn, by whom he has live chil 
dren: Sally A., Etta, Dove, Grover G. and Fran- 
cis. After his first marriage, Mr. Harris purchased 
!i farm of forty acres, and, by additional purchases, 
is now the owner of 320 acres, with 100 acres under 
cultivation. He is also engaged in stock dealing, 
and raises to some extent, his cattle being of the 
Durham breed. He is an active agriculturist, and, 
in addition to his farm, operates a saw and grist- 
mill and a pottougin in Scott Township, his vari- 
ous enterprises netting him a lucrative annual in- 
come. Socially, he is a member of the K. of H. 
He is a member of the school board, and he and 
his wife belong to the Baptist Church. 

Add Harris, county sheriff, was chosen to oc- 
cupy his present position by the Democratic party 
in 1880, and is now filling the duties of his second 
term, in a manner highly creditable to himself and 
to the satisfaction of the community at large. He 
is a native-born resident of the county, his birth 
having occurred in 1847, and from earliest boy- 
hood he has been familiar with the duties of farm 
life, and his youth was also spent in attending the 
public schools, where he acquired a good practical 
education. He started out in life for himself at 
the age of eighteen years, and his labors to acquire 
a competency have met with fair results. Having 
grown to manhood in this county, he has seen a 
great change take place, and has noted a gradual 
improvement yearly in its growth and prosperity. 
He is a member of the school board in District No. 
8, and has always been a patron of education and a 
believer in free schools. He is a son of Benjamin 
and Martha (Thrower) Han'is, who wore born in 
Alabama and Kentucky, respectively, but in 1829 
Benjamin came with his father, William Han'is, 
to what is now Poinsett County. Ark., and squatted 
on the land near where our subject now resides, 
the country at that time being almost a wilderness, 
inhabited l)y Indians and wild animals. Here the 
grandfather died, a few years ago. Benjamin 
Harris was married in this county, and settled on 



the farm which is now occupied liy our subject. 
They reared a family of eleven children, the names 
of those living being as follows: \\'illiam, who is 
married and is a resident of the county ; Add, the 
subject of this memoir: Elvira (Mrs. Sparks), of 
Harrisburg; Mary Ann (Mrs. liice). residing near 
Paragould ; Sophia, residing with her brother Add : 
Frances (Mrs. Ervin), a resident of Bolivar Town- 
ship; Benjamin, a lawyer of Harrisburg, and Mai 
vina (Mrs. Perry), of Paragould. The father of 
our subject took an active part in the early history 
I of the coiinty, and was quite a prominent poli- 
tician, being the first man elected to the State 
Legislature from this district, and was also a State 
senator in 1877. During the Rebellion he was 
captain of a company in the Thirteenth Arkansas 
Regiment of infantry, and was a participant in the 
battle of Belmont, but was taken sick and con- 
fined in the hospital at Memphis, Tenn. , for some 
time. His death occurred in this county, in 1881. 
His widow resides with her son Add. 

Hon. Benjamin Harris, of the Twenty-ninth 
Senatorial District, was born in Poinsett County, 
Ark., in 1854, and is the sixth of eleven children 
born to Benjamin and Martha (Thrower) Harris, a 
short history of whom is given in the sketch of 
Add Harris, sheriff of Poinsett County. The 
family are of Scotch descent, and first came to the 
United States from their native land in 1680, 
taking up their abode in Nelson County, Va., in 
which State the paternal grandfather served as a 
captain in the Revolutionary War. The youthful 
days of our subject were divided between working 
on the farm and attending school, and as he grew 
up he learned the lessons of industry, persever- 
ance and economy, which have .stood him in good 
stead in later years. Becoming familiar with the 
intricacies of surveying, he was elected to the office 
of county surveyor, at the age of twenty-two years, 
and afterward entered upon the study of law: and 
after being admitted to the bar, in 1879, he com 
menced practicing the profession at his old home, 
and the enviable reputation he has acquired has 
been gained largely through his own individual 
efforts, and at the expense of diligent study and 
hard practical experience. He has been known liy 



\ 



596 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the people of the community from infancy, and 
they have had every opportunity to judge of his 
character and qualifications, and their confidence 
in him has been intelligently placed. In 1885 he 
was elected to the house of representatives, and 
in 1888 was chosen a State senator. Socially, he 
is a Mason. In 1881 he was united in marriage to 
Miss Mary A. Reeves, a native of Missouri, but he 
was called upon to mourn her loss in 1887; she 
was the mother of two children: Frederica and 
Jachchot Fay. Frederica died in September, 1884. 
Hazlewood Bros. & Co. , druggists, Harrisburg, 
Ark. The profession of the druggist is one which 
operates effectively, in time of need, in arresting 
and alleviating the most acute pains and ailments 
to which the human Iwdy is heir, and therefore de- 
serves the most thankful and appreciative considera- 
tion on the part of the public. This firm was organ- 
ized under the above name in January, 1889, at 
Harrisburg, but previous to that time the business 
had been carried on at Wynne, under the title of 
Hazlewood Bros. A change was then effected, 
and Mr. J. S. Minton bought an interest, and be- 
came a member of the house. Soon after this the 
Harrisburg house was organized, and the present 
name adopted. The firm is progressive, having a 
handsomely appointed store, fully stocked with a 
choice selection of drugs, chemicals, and the most 
popular patent medicines. A .stock of goods val- 
ued at about $4, 000 is carried, and a good business 
is enjoyed. Although young men, they have the 
proper amount of energy and business ability to 
make a success of whatever they undertake. They 
are, with the exception of Mr. Minton, natives of 
Arkansas, but he is a native of Tennessee. The 
latter is a son of J. A. and M. C. Minton, and was 
born February 18, 1864. His parents are natives 
of Mississippi and Tennessee, respectively. They 
came to Arkansas in 1 869, and the father has since 
been engaged in different lines of business, prin- 
cipally merchandising, but for the last five years 
he has been holding the office of justice of the 
peace and mayor. To his marriage were born 
four children: William T., farmer; Louis G., 
salesman and insurance agent in Harrisburg; J. S. 
and Annie E. Mr. Minton, Sr. , is a member of the 



Methodist Episcopal Church; he has been a member 
of the Masonic _ fraternity since 1858, and in his 
political views affiliates with the Democratic party. 
The senior members of this firm, J. A. and J. W. 
Hazlewood, are the sons of John A. and Sallie 
(Crook) Hazlewood, natives of Mississippi and 
Tennessee, respectively. The parents came to 
Arkansas at an early date, were married here, and 
here the father carried on agricultural pursuits for 
many yeai's. He and wife were members of the 
Methodist Church. They reared a family of five 
children: J. A., Alice, the wife of W. W. Nelms, 
who is a bookkeejier at Bay Village; J. W., Leon- 
idas (deceased), and H. W., a young man resid- 
ing with his mother, and who conducts her farm. 
Mrs. Hazlewood was the daughter of J. A. Crook, 
an old and highly respected farmer and superin- 
tendent of plantations. He belongs to the family 
of that name who are prominently connected with 
the early hi.story of West Tennessee, also a rela- 
tive of the famous Gen. Crook. The members of 
the firm of Hazlewood Bros. & Co. each received a 
common school education by their own efforts, and 
at their own expense. They are public-spirited 
and enterprising, contributing to school and church, 
and to all public enterprises as far as their means 
will permit. 

Benjamin F. Hogan, Sr. , farmer. Bay Village, 
Ark. Mr. Benjamin F. Hogan, a respected resi- 
dent of this county for many years, and a man of 
extensive and popular acquaintance, was originally 
fi-om Randolph County, Ark., where his birth oc- 
curred December 2, 1833. His parents, Martin and 
Zilphia (Myers) Hogan, were among the earliest 
settlers of that State, and the father opened up new 
land in that county, cultivating the same all his 
life. Benjamin F. Hogan is the fourth in a family 
of eleven children, all deceased with the exception 
of Henry, a farmer of Randolph County; Joseph, of 
that county, and John, also a farmer of that county. 
Benjamin F. 's time in his youthful days was divided 
between working upon the home farm and in attend- 
ing the common schools of the period, where he re 
ceived a fairly good education. At the age of twenty- 
three years he married Miss Sarah Hogan, a native 
of Poinsett County, and the fruits of this union 






-^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



597 



were nine children, seven of whom sire living at 
the present time: William, Walter, Mary, Lucinda, 
Joannah, Benjamin and Thomas. The first five of 
these children are all married, and are residing in 
Poinsett County. Mrs. Hogan died about 1877, 
and in 1878 Mr. Hogan married his present wife, 
who was formerly Mrs. Mary Young, a native of 
Tennessee, and to this union were born two chil- 
dren, Samuel and James, seven and live years of 
age, respectively. Mr. Hogan has followed agri- 
cultural pursuits during life, and in 1888 bought 
his present farm, which consists of forty acres, all 
under fence, and all but live acres under cultiva- 
tion. He found his present land a wilderness, but 
this he has improved, and now has one of the most 
pleasant homes in the county. He and wife are 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church, and 
Methodist Episcoiaal Church, respectively. He is 
a Democrat in politics, and in 1863 joined the 
army under Col. Dobbins, and was with Gen. 
Price on his famous raid through Missouri. He 
received his discharge at Wittsburg, in 1865. He 
has these step-children: Leona, wife of B. S. 
Eakins a farmer, living in Poinsett County ; Jane, 
wife of William Hogan, a farmer, living near Bay 
Village; W. S. James, Charley James and George. 
His own children, William and Walter, are farm- 
ers, the former in this county and the latter in 
Cross County: Mary is the wife of Asa Byrum, and 
is Jiving near Bay Village; Lucinda J. is the wife 
of James Jordan, and is living in this county; 
Josephine is the wife of James Herod, and lives in 
this county; B. F. and Thomas are both single, 
and reside with their father. 

E. L. Jacobs, M. D. Twenty-nine years de- 
voted to the service of humanity sums up in a line 
the career, thus far, of Dr. E. L. Jacobs. He was 
born in Hardeman County, Tenn., in 183'2, being 
the youngest in a family of three children born to 
Henry and Jane C. (Dillard) Jacobs, the former a 
native of Middle Tennessee, and the hitter of North 
Carolina. After their marriage, in Tennessee, they 
settled in Pontotoc County, Miss., where they 
opened up an extensive plantation, on which they 
resided until their respective deaths, in 1854 and 
1866. On this plantation Dr. Jacobs spent his 



youthful days, and there received his eai'ly educa- 
tion, which was of a somewhat meager description. 
In 1857 he settled at Bolivar, Poinsett County, 
Ark., but three years later made a location at Har- 
risburg, whore he entered upon the practice of his 
profession, and has followed it ever since. So 
cially, he is a member of Poinsett Lodge No. 184, 
A. F. & A. M. , of which li(> has been Worshipful 
Master several years. He has never been an active 
politician, but has voted the Democratic ticket. 
He is a member of the town council, and he and 
wife, whose maiden name was Sarah A. Conn, and 
whom he married in 1855, are members of the 
Baptist Church. Two children blessed their 
union, E. J., wife of A. C. Thrower, being the only 
one living. Mrs. Jacobs is a daughter of Levi and 
Elizabeth (Duke) Conn, who were born in Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, respectively. They were 
early immigrants to Poinsett County, Ark., and 
here spent their declining years. 

Dr. H. L. Jacobs. The name of Dr. Jacoljs 
is one of the most respected in this community, 
and during his residence in this county he has en- 
joyed a practice among the be.st families, and is 
kept very busy; while with the medical fraternity 
his reputation is by no means local, and ho is known 
for his remarkable cures throughout this section of 
country. He was born in Pontotoc County, Miss. , in 
1852, and is the eldest in a family of ton children 
born to Clinton W. and liebocca Jane (Conn) J acobs, 
who were Tennesseeans and removed to Pontotoc 
County, Miss., in 1840. The fatlior afterward re- 
moved to Poinsett Co. , Ai'k. , and hero purchased a 
woodland farm, and made his home until his death, 
in 1887, his wife having passed from life in 1877. 
Mr. Jacobs was an active member of the Demo 
cratic party, a Chapter Mason, and, during the 
Civil War, served for some time under Capt. Brisco. 
Dr. Jacobs, our subject, spent his early youth and 
manhood on his father's farm, and acquired 
a good practical education in the district schools of 
Poinsett County. After studying medicine for 
some time under the well-known physicians, Jacobs 
and Gilks, ho went before the board of examiners, 
and was licensed to practice, in January, 1884, 
and bj- the ability with which he has managed his 



^:^ 



598 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



cases, be has become one of the well known physi- 
cians of the county, and stands well with the med- 
ical brotherhood. He has a good plantation of 
eighty acres, but only has seven acres under culti- 
vation. He supports the principles of the Demo- 
cratic party, and he and wife, whom he married in 
Poinsett County, Ai'k. , in December, 1S84, and 
whose maiden name was Mary E. Sparks, are con- 
sistent members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 
Mrs. Jacobs was born in Crittenden County, Ark. , 
and she and the Doctor are the parents of two 
children: Harry Clinton and Mary Bertha. 

J. A. Jelks, M. D. , was born in Halifax County, 
N. C, in January, 1807, and, although he was 
reared on his father's extensive plantation in that 
State, he was never compelled to farm labor, 
owing to the numerous slaves his father always 
kept, they numbering about sixty the year round. 
His education up to the age of nineteen years was 
received in his native county, and he then entered 
upon the study of medicine, under the tutelage of 
that well-known physician, James B. Yellowly, re- 
ceiving his first course of lectures at the University 
of Pennsylvania, after which he entered Rutger's 
Medical College of New York City, from which he 
graduated in February, 1829. Subsequently re- 
turning to his native heath, to enter upon his prac- 
tice, he was married there, in 1830, to Miss Ma- 
tilda Ann Crowell, and the following year they re- 
moved westward. After spending one year in 
Lawrence County, Miss., they went to Hinds Coun- 
ty, in the vicinity of Raymond, that State, making 
that place their home until December, 1833. Their 
next move was to Fayette County, Tenn., but after 
a residence there of three years, they returned to 
Mississippi, to Chidahoma, and here his wife was 
called to her long home, in 1837, she having borne 
him a daughter, Cynthia Louise, now Mrs. Latta, 
residing in Cross County, near Cherry Valley. 
After the death of his estimable wife, the Doctor 
returned to Fayette County, Tenn., and resided 
there until coming to Poinsett County, Ark., in 
1850. He was again married, in Tennessee, to 
Miss Bettie J. , a daughter of William Guerrant, 
her birth having occurred in the State of Virginia. 
The Doctor was so unfortunate as to lose this wife 



in Poinsett County, in 1869, she having borne him 
a family of seven children, whose names are as fol^ 
lows: William Robert, a widower, residing in Crit- 
tenden County; Charles E., who was in Capt. Le- 
Vesque's company, and died in the army in 1865: 
Caspar W., a farmer, married and living in Cross 
County ; James H. , also in Cross County ; Thomas 
D. (deceased) ; Mary T. , and Ada G. (Mrs. Jordan), 
who also lives in Cross County. For his third wife 
he took, in 1871, Euna A. Allen, a daughter of 
Lyman S. and Angeline (Whitford) Allen, who 
were born at Ticonderoga, N. Y. The father was 
a teacher by profession, and followed that occupa- 
tion with success for over thirty years. He removed 
to Iowa at a very early daj', and was one of the 
first settlers of Buchanan County. He was county 
supervisor for years, and held the office of magis- 
trate. The ])aternal grandfather, Joel Allen, was 
a soldier in the War of 1812, and was a first cousin 
of Gen. Ethan Allen, of Revolutionary fame. The 
Allen family are of English descent, and can trace 
their ancestry back to the year 1635. Oliver 
Whitford, the maternal grandfather, was also a 
soldier in the War of 1812, was born in York State, 
but emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he died. 
He was also of English origin. Lyman S. Allen 
died in 1870 at the age of seventy six years, and 
was followed to the grave by his wife in 1884. 
From the time of his settlement until 1885 Dr. 
Jelks resided in Scott Township, but at that date 
he removed to Harrisburg, and, since starting on 
his professional career, he has practiced continu- 
ously until within the past eighteen months. Dur- 
ing his long years of practice here he has proved 
himself to be a physician of ability, his prac- 
tice being very large, and among the best class 
of citizens. Socially, he is a member of Lodge 
No. 184, of the A. F. & A. M. , and in this order 
has advanced to the Chapter. He was the eld 
est of five sons and two daughters born to Rob- 
ert and Mary (Nicholson) Jelks, who lived for a 
long time in Halifax County, though the mother 
was born and reared in Edgecombe County. The 
father afterward moved to Alabama, and became a 
wealthy planter of that State. He was married 
three times, but had no issue by his first wife. 



[71 



±=dt^ 




His last union resulted in the birth of three sons, 
two of whom survive. His death occurred in 
1846, in Russell County of that State, his wife 
having died in North Carolina in 1829. He was a 
stanch Democrat, and a member of the Baptist 
Church. 

John Jones, postmaster. White Hall, Ark. Mr. 
Jones was born in Abbeville District, S. C. , and is 
the son of Robert and Mary (Conn) Jones, natives 
of South Carolina, and of Irish descent. Mr. and 
Mrs. Jones were among the first settlers of South 
Carolina, and there the mother died when her son 
John was but an infant. He was taken and reared 
l)y his grandfatlier, John Conn, and his father went 
to Alabama, where he was married the second 
time. After the death of his grandparents our 
subject was taken to Alabama by his father, and 
received his education in the common schools of 
that State. His father was a miller, and was very 
successful in this occupation. He was a member of 
the Christian Church, and his death occurred in 
Alabama in 1862. John Jones was reared to farm 
labor, and began his own career at the age of fif- 
teen years. When eighteen years of age he left 
Alabama for West Tennessee and worked for 
money to enable him to attend school. This was 
in 1837, and he returned to Alabama, where he 
went to school for about two years, after which he 
was elected to the office of constable, although he 
continued to farm until 1842. He took for his life 
companion Miss Martha Thurmau, a native of Ala- 
bama, and after marriage began farming on rented 
land, where he remained for fourteen years. In 
185(5 he moved to Poinsett County, Ark., and pur- 
chased the farm on which he now resides. At first 
he purchased 100 acres of wild land, and began to 
improve it, living in a tent until he could erect a 
cabin. He cleared about eight acres the first year, 
and since then has continued to clear and other- 
wise improve his farm, until now he has 200 acres 
of land, with 120 acres cleared. About 1869 he 
erected a gin and grist-mill, and has since con- 
ducted that business in connection with tilling the 
soil. In 1887 that mill was destroyed by fire, but 
was rebuilt in 1888. The year 1887 was an unfort- 
unate one for Mr. Jones, as he had his residence 



and all the contents destroyed by fire in that yeai-. 
To his marriage were born these children: J. P., 
a farmer, living in Scott Township, and is magis 
trate for his township; Isaac L., now twenty-one 
years of age, lives with his father; AVilliamC, 
born in 1844 and died in 1868, and Josepliine E., 
born in 1846. Mr. Jones had two sons in the Con 
federate army; one, William C, sickened and 
died in Columbus, Miss., his father being present 
and attending to his wants until his death; the other 
son, J. P., came out without injury. Mr. Jones 
votes with the Republican party, and takes an act- 
ive interest in politics. He held the office of jus- 
tice of the peace before the war, and has filled 
many local positions of trust and responsibility, 
such as coroner and school trustee, and has been 
postmaster for the last twelve years. During the 
year 1851 Mr. Jones held the office of tax-collector 
in Limestone County, Ala., under a bond of 
$75,000. He is a member of Harrisl)nrg Lodge 
No. 184, A. F. & A. M., and his family arc 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

J. P. Jones is another successful farmer of the 
county, of which he has been a resident since No- 
vember, 1856, having come here from his native 
State of Alabama at that date. He was born in 
1842, and is the eldest of four children of John 
and Martha A. (Thurman) Jones, the former born 
in South Carolina and the latter in Alal)ama. 
They were married in the latter State, and there 
the father followed the occupation of a ])lanter 
until his removal to this State. He located on a 
woodland farm, where he has made his home up to 
the present date, and during his residence here he 
has been quite an active politician; he has filled 
the office of postmaster at White Hall for some ten 
years, and was also justice of the peace in 1858. 
He and his wife now reside near their son, J. P., 
who from his earliest youth has been familiar with 
farm life. He received his early schooling in Ala- 
bama, but in 1861 he dropped his books and aban- 
doned the plow to enlist in the Confederate army, 
becoming a member of Capt. Harris' Company of 
the Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry, and served east 
of the Mississippi River. He was at Belmont. 
Shiloh, and also in many skirmishes. At the ex- 



r|^ 



600 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



piration of his term of service he left the army 
aud returned home, and was married the following 
year in Poinsett County, to Miss L. D. Eskridge, 
who was l)orn in West Tennessee. Her death oc 
ciirred in January, 1884, and in November of the 
same year he espoused Miss J. A. Stafford, a na- 
tive of West Tennessee, and a daughter of J. D. 
and Hester Ann (Han-ison) Stafford, who removed 
from North Carolina to Arkansas in 1880. Here 
the father died in 1880. and the mother four years 
later. Mr. Jones has a farm of 200 acres, with 
fifty acres under cultivation, on which he raises 
cotton principally. He devotes considerable at- 
tention to stock, and in connection with his father 
operates a cotton-gin. He is a Republican in his 
political views, and for the past ten years has acted 
as justice of the peace of his township. He filled 
the office of county treasurer for nearly five years, 
and has been a member of the school board for 
many years. He is a member of Lodge No. 77 of 
the I. O. O. F. , at Havrislnirg. and he and his wife 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
South. 

J. W. Kaisner, planter, of Bay Village, Ark. 
This enterprising citizen owes his nativity to Ran 
dolph County, Ark., where his birth occurred in ] 
1845. He was the youngest of a family of three 
children, and the only one now living, born to James 
and Polly (Winnehan) Kaisner, natives of Tennes- 
see and Arkansas, respectively. James Kaisner, 
when a young man, came with his father to Ran- 
dolph County, and there died in the year 1845. 
The mother died in Februaiy, 1855. Grandfather 
Winnehan was a Methodist minister. J. W. Kais- 
ner was reared by his grandfather Kaisner to farm 
life, and received a practical education in the 
district schools of Marion County, Ark. During 
the late unpleasantness between the North and 
South he enlisted in the Fourth Missouri Infantry. 
Confederate army, in February, 1862, and served 
three years, or during the war. He participated in 
the following battles— luka, Corinth, Vicksburg, 
Champion's Hill and others of less note. He was 
paroled at Jacksonport, in June. 1865, after which 
he came to Crittenden County, Aik. , and there re- 
mained until January, 1866, when he entered Poin- 



sett County. He there followed farming in a suc- 
cessful manner, and in 1867 purchased 160 acres 
of land, with twenty-five acres under cultivation. 
He commenced at once to improve, and now has 
220 acres with sixty-five under cultivation. He 
raises considerable stock, and over his meadows 
roam horses and cattle, principally the latter. He 
is not active in politics, but votes with the Demo- 
cratic party, and though often solicited to run for 
office has never done so. Socially, he is a member 
of the I. O. O. F., and also of the Agricultural 
Wheel. Mr. Kaisner selected for his companion 
in life Miss Jane Morrison, a native of the Blue 
Grass State, and was man-ied to her in Poinsett 
County, in 1868. After his marriage Mr. Kais- 
ner settled on his present property, and there he 
has since resided. He and wife are both church 
meml)ers, he of the Methodist and she of the 
Baptist denomination. To Mr. and Mrs. Kaisner 
has been born one child, James Todd. Mr. Kais- 
ner has seen many changes in the country since his 
residence here. At first they were obliged to go 
twenty miles to market, and a trip to Memphis 
was made in eight or ten days. He is, in every 
sense of the word, a self-made man, and to his own 
industry and enterprise is due his success. 

J. B. Lynch, the junior member of the firm 
of Grant & Lynch, general merchants of Weiner, 
Ai-k., was born in Giles County. Tenn. . in 1860, 
and since February, 1889, he has been engaged in 
his present business. The firm caiTy a complete 
and select stock of groceries, canned goods, dry 
goods, boots and shoes, shelf hardware, furniture, 
etc., and will soon put in a stock of clothing for 
their fall trade. They are wide-awake, plucky and 
reliable, and fully deserve the paying trade which 
they have secured. Mr. Lynch is the third in a 
family of nine children born to W. F. and Susan 
E. (Gibles) Lynch, who were Tennesseeans, the I 
father an undertaker by trade. He remained at 
Lynchville, Tenn., until his death, which occurred 
in 1882, his wife having passed from life in 1876. ; 
The father was an Odd Fellow, and was a man 
whom everybody respected aud admired. In 1882 
J. B. Lynch came to Jackson County, Ark. , and 
began farming; in the fall of that year he went to 



,[> 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



601 



Johnson Connly, eind aftor residini; in the town of 
Clarksville for some time, he leturned to Jackson 
County, and came to Poinsett Connty in 1884, whore 
his attention was for some time given to railroad- 
tie contracting, continuing this till up to the time 
of embarking in his present business. His efforts 
in this direction are meeting with good results, and 
he can, with every assurance of success, look for- 
ward to a prospero>is future. Socially, he is a 
member of Lodge No. 184, of the A. F. & A. M., 
of Harrisburg, and in politics, although not very 
active, he usually votes the Democratic ticket. 

J. J. Mardis, attorney at law. The name of 
Mardis is identified with the professional standing, 
the welfare and material and social happiness of 
Poinsett County, of which he is a native-born 
resident, his birth occurring November 18. 1850. 
He is the youngest of a family of six children of 
John P. and Delilah (Hamrick) Mardis, the former 
a native of Virginia and the latter of Alabama. 
They were early settlers of Poinsett County, and 
entered Government laud, on which they resided 
until his death, which occurred in 185t); in addition 
to managing his farm, he was actively engaged 
in the practice of medicine, his services being re- 
quired over a very lai'ge area. His widow still 
survives him, and resides on the old homestead. 
Their childi'en are as follows: Amanda J. (Mrs. 
Thorn), B. R. J. (married, and residing on the old 
homestead), N. B. (a widower, residing in Scott 
Township), and J. J. (our subject.) The latter 
was educated in the schools of Han-isburg and 
vicinity, and, after reading law in that town for 
some time, he was admitted to the bar in 1880, 
since which time he has been actively engaged in 
practicing his profession, and is considered by all 
to be a practical thinker and an earnest and forci 
ble speaker. His property has been acquired 
through his own exertions, and 100 acres of his 
farm are under cultivation. He was married here in 
April, 1872. to Miss Sue Han-is, and of seven chil- 
dren born to their union six are living: John A., 
Agnew. Henry, Maggie Lee, Simmie and Freddie. 
Dovie died in August. 1880, at the age of eleven 
years. Mrs. Mardis is a daughter of John and 
Sarah (Copeland) Harris, who were Tennesseeans, 



aod came to Poinsett County, Ark., in 1829, taking 
up their aVjode on a farm near Harrisl)urg. where 
the father died in 1885, the mother in 1884. Mr. 
Mardis has taken quite an active interest in pol- 
itics, and always votes with the Democratic party: 
he served on that ticket in the capacity of magis 
trate for six years. He is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. , Harrisburg Lodge, No. 184, and al.so be- 
longs to the K of H. He and wife are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and since Do 
cember, 1887, have been residents of Harrisburg. 
where Mr. Mardis has built up a large and con 
stantly increasing clientage. He is well versed in 
the intricacies of the law, and is thoroughly com 
petent and reliable. 

Michael Mayer, fanner and stock raiser, Weiner. 
Ark. The reader is herewith handed a plain state 
inent of a useful life; for certainly, if what is of 
the most use is of the most value, then, indeed, it is 
in recording the lives of representative men that 
biography is to be useful to posterity. Mr. Mayer 
was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1844, and was 
the seventh in a family of eight children born to 
the marriage of Michael and Mary (Mark worth) 
Mayer, the father a native of Bavaria, and the 
mother of Canton Worms, France. Michael Mayer. 
Sr. , was reared in his native country, and V)ecame a 
successful agriculturist. He owned a very large 
vineyard, but sold out in 1853 and came direct 
from Germany to Illinois, where he later purchased 
land in Vermilion County, and made his home 
for some time. Later he moved to Danville. 111., 
where his death occurred in October, 1870. and 
one year later his excellent wife also closed her 
eyes to the scenes of this earth. The early life 
of Michael Mayer, Jr. , was passed between assist- 
ing on the farm and in attending the public 
schools of Danville, 111. When the late war broke 
out he enlisted in Company B, Tenth Illinois Cav- 
alry, Independent Regiment, at Camp Butler. 
Springfield, 111., and was assigned to the Western 
Department. He was in the battles of Wilson's 
Creek, Pea Ridge. Prairie Grove. Arkansas Post. 
Little Rock. Saline River. Pleasant Hill, Helena. 
Vicksburg, Nashville, was at Stone River, siege 
of Atlanta, and was in the memorable march to 



irr. 



jil±r=±: 



A 9 



602 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the sea. He was at Mobile, New Orleans, and 
was also in the Red River campaign ; was also in 
the battles of Corinth and Pittsburg Landing. 
He received his discharge at San Antonio, Tex., 
in 1865, but was on the border during that winter, 
guarding the railroads. He then returned to Dan- 
ville, 111., and engaged in merchandising, which 
he continued for about five years. In 1866 he 
was married, in Danville, 111. , to Miss Mary Klaege, 
a native of Germany, and the daughter of John 
and Mary (Geise) Klaege, also natives of Germany. 
Mr. and Mrs. Klaege came to the United States in 
1856, settling in the city of Brooklyn, where the 
father was employed for some time, and then 
moved to Danville, 111., in 1865. He died there 
in the fall of 1868. The mother moved to Poin- 
sett County, Ark., in 1882, and made her home 
with the subject of this sketch until her death, 
which occurred one year later. Michael Mayer 
continued his mercantile pursuits, as before stated, 
for five years in Danville, 111. ; then embarked in 
contracting, and worked on the I. B. & W. R. R. 
He remained iu Danville until 1881, when he 
moved to Poinsett County, and in September pur- 
chased a timber tract of 280 acres. He now has 
good buildings, and has 100 acres under fence. He 
also owns 160 acres partly under cultivation, with 
a good two story house, etc. He raises consider- 
able cattle of the Ayrshire grade, and is one of the 
wide-awake farmers of the county. He votes with 
the Democratic party, but is not very active in 
politics. While living at Danville, Mr. Mayer 
was a member of the board of alderman, and since 
livino' here he has been a member of the school 
board, he being deeply interested in educational 
affairs, having been instrumental in organizing the 
school district. Mr. and Mrs. Mayer are members 
of the Catholic Church. To their united lives 
has been born one child, Emma Elizabeth, who 
is now Mrs. J. M. Steele [see sketch], and re 
sides in Poinsett County. They have an adopted 
son, Thomas Leonard, whom they took when four 
years of age. He now bears the name of Thomas 
Mayer. 

P. J. Murray is possessed of those advanced ideas 
and progressive principles regarding agricultural 



life which seem to be the chief prerogative of the 
average native of Illinois. He was born in Kane 
County in 1852, and is the eldest of four children 
born to Patrick and Ann (Kane) Murray, botli of 
whom were born in the ' ' Emerald Isle. " At an 
early day they emigrated to the United States, and 
after residing some time iu Pennsylvania, they 
removed to Illinois, and here they both died iu 
Kane County, some years ago. P. J. Murray 
received such education as the district schools of 
Kane County afforded, and his youth and early 
manhood were spent in aiding in the development 
of the home farm. • After working in the pineries 
of Northern Michigan for some time, he went to 
Louisiana, and in January, 1882, came to Poinsett 
County, where he engaged in mercantile business, 
and also had the contract for grading five miles of 
the Kansas City & Memphis Railroad. After 
completing one mile the company raised the grade, 
and Mr. Murray threw up the job, then returning to 
his store, to which he gave his undivided attention 
for some eighteen months. He then commenced 
farming, and purchased a timber tract of eighty 
acres, which he began immediately to improve. 
He now has forty acres cleared and under cultiva- 
tion, and is making a good living. He is an active 
Democrat in his political views, and is at present 
serving his third term as magistrate. He was 
instrumental in organizing a good school in his 
district. Socially, he is a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. , and belongs to Jouesboro Chapter. He 
was married in Little River Township, in 1883, to 
Miss Lydia A. Davidson, a native of Dunklin 
County, Mo., and a daughter of Zachariah and 
Sarah Davidson, who were natives of that State. 
They removed to this county in 1877, and the 
father is now living with Mr. Murray, his wife 
having died some years ago. Two childi'en have 
been born to Mr. and Mrs. Murray: Zachariah 
and Feli.K. Since locating here Mr. Murray has 
seen many changes take place, and the country 
rapidly fill up with a good class of settlers. The 
soil here is fertile, and will readily yield fifty 
I bushels of corn to the acre. 

1 T. H. Peck, through good management and 
energy, has become the owner of 180 acres of ex- 



«7 



-<! 9 




a. 



cellent laud, of which about forty acres are under 
cultivation, and eighty are in timber land. He 
was born in Jefferson County, Term., in 18;i4, and 
is the eldest of a family of six children born to the 
marriai^e of William R. Peck and J. C. Arledge, 
the former a Tennesseean, and the latter a native 
of South Carolina. The latter attended school in 
Columbia, in her native State, lieing a schoolmate 
of Gen. Wade Hampton. The parents were mar- 
ried in the latter State, and in 1846 removed to 
Poinsett County, where they resided on a farm in 
Bolivar Township until their respective deaths, in 
1846 and 1872. The early educational advantages 
of T. H. Peck were somewhat limited, as he re- 
mained faithfully by his mother, assisting her on 
the farm until he was twenty- five years of age. In 
1869, he was married in Crittenden County, Ark., 
to Miss Mary M. Dean, a native of Mississippi, 
whose death occurred in 1870, she having borne 
Mr. Peck two children; William L., who is mar- 
ried and resides in the county, and George W. 
In the latter part of 1870 Mr. Peck was married, 
in Poinsett County, to Miss Mary S. Ware, of 
Middle Tennessee, but after bearing one child, 
Mary O. , she died in 1873. He espoused his third 
wife. Miss Mary E. Allen, a native of South Caro 
Una, in 1875. In 1861, Mr. Peck enlisted from 
Poinsett County in Company C, Capt. Benjamin 
Harris' Company, and was in the battles of Shiloh 
and Belmont, being wounded in the former engage- 
ment by a gun-shot. After serving one year, he 
returned to Poinsett County, and for some time 
was engaged in buying and selling land, but for a 
number of years has given his attention to farm- 
ing. He is an active politician, voting the Repub- 
lican ticket, and has served as magistrate of his 
township for seven years. He has always been 
deeply interested in schools, and for a number of 
years has been a member of the school board. He 
belongs to the Agricultural Wheel. 

George C. Peters is the senior meml)er of the 
tirm of Peters & Oats, who are the proprietors of 
a saw-mill at Weitier, Ark., which has an extensive 
capacity and a forty-hoise-power engine. They 
manufacture hardwood lumber, of all kinds, and 
make a specialty of wagon materials, shipping their 



product to Hawley, Paddock & Co., and the Mis- 
souri Car & Foundry Works, at St. Louis, Mo. 
Th(*y have been established in business here some 
little time, and, judging from the patronage they 
already command, they can look forward to a pros- 
perous and successful future. Mr. Peters was born 
in Dutchess County, N. Y., in 1853, and possesses 
the many admiral)le (jualities which are so charac^ 
teristic of natives of the "Empire State." He 
was the third of five children born to Henry W. 
and Caroline E. (Flint) Peters, also natives of 
New York, and inherits English blood from his 
father. The latter was for many years one of the 
honest "sons of the soil," but is now living in 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. , retired from the active duties 
of life. His children are Alfred H. , who resides 
in Poughkeepsie, and devotes his time to literature, 
being a contributor to the Century and Harpers' 
magazines, also other noted periodicals; Jacob O., 
who is married and resides on the old homestead 
of 400 acres, near Amenia, N. Y. ; G. C. ; K. E., 
wife of S. F. Davidson, residing in Topeka, Kas., 
and is chief clerk in the treasurer's office of the 
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and Car- 
rie, a twin sister of Jacob O. . who resides in Pough- 
keepsie. George C. Peters was reared principally 
in the City of New York, but received the greater 
part of his education at Poughkeepsie, in Bisbee's 
Military Academy, and after eom])leting his course 
there he went to New York City, and engaged in 
business on Wall Street, but removed from there 
some time after to Topeka, Kas. (in 1874), and had 
charge of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, and 
later the Adams Express Company. In 1879 he 
went to San Juan County, Colo., on a prospecting 
tour, but soon after returned to New York, and, in 
1880, went to Chicago, and until 1885 was em- 
ployed in the Union Stock Yards. In the latter 
year he came to Harrisburg, Poinsett County, Ark. , 
and from there moved to Weiner, where he dealt 
in stock until embarking in his present enterprise. 
He was married in 18S9 to Miss Belle F. Duke, a 
native of \\'ayne County, Iowa, their marriage 
taking place in Poinsett Count}'. She is a daugh- 
ter of James M. and Ann E. (Scudder) Duke, and 
from them inherits Scotch blood. Her mother was 



r^ 







a member of the same family as Dr. Seudder, of 
C!hicago. Mr. Peters has seen many improve- 
ments in the county since locating, and considers 
this an exceptionally healthy locality. It is an ex 
cellent grazing region, and in any ordinary season 
will pasture stock the year round. He has SOO 
acres of land, which he expects soon to open to 
settlers; and he and his business partner have a 
timber tract of 240 acres. He has always been 
interested in schools, and, owing to his influence 
in District No. 2, the building is equipped with 
all modern improvements, and they have adopted 
the Harpers' and Standard systems of books. 

B. F. Powell is a well-to-do planter of the coun- 
ty, this occupation having received his attention 
from early boyhood, and after his marriage, which 
occurred in Poinsett County, Ark., in 1872, he 
purchased a timber tract embracing 160 acres of 
laud, and now has 100 acres cleared and under 
cultivation, which he devotes to raising cotton and 
corn. He is independent in his political views, 
but is an active advocate of schools, and has been 
a member of the school board in his district for 
twelve years, in every respect being a public- 
spirited citizen. On the 26th of February, 1862 
he enlisted in Company A, Twenty third Arkansas 
Infantry, and was a participant in the battles of 
Corinth, luka, Port Hudson and others, remaining 
on active duty until the close of the war. The 
maiden name of his wife was Miss S. L. J. Clam- 
jtet, a native of Tennessee, and a daughter of 
Henry and Mary (Riley) Clampet, also of that 
State, who came to Arkansas at an early day. 
The mother died a few years ago, but the father is 
still living, a resident of this county. The union 
of Mr. and Mrs. Powell was blessed in the birth 
of eight children, five now living: Mary H., Sue E., 
Arthur Lee, David C. and Daisy, Those deceased 
are Laura M., who died in 1882, at the age of 
eight years; Anna Jane, whose death occurred 
in 1885, at the age of five years, and Henry 
E. , who died in 1889, at the age of eleven years. 
Mr. Powell was born in Greene County, Ala., in 
1845, and is the fifth in a family of eight chil- 
dren born to James E. and Harriet H. (Burton) 
Powell, who were born in the ' ' Palmetto State, ' ' 



but settled in Alabama, and in 1849 removed to 
Poinsett County, Ark., making this State their 
permanent abode until their respective deaths, 
March 4, 1861, and June 27, 1861. The father was 
a farmer throughout life. 

John W. Rooks, real estate agent and hotel- 
keeper, Harrisburg, Ark. This prominent and 
successful citizen is a native of Tennessee, whose 
birth occuiTed in Shelby County, December 5, 
1848, and is the son of Joseph Rooks, a native of 
Middle Tennessee, who was married in his native 
State to Miss Melinda Montgomery, also a native 
of Middle Tennessee. They moved to Arkansas 
about 1856, settled on the Bay Road, five miles 
east of Harrisburg, in Bolivar Township, and there 
the father opened up 160 acres of wild land, clear- 
ing about fifty acres, and erecting buildings, etc. 
Later he moved to the west side of Crowley's 
Ridge, in Scott Township, and there purchased 
240 acres of land, of which he cleared 100 acres. 
He was a farmer and brick mason, and a very in- 
dustrious, enterprising man. He was a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his family 
were consistent members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. South. He died in 1860. The 
mother Mrs. Melinda (Montgomery) Rooks, was 
born in Bedford (now Crawford) County. Tenn., 
in the year 1807, and is still living. She is 
the daughter of William and Mary (Lyons) Mont- 
gomery, natives of North Carolina, and early set- 
tlers of the State of Arkansas. Her father was 
a farmer, and removed to Middle Tennessee about 
1800. When a very old man, he returned to his 
native State to settle up a legacy, and was never 
afterward heard from. Her mother died in Mid 
die Tennessee, when about fifty years of age. 
Mrs. Rooks was one of five children born to her 
parents, and is the only one living. She was mar- 
ried at the age of seventeen years to Mr. Rooks, a 
son of one of the oldest families of North Carolina, 
and in 1856 removed to Arkansas. To their union 
were born twelve children, ten of whom lived to 
be grown, became married and had families. The 
children were as follows: Mrs. N. E. Flowers, died 
in 1870 and left two children; Eli, who was en- 
gaged in merchandising at Bay Village, and who 



^- 



-K^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



605 



died December 15, 1878; James W., died in 1864 
at the age of forty years; Martha A., widow of 
Henry Gilbert; Sarah J., wife of T. C. Broadater; 
Eliza, wife of J. W. Killongh; James K. , died 
about 1867; Michael K. died in his tenth year; 
Mary E., died in infancy; Evalyn, wife of Kev. 
A. C. Griffith, an elder in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, at Harrisbiirg; John W. (subject of this 
sketch), and one who died unnamed. Mrs. Hooks 
furnished three sons for the late war, and one son- 
in-law. William, one of the sons, died during 
that struggle, but the others served the entire time 
without harm. As before stated, Mrs. Kooks was 
left a widow in 1860, just at the outbreak of the 
late war, and she bravely struggled to support her 
family, but lost all her property during the con- 
flict. She was left in debt to the amount of 
$2, 500, but this, by skillful management, she con- 
trived to pay off. She has long been a Christian, 
and a consistent member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, of which her children are also mem- 
bers. In 1868 she gave up housekeeping, and 
has since made the homes of her children happy 
by her presence. Her son, John W. Rooks, was 
taught the principles of farm life when young, 
and received his education in the common country 
schools, and supplementing the same by a course 
in the high school, at Harrisburg, under the tutor- 
ship of Prof. C. O. Turbeville. In 1871, when 
twenty-one years of age, he began clerking in the 
store of Kellough, Mitchell & Co., at a place 
called Lick Skillet, live miles south of Harrisburg, 
and worked one year. In 1871 he began clerking 
in Wittsburg, and continued in that work until 
1875, when he opened a general store under the 
tirm name of J. W. Rooks & Co. This business 
he continued with success until 1882, when he 
sold out and built a store at Cherry Valley, in 
Cross County, Ark. In 1885 he sold out and re- 
turned to Harrisburg, where he built the Rooks 
House and opened that hotel to the public. This 
he built in 1S78, and it was destroyed by fire, with 
all its contents, in 1882. The same year the pres- 
ent hotel was built, and this he still conducts. 
In the year 1887 Mr. Rooks originated the real 
estate firm of Rooks <& Ainsworth, it being the 



only recognized real estate firm in Poinsett County, 
and they do a very successful business. Mr. 
Rooks has always taken a decided interest in poli- 
tics, and has twice been defeated for county treas- 
urer by a small majority. He served one term as 
deputy clerk for T. B. Sparks. He votes with the 
Democratic party, and is an earnest temperance 
worker. On the 18th of April, 1877, he was united 
in marriage to Miss Julia E. Gant, daughter of 
J. W. and S. S. (Keller) Gant, natives of North 
Carolina, who settled in Craighead County, Ark. , 
in 1860. To Mr. and Mrs. Rooks were born the 
following children: Mary B. , Joseph W. , and 
Harry G. Mr. Rooks is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, also the K. of H. , and he and wife are 
active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Judge John T. Roy, Poinsett, Ark. Judge Roy 
is a man who needs no introduction to the readers 
of this volume. His birth occurred in Shelby 
County, Tenn., April 15, 1834, and he is the 
son of Merida and Susan (Gentry) Roy, natives 
of South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. To 
the parents were born ten children, eight of whom 
lived to be grown. They are named as follows: 
John Thomas ; W. A. , farmer and stock raiser, lives 
in Jackson County, Ark., and is justice of the 
peace; Eliza, wife of Lemuel Crane, a farmer re- 
siding in Shelby County, Tenn. ; Frances, wife of 
William Crarage, a book keeper; Jesse; Merida, a 
farmer, and resides in the house where he was 
born; Alfred, a farmer, who lives in Scott Town- 
ship; Daniel, farmer, living in Scott Township; 
Nathaniel G. , died at the age of seven years, and 
Elmira, died in childhood. The father of these 
children, Merida Roy, was born September 19, 
1805, and died May 1, 1885. He was well edu- 
cated, was a farmer, and followed tilling the soil 
all his life. He was also a minister in the Prim 
itive Baptist Church, a member of the Masonic 
order, and in politics a Democrat. His wife, 
Susan (Gently) Roy, was the daughter of Thomas 
Gentry, a native of Virginia, and a near relative 
of Merideth Gentry, the famous senator from 
Tennessee. Judge John T. Roy assisted his 
father on the farm until grown, and December 3, 
1853, he was united in marriage to Miss Frances 



^ 



^ 



606 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Goswick, a native of Tennessee, and the daughter 
of George W. Goswick, a native of South Carolina. 
To the Judge and wife were born eight children, 
five of whom are now living: Susan, wife of W. D. 
Gray, a farmer, living in Poinsett County; Theo- 
dosia A., married to Joseph Cooper; Martha M., 
wife of Joshua Curtis, farmer; Frances, wife of 
William Bledsoe, merchant, of the firm of Bledsoe 
& Tillery, at Bay Village, Cross County, Ark. , and 
William Edward, at home. The childi-en deceased 
were named: Annie D., Luella and Ophelia P. 
The mother of these children died in June, 1876. 
She was a member of the Primitive Baptist 
Church. Mr. Roy has remained single since that 
time. He came with his family to Poinsett County 
in 1872, and bought 160 acres of land, which he 
cleared and improved. He has forty-five acres 
under cultivation, has a good orchard, and is one 
of the representative farmers of the county. He 
has served as a school director for nine years, and 
in 1880 was elected presiding judge of the county 
court, serving two years. lu 1888 he was again 
elected to the same office, which position he still 
holds. He is a man whose decisions are not made 
carelessly and without study, but are the result of 
much care and painstaking, so that all feel that he 
can be relied upon. In 1862 he enlisted in Com- 
pany D, Capt. J. Hazlewood Twelfth Tennessee 
Cavalry, but in July, 1864, left the army on account 
of sickness, and was in the hospital until in Novem- 
ber of the same year. He then returned home, and 
served as a courier and recruiter until the close 
of the war, and consequently participated in very 
few engagements. Judge Roy is a man honored 
and respected by all acquainted with him, and is a 
liberal supporter of all schools and churches and 
all laudable public enterprises. In his political 
views he is Democratic. 

A. W. Scott, surveyor of Poinsett 'Coimty, 
Ark. , is now serving his third term. He was born 
in Adams County, Ind., in 1852, and is the eldest 
of the family of five children of Hamilton and 
Jane (French) Scott, who were born, respectively, 
in Ohio and Indiana. The father removed to the 
latter State at an early day, and was married there 
in 1851. After opening up a good farm and resid- 



ing on it until 1879, he came to Poinsett County 
and settled on land in West Prairie Township. 
This land he improved and resided on until his 
death, in 1888, his wife having passed from life in 
1859. He married again in 1861, this wife dying 
in 18R6. The children of the first union are as 
follows : Thaddeus W. died in Poinsett County 
in 1886 at the age of thirty-three years; L. W. died 
in 1886, aged thirty years; H. W. died in 1888, 
aged thirty-one years; James B. died in 1887, aged 
eighteen years; and A. W. , our subject. The 
latter received his education in the schools of An- 
derson, Ind., and after leaving school he was en- 
gaged in teaching for some years. After coming 
to Poinsett County, in 1879, he began farming, pur- 
chasing an unimproved farm in West Prairie Town- 
ship, and is now the owner of some 800 acres of 
land. He has always been an active politician, and 
votes the Democratic ticket, and was elected by 
that party to his present position, the duties of 
which he has filled to the satisfaction of all con- 
cerned. Besides this, he has filled the otfice of 
constable of his township, and has been school 
director in his district. In his present official ca- 
pacity he has noticed a decided improvement in the 
agricultural districts, and the country is being set- 
tled up and land rapidly improved. He was mar- 
ried in Madison County, lud. , in 1876, to Miss 
Margaret Boxley, a native of Hamilton County, 
her death occurring in Madison County, in 1877, 
after having borne a daughter. Grace L. 

A. C. Shaver, justice of the peace, postmaster 
and farmer, Bay Village, Ark. Born in Poinsett 
County (now Cross County) on the eighth of Oc- 
tober, 1844, Mr. Shaver has ever since resided 
here, and is accounted one of the representative 
men of the county. He is the son of W. A. and 
Matilda (Stone) Shaver, natives, respectively, of 
Missouri and Tennessee. The parents were early 
settlers of this section, coming here about 1826, 
and the father held the office of justice of the 
peace for a number of years. He was Democratic 
in his political principles, and he and his wife 
were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
They reared to maturity seven children: A. C. ; C. 
R., a farmer living in Cross County, Ark. ; Fanny 






" A , 



^ . 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



cm 



died in 1880, and was the wife of J. B. Henshaw, 
a mechanic; Josephine died in 1SS;1, and was the 
wife of Henry MoAden, a farmer of Poinsett 
County; Jerliue. wife of James Copelaud, a farmer 
of Cross County, Ark. ; T. J. engaged in general 
mechanics in Bay Village, and Rebecca, wife of 
Rev. J. I. Maynord. The father of these chil- 
dren died on the 19th of April, 1875, and the 
mother in September, 18(59. A. C. Shaver, like 
most of the youths of the vicinity, passed his boy- 
hood days in assisting on the farm and in attending 
the common schools, although he received the prin- 
cijial part of his education by his own individual 
efforts, and in 1862 enlisted in Col. McGee's regi- 
ment, Arkansas Cavalry. He was wounded at 
Helena on the 4th of July, 1864, and was never able 
to enter service after that. He left with the rank of 
orderly sergeant. At the age of twenty-five he 
startedout for himself by marrying, in 1869, a Miss 
Georgia Brooks, and by her became the father of 
five interesting children: Willie W., Sallie A., 
M. G. , Myrtie, and Olive W., all living. Since 
bis marriage Mr. Shaver has followed agricultural 
pursuits, cotton -ginning, merchandising, etc., and 
in all has been successful. He has three times 
been elected to the office of justice of the peace, 
twice in Cross County and once in Poinsett County, 
and is now holding that position and discharging 
the duties of the same in a very able and efficient 
manner. He was appointed postmaster in 1883, 
and is still holding that position. He is the owner 
of 17f) acres of land, 120 in Poinsett County and 
fifty-five acres in Cross County, with fifty acres 
under cultivation. He lives on the old homestead, 
just over the line in Cross County, and is one of 
the stirring, industrious farmers of the County. 
He and his wife and two oldest children are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to 
which he contribntes liberally, as he does to all 
public enterprises. In politics he votes with the 
Democratic party. 

M. D. Simmons & Co. , druggists of Harrisburg, 
Ark. Among the more recent acquisitions to the 
business interests of the town is the establishment 
of which Mr. Simmons is a member, which has 
secured a reputation such as one might think be- 



longed to an older established house. Their store 
was opened in February, 1882, and, after renting 
a building for some years, they, in 1888, put up 
their present substantial frame business house, 
into which thc>y moved in the spring of that year. 
The senior member of the firm, Mr. Simmons, was 
born in Marshall County, Miss., in 1859, and is 
the eldest in a family of three children born to 
John and Victoria E. (Douglas) Simmons, the for- 
mer a native of Tennessee, and the latter of Mis- 
sissippi. John Simmons removed to Cross County, 
Ark., in 1860, and located near Vanndale, and in 
1871 located in Wittsburg, Ark., where the mother 
died, in 1872. The father was a Mason and a 
memlier of the K. of H. He now makes his home 
in Vanndale. M. D. Simmons received his early 
education in the public and high schools of Witts- 
burg, and after attaining a suitable age he began 
the study of pharmacy under a physician of that 
place, and was prescription clerk in his store for 
some years. Mr. Simmons is not a very active 
politician, but has served as a member of the town 
council. He has belonged to the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, for a number of years, is 
an active worker for the cause of Christianity, 
and has been superintendent of the Sunday-school 
for a number of years. He was married in Clarks- 
ville, Tenn., on the 18th of June, 1884. to Miss 
Hardin Duncan, a native of that State, and by her 
is the father of two children: Bessie May and 
Louise Kendrick. Mrs. Simmons is a daughter of 
John and Mary Elizabeth (Johnson) Duncan, the 
former a native of Scotland, and the latter of Ten- 
nessee. John Duncan removed to Tennessee at an 
early day, and settled in Nashville in 1844, where 
he followed the occupation of painting. He is 
still living, and resides with Mrs. Simmons, but 
the mother died in Little Rock, Ark., in 1884, 
where they wer(( residing at the time. 

J. Logtan Smith, junior member of the firm of 
Sparks & Co., Harrisbnrg, Ark. Born on the 5th 
of February, 1837. at Old Bolivar, Poinsett Coun- 
ty, Ark. , Mr. Smith is one of the old settlers of 
the county and a much respected citizen of the 
same. He is the son of William and Sarah (Clark) 
Smith, natives of Tennessee and North Carolina. 



\\^ — ^ 



608 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



xespectively. William Smith and wife came to ' 
Arkansas iu 1831, wheu the country was very un- 
settled, and began improving wild land. He held 
the position of county treasurer in 1 844. and was a i 
prominent and enterprising citizen. He and wife 
were members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 
Their family consisted of thirteen children, all of 
whom are now deceased except J. Logan and J. 
W. , who is a minister in the Christian Church, and 
resides in Craighead County, Ark. Mrs. Sarah 
Smith's father was one of the early settlers of 
Greene County, Ark., and built the first water- 
mill in that county. J. Logan Smith's facilities 
for an education in youth were not of the best, 
and what schooling he did receive was in the old 
court-house at Old Bolivar, a log structure about 
20x28 feet in dimension, with fire-place, punch- 
eon benches with pin legs, and the writing desks 
were puncheons supported by pins driven in the 
wall. Mr. Smith can distinctly remember the 
original chimney was stick and clay, which wore 
afterward supplanted by brick. The school was of 
course a subscription school. Early settlers fre- 
quently built their houses without nails, and the first 
sawecl lumber was manufactured l)y hand and with 
a whip-saw. Mr. Smith was reared on a farm, 
and spent some time as a brick- maker. At the 
age of twenty two he enlisted in Company F, 
Sixth Arkansas Infantry, and was in the battles of 
Shiloh and Perry ville, Ky. , where he was wounded 
and taken prisoner. At the end of thirty days he 
was exchanged, and took i>a,ri in the battle of Stone 
River, where he was again wounded, and after 
lying in the hospital at Ringgold, Ga. . until Feb- 
ruary, 1863, joined the army again. He was in 
the battle of Chickamauga, and at that engage- 
ment received two wounds. He was also at Mis- 
sionary Ridge, Tenn., then at Ringgold Gap, and 
after this at Resaca, Kenesaw (Ga. ), Smithfield 
(N. C), and surrendered at Greensboro (N. C.) He 
then came to Poinsett County, Ark., tilled the soil, 
and, in February, 1866, was united in marriage to 
Miss Lucinda Stanford, daughter of William and 
Matilda (Hall) Stanford, natives of Tennessee and 
early settlers of Arkansas. To Mr. and Mrs. 
Smith were born the following children : Lockie L. , 



wife of Thomas C. Ainsworth, a farmer of Poinsett 
County; Rutha V., keeps house for her father; 
Roger Williams, Joseph T. and Logan S. (twins), 
who live at home. Mrs. Smith died on the 18th of 
October, 1881, and was a worthy and much-esteemed 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, an 
active Sunday-school and church worker, a loving 
wife and mother, whose memory will remain green 
in the hearts of her many relatives and friends 
long after her body has moldered to dust. 

For none return from that quiet shore. 

Who cro.ssed with the boatman cold and pale. 
We hear the dip of the golden oar, 

We watch for a gleam of the snowy sail; 
But, lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts. 

They have crossed the stream, they are gone for aye. 
We may not sunder the vale apart 

That hides from our vision the gates of day; 
We only know that their bark no more 

Will sail with ours o'er life's stormy sea: 
Yet somewhere, I know, on that unseen shore. 

They watch, and wait, and beckon to me. 

In June, 1865, Mr. Smith, at the request of the 
people, was appointed by Gov. Murphy, then mil- 
itary governor, to fill the position of assessor and 
collector for his cotmty, and in the following year 
was elected to till the same office, which he did until 
the reconstruction, in 1868. He then followed 
farming until 1874, when he was elected sheriff, 
and re-elected in 1876. He again returned to the 
farm, and there remained until 1881, when he em- 
l)arked in the mercantile business, continuing at 
the same until 1884, when he again became a tiller 
of the soil. In 1888 he became a member of the 
above mentioned firm, but during his entire life 
he has followed farming. He is the owner of five 
farms of over 1,000 acres of land, 200 acres under 
cultivation. He takes much interest in stock raising 
and has Jersey and Short-horn cattle, and Berk- 
shire hogs. Mr. Smith became a member of Poin 
sett Lodge No. 184, A. F. & A. M., and is a mem 
ber of the Chapter and Council, Harri.sburg; is 
also a member of Lodge No. 74, K. and L. of H. 
Council No. 29 was organized in 1887. He is a 
Democrat in his political views. 

J. J. Smith is a successful farmer of the couii 
ty, and was born in Henderson County, Tenn., in 



^ 




1847, being the third of eleven children born to 
J. C. and Susan (Johnson) Smith, who were also 
Tennesseeans, the former being a gunsmith by trade. 
In 1850 he settled in Poinsett County, Ark., and 
made the town of Bolivar his home until the county 
seat was changed to Harrisburg, when he moved 
to the latter place, this being in the year 1857. 
In 18G3 he settled on an excellent farm in Craig- 
head County, near Jonesboro, and here worked at 
his trade until his death, in 1885, at the age of 
sixty-six years. He was a Democrat, and held the 
office of deputy sheriff of the county for many 
years, and in 1860 was elected county treasurer, 
winning, during his official career, the respect and 
esteem of all who knew him. His worthy wife 
died in 1883. J. J. Smith was educated in the 
subscription schools of Bolivar and Harrisl)urg, 
and at the age of twenty years started out in life 
for himself, and is now one of the well-to-do agri- 
culturists of the county. His first purchase of 
land was a timber tract embracing 100 acres, and 
this he commenced clearing, and added to until he 
now owns 560 acres, with over 200 acres under 
cultivation, his being one of the largest farms in 
the county. He is extensively engaged in stock 
dealing, and his farm is devoted principally to 
raising cotton and corn. He is a Democrat, and 
as such was elected, in 1880, to the office of treas- 
urer of Poinsett County. He has always been a 
patron of education, and socially is a member of 
the K. of H. Having been a resident of this 
county fi'om earliest youth, he has witnessed the 
gradual growth and improvement, and has aided 
largely in bringing about this desirable result. He 
is a thoroughly self-made and self reliant man, 
and his opinions on all subjects are acknowledged 
to be sound and unbiased. He and wife, whose 
maiden name was Mary Davidson, a native of 
Harrisl)urg, and whom he married in 1867, are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, at Pleasant Valley, and are the parents of 
the following family: Hattie, Lucy, Dovie, Emis- 
ley, Johnny, Jennie, Dexter, Augustus, Grover C. 
and Elizabeth, who died in infancy. Mrs. Smith 
is a daughter of James and Harriet (Lokey) David- 
son, who were Tennesseeans, the father a farmer 



by occupation, and an early settler of Poinsett 

County, Ark. He was a sheritT of this county for 

i many years, and was one of the most energetic and 

j enterprising men of the county. He engaged in 

I merchandising in Harrisburg, in 1861, and later 

became a soldier in the Confederate army, dying 

in 1862, in Cross County. His wife siu-vived him 

some years, her death taking place in 1872. 

W. A. Smith has been a resident of Poinsett 
County, Ark., all his life, and his example of in- 
dustry, and earnest and sincere endeavors to sue 
ceed in life, especially in the occupation of farm- 
ing, are well worth imitation. He was born in 
1860, and of his parents' five children he is the 
second. In boyhood, he attended the district 
schools near his home, and finished his education 
in Harrisburg, under the tutelage of Prof. J. P. 
Leake. He was taught the rudiments of farm work 
by his father, who was a successful agriculturist, 
and after leaving school, he engaged in this busi- 
ness, and was married in Poinsett County, in 1884. 
to Miss Mary Etta Wright, a native of Greenfield 
Township, and a daughter of J. L. and Jane (Ish 
mael) Wright, who were early pioneers of Poinsett 
County. Mr. Smith first bought a forty acre tim- 
ber tract, but now has some thirty-two acres under 
cultivation, on which are good buildings, fences 
and orchards. He is a Democrat in politics, and a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Chiirch, South, 
while his wife belonged to the Christian Church. 
She died quite recently, having borne two children : 
Charles O. and an infant. Being a native of the 
county, Mr. Smith has naturally taken a deep inter- 
est in its welfare, and is an active and public-spir- 
ited citizen. His parents, William C. and Margaret 
(Ainsworth) Smith, were born in Poinsett County, 
and in 1853, the father began opening up a farm 
in Bolivar Township, and here his widow is resid- 
ing at the present time. His death occurred on 
the 16th of November, 1876, having been an enter- 
prising resident and an active member of the Dem 
ocratic party all his. life. William Smith, the pa 
ternal grandfather, was an early pioneer of this 
section in 1832, and was one of the prominent ag- 
riculturists of Bolivar Township. He was county 
treasurer for a number of years. 



filO 



HISTORY OP ARKANSAS. 



L. E. Stancell, deputy sheriff of Poinsett 
County, Ark., was born in Northampton County. 
N. C. , in 1847, being the fourth of seven children 
born to William E. and Caroline E. (Long) Stan- 
cell, their births having occurred in North Caro- 
lina and Virginia, respectively. The father was a 
planter and merchant, and in 1854 came to Arkan- 
sas, and settled near the present town of Harris- 
burg, where he entered a timber tract, which he 
commenced improving, but only lived to conduct 
the work for two years, his death occurring in the 
month of October, 1856. His wife survived him 
until 1809, when she, too, was called to her long 
home. After the death of his father, L. E. Stan 
cell took the management of the home farm on his 
own shoulders, and although he was compelled to 
work hard, he managed to acquire a fair English 
education, in the district schools of the county. In 
January, 1861), he was married to Miss Lura A. 
Malone, who was born in Tennessee, and died in 
1870, and, after remaining a widower until 1881, 
Mr. Stancell wedded Miss Mittie O. Mitchell, also 
of Tennessee, and a daughter of M. A. Mitchell 
and wife, nee Hindman, natives of Tennessee, who 
came to Poinsett County. Ark., in 1856. The 
mother died in 1879, but the father is still living, 
and resides with Mr. Stancell. From 1872 to 
1880 Mr. Stancell was engaged in the grocery 
business, but at the latter date sold out, and has 
since given his attention to farming, bnt from 18S8 
to January, 1889, also conducted a grocery. This 
business he then gave up to assume the duties of 
sheriff. Socially, he is a member of Poinsett 
Lodge No. 184, of the A. F. & A. M., and of 
White Hall Lodge No. 77, of the I. O. O. F. He 
and wife are members of the Baptist Church, and 
are the parents of two children: Lola Elizabeth 
and Lela G. Mr. Stancell is a supporter of Dem- 
ocratic principles, and has held the office of justice 
of the peace for six years. In 1864 Mr. Stancell 
enlisted in Capt. W. G. Godfrey's company, and 
was afterward with Price on his raid through Mis- 
souri, but surrendered in May, 1865, and returned 
to Poinsett County, where, as stated above, he has 
since made his home. 

Thomas B. Steele, attorney, Harrisburg, Ark. 



Of the many prominent names that make up the 
strength of the Arkansas bar is that of Thomas 
B. Steele, who is a true type of the progressive, 
yet conservative, and cultured Arkansas man. He 
was born at Batesville, Independence County, Ark. , 
i on the 18th of April, 1855, and is one of seven 
children born to Rev. John M. and Narcissa 
(Brookfield) Steele, and grandson of Rev. Isaac 
Brookfield, who was originally from New Jersey, 
and was one of the pioneer preachers of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. He, with Rev. 
John M. Steele, was the founder of a great many 
churches of that denomination on Crowley's 
Ridge, their territory extending from Chalk Blnff 
to Helena. Rev. John M. Steele was born in 
Hardeman County, N. C, on the 2d of March, 
1810, and remained in his native State until 1836, 
when he moved to Arkansas, where, for a number 
of years, he spent his time as an itinerant preacher. 
He was without a permanent home until about 
1843, when he took for his second wife Miss Nar 
cissa Brookfield, a history of whose parents ap- 
pears in the church history of the counties trav- 
ersed by Crowley's Ridge. The seven children 
born to Rev. John M. Steele and wife are as fol 
lows: Mrs. Nancy J. Harris, residing in Bolivar 
Township; Rev. J. R., an elder in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, Texas; Mrs. Mary E. Dudley, 
who died in 1874. leaving three children; Mrs. S. 
Ann Keck, in Bolivar Township; Mrs. Martha C. 
Bettis; Thomas B. and James M., Jr., physician 
and surgeon at Weiner, Ark. Thomas B. Steele 
began in early life to assist on the farm and to at- 
tend the schools of Poinsett County. He attended 
the high school at Harrisburg, and finished in 
Arkansas College, at Batesville, in 1875. After 
this he began the study of Blackstone, under the 
tutelage of J. C. Brookfield, was admitted to the 
bar in 1878, and licensed to practice in the circuit 
and all inferior courts of the State. He at once 
located at Harrisburg, and has since been success- 
fully devoting himself to the practice of his pro- 
fession. On the 18th of September, 1887, he 
abandoned his single state, and was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Dora E. Guyer, a daughter of B. Y. 
and Mary A. (Bomar) Guyer, natives of New York 



-< 9 



^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



611 



and Tennessee, and of English and French descent, 
respectively. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
Steele occurred in the Lone Star State, where her 
parents were living at that time. One child has 
been born to thi.s union —Archie W., whose birth 
occurred on the Mist of August, 1888. Mr. Steele 
is the owner of about four acres in the oldest part 
of Harrisbnrg, and one business block on Main 
Str(>et. In addition to this, he is the owner of 
400 acres of timber land in Poinsett and Craighead 
Counties, with about fifteen acre.s undei' cultiva- 
tion. He votes with the Democratic party, and is 
quite active in politics, having made the canvass 
for representative in 1888, but was defeated by 
L. J. Collins. He takes a prominent part in all 
matters relating to education or for the public good. 
Dr. James M. Steele, physician and surgeon, 
Weiner. Ark. Dr. Steele is a son of the well- 
known pioneer. Rev. John M. Steele, and is the 
youngest in a family of seven children. He was 
born in Batesville, Independence County, Ark. , on 
the 25th of February, 1861, and his brothers and 
sisters are named as follows: Mrs. Jane Harris, 
wife of W. C. Harris, a farmer near Harrisburg; 
John E., a minister of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church at Meridian, Tex. ; Mrs. Mary Dudley, 
wife of N. P. Dudley, and who died in June, 
1876; Mrs. Ann Keck, wife of T. W. Keck, a 
farmer, living in Poinsett County; Mrs. Kate 
Battis. wife of J. W. Battis, a farmer near Harris- 
burg, and Thomas B. Steele, an attorney and 
counselor at law, at Harrisburg. Dr. James M. 
Steele's parents. Rev. J. M. and Narcissa (Brook- 
field) Steele, were among the earliest settlers of 
Crowley's Ridge. The father was born near 
Raleigh, N. C, in 1810, and received his educa- 
tion in that State and in Tennessee, having re- 
moved with his father to that State in 1824. He 
began life as a millwright, and in 1829 he was 
united in marriage to Miss Mary Seit, a native of 
Tennessee. Two children were the fruits of this 
union: A. C a farmer, who died from injuries re- 
ceived in the war, in 1865, leaving a wife and two 
children, and AVilliam M.. who died in 1881, leav- 
ing a family of five children. Rev. Steele lost 
his wife in Saline County, Ark., in 1832. He had 



moved there in 1830, and a short time after his 
wife's death was conv(>rtod and united with the 
Methodist Episcopal ('hurch. He immediately 
entered the ministry of the Arkansas Methodist 
Episcopal Conference, and began his notable life- 
work. His labors for the first four or five years 
were in Northwest and Southwest Arkansas, and 
after that time on Crowley's Ridge, in St. Fran 
cis County. He was there married, in 1848, to 
Miss Narcissa Brookfield, daughter of Rev. Isaac 
and Nancy Brookfield, and the same year he was 
sent by the conference to the Indian Territory, 
where he remained four years. He then returned 
to Batesville, Ark., and after this time his field was 
Crowley's Ridge, from Chalk Bluff to Helena and 
the Black River country. After startmg over fifty 
churches, this devout and truly Christian man 
closed his eyes to the scenes of this world in 1S81. 
Dr. James M. Steele attended the schools of 
Harrisburg, then Washington high school, in 
Independence County, and also attended one term 
at Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tenn. He 
began the study of medicine in 1876. under Dr. 
Beecher, and then spent several seasons as a drug 
clerk. In 1884 and 1885 he took a medical course 
in Memphis Hospital College, and in the last men 
tioned year began practicing at Weiner. Poinsett 
County, Ark., where he has l)uilt up a large and 
paying practice. He was married, on the 14th of 
March, 1886, to Miss Emma E. Mayer, daughter 
of Michael and Mary (Klaege) Mayer, natives of 
Germany. To the Doctor and wife was born one 
child, Austin G. , now a bright boy of six months. 
They lost one child, Edgar M. , at the age of three 
months. Dr. Steele owns eighty acres of land, 
twenty acres under cultivation, and in connection 
with his practice is engaged in farming and stock 
raising. He votes with the DiMuocratic party, hut 
is conservative. H(* is a member of the school 
board, and one of the leading men of the county. 
Mrs. Steele is a member of the Catholic Church. 
T. A. Stone, a gen(>ral merchant of Harris 
burg. Ark., carries a full line of hats, caps, cloth 
ing, boots and shoes, groceries, etc. , and although 
he has only been established in business here since 
November, 1883, he has built up a paying patron- 



M 



612 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



age. He is a native born resident of the county, 
his birth occurring in ]840, and he is the second 
of a family of seven children born to Robert H. 
and Emily (Shavei-j Stoue, the former a native of 
Sumner County, Tenn. , and the latter of Phillips 
(now Poinsett) County, Ark. Robert H. Stone came 
to the State of Arkansas when a young man of eight- 
een years (in 1839), and was the fourth county clerk, 
elected in 1846, holding the position nearly four- 
teen years. He was also sheriff of the county in 
1845-46, and at the time of his death, in 1859, he 
was tilling the position of county clerk. His es- 
timable wife survived him until 1870, when she, 
too, passed to her long home. T. A. Stone was 
reared to farm life, and received a fair education 
in the schools of his native county. He was mar- 
ried here in 1868, to Miss Mary Frances Goodwin, 
a native of Alabama, and a daughter of Peterson 
and Mary (Burt) Goodwin, also of that State, 
who came to Arkansas in the year 1856, both being 
now residents of the county. After his marriage 
Mr. Stone purchased a farm of 120 acres in Scott 
Township, it being partly improved at the time, 
and now has about fifty acres under cultivation. 
He has taken quite an active part in the political 
affairs of the county, and always votes with the 
Democratic party, and was elected on that ticket 
in 1886, to the office of county clerk, his term ex- 
piring in 1888. He is a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. , and he and wife belong to the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. Of an interesting 
family of four children born to them, two are now 
living: Albert Sidney and Minnie Lura. 

Samuel G. Stone, general merchant. Bay Vil- 
lage, Ark. In including, in this work, the sketches 
of prominent business men of Poinsett County, 
none are more deserving of recognition than 
that of Samuel G. Stone, who for a number of 
years has carried on an extensive mercantile 
establishment at Bay Village. He was born near 
Harrisburg, Ark. , December 23, 1859, and is the 
son of S. D. Stone, a native of Middle Tennessee, 
and a successful agriculturist. He was married 
in his native State, to Mrs. Matilda (Hall) Wilson, 
also a native of Middle Tennessee, and they soon 
afterward moved to Arkansas, and settled in Poin- 



sett County, where they passed the remainder of 
their lives. Both were members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Mrs. Stone had been married 
twice before; first, to William Stanford, by whom 
she had two children, Thomas and Lucinda, and 
then wedded Berry Fentrel, by whom she had one 
child, Richmond Fentrel. To her marriage with 
Samuel D. Stone were born two children: Robert 
A., a farmer, married, and residing near Harris- 
burg, and Samuel G., the subject of this sketch. 
The latter, like the ordinary country boy, received 
his education in the common schools, and started 
out in the world for himself at the age of eighteen. 
He began first by hauling logs and lumbering, 
which he continued for some time, and then was 
for a short time engaged in tilling the soil. In 
1882, he met and married Miss Ida L. Goodwin, 
daughter of Peterson and Mary A. (Bert) Good- 
win, natives of Virginia and North Carolina, re- 
spectively. Mr. Goodwin is one of the sturdy sons 
of toil, and is now residing in Poinsett County, 
Ark. To Mr. and Mrs. Stone were born the fol- 
lowing children: William (died at the age of three 
months); Lulu M., Mary Belle and Ollie P. In 
1884, Mr. Stone was elected constable, which posi- 
tion he held until 1886, when he was re-elected, and 
was also made marshal and deputy sheriff at the 
same time. In November, 1887, he engaged in mer- 
chandising at Bay Village, which he continued 
alone until February 1, 1888, when J. H. Van- 
diver bought an interest in the business, and they 
continued together until January 1, 1889. Mr. 
Stone then bought Mr. Vandiver out, and is now 
engaged alone in the business. He carries a gen- 
eral stock of goods, does a good business, and is 
in a prosperous condition. Aside from his store, 
he is the owner of 320 acres of land, and has one 
farm of 1 20 acres, well improved, and fifty-five acres 
under cultivation. This farm lies three miles east 
of Harrisbvirg, and another farm of eighty acres 
lies four miles east of Harrisburg, the latter all 
woodland. Another tract of timber land, 160 acres 
in all, lies si.K miles east of Harrisburg, and another 
eighty-acre tract lies on the Bijttom Belt road. In 
addition to this, Mr. Stone is the owner of six lots 
and one dwelling-house in Harrisburg. He has 



-7f 





Jacksqm County, Arkansas. 



-^ 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



ni3 



acquired all his property by his own industry, and 
deserves much credit for it. He and Mrs. Stone 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
to which he is a liberal contributor, as well as to 
all other worthy and laudable enterprises. 

Thomas B. Sparks, general merchant, Harris- 
burg, Ark. Thomas B. Sparks, the senior member 
of the well-known and thoroughly established firm 
of T. B. Sparks & Co., is a native of Middle Ten- 
nessee, where his birth occurred February 27, 1 840. 
His father, Thomas Sparks, was a farmer and 
trader by occupation, and was married in Virginia, 
to Miss Mary Booth. He moved to Arkansas in 
18r)U, and died near Jonesboro about 1878. Both 
he and wife were members of the church, he of 
the Methodist Episcopal, and she of the Baptist 
Church. Their childi'eu, ten in number, are as 
follows: Mrs. Sarah A. Stroud (residing near 
Jonesboro), Mary E. (widow of H. Parr, residing 
at Jonesboro), T. B., A. W. (a farmer, residing at 
Harrisburg, Ark.), W. M. (a traveling salesman 
for a wholesale clothing house, at Cincinnati), G. 
N. (merchant at Wynne, Ark.); the rest of the chil 
dren are deceased. Thomas B. Sparks began life 
for himself by entering the army, enlisting Febru- 
ary 17, 1S62. in Company A, Twenty third Arkansas, 
with J. D. HilHs, as captain. He took part in the 
disastrous battles of luka and Corinth, and was 
captured at Port Hudson, paroled and returned 
home. In the autumn of the same year he was 
exchanged, after which he entered the service in 
the same company and regiment, but cavalry. On 
the reorganization, his elder brothers, James E. 
and T. B. , were elected captain and lieutenant, re- 
spectively, of Company A, which position they 
each held until the close of the war. After enter- 
inc the cavalry, the subject of this sketch was in 
the White River campaign, but surrendered at 
Wittsburg, in July, 1865. After the termination 
of hostilities, he returned home, and engaged in 
tilling the soil for one year, after which he entered 
the employ of his l>rother. James E. Sparks, as 
clerk. In the year 1868 his marriage to Miss El- 
vira Harris was consummated. She is the daugh- 
ter of Capt. Benjamin and Martha (Thrower) 
Harris, who were among the earliest settlers of 



this county, and were the founders of the town of 
Harrisburg, which was named in their honor. Mr. 
Harris was a successful agricidturist, and figured 
prominently in the affairs of his county and State, 
holding the offices of representative, judge, and 
was also senator of the Twenty- ninth District of 
Poinsett, Jackson and Mississippi Counties. He 
was a Democrat in politics, and was a prominent 
Mason. Mr. Sparks continued to work as a sales- 
man until 1873, when he was elected clerk of the 
circuit court of Poinsett County, and was twice re- 
elected. He was defeated in 1S78, and subse- 
quently returned to mercantile work, which he 
continued until 1880, when he was elected sheriff 
and collector. He was twice reelected, thus plainly 
showing his efficiency as a puVilic man. and served 
in that office until 1886, since which time he has 
given his undivided attention to merchandising. 
He and Mrs. Sparks are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and are much respected by all 
who know them. He is a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. (being High Priest of the Chapter) and of 
the K. of H. He is a Democrat, and is active in his 
support of all schools, churches and public enter- 
prises generally. In January, 1887, the present 
firm of Sparks & Co. was formed, the individual 
members being T. B. Sparks and J. L. Smith. 
They carry a stock of goods valued at from $6,0(»() 
to $8,000, handle cotton and grain, and are doing 
the largest business of any firm in town. 

A. S. Thorn & Co. .general merchants. of Marked 
Tree, Ark. A. S. Thorn is an example of the suc- 
cess attending hard work and honest dealing, and 
his trade is solidly established and reaches over 
the surrounding country. They carry an excellent 
and select stock of general goods, and the l)uilding 
in which they do business is their own, and they 
also own a good fi-ame hotel. Their store was es 
tablished in 1886, and, as stated above, they art- 
doing a prosperous business. A. S. Thorn was 
born in York District, of South Carolina, in 18;-!-l. 
and is the third of a family of ten children born to 
Jesse and Frances (Miller) Thorn, who were born 
in South Carolina and North Carolina, respectively. 
The father was a planter, and in 1838 removed to 
the "Blue Grass State." and from there to Poin- 



A' 



614 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



sett County, in 1848, but entered land in Craij;- 
head County, and in 1874 moved to Jonesboro. 
where he lived a retired life until his death, in 
1875. He took considerable interest in local poli- 
tics, and, although originally a Whig, he afterward 
became a Republican. His wife's death preceded 
his by one year, she having borne him the follow- 
ing children: William Jasper, who in 1861 enlisted 
from Crittenden County, in Capt. Barton's regi- 
ment of cavalry, and while trying to capture a 
vessel, in 1862, was shot, dying a short time af- 
terward, in the month of April ; John Newton, an- 
other son, resides in Craighead County, and is en- 
gaged in farming; A. S., our subject; Mary, who 
died young; D. H. , who is married and resides in 
Jonesboro; Harvey J., who was killed in 1871 by 
a falling tree; Zilla, who died in 1864; Martha 
(Mrs. Hubbs) residing in Craighead County; Sarah 
(Mrs. Abraham Brown), also of that county, and 
Caledonia (Mrs. Gwinn), also residing there. A. 
S. Thorn received no educational advantages in 
his youth, but educated himself after reaching 
manhood. He began farming in Craighead Coun- 
ty, and was married there, in 1856, to Miss Ollie 
Owen, of Tennessee, but her death occurred the 
same year. He next wedded, in Poinsett County, 
Miss Nannie Bradsher, of Tennessee, their union 
taking place in 1859. She bore Mr. Thorn one 
child, Ida, and died in 1866. This daughter mar- 
ried a Mr. Hydrick, in 1882, and is living in Scott 
TownsLiip. In 1867 Mr. Thorn's third imion was 
consummated, his wife being Miss Amanda J. Mar- 
dis, of Alabama, and their marriage has resulted 
in the birth of three children: Willie N. , Ruth 
and Bessie Beatrice. In 1866 Mr. Thorn removed 
to Scott Township, and purchased a partially-im- 
proved farm of l,o50 acres, and put 250 acres 
under cultivation. He has since divided with his 
children, but still owns 150 acres there, all under 
cultivation. He remained on this farm until No- 
vember, 1884, when he moved to Little River 
Township, and the following year embarked in his 
present business, at which he is doing well. He 
had previously been engaged in the same enter- 
prise at Harrisburg, in 1872, the firm name being 
D. H. Thorn & Co., but at the end of eighteen 



months he sold his interest. He has a good farm 
of 320 acres, with about 120 acres under cultiva- 
tion, and gives considerable attention to raising 
stock. He read law while living in Scott Town- 
ship, and in 1872 was admitted to the bar, and 
since that time has practiced more or less. He is 
independent in his political views, and on the 13th 
of March, 1868, he was elected sheriff of Poinsett 
County, and served until the latter part of 1874. 
He is a member of Lodge No. 184 of the A. F. & 
A. M. , at Harrisburg, and in this order is a mem- 
ber of Poinsett Chapter, No. 77. He and wife be- 
long to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

A. W. Thornton has passed the uneventful life 
of the farmer, and has continued steadily to 
pursue ' ' the even tenor of his way, ' ' and is now 
classed among the prosperous farmers of Poinsett 
County. His birth occurred in Giles County, 
Tenn., in 1846, and he was the fifth of eight chil- 
dren born to Leecel and Sarah Jane (Austin) 
Thornton, the former born in South Carolina and 
the latter in Tennessee. The father was taken to 
Tennessee when a youth, and was there reared and 
educated, and made that his permanent home until 
his death, which occurred in 1888, his worthy wife 
still surviving him, and making her home in Ten- 
nessee. In early life he was a Whig in his politi- 
cal views, but later he became a Democrat. A. W. 
Thornton was initiated into the mysteries of farm 
life by his father, who was a successful agricul- 
turist, and received his early scholastic training in 
the district schools of Giles County. In 1862 he 
abandoned farm life for the time being to join 
the Confederate army, and was a member of Com- 
pany E, Thirty-second Tennessee Infantry, and 
was mustered into service at Murfreesboro, and 
afterward participated in the battles of Chicka- 
mauga, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain, 
and in 1864 received a gun-shot wound at Resaca, 
and was confined in the hospital at Forsyth, Ga., 
until fully recovered. He rejoined his company in 
August, 1864, and was again wounded by a gun- 
shot at Atlanta, Ga. , and was sent to the hospital 
where he had j)reviously been cared for, and was 
later taken to Cuthbert, Ga. In 1864, he again 
rejoined his command, and was with Hood on his 



>^ <j 



^k 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



filE 



campaign in Tennessee. After his return to his 
home in Giles County, he remained there until 
1871, when he came to Poinsett County, where he 
has since been engaged in farming and school-teach- 
ing, and in both these occupations has become well 
known. His farm comprises 160 acres, and since 
1883, he has cleared thirty acres and jiut them 
under cultivation. His property is well improved 
with good buildings and fences, and in addition to 
his f aim- work, his attention is given, to a considera- 
ble degree, to stock raising. He votes the Dem- 
ocratic ticket, but is not an active partisan. In 
1877 and 1878 he tilled the office of county assess- 
or, and is the present justice of his township, and 
is serving his fourth term. He is a patron of 
schools, and is a member of Harrisburg Lodge No. 
184, of the A. F. & A. M., and was secretary of his 
lodge for about two years. He has also filled that 
position for the I. O. O. F. , he being a member of 
White Hall Lodge No. 77. He is a member of 
the Agricultural Wheel. He was married in this 
county, in 1877, to Miss Harriet Frances Wright, 
and by her has four children: James Arthur, 
Thomas Jefferson, Leecel La Fayette and William 
Harvey. 

William Usery, blacksmith and farmer, Harris- 
burg, Ark. Tennessee has furnished to this county 
a number of representative men, and among them 
might be mentioned William Usery, who was born 
in Bedford County, of that State, in 1832. He is 
the son of Allen and F. Elizabeth (Johnson) Usery, 
both natives of North Carolina, and early settlers 
of Tennessee, to which State they emigrated in pio- 
neer times. They were members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. William Usery was brought 
up as an agriculturist, and it was but natural 
that he should permanently adopt that calling, as 
his life occupation; and this he has always fol- 
lowed. He received his education in the common 
schools of Tennessee, and at the age of eighteen 
years learned the blacksmith's trade, which he fol- 
lowed in connection with farming. In 1849 he 
came to St. Francis County, Ark. , and worked at 
his trade for two years. He was first married in 
1851, to Mrs. G. (Stephens) Fisher, and one child 
was born to this union, Frances, who is now the 



wife of William A. Garvey, and resides in Poinsett 
County, Ark. Mrs. Usery died in 1850, and in 
1859 Mr. Usery selected his second wife in the 
person of Mrs. lloxy (Franks) Casbeer, widow of 
Joseph Casbeer, who was a native of Tennessee, 
and a farmer by occupation. By her first marriage 
Mrs. Usery became th(i mother of three children: 
Jerusha A., widow of Frank Thiville, a farmer of 
St. Francis County, who died in 1880, leaving 
his widow and two children; Thomas and Chossley. 
Mrs. Usery is the daughter of Chessley and Jerusha 
(May) Franks, the former a local Methodist Epis- 
copal preacher of Tenne.sseo. Elder Franks came 
to Arkansas at a very early date, and here married 
Miss May, a member of one of the oldest families 
of Northeast Arkansas. Mrs. Usery is the fourth 
of eight children born to her parents, her birth oc- 
curring in St. Francis County, Ark., in 1829. 
She spent her school days in that county, and after 
her marriage to Mr. Usery, in 1859, they resided 
in St. Francis County for thirteen years. Mr. 
Usery engaged in blacksmithing and farming. In 
1872 he moved to Harrisburg and bought 4(50 acres 
of land, but has since sold some of this, and is now 
the owner of 300 acres adjoining the city, with 
about fifty acres under cultivation. He lives in the 
center of this, just across the corporation line. He 
has the best buildings, the largest orchard, l)ear- 
ing all kinds of fruit, and is considered one of the 
substantial men of the county. By his marriage 
were born two children: Florence, wife of a min- 
ister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and re 
siding in Texas, and Annis, wife of George Garvey, 
a merchant at Harrisburg. Mr. Usery and family 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and he is a Royal Arch Mason. He is also a 
member of the I. O. O. F. He and his excellent 
wife can relate some very interesting reminiscences 
of early times, how lumber was made with a whip- 
saw, how the clothing and boots and shoes were 
made by the old .settlers, and how Bolivar was at 
one time the county-seat. 

Jasj)er M. Vanhoozer, farmer and stock raiser, 
Harrisburg, Ark. Located in the midst of one of 
the finest agricultural centers of Poinsett County, 
the farm which Mr. Vanhoozer owns and occupies 






^=A 



616 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



is concodecl to be iimoiiy tlic lu'st ia the vicinity; 
and this is saying not a little, for on every hand 
may be seen superior farms, whose ownership de- 
notes thrift and prosperity, ilr. Vanhoozer lirst 
saw the light of day in Lincoln County, Tenn., 
where his birth occurred on the 7th of September, 
IS 45. His parents, Jacob and Mary (Ketchum) 
Yanhoozer, were natives of Tennessee, and the 
father was one of the pioneers of Middle Tennes- 
see. He was a participant of one of the Indian 
Wars, and died in the year 1846, on the 26th of 
September. They were members of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church, and much respected citizens.. 
The mother, after surviving the death of her hus- 
band for about twenty-seven years, died in 1873. 
They were the parents of four children, two sisters 
and Jasper N. now living. One sister, Gestin, 
married Joseph Birdwell, and now resides in the 
Lone Star State. The other sister, Fenton, is the 
wife of Jesse Hardgrove, and resides near the old 
homestead, in Tennessee. Jasper M. Vanhoozer 
received a fair education in the common schools of 
Tennessee, and at the age of seventeen years, he 
left the farm of his father and enlisted in the Con- 
federate army, in Comi)any A, Forrest's Cavalry, 
and participated in the skirmish at Athens and 
Corinth. After the last named battle, Mr. Van- 
hoozer re-enlisted in Company E, Thirty-second 
Tennessee Infantry, under Gen. Hood, and was in 
the battles of Franklin, Nashville and Murfrees- 
boro. He was wounded at Port Hindman, in 1863, 
and at Murfreesboro, in 1864. Here his services 
ended, as he never regained his health sufficiently 
to return. After cessation of hostilities, he re- 
turned to Tennessee, and engaged in tilling the 
soil, which industry he has since carried on. By 
his marriage, which occurred in June, 1867, to 
Miss Susan Darnell, he became the father of four 
children, two now living: Nancy Ann, wife of 
Charles Presley, a farmer now living in Tennessee, 
and Benjamin Lewis, a farmer, unmarried, and 
residing in Poinsett ('ounty. Mrs. Vanhoozer was 
the daughter of James and Susan (Merrill) Darnell, 
natives of Tennessee. In 1869, Mr. Vanhoozer 
and family moved to Poinsett County, Ark. , and 
here purchased forty acres of partially improved 



hind. He has added to this tract from time to time, 
until he now has 270 acres on Crowley's Ridge, 
with about sixty-five acres under cultivation. He 
also has 20Q acres in St. Anguille Bottom, and is 
improving the same; has twenty-seven acres under 
cultivation. He rents land for cotton. Mr. Van- 
hoozer votes with the Democratic party, but is con- 
servative in politics. Mrs. Vanhoozer died in 1883, 
and in the same year Mr. Vanhoozer was married 
to Miss Sarah Hall, daughter of Newton G. and 
Sarah J. E. (Robertson) Hall, natives of Missis- 
sippi. By this anion Mr. Vanhoozer became the 
father of the following children: Leana C. , James 
L. and Sarah A. Mr. Vanhoozer is an honored 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and holds mem- 
bership in Harrisbui-g Lodge No. 184, and was 
treasurer of that lodge for a number of years. He 
is a member of White Hall Lodge No. 77, I. O. 
O. F. , and is at present treasurer of that society. 
He has served as school director a number of years, 
and has always taken an active interest in and 
given his support to all enterprises for the good of 
the community, and is one who believes in pro- 
gressive farming. 

B. F. Webber is one of the successful agricul- 
turists of this region, and as such deserves honor- 
alile mention among these pages. He was born on 
Blue Grass soil in 1839, and was the fifth of nine 
children born to F. X. Webber, who was a native 
German. The father came to the United States 
when young, and was married in Kentucky' to Arti- 
missa Ellen Hays, who was a native of that State. 
In 1851 they removed to St. Francis County, Ark., 
and from here Mr. Webber enlisted in the Rebel 
army service, in 1862, and died the following year. 
B. F. Webber was initiated into the mysteries of 
farming in early youth, and received a fair English 
education in the schools of St. Francis County. 
In 1863 he came to Poinsett County. Ark., and 
was married here, in 1869, to L. C. Calvert, a 
native of Phillips County, Ark., who came here 
with her parents at a very early day. Both her 
father and mother are now deceased. After his 
marriage Mr. Webber settled on a farm iieai- where 
Tyronza is now situated, and here made his home 
until 1880, when he purchased 160 acn^s of unim- 






'.iL 



POINSETT COUNTY. 



017 



proved land, and now has about fifty acres under 
cultivation, and has his farm nicely improved, with 
good residence and out buildings. He has in- 
creased bis acreage to 200, and this he devotes 
principally to raising cotton, also giving consider 
able attention to stock. Mr. Webber is a Demo- 
crat, a member of the Agricultural Wheel, and he 
and wife and children (L. C, Nettie Ann and 
Laura Rozella) are in communion with the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church. The following are their 
children: Laura Kozella, William Bedford, Nettie 
Ann, Edna, Charles, Franklin, Katie Nora, Ed- 
ward Lee, James A., Lonnie, Toney and Thomas. 
Mr. Webber and his family have enjoyed excep- 
tionally good health since locating here, and they 
consider it an extremely healthy locality, as well I 
as a fine farming region, never having had to call i 
in a doctor. 

Hon. N. J. Willis, farmer, Harrisburg, Ark. 
The name that heads this sketch is borne by one of 
the most highly respected and esteemed residents 
of Poinsett County. Let a man be industriously 
ambitious, and honorable in his ambitions, and he 
will ri.se. whether having the prestige of family or 
the obscurity of poverty. Mr. Willis was born in 
Caswell County, N. C, on the 31st of January, 
1835, but attained his growth in Tennessee. His 
parents, John T. and Elizabeth (Ward) Willis, 
were also natives of North Carolina. The father 
was a thorough going, industrious farmer, and 
an active member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
held the office of junior warden in that organiza 
tion sevei'al years. He was a Democrat in politics, 
and he and wife were members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. Their family consisted of six 
children: George W., died in the army in 18(58, 
was a farmer of White County, Ark. ; Mary, wife 
of a farmer living in Cross County, Ark. ; Flora 
A., wife of James Maloney, a farmer of Illinois; 
Nancy, wife of Capt. J. M. LeVesque, county 
clerk, and the largest farmer in Cross County, Ark. ; 
Sarah, died in 1804, and was the wife of Samuel 
Allen. N. J. Willis, the fourth child in order of 
birth, spent his boyhood days in Tennessee, when 
school op|)ortunities were very limited. DiU'ing 
that time his vocation was farming, and at odd 

39 



times he was busy over his books, of which lie was 
very fond. At the age of twenty he began work- 
ing for himself, and then spent a year in school 
to Prof. Phillips, near Somerville, Tenn. The 
next year, 1850, he came with ('apt. LeVesque, to 
Poinsett (now Cross) County, Ark., and followed 
agricultural pursuits for two years. In 1857 he 
married Miss Nancy Shannon, daughter of Archi- 
bald and Nancy (Allen) Shannon, the former a 
native of Tennessee. To Mr. and Mrs. Willis 
were born five children (two of whom are living): 
John T. died in infancy; Thomas J. died at the 
age of seventeen; James M. died at the age of 
four years; Samuel H. , a farmer and miller, 
now resides with his father, and Ollie A., who is 
now thirteen years of age, is at home. Judge 
Willis lived in Poinsett County (now Cross), until 
1875, and then moved to Poinsett County proper. 
In 1874 he was elected justice of the peace, and 
in 1879 was elected county judge, serving one 
term. In 1881 he was elected representative, and 
re-elected to the same position in 1883, thus 
showing his popularity with the ))ub!ic. In 1886 
he engaged in ginning and milling, and the same 
year moved to Harrisburg, but continued to super- 
intend his farm. He is the owner of 828 acres of 
land in Poinsett County, besides two lots with 
good houses on them, and the gin and mill at Har- 
risburg. In March, 1802, he enlisted in the Con- 
federate army, Capt. Joe Martin's Thirteenth Ar- 
kansas Infantry (mounted), and in 1863 was pro- 
moted to the rank of lieutenant of Company C, 
which position he held until the war closed. He 
was in the battles of Greeneville, Helena, and went 
with Gen. Price in his raid through Missouri and 
Arkansas. He left the main army at Fort Smith, 
and operated on White River until 1864, when he 
joined the main army at Camden, and continued 
with the same until the surrender at Wittsburg, 
Ark., in 1865. He served his county and State in 
the most acceptable manner during the war, but 
has rendered it even more valuable service, not 
only as a reliable public official, but as an indus- 
trious farmer and lawaliiding citizen. He is now 
living in comparative retirement. He is a member 
of the Masonic order, also the K. of H. , and in 



M'. 




his views affiliates with the Democratic party. 
He and Mrs. Willis are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, in which he has held the office 
of class-leader, has also been superintendent of 
the Sunday-school, and he is a liberal contributor 
to all laudable enterprises. 

John R. Willis, postmaster of Buffalo Lick, Ark. , 
has held the position he now occupies for the ])ast 
six years, and has ably discharged the duties in- 
cumbent upon the office. He was born in Oldham 
County, Ky. , in 1837, but received his education in 
Saline County, Mo., and up to the age of eighteen 
years was an attendant at the district schools, and 
was engaged in farm labor on the old homestead. 
After attaining the above mentioned age he entered 
the employ of Majs. Russell & Wardell, being 
master of a wagon train leaving Leavenworth for 
any given point in the far West. After remaining 
in the Government employ for about seven years 
he, in 1862, joined the Eighteenth Mississippi Cav- 
alry, commanded by Col. Jenkins, and was in the 
battles of Franklin, Nashville and Fort Pillow, and 
in other minor engagements, serving until hostili- 
ties ceased, when he was paroled at Memphis, Tenn. 
He was captured three times, one time being 
taken prisoner at Holly Springs, Miss., by the 
Seventh Kansas Regiment, of which W. F. Cody, 
better known as Buffalo Bill, was a member, the 
latter having been in his employ while he was a 
teamster in the West. Mr. ^\'illis was engaged 
in farming in Cross County, Ark., until 1879, 
when he crossed to Poinsett County, Ark., and 
here has since made his home, his farm of 200 
acres being finely improved, with good buildings, 
fences, etc. , and 100 acres are under cultivation. 
He also operates a steam cotton-gin, and raises some 
stock. He is independent in his political views, 
but usually votes the Democratic ticket. He has 
held the office of magistrate, and for many years 
has been an active worker for the cause of temper- 
ance. He is a patron of education, is a member 
of the school board, and also belongs to the board 
of equalization. He is a Mason, being a member 
of Arcadian Lodge, at Vanndale, Cross CoiTnty, and 
also belongs to the Agricultural Wheel. He was 
married, in Cross County, Ark., in 1872, to Miss 



Mary Harvey, a native of Shelby County, Tenn. . 
and to their union six children have been born: 
Lillian, Lewis, Henry X., Mary, Ethel and Edna. 
Mr. Willis is the youngest of eleven children born to 
Lewis and Polly (Ryle) Willis, the former a native 
of Virginia, and the latter of North Carolina. They 
settled on a farm in Boone County, Ky. , at an 
early day, and in 1835 moved to Oldham County, 
where the mother died in 1845. In 1848 Mr. 
Willis settled in Saline County, Mo. , where he 
farmed and made his home until his death, in 1850. 
J. B. Wilson is possessed of those advanced 
ideas and progressive principles regarding agricult- 
ural life which seem to be among the chief char- 
acteristics of native Tennesseeans. He was born 
in Shelby County, of that State, in 1829, and is 
the elder of two children Ijorn to John B. and Mary 
Ann (Cowan) AVilson, who were also Tennesseeans. 
The father followed the trade of cabinet-making 
until his death, which occurred in Middle Tennes- 
see, in 1833, but his widow survived him until 
1874, dying in Poinsett County. Ark. The early 
advantages received by our suliject were such as 
usually fall to the farmer's laoy, and at the early 
age of fourteen years, owing to the death of his 
father, he was compelled toput his shoulder to the 
plow, in order to assist in the support of his wid- 
owed mother. He was married in Tennessee, in 
1857, to Miss Mary Houston, a native of Tennes- 
see, and a niece of Gen. Sam Houston. Her par- 
ents, John and Martha (Gillespie) Houston, were 
Tennesseeans, her grandfathers having been among 
the earliest settlers of that State from Virginia. 
J. B. Wilson removed to Poinsett County, Ark., in 
1857, and located in Greenfield Township, where 
he purchased a partially improved farm, consisting 
of 179 acres, and now has eighty acres under culti- 
vation, which he devotes to cotton and corn. By 
his wife, who died in 1873. he became the father 
of seven children, three now living: Mary L. (Mrs. 
Bennett, residing in Craighead County), David B. 
and Ida. In 1874 Mr. Wilson married Mrs. Mary 
Jane (Wilkison) Kelsoe, she having been born in 
the State of Alabama, but was reared in Poinsett 
County. Six of their seven children are living: 
Ellen, Eland, Thomas Payne, Robert Ingersoll, 



n- 



1^ 




Joe Voltaire and Andy Bradlaw. In December, 
1861, Mr. WilsoQ went to Decatur, Macon County, 
111., anil was there engaged in gathering supplies, 
for the Union Army. The following year he went 
to Memphis, Term., and from that time until 1865 
he was on the city police force. In the latter year 
he returned to Poinsett County, where he has 
since made his home. Although not a politician, 
he votes with the Republican party, and has advo- 
cated its principles alone and single-handed at all 
times, and was one of two men of Arkansas who 
voted for Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency, in 
1865. He has always advocated the building and 
sustaining of good schools, and has for many years 
been a member of the school board in his district. 
He has been a Mason since 1850. He is also a 
member of the Agricultural A\'heel. He has ever 
contributed liberally for the support of every en- 
terprise for the building up of the county, and is 
considered one of its good citizens. 

J. L. Wright, one of Poinsett County's repre- 
sentative farmers and stockmen, was born on Blue 
Grass soil in 1836, being the second of four 
children of Joseph and Sarah (Ford) Wright, who 
were also natives of that State, to which the 
paternal grandfather had moved at a very early 
day. Joseph Wright removed to Arkansas in 
1842, and settled in Greenfield Township, where, 
in 1848, he entered the land on which he had first 
squatted, comprising 160 acres, and commenced 
making improvements, and here made his home 
until his death, which occurred August 19, 1876. 
He was a member of the Masonic Lodge of 
Harrisburg, and was a man whom all esteemed 
and respected. His excellent wife passed from 
this life in 1852. J. L. Wright in assistintj his 
father in clearing the home farm, became familiar 
with the duties of agricultural life, and after ac 
quiring a fair education in the old sulsseription 
schools of Poinsett County, he, at the age of twenty 
years, started out to fight the battle of life for 
himself. He was married in 1S57 to Miss Jane 
Ishmet, a native of St. Frauds County, and a 
daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Lane) Ishmet, 
who were born in Illinois and Tennessee, respect- 
ively. They removed from the former State to 



Poinsett County, Ark., during the early history of 
this region, and also made their home in Greene 
County. The father's death occurred many years 
ago, but the mother is .still living and makes 1km- 
home with her daughter, Mrs. Wright. After 
his marriage, Mr. Wright settled on the farm 
where he now lives, and in 1861 enlisted from here 
for three years in Capt. Hillis' company, and was 
assigned to the Fifteenth Arkansas regiment, but 
was honorably discharged a short time after. He 
then volunteered in Capt. Kitchens' regiment, and 
was a participant in the battle of Little Rock. At 
the close of the war he returned to Poinsett Coun- 
ty, and has since devoted his energies to putting 
his farm in good tillable condition. His first pur- 
chase of laud was in 1858, and consisted of forty 
acres, but by his own good management and energy 
he now owns 660 acres, with over 200 acres under 
cultivation, which constitutes one of the finest 
farms in the county. He makes a specialty of 
raising a good grade of Durham cattle and Berk- 
shire and Poland-China hogs, and in all his views 
he is progressive and enterprising. He is not an 
active politician, but usually votes the Democrat 
ticket, and socially is a member of Harrisburg 
Lodge No. 184, of the A. F. & A. M. He is one 
of the oldest members of the Christian Church, 
his wife also belonging to that church; and not in 
church matters alone has ho been active, for he 
has always been interested in the progress and ad- 
vancement of schools, and was instrumental in 
organizing the district in which he resides. His 
children are as follows: James J., who died in 
1858; Harriet Frances (Mrs. Thornton), Eliza 
Jane, Mary Etta Gertrude (Mrs. Smith), Sarah 
Ellen, Jennie Kate, Joseph William, Julia, James 
Charley and Lou Oilie (twins), the latter of whom 
died in 1879 at the age of fen months; and Ida 
Lou. Mr. Wright's brothers and sisters are: John 
J., who was married, served in the late war, and 
died in 1872; J. L. , Jasper, who married, and is a 
resident of the county; Elizabeth, who was the 
wife of James Wilson, and died in 1869; Malvina, 
now Mrs. McBroom, a resident of Harrisburg; 
and Joseph H. , who is married and resides in Boli 
var Township. 



A 



<S w_ 



-^ 9 J 



620 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Jasper Wright. The life of this gentleman 
has been rather an uneventful one, but clearly dem- 
onstrates how much can be accomplished and ac- 
quired under the most unfavorable circumstances. 
He was born in Barren County, Ky., in 1840, and, 
after assisting his father on the home farm until 
twenty-seven years of age, he began doing for 
himself, but dropped his farming implements in 
1861 to enlist in the Crittenden Rangers, a cavalry 
company organized in Crittenden County, Ark. ; 
and was in the battles of Chickamauga, Corinth 
and Knoxville. He was paroled at Chester, S. O. , 
in 1805, and returned to Poinsett County, which 
place has since been his home. He was married 
here, in 1867, to Miss Martha Jane Huston, a Ten- 
nesseean by birth, but her death occurred in 1875, 
she having borne a family of four children; Har- 
riet Jane (Mrs. Albright) and John William are 
the only ones now living. The following year Mr. 
Wright wedded Miss Laura Stevens, a Georgian, 
by whom he became the father of two children 
— Elizabeth and Bessie —but he was called upon to 
mourn her death in 1884. His next matrimonial 
venture was in 1885, his wife's maiden name be- 
ing Josephine McClellan; she was born in Tennes- 
see, and to them has been given one child, Lloyd 
D. In 1868 Mr. Wright purchased a timber 
tract of eighty acres, but sold it in 1879, and pur- 
chased another tract consisting of the same num 
ber of acres. He has added eighty acres to this, 
and has lifty acres under cultivation. He has 
always voted the Democratic ticket, and has served 
as justice of the peace for some years, and in 1886 
was elected county and probate judge, serving two 
years. Socially, he is a member of the Agricultu- 
ral Wheel, and also belongs to Harrisburg Lodge 
of the A. F. & A. M. He and wife are worthy 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
is one of five children born to Joseph and Sarah 
(Ford) Wright, natives of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, respectively. In 1844 they removed to 
Poinsett County, Ark. , and here spent the rest of 
their lives, the father's death occurring in 1876, 
and the mother's in 1854. 

W. L. Wright. Not without justice, Mr. Wright 
is conceded to hold a representative position among 



the prominent and successful agriculturists of Poin- 
sett County, for he started out in life for himself 
at the age of twenty-one years with no means, and 
is now the owner of 240 acres, with about thirty- 
live acres under the plow. He was born near 
Helena, Ark. , in 1848, and his youth was spent in 
assisting on the home farm and in attending the 
public schools of St. Francis County. He removed 
to Illinois with his parents, but returned to Crit- 
tenden County, and was married here November 
15, 186y, his wife being Miss Arena Johnson, a na- 
tive of that county. After raising four crops in 
Crittenden County, he, in 1872, went to Macoupin 
County, 111., and after taking charge of his father's 
farm for three years he settled in Mississippi 
County, and engaged in farming. In the month of 
March, 1880, he came to Poinsett County, Ark., 
and first purchased a farm of forty acres. This 
he sold at a later period, and bought eighty acres, 
and has added to it until he now has 240 acres, as 
stated above. He is a Democrat in his political 
views, and for the past eight years has given his 
attention to pastoral work, he being a member of 
the Missionary Baptist Church. He has three 
charges in Mississippi County, one at Frenchman's 
Bayou, one at Cross Bayou, and the other at New 
Hope. Last year he was pastor of a church at 
Philadelphia, Crittenden County. He is a public- 
spirited citizen, and is deeply interested in the 
cause of education, having given his children such 
advantages as he could afford. Their names are: 
Clara Idella, Mattison McMullen, Maud Jane, Bed- 
ford Whitfield and Milton Edward. Mr. Wright 
has noticed many changes for the better since 
locating in this vicinity, and, judging from a moral 
and Christian standpoint, the county is rapidly im- 
proving. Mr. Wright numbers the fifth of his 
parents' nine children. Both his father and mother, 
W. I. and Jane (Gazell) Wright, were born in 
Kentucky, were married there, and in 1845 re- 
moved to Arkansas, and up to the year 1853 the 
father was a Baptist minister of Phillips County. 
At the latter date he removed to St. Francis Coun- 
ty, but returned to the former county in 1861, 
remaining two years. From that time until 1867 
he resided on a farm in Poinsett County, and his 



!<£ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



621 



next move was to Macoupin County, 111., and after 
living in the town of Girard for three years he 
purchased a farm, on which he resided until his 



death, in February, 1875. His wife still survives 
him, and is now a Mrs. Sims, whose residence is 
in Raymond, 111. 



"»-*—♦ — »*« — » !< ■ 



;ifiifSc^ XXII. 



■ > ♦ < ■ 



Independence County— Formation and Organization— Public Structures— Catalogue of Offi- 
cials — The Franchise— Administration of Law— The Coming of the Pioneers— Location of 
the County— Its Water Courses— Numerous Personal and Business Sketches— Timber 
AND Mines— Lands and Crops— Census Returns— Railroads— Religious Growth 
—Towns— Popular Instruction— War Record— Facts and Statistics. 



In ancient times the sacred plow employ'd 

The kings and awful fathers of mankind, 

And some * * have held the scale of empire 

Then, * * with unwearied hand, * * * 

Seized the plow, and greatly independent lived. — Thomson. 




*HE county of Independence 
was organized in accord- 
ance with the provisions of 
an act of the legislature 
of Arkansas Territory, ap- 
proved October, 20, 1820. 
As then organized it em- 
braced much territory which has 
since, from time to time, been cut 
off and included in other counties 
as they were formed. Originally 
it composed a part of Lawrence 
.SV) County. 
i \-f^ 1'^^ town of Batesville having 
^r^ been established prior to the organ- 
">«r_. ization of the county, and being 
centrally located, as well as enjoy- 
ing the advantages of a navigable river, was chosen 
as the seat of justice, and as such still continues. 
The first coui-t-house, a brick structure, was erected 
in 1821 , close to the bank of White River, and above 



the mouth of the bayou, on the public square, as 
shown by the town plat. The present court-house, 
which stands on block 15, at the comer of Broad 
and Main Streets, was erected in 1857 by Messrs. 
J. H. Peel and J. E. Wamac, at a cost of $10,000. 
It is a plain two-story brick building, with six 
rooms on the first floor, and court-room, jury and 
witness-rooms on the second. It has a wooden 
tower containing a town clock. The Paul Jail 
Company, of St. Louis, Mo., is now repairing the 
two-story stone residence of the jailer, and complet 
ing a new jail attached, for the contract price of 
$7,500. It stands on the opposite side of the same 
block on which the court-house is located, the jail 
proper having seven cells for prisoners. 

The county has a poor farm and asylum for 
the use of the paupers. It is six miles northeast 
of Batesville, and has good buildings, and about 
fifty acres under cultivation. The county furnishes 
food and clothing for the indigent, the superintend- 
ent caring for them for the use of the farm. 



f 



\ 



Aj 



f)22 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1832-36 
1838-44 
1848-54 
1856-58 
1862-64 
1866-68 
1872-74 



1836-42 
1847-52 
18r6-60 
1862-64 
1866-68 
1872-74 
1876-82 



The following is a list of names of county 
officers of Independence County from its organiza- 
tion, with date of their terms of service: 

County judges: James Boswell, 1829-32; 
Richard Peel, 1832-40; D. W. Lowe, 1840-44; 
John Kyler, 1844-46; John Mannikin, 1846-48; 
D. W. Lowe, 1848-54; J. C. Brickey, 1854-56; 
N. Peed, 1856-64; H. Hogan, 1864-66; G. W. 
Shaw, 1866-68; H. Hogan, 1868-72; commission- 
ers, 1872-74; Henry Neill, 1874-76; W. M. Steel, 
1876-78; S. A. Hail, 1878-80; W. M. Steel, 
1880-82; R. H. Griffin, 1882-80; A. J. Craig, pres- 
ent incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Clerks: R. Searcy, 1820-21: T. Curran, 
1821-27; J. Redmond, 1827-32; C. H. Pelham, 
William Moore, 1836-38; C. H. Pelham, 

D. W. Lowe, 1844-48; W. R. Miller, 
R. R. Kellogg, 1854-56; Henry Powell, 
J. A. Price, 1858-62; M. A. Wycough, 

R. Harpham, 1864-06; Robert Neill, 
R. Harpham, 1868-72; W. H. Berry, 

E. M. Dickinson, 1874-86; M. A. Wy- 
cough, present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Sheriffs: Charles Kelly, 1820-32; J. Egner, 
1832-35; J. H. Egner, 1835-36; H. A. Engles, 
W. L. McGuire, 1842-47; A. Alexander, 
U. E. Foot, 1852-56; G. W. Daugherty, 
John Bailey, 1800-62; Dan James, 
John Palmer, 1864-06; F. D. Denton, 
J. J. Palmer, 1868-72; J. W. Kennedy, 
John Bailey, 1874-76; R. R. Case, 
R. M. Desha, 1882-86; McCurdy Hail, 
present incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Treasurers: J. H. Egner, 1836-40; S. B. Wy- 
cough, 1840-50; B. Lee, 1850-54; G. W. Dough- 
erty, 1854-56; Thomas Womack, 1856-58; R. 
Harpham, 1858-60; T. Chaplain, 1860-64; Frank- 
lin Perrin, 1866-68; J. Van Emberg, 1868-72; J. 
H. Foster, 1872-74; B. F. Howard, 1874-80; R. 
H. Lee, 1880-86; J. A. Hinkle, 1886-88; L. C. 
Lindsay, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Coroners: John Reed, 1820-21; John Bean, 
1821-23; J. L. Daniels, 1823-27; John Ruddell, 
1827-29; A. Cresswell, 1829-30; Robert Bruce, 
1830-32; J. Carroll, 1832-35; J. Merri weather, 
1835-36; C. McArthul, 1836-38; H. W. Bandy, 



1838-40; W. W. Baltimore. 1840-42; George 
Case, 1842-48; William O" Conner, 1848-52: Mar- 
tin Cason, 1852-54; G. M. Miniken (or Minni- 
kin), 1854-56; William O'Conner, 1856-58; H. 
Blevins, 1858-60; J. Thomas, 1860-62; J. Bethel, 
1862-64; S. J. McGuffin, 1866-68; Charles Caw, 
1868-72; W. R. Joplin, 1872-78; C. B. Grig.sby, 
1878-80; C. D. McCormack, 1880-S2; K. E. Law- 
rence, 1882-84; Kent Lawrence, 1884-86; W. S. 
McGuire, 1886-88; J. L. Ellis, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Surveyors: C. H. Pelham, 1827-30; J. Trim- 
ble, 1830-35; E. Frazier, 1835-40; Samuel Wel- 
din, 1840^2; A. Bowman, 1842-44; A. Manning, 
1844-46; George Gill, 1846-48; T. S. Carter, 
1848-52; J. Ireland, 1852-56; E. D. Rushing, 
1856-58; C. P. Head, 1858-60; Robert Neill, 
1860-62; Z. D. Bozart, 1862-64; James Grisham, 
1864-66; J. S. Carter, 1866-68; J. S. Smith, 
1868-72; J. M. C. Southard, 1872-76; W. A. 
Hill, 1876-78; J. M. C. Southard, 1878-82; John 
Hindman, 1882-88; G. M. Thompson, present in- 
cumbent, elected in 1888. 

Assessors: W. H. Grigsby, 1862-64; E. D. 
Rushing, 1864-66; R. H. Lee, 1866-68; T. A. 
Baxter, 1868-72; E. C. Patchell, 1872-74; D. R. 
Ford, 1874-76: William Taylor, 1876-82; T. B. 
Padgett, 1882-84; Thomas Owens, 1884-86; C. 
H. Webb, 1886-88; Josiah Martin, present incum- 
bent, elected in 1888. 

Delegates in constitutional conventions: 1836, 
John Ringgold and Townseud Dickinson: 1861, 
M. S. Kennard, U. E. Fort and F. W. Desha; 
1864, C. C. Bliss; 1868, Peter G. Misner and 
George W. Dale; 1874, J. W. Butler and J. 
Rutherford. Peyton Tucker represented Inde- 
pendence County in the council of the Second 
Territorial legislature, in 1821, and J. Ringgold 
represented Independence and Jackson Counties 
in the senate of the First State legislature; at the 
same time T. Dickinson representing Independence 
County in the house. 

The political aspect of the county may be in- 
ferred from the votes cast for the several candi- 
dates at the last State and Presidental elections, 
which were as follows: September election, 1888, 



A 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



623 



for governor, James P. Eagle (Dom.), 2,012; C. 
M. Norwood (Com. Opp.), 2,051; for secretary of 
State, B. B. Chism (Dem.), 2,002; George W. 
Terry (Com. Opp.), 2,050; Presidential election, 
1888, Cleveland (Dem.), 1,789; Harrison (Rep.), 
324; Streeter(U. L.), 1,220; Fisk (Prohibition), 36. 

As the county was created October 20, 1820, 
it is most likely that the lirst session of court was 
held in the latter part of that year or early in the 
year following; but no record of any court appears 
on tile until the " ' Common Pleas ' ' court convened 
at Batesville on Monday, November lU, 1821, 
with Judges Richard Pee] and William Moore, 
presiding. This court assumed jurisdiction over 
all business, including county, probate and crim- 
inal affairs. So far as the record shows, this 
was the last term of the common pleas court. The 
same volume of records immediately following the 
last proceeding of the above shows that in Janu- 
ary, 1822, the Hon. Richard Searcy, judge of the 
First judicial district, appeared and produced his 
commission as such, and opened the first term of 
the circuit court at Batesville. A grand jury was 
then chosen, and sworn to perform their duties, 
and Thomas Dickinson was appointed prosecuting 
attorney for the term. This court had jurisdiction 
now over all kinds of business, and was the only 
court held until 1829, when the county court was 
created by the legislature. 

Judge Searcy presided over the circuit court 
until November, 1825, when he was succeeded by 
Judge James Woodson Bates. The first term of 
the county court began April 5, 1830. with James 
Boswell, judge presiding. 

The circuit court now belongs to the Third 
judicial district, composed of the counties of 
Jackson, Lawrence. Stone, Randolph, Independ- 
ence and Sharp, with Judge J. W. Butler, of Bates- 
ville, presiding, and J. L. Abernethy, of Evening 
Shatle. as prosecuting attorney. The sessions of this 
coui't are held in Independence County, commenc- 
ing on the first Monday of January and July of 
each year. The sessions of the county court begin 
on the first Mondays of January, April, July and 
October, and the probate court the first Mondays of 
Februarv. Mav. .\ugust and November. 



The legal bar of Independence County is com- 
posed of the following named attorneys: H. S. 
Coleman, J. C. Yancey, Robert Neill, W. A. Bev- 
ens, J. J. Barnwell, Ex. -Gov. Elisha Baxter, Sam- 
uel Peete, W. B. Padgett, Charles Bourne, J. C. 
Bone and W. B. Ruddell. 

Independence County has been comparatively 
free from the perpetration of the grosser crimes. 
Since the Civil War there has been only one exe- 
cution for the crime of murder committed here — 
the hanging of Jesse Kemp for the mui'der of Mar- 
ion Hulsey. He was tried on a change of venue 
and executed in Sharp County. Another person 
suffered capital punishment in the county for a 
murder committed elsewhere. 

French traders and trappers ascended White 
River long before the permanent settlement of the 
country traversed by it began. A party of these 
people encamped and hunted bear in the region 
now known as Oil Trough Bottom, in Independ- 
ence County. Here they slew many bear, from 
which they rendered the oil, filled their barrels 
and had a surplus left. This letter was put into 
wooden troughs and left in the camp, the intention 
probably being to return for it. However, no one 
called, and the oil spoiled in the troughs. Hence 
the name Oil Trough Bottom. These traders and 
hunters left many marks of their travels at various 
places up and down the river, which were plainly 
visible to the pioneer settlers. Not a few of the 
streams and other natural objects were named by 
the French and Spaniards. . 

The permanent settlement of this territory is 
believed to have commenced about the year 1810, 
or perhaps a little earlier. John Reed located at 
the site of Batesville in 1812. Samuel Miller, of 
Tennessee, came in 1813, and subsequently settled 
on the creek that bears his name in this county. 
Col. Robert Bean ran the first keel-boat up White 
River and established himself at the mouth of Polk 
Bayou (Batesville) in 1814. James Micham settled 
near the same place in the same year. In 1817, 
James Trimble and his family, including Jackson 
S. Trimble, who now lives at Sulphur Rock, and 
who was then a small child, came from Kentucky 
and chose a location five miles southwest of Bates- 



6 "V 



A 



624 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



ville. Col. Hartwell Boswell, John H. Einggold, 
John Redmond and Henry Engles all came from 
the same State to Batesville some time prior to 
1820. 

The following named persons composed the 
first grand jury empaneled for the county in the 
circuit court, in January, 1822: George Teil, Byrd 
Candrey, James Akin, John Morgan, Henry Mor- 
ris, David Magness, John Cochran, William Sneed, 
George Trimble, Peter Taylor, William Matney, 
Benedict White, Joshua Minyard, Amos Friend, 
William Friend, Robert Bruce and Morgan Mag- 
ness. These, of course, were all prominent pioneer 
settlers. John Magness, father of Morgan Mag- 
ness, was also a pioneer of note. Space only per- 
mits the mention here of a few of the most 
prominent early residents, but two of whom, so 
far as known, are now living: James Mieham 
and Jackson S. Trimble. For other pioneers the 
reader is referred to the list of early county offi- 
cers and biographical sketches. 

Independence County, located in the north- 
eastern part of the State, is bounded north by 
Izard, Sharp and Lawrence Counties, east by Jack- 
son, south by Jackson and White, and west by 
Cleburne and Stone. It has an area of 700 square 
miles, a considerable portion of which remains un- 
improved. 

Its boundary lines are as follows: Beginning on 
the line dividing Townships 14 and 15 north, where 
Black River lastly crosses it in its downward course; 
thence west on the township line to the range line 
between Ranges 4 and 5 west; thence north to the 
corner between Sections 13 and 24, Township 15 
north, Range 5 west; thence west on section lines 
to the southwest corner of Section 18, Township 15 
north, Range 7 west; thence south 45° west seven 
and a half miles to White River; thence down White 
River to the mouth of Wolf Bayou; thence up 
Wolf Bayou to the line dividing Townships 12 and 
13; thence east to the northeast corner of Town- 
ship 12 north, Range 8 west; thence south on the 
range line to the line dividing Townships 10 and 
11 north; thence east on the township line to the 
line dividing Ranges 3 and 4 west; thence north 
on the range line to White River; thence down 



White River to the mouth of Black River; thence 
up Black River to the place of beginning. 

The surface of the county, in general, is quite 
broken and hilly, and in some places it might be 
considered mountainous. Along the streams there 
are beautiful valleys, and on the summits of the 
ridges between the streams many tracts of fair 
table lands are seen. A large proportion of the 
hilly lands are so completely covered with stone 
and bed rock as to render their cultivation impos- 
sible. The famous Oil Trough Bottom is a tract 
of very rich alluvial land, fifteen miles in length 
and about three miles in width, lying on the south- 
west side of White River, in the southeast part of 
the county. It is level, but not subject to over- 
flow, and is especially well adapted to the pro- 
duction of wheat and com. At its head is the Oil 
Trough Ridge, with a height of 152 feet. In this 
ridge is a black limestone capable of a superior 
polish. About five miles above Batesville a bold 
headland on the south side of White River, known 
as "Shields' Bluff," or White River Mountain, is 
a conspicuous object. This mountain is some 570 
feet above the river, and is a noted land-mark in 
Arkansas as having been the point where the old 
Cherokee line commenced at White River, and ran 
southwest along the dividing ridge, of which it 
forms the terminating bluff on the river. 

From Miller's Creek to Batesville the hills are 
from 130 to 240 feet in height. Red shales, run- 
ning downward into brown and black shales, with 
calcareous septaria, occupy the base of the hills 
around Batesville; these shales are surmounted 
by 150 to 180 feet of sandstone. Between Bates- 
ville and the " Big Spring," there are high ridges 
elevated about 450 feet above White River, com- 
posed in their upper part of both compact and 
cellular chert; the latter partaking of the character 
of buhr-stone. The descent from these chert ridges 
to the "Big Spring" is some 260 feet. (State 
Geological Report). Building stone of excellent 
quality exists in unlimited quantity in Independ- 
ence County, and in the cavernous limestone re- 
gions, hundreds of caves, from small to great 
dimensions, are numerous. 

White River, the largest stream in the countv. 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



625 



passes through it in a direction a little south of 
east, leaving the larger portion of the area to the 
north. The creeks that flow into this river from 
the south are Wolf Bayou, which forms a portion 
of the western boundary of the county. Green - 
briar, Salido and Goodie; and those flowing 
into it fi'om the north are Lafferty, Spring 
Creek, Polk Bayou and Big Creek. South Big, 
Elbow, Fourteen Mile, Ten Mile and Departeo 
Creeks drain the extreme southern part, flowing 
southward. Cura and Dota Creeks, in the north- 
eastern portion of the county, flow into Black 
River, where the latter forms a portion of the east- 
ern boundary line. With the streams here named, 
and their various tributaries, the locality is well 
drained. Many springs abound, the most noted of 
which is Big Spring, about six miles northwest of 
Batesville. Here a volume of the clearest water 
rises from a cavernous passage at the foot of an 
amphitheatre of hills of cherty, siliceous lime- 
stone, sufiicient in quantity to turn a small grist- 
mill, which stands a short distance below. This 
spring is quite a noted locality in Independence 
County. Good well water can be obtained at vari- 
ous places at a moderate depth, while cisterns are 
generally in use. From the several sources named 
an abundant supply of water is obtained for all 
purposes. White and Black Rivers are both nav- 
igable to points above this vicinity. The former 
may be traversed by the large steamers that ply the 
lower waters, as far up as Batesville, and by small 
vessels, to Leadville in Missouri. The latter is 
navigable for boats of medium size as far as Poca- 
hontas, in Randolph County, and for smaller ves- 
sels to points at a greater distance above. 

Independence is in the mineral belt of this part 
of the State. The ores found are oxides of iron 
and manganese, galena and occasionally copper 
pyrites. The richest beds of manganese are located 
in the vicinity of Lafferty Creek and the town of 
Cushman, to which latter place the railroad has 
been extended from Batesville, on Jiccount of the 
rich mineral deposits thereabouts. Lead has been 
mined to some extent on Cura Creek, in the 
northeast part of the county. Throughout this 
mineral belt mangfanese ore is found in different de- 



grees of purity, from that which is worthless, up 
to the best, which is very rich and remarkably free 
from phosphoms and silica. It is usually detected 
between a top covering of burnt flint and limestone 
at various depths beneath. The principal mines 
now worked are the Southern Mine and the Turner 
Mines, both in Stubbs Township. The Keystone 
Iron & Manganese Company, of Johnstown, Pa., 
one of William Carnegie's companies, own the for 
mer and control the latter. They have a very exten- 
sive plant of machinery at the Southern Mine, and 
generally keep about fifty men employed. The ore 
from this and the Turner Mines is of the finest de- 
scription. Considerable work is being done in other 
mines in the way of developing them. 

There are millions of tons of the better class 
of ore in this belt awaiting only the investment of 
the intelligent capitalist to reap a rich reward for 
his investment; but capital is necessary.* 

The timber growth of Oil Trough Bottom is 
pin oak, red oak, water oak, elm, pecan, black wal- 
nut, sweet gum, hackberry and buckeye, with an un- 
dergrowth of large pawpaw, grape vines, spice- 
wood, etc. The bottom lands, though of limited 
extent, in the northwest part of the county sup- 
port a growth of black walnut, Spanish oak, ash, 
and over-cup oak, with an undergrowth of spice 
and large grape-vines, A similar growth of tim- 
ber is found in the valleys throughout the county. 
Much of the upland is covered with black and 
white oak, hickory and dogwood, and the princi- 
pal growth on the cherty limestone land consists of 
black-jack, sassafras and persimmon. 

A large proportion of the more broken lands 
still belong to the United States, and are sulijoct 
to homestead entry. The State also owns consid- 
erable, which can be procured very cheap. The St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad Com- 
pany have a large amount of laud within the coun- 
ty, and the balance belongs to individuals. The 
soil of the Oil Trough Bottom is unsurpassed in fer- 
tility. It is dark colored and of a clayey coasis 
tency, having a depth of from five to six feet. It 
yields from a bale to a bale and a half of cotton, 
fifty to one hundred bushels of corn, and from 

•From the Batesville Guard of October 26, 1888. 



s \ 



A 



® k^ 



026 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



twenty to forty bushels of wheat per acre. The 
soil of the other bottom lands are generally com- 
posed of alluvial deposits, and are very rich and 
productive, while that of the uplands is, as a rule, 
light and sandy. Much of the upland will not pro- 
duce more than from five to ten bushels of wheat, 
and from ten to twenty bushels of corn, and from 
one-half to three-fourths of a bale of cotton per 
acre. All kinds of fi-uit trees flourish and do 
well when cultivated, even where scarcely any 
thiug else can be grown. A State Geological 
Report pulilished before the late Civil War, speaks 
of the soil in general as follows: "A considerable 
diversity of soil is to be found in Independence 
County, corresponding to changes in the underlying 
geological formations. Though the surface is 
considerably broken, still there are extensive areas 
of table land underlaid by cherty subcarbonifer- 
ous limestones. These soils are rich, and being 
based on red clay, are retentive and durable; they 
are similar in composition to the land in the bar- 
rens of Kentucky. There are, also, extensive 
tracts of bottom land, bordering on the numerous 
small streams which water this county, that are 
well adapted for cultivation." 

Much of the timber of the county has been 
cut into logs and rafted down White River to dis- 
tant market points, while some has been sawed into 
lumber and shipped away by rail; an abundant 
supply, however, remains for domestic purposes, 
and wood for fuel seems almost inexhaustible. 
Thus far the county's chief sources of income have 
been the growing of cotton and corn and the rais- 
ing of live stock. It is believed, however, that 
ere long the mineral products will become equally 
profitable. When thousands of men are employed 
to dig the ores from the earth, and other thousands 
are engaged in manufacturing the products at or 
near home, and home markets are established for 
the surplus farm yield, greater prosperity must 
reign ! 

In 1880 the United States census showed that 
Independence had 2,405 farms and 84, 766 acres of 
improved land. From these the vegetable pro- 
ductions for the year 1879 were asfollo<vs: Indian 
corn, 691,188 bushels; oats, 61,209 bushels; wheat, 



57,104 bushels; hay, 396 tons; cotton, 11,156 
bales; Irish potatoes, 11,251 bushels; sweet pota- 
toes, 16,583 bushels; tobacco, 21,726 pounds. In 
the production of tobacco, the county then ranked 
seventh in the State. It will be interesting to com- 
pare with these figures the productions of the pres- 
ent year (18S9), when the census of 1890 shall be 
published. The number of head of live stock here 
in 1880, was: Horses, 8,742; mules and asses, 
2,297; neat cattle, 15,553; sheep, 11,351; hogs, 
32,911. The livestock as shown by the abstract 
of taxable property for the year 1888 was: Horses, 
4,199; mules and asses, 2,707; neat cattle, 20,570; 
sheep, 5,642; hogs, 26,675. By comparison it 
will be seen that since 1880 there has been a 
large increase in horses, mules and asses, and neat 
cattle, but a decrease of nearly 50 per cent in the 
number of sheep and a large apparent decrease in 
the number of hogs. In 1880, and for years prior 
thereto, the Arkansas Woolen Mills, located on 
Sullivan Creek, some seven miles north of Bates- 
ville, were in operation, manufacturing all kinds 
of woolen goods. These mills furnished a home 
market for wool, in consequence of which the rais- 
ing of sheep in the county had become a leading 
industry. On the 9th of May, 1882, these valuable 
mills were washed away and destroyed in a flood. 
Thus the home market for wool was to some ex- 
tent overthrown. This, together with the reduced 
price of wool in general, probably accounts for the 
I falling off in the number of sheep. There was no 
real decrease in the number of hogs raised, though 
the figures might indicate such to be the case. 

In 1880 the county real estate was assessed for 
taxation at $1,465,271, and the personal property 
at $865,869, making a total of $2,331,140, the 
taxes upon which amounted in the aggregate to 
$34,719. In 1888 real estate was assessed for tax- 
ation at $2,464,413, and the })ersonal jiroperty at 
11,759,488, making a total of $4,223,901 ; the total 
amount of taxes charged thereon was $55,445.90. 
These figures show that since 1880 the taxable 
wealth of the county has almost doubled. 

The population of Independence County at the 
end of each census decade since its organization 
has been as follows: 1830, 2,031; 1840, 3,669: 



-f 



tt- 




1850, 7,7G7; 1860, 14.307; 1870, 14,506; 1880, 
18,086. The colored populatiou in 1860 was 
1,337; in 1870, 90S, and in 1880, 1,382. 

The Batesville branch of the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southorn Kailroad was completed to 
Batesville in 188'2 and extended on to Cushman 
in 1880. It leaves the main line at a point near 
Newport. This is the only railway outlet with 
which this locality is favored. 

The Methodists were the pioneer religious 
workers in Independence County, the Bapti.sts 
coming next. Of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, there are now Batesville station, Eev. J. C. 
Brown, pastor — membership 220; Sulphur Rock 
circuit, embracing live appointments. Rev. D. W. 
Reid, pastor, with an aggregate membership of 590; 
Bethesda circuit, having about five appointments. 
Rev. A. P. SafiFold, pastor, with an aggregate mem- 
bership of 510; and Jamestown circuit, including 
.seven appointments, Rev. T. A. Craig, pastor, with 
an aggregate membership of 460. Some of the 
circuits perhaps embrace a few appointments be- 
yond the county limits. All these organizations 
belong to the Batesville district of the White River 
conference, of which Rev. H. T. Gregory, of Bates- 
ville, is the presiding elder. 

There are within the county the following Bap- 
tist Church organizations, pastors and member- 
ships: Batesville, Elder A. J. Barton, 00; Bell- 
view, Mt. Olivet, Maple Spring and Union Grove, 
James Purcelley, respective memberships 60, 76, 
87 and 55; Center Grove, R. B. Belomy, 172; Eu- 
topia, M. M. Burge, 41; Martin's Chapel, G. \V. 
James, 23; New Prospect, 25; Olive Branch, O. 
M. Wood, 46; Providence, J. D. Faulkner, 21; 
Pleasant Plains, C. W. Betts, 44; Rehobeth, J. W. 
Goodwin, 95; Sulphur Rock, J. W. Bell, 7; and 
Cave Spring, J. L. McCord, 83. All of these be- 
long to the Independence Association of Mission- 
ary Baptists. 

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, at Batesville, with 
a membership of al)out 90, is the only organiza- 
tion of that denomination within the county. 

The Batesville Presbyterian, is the only "Old 
School" church organization within the county. 
A. R. Kennedy, D. U. , is the pastor, and the 



membership is 128. The Cumberland Presbyter- 
ians have the following organizations and pastors: 
Jamestown, Philip Jeffrey; New Hope, James 
Bone; Sulphur Rock and Mount Zion, Henry Gib- 
son. These will average about forty members 
each. In addition is a mission at Batesville, with 
Rev. A. N. Nunn as pastor. 

Other denominations of less numerical strength 
within the county, having few organizations, are 
the Christian, Methodist Episcopal, and perhaps 
some others. The colored peojjle have two Method- 
ist and one Baptist Church organizations in Bates- 
ville. Sunday-schools are generally taught in con- 
n(>ction with the stronger churches. I'pon the 
whole the community is well supplied with church- 
es and schools. 

Batesville, the county seat, is situated on the 
north side of White River, at the mouth of Polk 
Bayou. In 1812, one John Reed, from Missouri, 
cut down the first tree on the site where it now 
stands, and erected a small store house, and with 
a supply of notions and whisky traded with the 
Indians, trappers and hunters. His example was 
followed during the next five years by C. Kelly. 
Robert Bean, Boswell, Ringgold and Hedmoud. 
The town was named after Judge James Woodson 
Bates, the first delegate to Congress from Arkan- 
sas Territory. The principal trade of the place 
during its early existence was that of supplying 
the settlers with groceries and provisions, for 
which hides and furs from the then numerous wild 
animals were taken in exchange. At that period 
the only means of intercourse with the older States 
was by keel-boats, and the trade was principally 
with New Orleans. But as time passed on and the 
country improved, Batesville became, as it now is, 
a beautiful and substantial city of nearly, if not 
quite, 3,000 inhabitants. It is attractively located 
on a jjlane inclining from the north toward White 
River, and on both sides of Polk Bayou— the busi- 
ness portion being mostly east of the latter stream. 

The business part of the town begins at Chest 
nut Street and extends up Main Street on both 
sides for about five blocks. In this vicinity, ex- 
tending out also on the cross streets, are nineteen 
substantial buildings of sandstone, this stone hav- 



A 



628 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ing been procured near by. These nineteen build- 
ings embrace the Arlington Hotel, the cotton ware- 
house and twenty stores. There are seven brick 
buildings (all two stories except one), containing 
fourteen stores. Two buildings are covered with 
corrugated iron, and many others are made of 
wood. Many fine brick, stone and frame resi- 
dences are also found. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and the Baptists have each a large 
and commodious stone church edifice; the Presby- 
terians have a fine brick, and the Episcopalians a 
neat frame building. The colored people have 
three church houses. The public school-house is 
a large two-story brick, with a onestory stone 
building attached. The Arkansas College, a sub- 
stantial brick structure of two stories, occupies a 
commanding position in the eastern part of town. 
There are also numerous other fine buildings and 
manufacturing establishments here, indicating 
thrift and energy above most places. 

Batesville contains two banks, fourteen general 
stores, eleven groceries, two book and notion stores, 
three hardware stores, three drug stores, one dry 
goods and clothing store, two millinery, one fur- 
niture and two jewelry stores, two auction houses, 
one music and sewing machine store, a merchant 
tailor, two harness stores, three meat markets and 
a bakery; also a full complement of mechanics and 
their shops; the town is also supplied with two 
public halls, two large and commodious hotels — 
the Arlington and the McDowell House — and sev- 
eral smaller ones, a numl)er of restaurants, two 
livery stables, a telephone exchange, connecting 
the town with Jamestown, Melbourne, Barren 
Fork, Cushman, Sulphur Rock, the Oil Trough 
district and Newport, a Pacific Express office, the 
Batesville Iron Works, a steam plaiiing-mill and 
sash and door factory, two steam saw mills, two 
flouring-mills, a wool carding-mill, a cotton-gin, a 
large canning and evaporating factory, a neat rail- 
road depot, a well arranged post office, an abstract 
office, etc. The professions are also supplied. 
The various prominent secret societies are well 
represented. 

The trade of the place is extensive. Several of 
the leading stores do a large wholesale business, 



supplying the country merchants and merchants 
of many smaller towns with goods. 

During the cotton season of 1887-88 over 
20,000 bales of cotton were shipped from this 
point, 12,000 of which belonged to the trade proper 
of Batesville, and the number of car loads of 
other commodities shipped away were as follows: 
Cedar, 824; railroad ties, 89; manganese ore, 
152; zinc ore, 2; stone (dressed), 127; lime, 
16; general merchandise, 171; cotton, 1,013; cot- 
ton seed, 32; total, 2,426. About a mile from 
the court-house is the fair gi-ound of the Inde- 
pendence County Agricultural and Mechanical 
Fair Association, being an enclosure of twenty 
acres, containing a good race track, a grand stand 
and an agricultui'al hall. Very near the fair 
ground is Oaklawn Cemetery, owned by the cor- 
poration of Batesville. The town is incorporated, 
and has a full set of corporate officers and five 
aldermen. The present mayor is the Hon. J. C. 
Yancy. As a prosperous, growing and beautiful 
little city, and one whose cleanliness is proverbial, 
Batesville certainly compares most favorably with 
any in Northeast Arkansas. 

This is a terminal point in the navigation of 
White River. It is the head of navigation for the 
large steamers that ply the lower waters, and the 
foot for the smaller up-river crafts. A powerful 
steam elevator belonging to the railroad company 
transfers the freight between the railway and the 
boats. * 

The place also contains two weekly news- 
papers, the Batesville Guard, a Democratic paper 
of general news, now in its thirteenth volume, 
edited and published by M. Y. Todisman, and the 
Wheel, in its third volume, edited and published 
by Messrs. Martin and Bradley, deaf-mutes. The 
latter advocates the cause of the order known as 
the ' ' Wheel, ' ' an organization professedly opposed 
to tyranny and monopoly. Both of these papers 
are ably conducted, and have proven a prominent 
factor in the influence exerted toward the advance- 
ment of the community. 

Cushman, situated at the present terminus of 

* For the history of Batesville acknowledgments 
are made to the Batesville Guard. 



^ 



liL^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



r)29 



the railroad, nine miles northwest of Batesville, 
contains three general stores, three groceries, a 
blacksmith and wood shop, a postoffice, several 
dwellings, etc. Though only three years old, its 
growth has been steady. 

Jamestown, on the Batesville and Clinton road, 
seven miles south of Batesville, contains four gen- 
eral stores, a postoffice, a blacksmith and wood 
shop, three school-houses, a public school building, 
a grist-mill and cotton-gin, and about 200 inhabi- 
tants. 

Newark is on the railroad, in the ea.stern part of 
the county, and has a depot, post-office, four gen- 
eral stores, a drug store, two saloons, a still house, 
a saw and grist-mill and cotton-gin, a church edi- 
fice, a school house, and about 300 people. 

Pleasant Plains, on the Batesville and Little 
Eock road, about twenty miles south of the former 
place, is comprised of three general stores, a 
blacksmith and wood shop, postoffice, academy, a 
church bouse, and about 200 inhabitants. 

Sulphur Kock, on the railroad, eight miles east 
of Batesville, is a substantial old village, contain- 
ing a postoffice, eight general stores, three drug 
stores, two groceries, pottery works, several me- 
chanics' shops, a hotel, livery stable, two churches, 
two school-houses — academy and free school, 
lodges of several secret societies, and a complement 
of professional men. The town is incorporated 
and does a large amount of business. Its popula- 
tion is about 500. 

The educational facilities of Independence 
County are best shown by the following statistics, 
from the report of the State superintendent of 
public instruction, for the year ending Jime 30, 
18S8: Scholastic population, white, males, 3,599; 
females, 3,2(58; total, 0,867; colored, males, 289; 
females, 276; total, 564; total white and colored, 
7,432. Number of pupils taught in the public 
schools, white, 3,682; colored, 337; total, 4,019; 
number of school districts, 81; number of teachers 
employed, males, 76; females, 12, or a total of 88. 
Average monthly salaries paid teachers of first 
grade, males, .|45.00; females, $40.00; in second 
grade, males. $37.50; females, $30.00; third 
grade, males, $32.50, females, $25.00. There was 



expended for the support of the i)ublie schools 
during the year, $21,202.15 for teacher:,' salaries; 
$521.84 for treasurer's commissions, and $1,504.89 
for other purposes; total $23,228.88. The num- 
ber of districts voting tax was 32. According to 
these official statistics, about 72 per cent of the 
white and about 60 per cent of the colored 
scholastic population were taught in the public 
schools during the year. It is believed, however, 
that the statistics do not give the* whole number 
of pupils who received instruction in the schools. 
The free school system is gaining popular favor 
and becoming more and more efficient. 

The Arkansas College, located at Batesville, 
is a noted institution of learning, under the man- 
agement of the Presbyterian denomination. It 
was founded in 1872, and has long been an 
established success. Then, as now. Rev. I. J. 
Long was president of the faculty. There are 
four courses of study: Primary, common school, 
bachelor of science, and the classical, mathematical 
and scientific. The college buildings consist of 
a large two- story brick and a large one-story stone 
house. They are pleasantly located in the eastern 
part of the city. The school is well patronized 
both at home and from abroad. 

There has always been in Independence County 
a strong sentiment of loyalty to the general gov- 
ernment. Out of about 1,800 votes cast in the 
county for delegates to the State convention before 
the first guns were fired in the Civil War, only 
about 300 were given to the candidates favoring 
secession. As soon, however, as the ' ' dogs of 
war" were let loose, the loyal sentiment was sup- 
pressed and the secession element became pi'edomi- 
nant. Many Union men refugeed to the North, 
and many others were pressed into the Confederate 
service. Companies for the Confederate army 
began to be organized in the spring of 1861, and 
before the struggle was over the county had fur 
nished about fifteen companies for that army. 
These were commanded respectively by Capts. \V. 
E. Gibbs, John H. Dye, George W. Rutherford, 
J. AV. Cullins, S. C. Jones, S. Carson, J. S. Tracy, 
W. S. Smalley, T. J. Morgan, N. Floyd, E. Bride- 
well, S. J. McGuffin, James McCauley and others. 



\ 



630 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Tlie most of these companies served in the Seventh 
and Eighth Arkansas Confederate regiments. On 
the 3rd of May. 1862, Gen. Curtis, of the Federal 
army, arrived at and established his headquarters 
at Batesville, and sent portions of his army to 
occup}' other points in this part of the State. 
Immediately afterward a battalion of six com- 
panies, commanded respectively by Capts. Turney, 
H. V. Gray, Davis and others, was organized at 
Batesville under the charge of Col. Eli.sha Baxter, 
for the Federal army. After marching this bat- 
talion to Helena. Col. Baxter, who declined fur- 
ther to command it, turned it over to Lieut. -Col. 
Bundy, of Chicago, who assumed command. This 
battalion was raised principally in Independence 
County. In the fall of 1803, Col. Baxter recruited 
and organized another battalion of six companies 
at Batesville, known as. the Fourth Arkansas 
Mounted Infantry, or " Steele Guards," the latter 
name being in honor of Gen. Steele. The nucleus 
of this battalion was the company of Capt. Will- 
iam P. Berry. This command was also raised 
mostly in Independence County. It served about 
a year for the Union cause, and was disbanded 
without having been mustered into the United 
States service. A number of loyal men joined Col. 
Phelps' Missouri and other Federal regiments. 
By the best authority it is estimated that from first 
to last about 1,000 men of the county served in 
the Union army. 

Gen. Curtis remained with his army at Bates- 
ville until nearly July 1, 1862. This place was re- 
occupied about the 1st of January, 1804, by a 
Federal force i;nder Col. Livingston, who held it 
for several months, and at the close of the war, 
and for some time after, it was garrisoned by 
Federal troops. In January or February, 1864, 
while Col. Livingston commanded the post of 
Batesville, he sent a forage train into the country 
under an escort of about ISO soldiers. This force 
was attacked, a few miles out, by a Confederate 
force under Capt. George Rutherford. The escort 
was defeated, with some loss in killed and wounded, 
the forage train was captured and some forty-odd 
wagons were burned, and the mules taken away by 
the Confederates. This was known as the ' ' Waugh 



Fight,'" and was the only engagement in the coun 
ty between the contending parties worthy of men- 
tion. The county was over run by both armies, the 
results of which were somewhat felt b)' private cit- 
izens. 

Independence County is undoubtedly in the 
center of a community rich in everything that 
tends to contribute to the happiness and welfare of 
man. Liberally supplied by nature with unsur- 
passed advantages of soil, climate and location, it 
needs no argument to convince the most skeptical 
of its desirability as a place of residence. Time 
will demonstrate the wonderful resources here 
awaiting development. 



William R. Albright was born in North Caro- 
lina on the 16th of November, 1841), and is a son of 
Alvis and Mary (Stockard) Albright, both of whom 
were born in North Carolina, also, and were there 
reared, educated and married. Five sons and five 
daughters blessed their union: Samuel, George 
A., Alson G., Peggie, Nancy A., Julia E. , William 
R. , Franklin P., Mary Jane and Harriet E. Alvis 
Albright was a Mason, and he and wife were mem- 
bers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in 
which faith he died, on March 3, 1881. Hi.s 
widow still survives him, and finds a pleasant home 
among her children, but the most of her time is 
sjient in Izard County, with one of her childi-en. 
William R. Albright acquired a good practical 
education in Independence County, and was mar- 
ried on the 22d of February, 1877, to Miss Mary 
Ann Meacham, who was also born, March 2, 1855, 
in this State and county. Their family numbers 
four children, three sons and one daughter; Alvis 
E. and William F. (twin sons, born June 22, 
1880), Oscar A. and Cora L. Mr. Albright owns 
a farm of 300 acres, and is careful and painstaking 
in the cultivation of his land, and is very thorough 
in everything connected with its managememt. 
One hundred acres he devotes to the raising of the 
different cereals. He has been secretary and con- 
ductor, holding also other offices in the order of 
the I. O. O. F., of which organization he is a 
member, and he and Mrs. Albright have been 



^' 







members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, for some time?. 

William Allen, farmer and stock i-aiser, Cord, 
Ark. The sulijoct of this sketch is so well known that 
an introduction to the public seems unnecessary. 
Mr. Allen is a native Tennesseean, born in Wilson 
County, on the 24th of November, 1815. and is 
the son of George and Sallie (Johnson) Allen, na- 
tives, respectively, of South Carolina and North 
Carolina, the former born on the 2d of August, 
1781, and died in Juno, 1807, and the latter born 
on the 23d of June, 1780, and died in 1851. They 
wore married in Wilson County, Tenn., in 1805, 
and in ISIS he, with his family and nine other 
families, took a keel-boat and sailed, on the Cum- 
l)erland River, for the Red River country. On 
their arrival at Chickasaw Bluffs (now Memj)his), 
they were informed that the commissioners were 
negotiating for the Northwest Territory; and as the 
treaty was successfully completed, and the Terri- 
tory included the portion of countiy they were then 
in, they settled there, two miles east of the present 
site of the town of Memphis. They remained in 
the western part of Tennessee for six years, en- 
gaged in farming and hunting, and bought a herd 
of wild cattle, which they had great difficulty in 
managing. Some stories connected with their wild 
woods experiences were very exciting and interest- 
ing. Seeing that the rapid settlement of the coun- 
try was dispersing the game, Mr. Allen removed 
with his family to Independence County, Ark., 
settled in Oil Trough Bottom, which was then a 
dense and pathless canebrake, abounding in wild 
animals, and after remaining there a few months, 
came to Bayou Curie Creek, and bought a small 
farm, where he passed his last days. He was an 
old line Whig, and was under Gen. Jackson in 
the War of 1812. His father was a Revolutionary 
soldier. He was a great lover of hunting, and 
followed this ])ursuit as long as he lived, killing a 
deer only a few months before his death. He died 
at the age of seventy-seven, and his wife at the 
age of seventy-live, both members of the society 
of the Latter Day Saints. William Allen was 
reared to farm life, and received a limited educa- 
tion in the common schools of Arkansas. He was 



but fourteen or fifteen years of ago when he came 
with his parents to this State, and was well schooled 
in the woodcraft of those pioneer days. He was 
reared principally on liear and deer meat. H(> as- 
sisted his father in clearing land, and in other farm- 
work, until seventeen years of age, when he hired 
to a man at Batcwville, to assist a gang of men in 
clearing 300 acres of the heavy bottom land opposite 
Memphis. Here he worked for three months at $ 1 2 
per month (his first earned money), and then re- 
turned to his home in Arkansas. He then engaged 
in farming, raised a crop, and hired out the same 
year to William Strong for $20 per month. Strong 
was a Government contractor, and young Allen 
worked on the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad, 
known then as the St. Louis & Little Rock road. 
In 1837 Mr. Allen secured emj)loyment as fire- 
man on a steamboat, and later assisted in the build- 
ing of a house in Batesville. During the winter 
of 1838 he worked in Oil Trough Bottom, gather- 
ing com, and in 1839 he made a crop on the same 
farm. On the 26th of Jaiuiary. 1840, li» wedded 
Miss Sarah Speers, a native of Lauderdale Coun- 
ty, Ala. , and the same year made a crop in Law - 
rence County. Also, the same year, he moved to In- 
dependence County, andon the 23dof March, 1841, 
settled on the place where he now lives. W'hen 
he first came there, there were a small log cabiti on 
it, and 800 rails split. He at once began clearing 
land, and erected suitable buildings, erecting the 
house in which he now lives in 1843. During that 
year and the two following he ran rafts of cypress 
logs to New Orleans, and on his retui-n from that 
city, in 1849, he bought a land warrant for $125 
from a Mexican soldier (James Bullard), and laid 
the same on the 160 acres of land where he lived, 
thus securing title to the same. Since that time 
he has added to his farm, until he has now 480 
acres, with 200 acres cleared. He has on this 
farm three tenant houses. To his fir.st marriage 
were born seven children, only one now living, 
William T., who was bora December 30, 1863, is 
married, and is one of the prosperous farmers of 
Independence County. Of the deceased, all of 
whom were daughters: Two died in infancy; Mrs. 
Nancy J. Lawrence was born on the lOth of Febru- 



A^ 



632 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



ary, 1841, and died in September, 1866; Mrs. Polly 
A. Young, was born October 20, 1846, and died in 
September, I860; Mr.s. Julia Y'oung, was born on 
the 8th of April, 18-49, and died on the 6tb of 
March, 1881, and Mrs. Sarah E. Lambert, born 
March 23, 1851, and died on the 11th of Novem- 
ber, 1874. The mother of these ehildi-en, Mrs. 
Sarah (Speers) Allen, died on the 13th of Novem- 
ber, 1875, and was a woman loved and esteemed by 
all who knew her. On the 25th of December, 
1876, Mr. Allen mat-ried Mrs. Abbie Ann (Mc- 
Dougall) Smart, relict of William P. Smart, a 
farmer of Tennessee. She is the daughter of Rob- 
ert and Amanda (May) McDougall, the latter still 
living and making her home with her daughter 
(Mrs. Allen). She is now eighty-seven years of 
age. Mrs. (Smart) Allen has four children : Rufus, 
living in Oregon; Abbie A. is the wife of Andrew 
Parr, farmer of Black River Township; Amanda 
is the widow of Nelson N. Winkles, and Latie is 
the wife of William Winkles, and lives in Black 
River Township. Mr. Allen has given his attention 
to agricultural pursuits all his life, and has been 
successful. He votes with the Republican party, 
but does not take an active part in politics. His 
first presidential vote was cast for William H. 
Harrison, and his last for Benjamin Harrison. He 
gives an amusing accoimt of the former campaign, 
of the log-cabin, cider di'inking, cheering, etc. 
During the late war he remained at home, never 
entering the service, but was in sympathy with the 
Union. He has never aspired to office, though 
frequently solicited by his fi'iends to do so; has 
never submitted, but has served his full share on i 
the grand jury. He is a member of Bayou Dota 
Lodge No. 126, A. F. & A. M. Mrs. Allen is a 
member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
Dr. Sterling W. Allen. The name of Allen 
is one of the most influential in Floral, and one 
of the most respected in this community. Dr. Al- 
len is a native of Wilson County, Tenu. , born Feb- | 
ruary 13, 1822, and received his education in pri- 
vate schools. He then began the study of medicine, 
graduated from Memphis (Tenn. ) Medical College, 
in 1848, and began practicing the same year. He 
married Miss Melissa Carter, of South Carolina, 



born in the year 1825. and the fruits of this union 
were three living childi-en — Sarah Jane, Mary W. 
and Martha L. Dr. Allen was in the late war as 
a surgeon under Gen. McRhea, and participated 
in the battles of Ironton, Pilot Knob and West 
Port. Aside from his profession, he is also engaged 
in agricultural pursuits, and is the owner of 1,260 
acres of land. In politics his principles coincide 
with those of the Democratic party. He and Mrs. 
Allen are members of the Methodist Church, and 
are held in high esteem by all acquainted with 
them. The Doctor is a genial, generous gentle- 
man, and is liberal and progressive in his ideas. 
His parents, John and Sarah (Craig) Allen, were 
both natives of South Carolina, but later in life 
they moved to Fayette County, Tenn. , where they 
passed the remainder of their days. To their mar- 
riage were boru twelve children, the Doctor being 
the only survivor. The grandparents were from 
the Emerald Isle. 

Dr. John Farrell Allen, a retired physician of 
great prominence, now residing in Batesville, was 
born in New Madrid County, Mo., March 29, 1824. 
He is a son of Samuel W. and Cecelia (LeSieur) 
Allen, his father a native of Alexandria, Va. , and 
his mother a native of Missouri. The maternal 
grandfather was a French Canadian, whose ances- 
tors came originally from France to Canada, and 
from there he moved to the State of Missouri, about 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, residing 
in that State until the time of his death. The 
paternal grandfather, Salathiel, was a Virginian bj- 
birth, and a sea captain who was lost at sea from his 
own vessel, together with a cousin, John Farrell, for 
whom our subject was named. Samuel W. Allen, 
the father of Dr. John F., died in 1863, followed by 
the mother in 1868. They were among the early 
settlers of Southeast Missouri, and were married 
in 1823, having but one child, a son. An inci- 
dent worth noting is that for four generations only 
one son has been born to each family. The Doctor 
was reared in New Madrid County, and received 
his degree of A. B. in Perry County, at a Roman 
Catholic college. At the age of twenty years he 
began the study of medicine, spending two years 
under a private instructor, Dr. John Kirkwood. 



.u 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



638 



I 



He then entered the University of Pennsylvania, at 
Philadelphia, Penn. , and graduated in the spring 
of 1S47. From there he came to Batosville, where 
he remained but a short time, when he moved to 
New Orleans. He stopped here only a few months, 
however, and iu 1848 returned to Batesville and 
began to practice his profession, making this place 
his j)ermanent home. The Doctor's skill soon re- 
ceived a widespread reputation, as he was (>arnest 
in his profession, and made it his study and l)usi- 
ness. His practice was at one time proliably the 
largest in Northern Arkansas, but within the last 
few years he has retired from the practice of his 
pi'ofession. He has accumulated considerable real 
estate, and owns several good farms, which are 
cared for by tenants. The Doctor has the credit 
of having given the Arkansas College, located at 
Batesville, its name, and is a trustee of that excel 
lent institution of learning. He is one of the 
pioneer physicians who could append M. D. to his 
name, and became one of the most po|)nlar in 
Independence County, and the number of his 
friends are many. Dr. Allen was married. April 
25, 1849, to Miss Mary E. Agnew, of Pennsylva- 
nia, a daughter of Dr. James Agnew, of Pitts- 
burg, who graduated from the University of 
Pennsylvania in 1800, twenty-four years before the 
subject of this sketch was born. She is a sister of 
Chief Justice Agnew, of Pennsylvania. The Ag- 
new family are lineal descendants of the Howells, 
Mrs. Allen's grandfather, Richard Howell, being 
governor of New Jersey for many consecutive 
years, and she is also a tirst cousin of the wife of 
the Confederate leader, JefF. Davis. Mrs. Davis is 
a Howell. Dr. and Mrs. Allen are the parents of 
four daughters and one son, only two of whom now 
survive the mother. Those yet living are Sarah 
(Mrs. Theodora Maxtield), Samuel W. and Mary. 
The latter and the Doctor are members of the 
Presbyterian Church, and he takes great interest 
in religious matters, as in educational affairs also, 
at Arkansas College, and has done a great deal for 
the advancement of school interests in Independ- 
ence County. He has been identified with Bates- 
ville for forty-three years, as one of its leading 
spirits, and has the reputation of a skillful physi- 



cian, and, as far as he himself is concerned, has 
never been upon a bed of sickness, though now in 
his sixty-sixth year. Active and earnest in all he 
undertakes, he says, jociilarly, he could never find 
time to be sick. At heart, however, he attributes 
to God all his blessings, good health being one of 
the many. 

Andrew Allen, one of the most extensive jilant- 
ers and land-owners of Independence County, 
resides in Greenbriar Township. He was born at 
Arkansas Post January 4, 1827, and when but six 
weeks old was taken l)y his parents to Independ- 
ence County, which county has ever since been his 
home. Abraham and Sebella Allen, parents of 
Andrew, settled six miles east of Batesville, after- 
ward removing to a point south of the river, where 
the father died, May 22. 1873: he was a farmer 
and blacksmith, and at the time of his death was 
one of the most wealthj' men in the county. Abra- 
ham Allen was born in Orange County, N. C, 
where he was reared and married; he afterward 
lived some time in Tennessee before his removal 
to Arkansas, in 1827. He was of Irish-English 
descent, served in one of the Indian wars, and was 
'well known and respected. His father, Samuel 
Allen, was one of the pioneers of Independence 
County, where he lived a number of years, but 
spent the latter part of his life in Texas. The 
maternal grandfather of our subject was Andrew 
Allen, brother of Samuel, and he was also an early 
settler of Independence County, where he and wife 
died, leaving several sons and daughters. The 
mother of our subject died when he was young, 
and the father married again. Andrew received 
a limited common-school education, and at the age 
of twenty-one years engaged in farming for him- 
self. In 1861 he enlisted in Company D, Eighth 
Arkansas Infantry, and did service in Kentucky 
and Tennessee until after the battle of Shiloh, 
when the army was re-organized at Corinth, Miss. , 
and he was discharged. He later joined Gen. 
Price's army, and was with him on the raid in 
Missouri and Arkansas. In 1867 Mr. Allen mar 
ried Emily P., daughter of Madison C. and I^Iary. 
E. Snapp, natives, respectively, of Virginia and 
East Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Snapp were mar- 



4- — ^ 



-^u 




Tied in Tennessee, and soon after moved to Arkan- 
sas, thence to Polk County, Mo. , where Mrs. Allen 
was born. Mrs. Snapp died in 1871, and Mr. 
Snapp, in Missouri, in February, 1889; he was 
a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Allen have one son, 
Robert Lee. Mr. Allen has resided on his pres- 
ent farm since the war. He owns about 1,800 
acres of land, 1,500 of which are fine bottom land; 
he inherited a large amount from his father, but 
has enlarged his property by his own efforts, and 
is one of the most successful and enterprising 
farmers in the cbunty. He devotes some attention 
to good cattle-breeding, and takes great interest in 
stock raising. Mr. Allen's residence is four miles 
southeast of Batesville. Politically, he is a Dem- 
ocrat. 

William A. Allen, an extensive and highly-re- 
spected farmer of Batesville, was born in 1842, 
within eight miles of that place. His parents 
were Abraham and Isabella Allen, of North Caro- 
lina, who, on their journey to the West, first settled 
in Tennessee, and then in the State of Arkansas. 
They moved to Independence County in 1827, and 
located within six miles of Batesville, and after- 
ward to a point south of the river, where the father 
ilied, in 1873, over eighty years of age. He left a 
fortune of 120,000, and considerable landed estate 
at the time of his death, and had been oue of the 
most successful farmers of that period. He was 
upright and honest in all his dealings with man- 
kind, and his name was one that commanded re- 
spect in every grade of society. William A. 
Allen was the youngest of the family, and re- 
mained with his parents until the latter days of the 
war between the North and South, when he en- 
listed in Company C, of Col. Dobbins' regiment, 
and fought for the Confederate cause. His ca- 
reer through the war was short, but brilliant, and 
though not on the victorious side, after the sur- 
render at Jacksonport, he still bore the honors of 
a brave soldier. In 1866 he was married to Miss 
Nancy A., daughter of Joel and Matilda McClen- 
don, of Mississippi. Mrs. MoClendon, the mother, 
died three years after her arrival in Independence 
County, and the father survived her for four years, 
leaviugf four sous and six daughters at the time of 



his death, of whom five are yet living. Mr. Allen 
and his wife have had their union blessed with sis 
children, although one of them has since died. 
The names of those living are Abraham, Andrew, 
George William, Ida and Emily. The family re- 
sided on the old farm south of the river until Feb- 
ruary, 1889, and then moved to Batesville, where 
Mr. Allen has a fine residence. He owns thi'ee 
tracts of laud comprising about 840 acres, and has 
some 300 acres under cultivation. Part of his 
land he inherited from his father, and his own 
good judgment and natural ability have added the 
rest. He is a Democrat in politics, and a strong 
upholder of the principles of that party, and is a 
member of Neill Lodge No. 285, A. F. & A. M. , of 
Jamestown. Mr. Allen also belongs to the I. O. Q. 
F., being a member of the Batesville Lodge. He 
is one of the leading farmers of Independence 
County, and a man whose opinion and advice are 
always received with the fullest confidence. Mrs. 
Allen is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and is well known for her generosity 
and the interest she takes in all matters pertaining 
to that church. 

John D. Aydelott. a successful farmer of Oil 
Trough, is the son of A. P. Aydelott and Martha 
J. Aydelott, who were the parents of twelve chil- 
dren, John D. being the fourth child. Five lived 
to be grown: M. J., J. D., A. W., S. E. and A. 
' P. Aydelott, Jr. , who is also a successful farmer in 
i Oil Trough. A. P. Aydelott, Sr., was one of the 
oldest settlers of Oil Trough Bottom, comiuK to 
I Oil Trough in 1844, bringing the first stock of 
goods that was sold in Oil Trough. He bought 
240 acres of land from Joe Egner, and cleared 200, 
and farmed and made stock raising a success. At 
the beginning of the Civil War Mr. A. P. Aydelott 
was opposed to the States seceding, but after they 
did he cast his lot with the Confederacy. In poli- 
tics before the war he was a Whig, but afterward 
a Democrat. A. P. Aydelott came to Arkansas 
from Tennessee in 1836, first settling in Little 
Rock, afterward Elizabeth, thence to Oil Trough, 
where he and his wife (whom he married in 1844), 
Martha J. Birdsong, also of Tennessee, lived hap- 
pily together until death claimed the father and 



^'* 



'-^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



035 



husband, October 16, 1880. His widow and the 
mother of our subject, followed August 26, 1884. 
They were buried in the family graveyard on the 
farm. They were both members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. The five children living 
are all doing well. One girl, S. E., is an invalid, 
and lives with the youngest brother. 

■John Bailey, farmer, Floral, Independence 
County, Ark. Tennessee has given to Independ- 
ence County many prominent citizens, but she has 
contributed none more universally respected or 
more worthy of esteem than the subject of this 
sketch. He was born in Smith County on the 
12th of September, 1822, and is the son of Wiatt 
W. Bailey and Dolly (Tinsley) Bailey, both natives 
of Virginia, the father born in .Campbell County, 
and the mother in Amherst County. They moved 
to Smith County, Tenn. , in 1818, and here the 
father was elected sheriff of the county, in the 
spring of 1838, which office he held for six years. 
He died in that county in 1804, and the mother in 
1871. The paternal grandparents, William and 
Sarah Bailey, were natives of Campbell County, 
Va. , and died at a good old age in Smith County, 
Tenn. John Bailey is now successfully following 
the occupation to which he was reared, and which 
has been his life work, a calling that has for ages 
received undivided efforts from many worthy indi- 
viduals, and one that always fiu-nishes sustenance 
to the ready worker. He came to Izard County, 
Ark., in 1853, resided there three years, and in 
1856 came to Independence County, where he was 
elected sheriff in 1860. This position he held two 
years, during which time he was a resident of 
Batesville, removing to his present home in 1863. 
He is the owner of 2,000 acres of land, a part in 
Independence County, and some in different coun- 
ties of the State. He has about 150 acre* of this 
land under cultivation, with most of it in cotton 
and corn. Mr. Bailey was married to Charlotte 
B. Nail, of Tennessee, in 1844. She died four 
years later, leaving two children, Dorothea Ann 
and Charlotte Olive, the latter dying two months 
after its mother. For his second wife Mr. Bailey 
chose Miss Sarah E. Harper, a native of Smith 
County, Tenn., born December 1, 1834. To them 



were born ten children : William H. , Harriet E. , 
John B., Edward Everett, James Madison, Archi- 
bald D., Thomas Franklin, Mary Frances, Emily 
J. and Martha Ann. Mr. Bailey served during 
the late unpleasantness between the North and 
South, from July 17, 1864, until the surrender. 
He was at the battles of Big Creek, Pilot Knob, 
and in many minor engagements. He served under 
Col. Dobbins. In November, 18()4, he returned 
to his duties on the farm, which he continued until 
his election to the office of sheriff of Independence 
County, in 1874, which position he held for one 
term. He then returned to his farm. He and 
wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, his first wife also being a mem- 
ber. He is a member of the Masonic lodge at 
Cedar Grove, also an Odd Fellow in good standing 
in Batesville Lodge. In politics he is a Democrat, 
and is also an enthusiastic supporter of all public 
enterprises. He is at present school director of 
District No. 40, Independence County. 

Peter K. Baker, farmer and stock raiser, Dota, 
Ark. The subject of this sketch needs no intro- 
duction to the people of Independence County, 
Ark., for he is one of the oldest and most esteemed 
citizens of the same, and one whose integrity and 
honesty of purpose are unquestioned. He was born 
in Middle Tennessee, on the 23d of February, 
1819, and is the tenth of a family of eleven chil- 
dren born to John and Nancy (Carter) Baker, na- 
tives of North Carolina. The father was born 
about 1776, and could remember some incidents of 
the Revolution. He was a farmer, and followed 
this calling all his life. He was married, in his 
native State, to Miss Carter, who was born in 1789. 
and afterward they moved to Tennessee on a 
pack-horse, carrying two children. This was in 
1807. They resided there about sixteen years, 
and then, in about 1823, moved to VVe.st Tenne.s- 
see, where they spent the remainder of their 
days, the father dying in 1842, and the mother in 
1844. Both were Christians, the father a member 
of the Methodist Church, and the mother of the 
Baptist. Of the eleven children born to their 
marriage only two are now living — James G., a 
successful farmer, married, and living in Calloway 



i) X> 



J^': 



mci 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



County, Ky. , and Peter K., who represents this 
sketch. The latter passed his youthful days in 
assisting on the farm, and in attending the com- 
noon schools of Henry County, Tenn. At the age 
of eighteen years he began learning the cabinet- 
maker' s trade, and spent the succeeding five years 
engaged in this vocation. After this he worked at 
the carpenter and millwright trades, but conducted 
his farm all the time. In November, 1856, he 
sold his land in Tennessee, and came to Arkansas, 
where he purchased his present farm, then 1(50 
acres, with thirty acres cleared, and with some 
very poor buildings on it. After this he bought 
and improved land until he had 530 acres. Since 
that time he has settled his two sons on farms of 
his own, but reserved for himself 240 acres as the 
home place. He has cleared over 200 acres of 
land, and has now on his home place 140 acres in 
a high state of cultivation. He has one of the 
best farms in Black River Township, if not in In- 
dependence County. Good buildings, fences and 
orchards adorn his property, and beautiful flowers 
make his home very attractive. Mr. Baker has 
been twice married; first, in November, 1842, 
while in West Tennessee, he led to the altar Miss 
Elizabeth Browning, a native of South Carolina. 
Five children were born to this union: Alonzo S. , 
born July 10, 1843, and died in the war, in 1863; 
Melissa L. was born on the 10th of March, 1844, 
and died on the 14th of September, 1869; Eras- 
mus F. was born on the 13th of December, 1846, 
is married and lives in the Lone Star State; Will- 
iam L. was born on the 13th of December, 1849, 
and died on the '10th of June, 1855; Angus C. 
was born on the 26th of January, 1853, is mar- 
ried, and lives on his own farm, adjoining his 
father's place; he is a prosperous farmer, and is 
also engaged in the profession of teaching. Mrs. 
Baker departed this life in September, 1878. She 
was a good wife, a fond and loving mother, and a 
consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. In November, 1879, Mr. Baker was 
again married, taking for his second wife Mrs. 
Nancy L. (Cleveland) Parks, widow of Ambrose 
Parks, a farmer of Indiana. No children were 
born to this union. Since his residence in Arkan- 



sas Mr. Baker has been principally engagbd in 
tilling the soil, although for five years after the 
late war he ran a steam gin and grist-mill on his 
farm. In 1871 he was severely injured by a fall 
from a wagon, and this prevented him from doing 
much work. After this he sold his milling interest, 
bought a stock of goods, and, in connection with 
his farm, carried on merchandising until 1877. 
He was also appointed postmaster. At the above- 
mentioned date he sold his store, but retained the 
postoffice until 1888. Since then he has given his 
attention exclusively to agricultural pursuits. In 
1856 Mr. Baker was elected justice of the peace, 
and transacted the business incumbent upon that 
office in a creditable and satisfactory manner until 
1862, when military authority usurped the reins of 
government, thus throwing civil officers out. In 
1874 he was elected to the same office, and served 
two years. In 1880 he was re-elected for two 
years. Mr. Baker came to this settlement at a 
time when there were very few people in Black 
River Township, only 100 voters in the township, 
and only two stores in Batesville, but recently 
started, and one in Sulphur Rock. Jacksonport 
was the nearest market of any importance, and 
wild game was plentiful. Abundance of good 
water is on his farm, and mineral of some kind 
(likely iron) underlies a part of the timber portion. 
During the late war Mr. Baker remained at home 
unharmed, on account of his mechanical skill as a 
millwi-ight, and owing to his peaceable disposition; 
and in compliance with a petition signed by a 
large number of both parties, asking that he might 
remain at home. When the State considered the 
question of secession Mr. Baker voted that it 
remain in the Union, but, being defeated in this 
particular, and being left in the South, his sym 
pathies svere with the Confederacy. He main- 
tained his opinions, slept with unlocked doors and 
answered all calls from both armies in person. 
Notwithstanding, the devastating hand of war 
grasped all his personal property, and he was left 
at the terminus of the war as though just starting 
in life. He holds no prejudice against either 
party, but votes with the Democrats. He does 
not take an active part in politics. His first presi- 



^1 




'\ 




iyd^^cc4^ 



Mississippi Coumty, Arkansas 



i 



liL 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



637 



dential vote was for James K. Polk. He was 
never a slave-owner. Mr. and Mrs. Baker are 
church members, he a Methodist, and she a Bap- 
tist, and the former a trustee of his church, also 
having filled the position of steward in the same 
for years. He is a Royal Arch Mason, and a 
member of Dota Lodge. 

Francis M. Baker, merchant, Desha, Inde- 
pendence County, Ark. Among the prosperous 
enterprises in Desha is that of Francis M. Baker, 
general merchant, of that beautiful and prosperous 
town. He owes his nativity to Independence 
County, Ark., where he was born on the 14th of 
October, 1842, and is the son of John Baker [see 
sketch elsewhere]. Francis M. Baker passed his 
youth in his native county, and received his edu- 
cation in the neighborhood schools. During the 
late conflict he was in several prominent battles, 
that of Perryville and Chickamauga, and in the 
latter serious battle was severely wounded. He 
selected for his life companion Miss D. A. Steward, 
of Independence County, and was united in mar- 
riage to her on the 18th day of January, 1871. 
They have an interesting family of nine children, 
Annie C, Augusta, John R. , Jennie, Marion, 
Delia, Ernest, Lulu and George. Mr. Baker is 
the owner of ninety acres of valuable land, but his 
principal occupation is merchandising. He is a 
Mason in good standing, being a member of 
Neill Lodge, Independence County, Ark., and 
has been a member of this organization for twen- 
ty-three years. He is a stanch Democrat, and has 
voted that ticket for the past twenty-tive years. 
He also takes a great interest in public affairs. 

David L. Baker, farmer and stock raiser, 
Jamestown, Ark. Still a young man, INIr. Baker 
has risen to a position in agricultural affairs in this 
county which many older in years and opportuni- 
ties might envy. He is a citizen whom Independ- 
ence County is proud to claim as one of her sons, 
having been born here November 0, 1851. He is 
of good old Tennessee stock, the son of John and 
Annie (Beeler) Baker, both of whom were born 
in that State. The parents came to Arkansas in 
18^50, were among the very earliest settlers, and 
are still residing on their farm, in Independence 



County, respected and esteemed by all. There 
has been but one death, and that Ijy accident, 
on the father's place during the forty-nine years 
he has lived there. David L. Baker received a 
thorough education in the private schools of In- 
dependence County, and remained under the pa- 
rental roof until his marriage, which occurred in 
Independence County, on the 22d of September, 
1874, to Miss Annie J. Pate. Three children are 
the fruits of this union: John Henry, Margie Lee 
and Robert Franklin. Mr. Baker is the owner of 
203 acres of valuable land in Ind(*pendence County, 
and other valuable property. He is a Mason, be- 
longing to Neill Lodge, Jamestown, and also a 
member of the Methodist Church, as is his wife. 
In his political views he aiSliates with the Demo- 
cratic party. 

Angus C. Baker, farmer and stock raiser. This 
gentleman, one of the progressive young farmers 
of the county, was originally from Henry County, 
Tenn., where his birth occurred on the 26th of 
January, 1853. His father, Peter K. Baker, is 
well known throughout the county as one of its 
representative citizens. [See sketch on previous 
page. ] Brought up as an agriculturist it was but 
natural that Angus C. Baker should permanently 
adopt that calling as his life occupation. He re- 
ceived a good practical education in the common 
schools of Independence County. Ark., and later 
attended Washington high school, near Batesville, 
where he remained until 1876, and then entered 
Gardner's Academy, in Weakley County, Tenn., 
there taking a year's course. During the winter of 
1876-77 he taught his first school, in Bayou Dota 
Academy, and since that time has taught both 
select and public schools in his own county. He 
has been twice married; first, September 15, 1878, 
to Miss Mary E. Best, daughter of William Best, 
a prominent farmer of Black River Township. 
Four children were born to this imion, who are 
named as follows: Percy K. , born September 15, 
1879; Orville M. L. was born on the VMh of No- 
vember, 1881; Ernest E. was bom on the 15th of 
October, 1884, and Roy C. was born on the I'Jth 
of November, 1888, and died on the 7th of Janu- 
ary, 1889. Mrs. Baker died on the 24th of No- 



^ 



638 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



vember, 1888. She was a loving wife and mother, 
and a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Mr. Baker's second marriage took place 
in December, 1888, to Miss Burrilla.A. Best, sister 
of his first wife. His principal occupation has been 
that of farming, but, in connection with this, 
he has been engaged in mercantile pursuits. From 
1880 to 1887 he carried on a general mercantile 
business on his farm, and at the same time acted 
as assistant postmaster. In the winter .of 1887 he 
sold his store, and worked as a salesman for J. R. 
Bullington, of Sulphur Rock, until December 1st, 
when he entered the clerk's office at Batesville, 
and there remained until the spring of 1889. He 
then returned to his farm of 160 acres, with sixty 
acres under cultivation, a good orchard, and lately 
he has erected a nice residence. He votes with the 
Democratic party, but is not a political enthusiast. 
He and Mrs. Baker are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

C. M. Ball has long been associated with the 
agricultural interests of Independence County, 
Ark., the residents of which have had every op- 
portunity to judge of his character, for he was 
born here June 13, 1834, and naught can be said 
of him but to his credit. Eighty acres of his 219- 
acre farm are in an excellent state of cultivation, 
and his buildings and fences ai'e in good repair, 
and his farm is well stocked. His father, B. F. 
Ball, was born in Loudoun County, Va., in 1807, 
and in that county he was reared to manhood and 
educated. In 1826 he moved to Arkansas, where 
he was married to Elizabeth Dillard, who was also 
born in North Carolina. They were married in 
1832, and to this union were born fourteen children, 
seven being still living. Mr. Ball was called upon 
to mourn the loss of his wife by death, August 9, 
18-49, and he was afterwards wedded to Miss Mi- 
nerva Baker, of Virginia, and their marriage resulted 
in the birth of four children, only one being now 
alive. At the time of his death, June 24, 1889, 
he was the owner of 205 acres of land. He and 
wife were connected with the Methodist Church, 
and he was a member of the Masonic lodge. C. M. 
Ball, our subject, was educated in Independence 
County, near Batesville, and was there married 



to Miss Nancy A. Anderson, a North Carolinian, 
their uaion taking place July 9, 1858. Two sons 
and four daughters were given them, the four 
daughters, only, being alive: Mary E.. wife of J. 
B. Gray; Caledonia, wife of J. W. Meacham; 
Flora B. , wife of W. T. Home, and Emma, who 
is still at home. Like his father, Mr. Ball is a 
Mason, and he also belongs to the Agricultural 
Wheel, but has neglected to attend the latter or- 
ganization for some time. He is universally re- 
spected by his fellowmen, and is a man on whose 
word one can rely. He and family worship in the 
Methodist Chiirch. 

Warren G. Ball may be classed among the 
many successful agriculturists of Independence 
County, Ai-S. He was born in this county October 
26, 1837, and there his early scholastic advantages 
were enjoyed, but only such as the common schools 
afforded. These opportunities he improved to the 
iitmost, however, and his subsequent contact with 
business life, coupled with much reading, has tended 
to place him among the intelligent men of the 
county. After reaching mature years he united 
his fortunes with those of Miss Sarah A. Jackson, 
a Tennesseean by birth, and of a family of three 
sons and five daughters born to their marriage six 
are living and all reside with their parents: Tabitha, 
William L., Laura C, Julia, Agnes and Gracie. 
Mr. Ball's land, which amounts to 185 acres, is ex- 
ceedingly fertile and well located, and ninety acres 
are under the plow. All the buildings are in good 
condition, and the farm is well supplied with all 
necessary stock. In addition to this property, Mr. 
Ball also owns a grist-mill, which turns out an ex- 
cellent product. He is a Mason, and has been sec- 
retary of his lodge one year, and senior warden 
two years. He has always taken a deep interest in 
educational matters, and has held the office of 
school director five years, and is still filling the 
position. He has also been constable, and dis- 
charged the duties of this office to the satisfaction 
of those concerned. He and wife are uiembersof 
the Methodist Church. 

John F. Barnes, M. D., though only thirty- 
two years of age, is however, conceded to be one 
of the leading dentists of Independence County. 



vis r- 



1^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



630 



He is a native of the county in which he now re- 
sides. When a child, he was taken by his parents 
to the State of Iowa, where his youthful days were 
spent in assisting on the home farm and in attend- 
ing the public schools, where he acquired a good 
practical education. In 1873, he returned with 
his people to Independence County, Ark., and in 
1883 began the study of medicine under Dr. Moore, 
a traveling dentist, and remained with him until 
1888, traveling over the State of Arkansas. In 
1888 here turned to Sulphur Bock, where he has 
since made his home, and has acquired an excel- 
lent patronage. He is a married man, Miss L. 
Cora Hurt, of Independence County, becoming his 
wife on the 7th of April, 1886, she being the 
daughter of Thomas Hurt (deceased), one of the 
pioneers of the county. Dr. Barnes is a Bepubli- 
can in his political views, and is now filling the 
office of city marshal. His parents, Archibald and 
Lucinda (Mateby) Barnes, were born in Wilkes 
County, N. C, and were there reared, educated 
and married. Soon after the latter event, they came 
to Independence County, Ark. , but subsequently 
moved to Iowa, where they remained until 1873, 
then returning to Arkansas. The father is still 
living, but the mother died February 6, 1883, at 
the age of fifty-nine years, eight months and twen- 
ty-five days. Mr. Barnes is a Mason, a Bepubli- 
caii, and a successful farmer. He is probably of 
English ancestry. He and wife became the par- 
ents of the following family: Nancy (Reeves); 
William P., who died at Helena, Ark., while a 
.soldier in the Union Army; Martha L. (Smith); 
Sarah H. (Harmon); G. W., who died in 1888, 
at the age of thirty-two years; Mary L. (Martin); 
Lucinda J., who died when a child, and John F. 

J. M. Bartlett, ex-mayor of Batesville, is of 
Indiana nativity, born in Owen County, on the 
4th of November, 1844, and since his location in 
this county, in 1883, he has been closely indenti- 
fied with its material affairs, and associated with 
its progress and development. His parents, 
James C. and Surah (Alexander) Bartlett, were 
natives of Kentucky and North Carolina, respect- 
ively. The father settled in Owen County, Ind. , 
in 1831, locating at Gosport, and was a tanner by 



trade, which occupation he followed for years. 
He subsequently engaged in tilling the soil, and 
has lived on the same farm for fifty years, residing 
within fo\ir miles of Gosport. In their family were 
twelve childi-en, four only, now living: Louisa, 
wife of James Alverson; Richard P., Jesse M. and 
Jackson A. The father was married the second 
time, in February, 1859, and one child was born 
to this union, Lawrence, who is now at home. 
The maternal grandfather of J. M. Bartlett emi- 
grated to Indiana and located in what is now 
Owen County, then a territory adjoining the Indian 
Nation. He erected a house within half a mile of 
the Indian Nation line. He was a farmer by oc- 
cupation, and died in that county in his eighty- 
fourth year. The paternal grandfather died in 
Kentucky. J. M. Bartlett's youth and early man- 
hood were passed in his native county, and there 
he attended the schools which favored him with a 
good education. Reared to the arduous duties of 
the farm, he continued this pursuit until in Octo- 
ber, 1875, when he removed to Paris, 111., and 
there remained about one year. From there he 
went to St. Louis, where he was engaged in the 
livery business for six years, and after that was 
with the Christian Manufacturing Company, for 
one year. In 1883 became to Batesville, ' Ark. , 
and in 1884 he embarked in the livery business, 
which he still carries on. He owns a fine sand- 
stone quarry near Batesville, and is president of 
the Zinc-Blende Mining Company, who are operat- 
ing over 250 acres of mining land, with a capital 
stock of §1,500,000. He was elected mayor of 
Bate.sville, in 1886, and reelected in 1887. which 
position he held until 1889. He owns a stone 
building on Main Street, two stories high, 38 feet 
front and 120 feet long, the lot 150 feet deep. 
Mr. Bartlett is also a stockholder and director in 
the Batesville Telephone. On the 2d of Septem- 
ber, 1869, at Charleston. 111., Miss Mary A. Duni- 
vin, a native of Coles County, became his wife. 
One child was born to this union, Edwin C. Mr. 
Bartlett is a member of the I. O. O. F.. K. of H.. 
and he and wife are members of the K. & L. of H. 
Elisha Baxter, ex-governor of the State of Ar- 
kansas and whose name has been famous before the 



^ ^ r - 



.re 



^ 



040 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



nation for many years, was born in Rutherford 
County, N. C, September 1, 1827. HLs father 
waa William Baxter, bom in Ireland about the 
year 1759, and a weaver by trade, who emigrated 
to America in the year 1789, settling for a time in 
Mecklenberg Count3^ N. C. , where he soon after- 
ward married Miss Sarah Berryhill. This happy 
union gave them four daughters and five sons 
whose names are Margaret, James, Joseph, Wil- 
liam, Andrew, Thomas, Sarah, Carolina and Mary. 
After his marriage he removed to Rutherford 
County. N. C. , where he resided until his death, 
in 1852, leaving a very large estate behind him, 
the result of his energy and good business ability. 
About the year 1810 he married his second wife, 
Catherine, daughter of James Lee, of Virginia, 
and from this marriage were born three daughters 
and five sons: Jane, Elizabeth, Esther, John, 
David, George, Elisha and Taylor. John became 
a very prominent attorney^ and for several terms 
was elected a member of the North Carolina legis- 
lature and speaker of the house in 1852. He 
moved to Knoxville, Tenn. , in 185-t, and was a 
member of the constitutional convention that adopt- 
ed the present constitution of that State. He was 
appointed United States circuit judge by Presi- 
dent Hayes in 1878 for the States of Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan, and was one of the 
most brilliant men of his time. John died at Hot 
Springs, Ark., March 2, 1887; David perished at 
sea on an ocean voyage to Australia in 1851, and 
George died in 1854. Taylor became a prosperous 
farmer in Kansas, while Eliaha was one of Ar- 
kansas" most noted governors. Elisha Baxter re- 
ceived a good moral training in his youth, bat, 
much to his regret in after life, he did not have 
the facilities for attending the higher schools and 
academies that are now within the reach of every 
young man in America. In 1848 he commenced 
his mercantile career at Rutherfordton, in company 
with his brother-in-law, Spenser Eaves, and in 
1849 he was united in marriage to Miss Harriet, 
daughter of Col. Elijah Patton, of Kutherford 
County. He shortly afterward withdrew from 
commercial life and farmed for two 3'ears, and in the 
fall of 1852 moved to Arkansas. In the early part 



of 1853 he again entered into business, this time 
at BatesvUle, in company with his brother Taylor, 
under the firm name of E. Baxter & Bro. He had not 
been a merchant at Batesville very long befoi-e he 
found that the nature of trade and the habits of 
the people were essentially different from those of 
North Carolina, and this, in connection with his 
love of politics and activity in that direction, soon 
led to disastrous results. In 1855 they suspended, 
giving up all of their property, and paying their 
debts in full, and ended their business career as 
honorably as the_v had conducted it. This unfor- 
tunate occurrence did not break the spirit of these 
determined men, however, and the brother, who had 
never been compelled to do a day's labor before, 
at once mounted a building, just before the store 
they had vacated, and began learning the car- 
penter's trade. In this he succeeded, and soon 
regained part of his fallen fortune. Elisha repaired 

; to the ofiice of the Independent Balance, a news- 
paper published at Batesville, by U. E. Fort, 
and edited by M. Shelby Kennard. Here ho found 
employment for twelve months, and devoted his 
leisure hours to the study of law under the super- 
vision of the Hon. H. F. Fairchild. He soon after- 
ward was admitted to the bar, and since then has 
practiced his profession, except when filling office. 
He was a Whig in politics, and a strong adherent 
of that party until it disbanded, in 1855. Mr. Bax- 
ter then attempted to co-operate with the Demo- 
cratic party, but could not agree with them on the 

1 question of secession. As a Whig, he was elected 
and served as mayor of Batesville, in 1853, and in 
1854 was elected a member of the legislature from 
Independence County, which had not elected a 
Whig to any position for twenty years. In 1858 
he was atrain elected to the legislature as a non- 
partisan, and in 1860 was defeated for prosecuting 
attorney of the Third judicial di.strict by F. W. 
Desha. When the war came on he tried to be 
neutral and loyal to the government of the United 
States, so that when Curtis came into Batesville 
with 20,000 Federal troops, in the spring of 1862, 
his position enabled him to do a great deal of good 
for the citizens of Batesville; and during the two 

, months that the place was occupied by the Federal 



T" 



-k^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



041 



army he was incessantly engaged in reclaiming 
property, collecting vouchers, and procuring the 
release of prisoners, without the hope or prospects 
of reward. At that time he believed his course 
would he appreciated, but Curtis had scarcely left 
when he was notified by some friendly Confeder- 
ates that he could not safely remain in the country. 
Accordingly, he left on short notice, with but very 
little provision made for himself and family. Over- 
taking Curtis at Jacksonport, he was tendered the 
command of the First Arkansas Federal regiment, 
then just ready to be organized, but declined, and 
as he said to General Curtis: 

Not because I think you ought not to whip the rebel- 
lious but because I feel that I, who am Southern born 
and raised, ought not to take arms against my neighbors 
and friends. 

He did not get to see or hear fi'om his family for 
almost a year, and in the spring of 1863 he was 
captured by a squad of Southern cavalry com- 
manded by Col. Newton. On arriving at head- 
quarters he received such courtesy from Col. New- 
ton, and discovered in him such military genius, 
that afterward, when he became governor, and felt 
it his duty to appoint a major-general for active 
operations in the field, he did not hesitate to be- 
stow the commission on Col. Newton, who had 
paroled him at Fredericktown, Mo. , with an escort 
of two men, and required him to report to Gen. 
Holmes at Little Rock. He had scarcely left New- 
ton's camp when he came in full view of the Fed- 
eral army, in which one of his friends urged him 
to join them, but he replied that he had given his 
pledge of honor to report at Little Rock, which he 
did, and Gen. Holmes unceremoniously turned him 
over to the civil authorities, who assigned him to 
the Pulaski County jail to await an indictment for 
treason against the Confederate States. In due 
time the indictment was found, and he was ar- 
raigned before Judge Ringold, William M. Ran- 
dolph acting as district attorney. The case was 
continued until the next term of court, and through 
the agency of some friends he managed to escape 
from jail, and after concealing himself for eigliteen 
days near Little Rock, without any shelter and 
barely enough foo<l to live, he succeeded in making 



his way into the Federal army, then at Little Rock, 
Gen. Steele having captured and occu])ied that 
place on September 10, 1803. In all this time he 
was abused, verbally and through the press, being 
branded as a coward by the True Democrat, of Lit- 
tle Rock, citing his refusal to take command of the 
First Arkansas Federal Regiment, when tendered 
him by Gen. Curtis, as a proof. Stung by these 
retieetions, he made haste to apply to Gen. Steele 
for authority to recruit a regiment for the Federal 
service. Armed with such authority, he proceeded 
to Jacksonport and recruited the Fourth Arkansas 
Mounted Infantry, and reported to Gen. R. R. 
Livingston, at Batesville, where he commanded 
the post until the spring of 1804, when, under the 
organization of the Murphy or war government, he 
was elected a member of the supreme court. Under 
the constitution of 1804 he could not hold two 
offices at one time, so, after much hesitation, he 
resigned his command of the regiment, which de- 
volved uj)on his brother as senior captain, as well 
as by order of Gen. Steele. Fourteen days after 
becoming a member of the supreme court of the 
State, he was elected, over his protest, to the sen- 
ate of the United States for the long term. He 
repaired to Washington, taking his family with 
him for safety as far as Illinois, and presented his 
credentials, under the State government then ex- 
isting in Arkansas, but was not permitted to qual 
ify as senator. After the war was over he returned 
with his family to Batesville, and resumed the 
practice of law. In 1808, upon the suggestion of 
the Hon. H. C. Caldwell, he was appointed reg- 
ister in bankruptcy for the First Congressional dis- 
trict of Arkansas, by the Hon. Salmon P. Chase, 
then chief justice of the United States. During 
the same year he was appointed judge of the Third 
judicial circuit for four years, by Gov. Clayton. 
In 1872 he was nominated by the Republican party 
for governor, upon a platform pledging him to do 
what he could to enfi-anchise all such persons as 
had been disfranchised on account of their partici- 
pation in the rebellion. He accepted the nomina- 
tion, and, after the most laborious and extensive 
canvass ever made in the State, he was elected by 
a majority of 3,242 votes over his competitor, 



A: 



642 



HISTOBY OF AEKANSAS. 



Joseph Brooks, perhaps the most able debater ever 
known in Arkansas. His election was duly de- 
clared by the senate of the State, the only tribunal 
that had any authority to count, or in any manner 
control the returns. He was qualified as governor 
early in 1873, and undertook to redeem his pledges 
to the people and give them an honest government. 
His administration was certainly the most eventful 
and fruitful of any State government in the United 
States. This remarkable epoch in the .history of 
Arkansas, known as the Brooks-Baxter war, is too 
long for narration in this sketch, and indeed per- 
tains more to the history of the State than to these 
two individuals. In 1878 at the earnest solicita- 
tion of people from all parts of the State, he be- 
came a candidate for United States senator, but 
was defeated by the Hon. J. D. Walker, a Demo- 
crat. He was called to till the office of governor 
of Arkansas, at the most trying period in the his- 
tory of that State. The conflict that culminated 
during his administration, was not the question as 
to which of two contestants should be governor of 
the State for a single term; but in reality it was a 
representative struggle between principles of the 
utmost importance to the welfare of the State, and 
Gov. Baxter held firm to his pledges and principles 
throughout the entire struggle. During the trouble, 
when President Grant suggested that both he and 
Brooks act as governor jointly, Mr. Baxter replied: 

I am either governor or I am not governor, and I will 
consent to nothing that will, in whole or in part, recog- 
nize Mr. Brooks as governor. 

In his profession of the law. Gov. Baxter has 
achieved a splendid rejjutation, although not en- 
tering it until his maturer years, and being subject 
to many interruptions. He is a man possessing a 
strong natural moral disposition, and has a dread 
of violence and bloodshed, as was manifest 
throughout his administration. Gov. Baxter and 
wife are the parents of six children: Millard P., 
Edward A.. Catherine M., wife of N. M. Alexan- 
der; George E. and Hattie O., and Fannie E. , who 
died in childhood. The Governor has been a 
member of the Methodist Church since 1844, and, 
by act of their separation, has become a member of 
the Southern branch. 



Dr. William J. Bell is a prominent medical 
practitioner of Independence County, and was born 
in the State of Alabama, February 17, 1835. He 
was the second born in the family of six children 
of Wesley and Elizabeth (Bell) Bell. Wesley Bell, 
who was a native of South Carolina, was born in 
1808; he was of English descent, and was a 
mechanic and farmer. When a young man he re- 
moved from Soiith Carolina to Alabama, where he 
married and resided until about 1840, when he 
located in the western part of Tennessee, subse- 
quently, on accoimt of ill health, removing to 
Arkansas, where he died in 1857. His wife, who 
was also a native of South Carolina, was born in 
1812, and died about 1847. The paternal grand- 
father of our subject was John Bell, who served 
during the Revolutionary War, and died at the 
advanced age of ninety-seven years, his wife living 
to l)e eighty- five years of age. William J. received 
the advantages of a common school education in 
Lawrence County, Ark., and in 1857 began the 
study of medicine; in 1858 he attended a course of 
medical lectures in Memphis, Tenn., and the fol- 
lowing year entered upon the active practice of his 
chosen profession in the neighborhood where he 
now resides. He is now one of the leading physi- 
cians of Independence County, and has built up 
an extensive practice, answering calls at a distance 
of thirty or forty miles. Dr. Bell owns 305 acres 
of land, all of which is under cultivation; sixty- 
five acres lie on the White River bottom, and the 
balance, where he resides, about eleven miles west 
of the county seat. June 16, 1868, he married 
Miss Christina McFarland, who was born in Inde- 
pendence County, in 1846, being a daughter of 
Alexander G. and Sarah J. McFarland, early set- 
tlers of the county. Dr. and Mrs. Bell have six 
children, viz.: Clete A., James E., Ida V., Ver- 
tula A. , William E. and Ross A. The parents are 
both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Dr. Bell has been a member of the Masonic 
fraternity since 1859. and is also a member of the 
I. O. O. F. , both of which orders he has at various 
times represented in the Grand Lodge. In poli- 
tics he is in sympathy with the Democratic parly. 

William C. Best, Dota, Ark. There are many 



-d. 9 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



643 



incidents of peculiar interest presented in the life 
of Mr. Best which cannot be given in the brief 
space allotted to this sketch. He is known over a 
large region of the country tributary to Dota, his 
reputation being that of a man honorable and re- 
liable in every walk of life, and it may be said, 
without the least arrogance, that he is a self-made 
man. His birth occurred in Georgia, on the 9th of 
April, 1826, his pareut.s, Thomas and Nancy Best, 
also being natives of the same State. The father 
was born in Lincoln County, and the mother in 
Wilkes County, in 17V)7 ; he was a tiller of the soil 
for many years, of quiet demeanor, and universally 
respected by all who knew him. The mother died 
in Alabama, in 1S62, and the father survived her 
until 1880, when his death occurred at the home of 
his son, William C. Best, in Arkansas. Both par- 
ents were members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, the mother having belonged for forty 
years, and the father for sixty years. The paternal 
grandparents were natives of North Carolina. Will- 
iam C. Best grew up on the farm with his father 
and mother, and received his education in the 
schools of Alabama, having moved to this State in 
the year 1840, at the age of fourteen. When 
twenty-one years old he began his own career, and 
for three years worked on the farm. On the 5th of 
December, . 1850, he was married to Miss Mary J. 
Pope, in Macon County, Ala., and the fruits of 
their marriage are ten children, five sons and five 
daughters. James S. Best, the oldest son, was 
born on the 17th of December, 1851, in Macon 
County, Ala. , and is now a minister of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, South. He was married to 
Miss flattie J. McDonald on the 6th day of Octo- 
ber, 1873. Sarah J. Best was born in Macon 
County, Ala., on the 19th of March. 1854; was 
married to Joseph G. McDonald on the 2Sth day of 
March, 1871, and died September 18, 1875, leav- 
ing two cliildren, a boy and girl. Mary E. Best 
was born in Macon County, Ala., Aj)ril 27, 1856; 
was married to .Angus C. Baker September 6, 1878, 
and died on the 19th of November, 1887, leaving 
four boys. Emma J. Best was born in Macon 
County, Ala., April 16. 1858, and departed this life 
September 1:5, 1885. Andiew Thomas Best was 



born in Macon County, Ala., July 27, 1861; was 
married to Miss Etter Sorrolls. January 22, 1885, 
and is now living on a farm adjoining his father. 
William C. Best, Jr., was born in Macon County, 
Ala., on the 21st of November, 1862, and is well 
educated, having attended some of the best normal 
institutions of learning in the State of Mississipjji. 
He is now engaged in teaching in the public schools of 
his own county. Lovda Best was born in Tallapoosa 
County, Ala., August 18, 1866, and died March 
25, 1882. John W. Best was born in Lee County, 
Miss., on the 30th of August, 1869, and is now liv 
ing with his parents. He is a bright and studious 
young man. Burrilla A. Best was born in Inde- 
pendence County, Ark., on the 22d of March, 1872 ; 
was married to Angus C. Baker December 20, 1888, 
and is \xo\s residing at Sulphur Rock, Ark. Alonzo 
Best, born in Independence County, Ark., Febru- 
ary 23, 1875, is the youngest of the family, and 
consequently is a great pet. When the war broke 
out Mr. Best was engaged in farming in Macon 
County, Ala. In 1862 he was occupied in making 
salt at the Central Salt Works, in Clark County, 
Ala. , and about the middle of December returned 
home. Immediately following this he was em- 
ployed by the government to go to Mobile, Ala., 
with a company of hands to help to fortify the 
town. Remaining there something over three 
months, he reached home about the Ist of April. 
1863, and at once joined the Sixty first Alabama 
regiment, Company A, under Col. W. G. Swan- 
son; Clanton's brigade. They were then ordered 
to Montgomery, and later to Pollard, being sta 
tioned there until 1864, when they were sent to 
Virginia and attached to Gen. Battle's brigade, 
Rhodes' division and Early's corps. The following 
engagements were participated in: Battle of the 
Wilderness, May 5. 18(i4 ; Spottsylvania, on the 
12th of same month, and Winchester, September 19, 
1864 — made famous by Gen. Sheridan' s ride. Here 
he was severely wounded by a gun-shot, and was 
captured, made prisoner of war, and held at Win 
Chester until the 10th of December, when he was 
sent to Baltimore, remaining there until January 8, 
1865. Upon being sent to Point Lookout he was 
held there until June 5. 1865, when he was dis 



^: 



644 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



charged, and again joined his family, whom he 
found living in Tallapoosa County, Ala. He re- 
mained there until the fall of 1867, when he moved 
to Lee County, Miss., but not being satisfied here, 
moved to Independence County, Ark. He found 
himself in possession of $180, a team of horses and 
wagon, a few household goods, and eight children. 
He rented for two years the same farm which he 
purchased in 1871, giving his note for the amount. 
By the closest economy and industry he "succeeded 
in paying for it. To the original 160 acres he 
added from time to time, until he is now owner of 
360 acres, nearly 200 of which are under cultivation, 
and about seventy of it he has cleared himself. 
When he first settled on the farm the only build- 
ings on the same were two unfinished log rooms. 
Now he has a well -completed house of six rooms, 
good barns and out-lmildings, a fine orchard; raises 
his own stock, and has some of the best of work 
horses and mules. His principal crops are cotton> 
corn, oats, wheat, etc., and he is known as a tine 
melon raiser, having this fruit early and late. In 
1878 he erected a large gin house, which he has 
conducted ever since, with unusual success. He 
spends the autumn months engaged in ginning, and 
has averaged 250 bales each year for eight years. 
He votes with the Democratic party, and finds 
much of interest in local politics. He takes a great 
interest in conventions, and has once been a dele- 
gate to the Democratic State Convention. He has 
been a member of the Temperance Council Grange 
and Agricultural Wheel. Mr. Best and family are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
he is a steward and trustee of the same. 

Judge William C. Bevens (deceased). From 
an early period in the county's history Judge 
Bevens gave to Independence the very best en- 
ergies of his life, as one of its most worthy and 
respected citizens; and to the community and all 
among whom he lived the example of a life well 
and usefully spent, and the influence of a charac- 
ter without stain. His birth occurred in Charles- 
ton, S. C. , on the 2l8t of December, 1806, where 
he studied law and afterward practiced his pro- 
fession in Greenville, in the northern part of his 
native State. He removed to the Lone Star State 



in 1840, settling at Austin, and there j)racticed his 
profession until 1846. He then moved to Bates- 
ville, Ark., where he joined a number of his rela- 
tives who had moved there from North Carolina. 
Here he was elected to the legislature of Arkan- 
sas, and served with great acceptability in the 
sessions of 1852-53. So great was his popularity 
and prominence, that he was elected judge of the 
circuit court of the Third judicial circuit in 1856, 
and was much esteemed for his sterling integrity, 
sober, sound judgment, broad intelligence and lib- 
eral, progressive ideas. His decisions were not 
made without careful and painstaking study of the 
evidence adduced, and all felt that his judgment 
could be relied upon. During the late war he took 
his family south, where he remained a quiet citizen 
until the cessation of hostilities. He died at 
Little Rock, in September, 1865, while on his way 
home to Batesville. Judge Bevens had three 
beautiful daughters, the belles of the country in 
their youth. One of them married ex-Gov. Will- 
iam R. Miller, another became the wife of Maj. 
William E. Gibbs, and a third is the wife of Hon. 
James W. Butler, the present judge of the Third 
judicial circuit of Arkansas. 

John C. Bone, dealer in furniture, sash and 
doors, coffins and undertakers' supplies, Batesville. 
The business men of Batesville are a pushing, ac- 
tive, persevering and enterprising set, . and "the 
weakest must go to the wall." Certainly Mr. 
Bone is not one of the latter class, for, to all in- 
tents and purposes, he is an ideal business man. 
He is a native of Izard County, Ark., born Octo- 
ber 20, 1849, and after remaining on the farm un- 
til twenty years of age engaged in the mercantile 
business as clerk, following it for a number of 
years. He then studied law, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1877, at Batesville, but never practiced. 
He again returned to mercantile pursuits, which he 
followed two years, and then took charge of his 
present business, which was run by his father in- 
law, Charles L. Gorsuch, who was killed by hav- 
ing a house fall on him during a fire. Mr. Bone 
has since continued the business, has erected a 
planing-mill, and now carries it on in connection 
with his other interests, employing several hands. 







Ho is self-educated and self-made in every respect. 
He was married on the ]2tb of December, 1877, 
to Miss Nettie M.' Gorsiich, and they have two 
children living: Charles E. and Harry C. Mr. 
Bone is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Chap- 
tor and Council. He and wife are members of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and are esteemed 
and respected citizens. His parents, Elihu C. and 
Charlotte J. (Jeffrey) Bone, are natives of Wilson 
County, Tenn., and Izard County, Ark., respect- 
ively. The father immigrated to Izard County, in 
1841. locating near Barren Fork one year, entered 
land at Mount Olive, Izard County, and there fol- 
lowed agricultural pursuits. He was also a Cum- 
berland Presbyterian minister. By his marriage, 
which occurred in 1844, be became the father of 
seven children, four living; Miles N.. John C, 
Levisa J. and Henry F. Th<> remainder of the 
children died when young. The parents died 
when the children were quite young, and they were 
obliged to look out for themselves. The maternal 
grandfather, Jehoiada Jeffery, and his wife Mary, 
settled at what is now Mount Olive, in Izard Coun- 
ty, in 1816. They were originally from North 
Carolina and Tennessee, and after living in Jones- 
boro, 111. , for some time, they moved to Arkansas, 
coming through by land on pack-horses. They 
were the first settlers of Izard County, their near- 
est neighbors being about thirty-five miles distant. 
He was a member of the Territorial legislature of 
Arkansas, about 1824, from Independence County, 
and afterward from Izard County, when he intro- 
duced the bill creating Fulton County. 

Gabriel J. Bradley is one of the industrious 
farmers of Greenbriar Township, Independence 
County. He is a native of Randolph County, 111., 
and was bom July 13, 1831. His parents were 
Isaac A. and Jlary T. (Jones) Bradley, of whom 
the former was born in Sumner County, Tenn. , in 
1806, and the latter was a native of Adair County, 
Ky. , born about 1813. They were married in 
Randolph County, 111., but removed to Perry Coun- 
ty in 1834, where Mrs. Bradley died about 1854 
and her husband about 1883, both having been 
members of the Baptist Church. Isaac A. Brad- 
ley was one of the commissioners of Pen'y County 



seven years; he was a son of Joshua Bradley, a na- 
tive of North Carolina, who lived some years 
in Sumner County, Tenn., and then moved to 
Jackson County, 111., where he died; he was of 
Irish descent. Col. Gabriel Jones, the maternal 
grandfather of Gabriel J. Bradley, was born in 
Virginia, from which State he went to Kentucky, 
and when Mrs. Bradley was about seven years old 
removed to Randolph County, 111. Mr. Jones was 
killed at Chester, 111., in a storm daring the war; 
he represented Randolph County in the legisla- 
ture in an early day, and was a colonel in the Black 
Hawk War. Gabriel J. Bradley was the eldest of 
the family of five sons and one daughter. He re- 
mained at home, and most of the time until nine- 
teen years of age attended the common schools. In 
1857 he married Mrs. Malinda Wilson, daughter 
of William Osburn. She died in 1883, leaving five 
children, viz. : James, Ada, Ann. Emma and Zee 
In August, 1885, Mr. Bradley married Edie E. 
James, of Independence County. She is a daugh- 
ter of Henry B. and Eveline James, of Coffey Coun- 
ty, Tenn. , who removed to Independence County, 
Ark., before the war, where Mr. James died; his 
widow is still living. One child has lieen born to the 
last marriage of Mr. Bradley— Ethel. Mr. Brad- 
ley removed from Perry County, 111., to Independ- 
ence County, Ark., in 1806, and has since lived in 
Greenbriar township. He has a good farm of 168 
acres, about 100 of which are under cultivation. 
He is an enterprising farmer, and devotes his entire 
attention to his occupation. His political sympa- 
thies are with the Democratic party. Mrs. Bra<llcy 
is a member of the Methodist Church. 

William L. Brewer has been familial' with tlie 
duties of farm life from early boyhood, and has now 
an excellent farm of 160 acres in Independence 
County, Ark., of which about fifty acres are under 
cultivation. Having been born in this county, on 
the 30th of March, 1831, he is well known by many 
here, and the utmost confidence is placed in his 
honor and integrity. His parents, Willis anil 
Isabella (West) Brewer, were born in North Caro- 
lina and Tennessee, the former's birth occurring in 
17i)6, and their union resulted in the birth of ten 
children, seven of whom are living at the present 



A'. 



646 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



time. Willis Brewer was a farmer, but gave much 
of his attention to stock raising, iu which enterprise 
he was quite successful. His views on the subject 
of religion coincided with the Baptist faith, but he 
was not a member of any church, although his wife 
had for many years been a member of the Metho- 
dist Church. She died in full communion with 
this denomination March 9, 1S61, and was fol- 
lowed to her long home by her husband in 1864. 
Their son, William L. Brewer, was educated in 
Independence County, near Batesville, and after 
reaching manhood was married to Mrs. Meacham, 
whose birth occurred in North Carolina on the 24th 
of February, 182V). One child has been born to 
them. He is a Mason and was junior warden 
of his lodge for one year, and he and Mrs. Brewer 
have been worthy members of the Methodist 
Church for some time. 

J. R. Bullington, merchant and druggist, Sul- 
phur Rock, Ark. Among the important mercan- 
tile establishments which contribute not a little to 
the growth and prosperity of the town of Sulphur 
Rock, that of Mr. Bullington takes a prominent 
place. He was born in Spartanburg County, 
S. C, December 24. 1847, and was the son of 
John J. and Julia (Tinsley) Bullington, and 
grandson of Samuel Bullington, who was a farm- 
er by occupation and an early settler of South 
Carolina. John J. Bullington was born in 1812, 
and died in 1877. He was also a tiller of the soil 
and came to Independence County, in 1857. He 
settled on new land in the forest, and improved a 
large tract. He was not active in politics, and 
until the war was a Democrat. After that he affil- 
iated with the Republican party. He was a zeal- 
ous member of and an active worker in the Centre 
Grove Baptist Church. His wife was born in 
South Carolina, in 1818, and was married to Mr. 
Bullington in that State about 1837. Her death 
occurred in Independence County, Ark., in 1868. 
She was also a member of the Baptist Church. J. 
R. Bullington was the fifth of eight children — only 
two now living — born to his parents. The chil- 
dren are named as follows: Ona E., born in South 
Carolina, in 1848, and is the widow of William 
Bishop — she now lives in Charlotte; J. R. 



(subject); William W. was born in 1855, was a 
farmer and salesman, and died September 21, 
1888. J. R. Bullington passed his school days 
in picking cotton, gathering corn and clearing 
new ground, and at the age of twenty-one years 
found himself possessed of the rudest elements of 
an education. When twelve years of age he was 
a ready reader of music, and, being a lover of the 
"art divine," began at an early age to perfect 
himself in this delightful pursuit. His father was 
a music teacher. When twenty years of age our 
subject formed the acquaintance of Prof. J. D. 
Walker (son of William Walker the well-known 
author), in whose company and with whom he 
taught singing school for five years. After his 
twenty-first year he spent twenty-one days in 
school, after which he began farming, biit poor 
health caused him to abandon hard labor. After 
this he spent six weeks in school, and the next 
year (1870) he began teaching school and did noth- 
ing until 1876 except teach. He then attended 
school, but again had to abandon this work on 
account of his health. At that time he entered the 
employ of Dr. Vaughn, at Sulphur Rock, at 110 
per month, and remained with him until 1886. 
He was deputy postmaster from 1877 to 1886. 
During the last mentioned year he conducted the 
drug department and acted as book-keeper for A. 
M. James. Then, in February, 1887, he opened a 
drug and grocery business for himself, adding to 
the same until he had a large general store, and 
does a general furnishing business, with the pros- 
pect of enjoying a full share of the future business 
at Sulphur Rock. He is a stockholder, director and 
treasurer of the Sulphur Rock Railroad. Mr. 
Bullington met Miss Jessie Robinson, daughter 
of Dr. F. M. Robinson, of Indian Bay, Monroe 
County, Ark. , and was united in marriage to her 
on the 22d of December, 1886. They have one 
child. Jack, who was born on the 22d of June, 
1888. Mrs. Bullington is a member of the Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church, and while Mr. Bul- 
lington does not hold membership in any society, 
he is a strong believer in the Bible, and is a man 
well and favorably known. 

Judge William Byers (deceased). Pennsylvania 



el 



•^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



647 



has given to Independence County many estimable 
citizens, but she has contributed none more hirrhly 
respected, or, for conscientious discharge of duty 
in every relation of life, more worthy of respect 
and esteem than was the subject of this sketch. 
He was born on the 4th of March, 1810, being 
a son of Dr. John and Sarah (Bonner) Byers, also 
natives of Pennsylvania. Dr. John Byers was of 
Irish descent, and had seven brothers, all of 
whom were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. 
Judge William Byers remained in his native State 
until about eight years of age, after which he 
moved with his parents to near Mount Vernon, 
Ohio. There he grew to manhood, receiving a 
limited education, so far as the fiicilities of school- 
ing were concerned, and might be called a self- 
made man in every sense of the word. Early in 
life he commenced the study of law under Mr. 
Delno, a very famous lawyer, and was admitted to 
the bar, at Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he prac- 
ticed a short time. He was married the first time 
at Fredericksburg, Ohio, and came with his family 
to Batesville, Ark., in about 1838, where he prac- 
ticed his profession. He soon became very prom- 
inent, and was sent to the legislature, where he 
served one term. He was next elected circuit 
judge, and served on the bench for a number of 
years. After this he was elected to Congress, but, 
owing to some fi'audulent circumstances, never took 
his seat. He never sought office, but was pushed 
and urged by his friends to accept, and was ever 
after a public man. He always filled every office 
with honor and to the satisfaction of his constitu- 
ents. Although commencing life with limited 
means, he became very wealthy, until the late war, 
when he lost all his property; but it was charac- 
teristic of the man that he took everything with 
the utmost calmness and composure. His first 
wife was Miss Lucy Manning, of Ohio, by whom 
he had three children, only one living, Mrs. Hugh 
Stewart, of Memphis. He was married the second 
time, in 1850, to Mrs. Emily (Burton) Wilson, a 
daughter of Dr. P. P. Burton, a very prominent 
physician. Six children were born to this union, 
four now living: John, in Texas; Clayton, a civil 
engineer, in Old Mexico; Wren; and Nellie, wife 



of Dr. McMurtle. Mrs. Byers is a cousin of old 
Judge Clayton, of Mississippi, who is one of the 
prominent ifien of that State. By her marriage to 
Mr. Wilson, Mrs. Byers became the mother of two 
children, George, and Nannie, wife of Carroll H. 
Wood. George Wilson went through the late war. 
Mr. Byers was a prominent Mason, and was the 
father of that secret organization in Batesville. 
He was for a number of years editor of the Bates- 
ville News. He died of paralysis at the home of 
his daughter in Memphis. Mrs. Byers owns the 
block where she lives, and is a very wide-awake, 
energetic lady. She is a meml)er of the Episcopal 
Church, and is much respected by all who know 
her. She is of Scotch descent. Her maternal 
grandmother was born, reared and educated in 
Edinburgh, Scotland, and spoke very fluently some 
seven languages. When nineteen years of age 
she came to America, and located at Lynchburg, 
Va. She died near Sandusky, at the age of one 
hundred and five years. The grandfathers on both 
.sides came from England, and also settled in Vir- 
ginia. They were all Revolutionary officers during 
the war. The father of Mrs. Byers first moved to 
Mississippi, and, being a graduate of the old Jef- 
ferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, practiced 
his profession for a number of years. He then 
came to Batesville, practiced a short time, and 
then moved to Little Rock, Ark. , where he passed 
his last days. He is said to have been the hand- 
somest man in that city. He had been married 
three times, and was the father of twenty-six 
childi'en — three now living by the first marriage, 
three by the second, and three by the third. 

Rev. William Canon, who has ministered to 
the spiritual wants of his fellowmen in Independ- 
ence County for many years, is a native of Ruther- 
ford County, Tenn., born on the I'Jth of February, 
1832. His father, John Canon, was born in North 
Carolina in 1790, and served faithfully and well 
in the War of 1812. He participated in the battle 
of Horseshoe Bend, and in several minor engage- 
ments. He died in Carroll County, Tenn., in 
1865. His wife, who had been originally Miss 
Elizabeth Dickson, was born in North Carolina in 
171)2, and died in the year 1875. Rev. William 



648 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Canon received a good English education in Bethel 
College, McLemoresville, Tenn. He remained 
with his father in Carroll County, Tenn., until 
1857, when he moved to Searcy, White County. 
Ark., and fi'om there to Independence County, in 
the same year. There he has since remained. He 
was a delegate to the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Conference, which convened at Evansville, Ind. , 
in 185U, and was sent as a delegate to the Memphis 
Conference, in 1878. By his union to Miss Kate 
McFarland, of Independence County, Ark., he 
became the father of two children, only one now 
living, Albert D., who is engaged in commercial 
pursuits at Batesville. The youngest, Willie H., 
is no more. Mr. Canon is the owner of 140 acres 
of land in Independence County, and has a com- 
fortable home. During the war he was in the 
Confederate service, joining McCauley's volun- 
teers in 1863. He was then transferred to Col. 
Newton's regiment, and was made chaplain, which 
position he held until his health failed, and he was 
honorably discharged. He is a man of great public 
spirit, and one who takes decided interest in public 
affairs. He is a Mason, in good standing. He 
and his estimable lady are members of the Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church. In politics, he is a 
Prohibitionist, from the Democratic party. 

Thomas B. Carpenter. A lifetime devoted 
with perseverance and energy to the pursuits of 
agriculture have contributed materially to the suc- 
cess which has attended Mr. Car]>enter's efforts. 
He was the fourth of six children born to Jesse 
and Polly A. (Sidwell) Carpenter, and was born on 
the 2d of October, 1828, in Alabama. His father, 
who was a native of Virginia, came to Arkansas 
while it was still a territory (about 1833 or 1834), 
and located in St. Francis County, where he fol- 
lowed carpentering, and was a general worker in 
wood, and at the same time conducted farming. 
Thomas B. Carpenter was brought to Arkansas in 
his early youth, and was educated in the subscrip- 
tion schools of his adopted State. In 1853 he was 
united in marriage to Miss Tabitha A. Tuggle. a 
native of the Blue Grass State, and their family 
now consists of five children: Margaret L. , born 
in 1855; James T. , who died at the age of six 



months; Dicie, who was born in ]8fil; Jesse Lee, 
whose birth occurred December 7, 1864, and Polly 
Alice, born February 26, 1868. In 1854 Mr. Car- 
penter made his first purchase of land, which 
consisted of 197 acres, and by hard work, managed 
in a few years to put forty acres under the plow, 
and to erect a good double log house, barns, etc., 
also a cotton-gin. In 1877 he sold this farm and 
purchased a tract of 211 acres in Christian Town- 
ship, and has made some valuable improvements 
on this farm, also, improving seventy- five acres. 
After making this his home for twelve years, he 
sold it in July, 1889, for a consideration of 13,000, 
and now thinks of giving up farm life, and engag- 
ing in mercantile pursuits. He is a Democrat in 
politics, and he and wife are members of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church. He has given his chil- 
dren good educational advantages, and they are 
now well qualified for any commercial position or 
pursuit. The youngest son, Jesse, has for some 
years been engaged as clerk in the mercantile house 
of a Mr. Van Ronlde, of Newport, Ark. , and is 
now the trusted manager of his employer's busi- 
ness. With this son, Mr. Carpenter contemplates 
embarking in business. Richard, the eldest son, is 
a successful farmer of Jackson County; Margaret 
is the wife of M'. P. Young, and resides in the 
county; Polly A. is still at home. 

Thomas E. Carter, an extensive property owner 
of Sulphur Rock, was born in Prince William 
County, Va. , at the mouth of Bull Run, on the 
3d of October, 1824, and is a son of James P. and 
Elizabeth (Davis) Carter, both of whom were also 
born in Prince William County, Va. , the former's 
birth occurring on the 23d of May, 1785, and the 
latter' s on the 23d of October, 1786. The father 
died in 1860, and his wife at the age of eighty-five 
years. They were married in their native county, 
and there resided until 1838, when they came to 
Arkansas and located in Independence County, 
where both spent the remainder of their days. Mr. 
Carter was a carpenter and house-joiner, at which 
he worked, in connection with farming, all his life. 
The farm on which he located on coming to Inde- 
pendence County is situated three miles northeast 
of Batesville, and is known, far and near, as the old 






INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



640 



'k. 



Carter place, and is noted for chalybeate springs 
located thereon. The paternal grandfather was 
born in England, and came to the United States 
before the Revolution, in which war he served on 
the side of the colonists. The maternal grand- 
parents were William and Elizabeth Davis, and 
were extensive planters of Virginia. Mrs. Davis 
was a native of Scotland, and lived to be one hun- 
dred years old. When the Carter family first came 
to Arkansas, Independence County was very thinly 
populated, and the farm on which they settled was 
an immense canebrake. Schools and churches 
were very few and far between, but our subject, 
Thomas E., acquired a fair education," his teachers 
lieing U. E. Fort 'and Burr Lee. At the age of 
twenty one years he commenced to clear a farm 
near Batesville, but sold out in 1856, and moved to 
Big Bottom, where he opened a mercantile estab- 
lishment on the plantation owned by Col. Morgan 
Magness, where he continued his enterprise until 
the breaking out of the war. In 1862 he enlisted 
in the Confederate service, and after the close of 
hostilities returned home and resumed his mercan 
tile enterprises at Akron, as a member of the firm 
of Owen, Moore & Co., but in three years sunk 
1150,000. He then retired to his farm and took 
up agriculture and stock raising as an occupation, 
in which he has amassed another large fortune. 
His first business transaction in life was to pur- 
chase a farm for .|600, on credit, and he now owns 
800 acres of some of the finest bottom land in the 
State, besides other valuable property. Mrs. Eliza 
(Adams) Hulsey, a native of Fayette County, Tenn. , 
born in IS'io, became his wife in 1856, but her 
death occurred three years later, she having borne 
a family of two children: Susan, wife of Allen Brad- 
ford, and Elizabeth, who died when quite young. 
On the 15th of August, 1860, Mr. Carter wedded 
Mis.s Mary Adams, a sister of his first wife. She 
too was born in Fayette County, Tenn., and died 
the year after her marriage. In 1863 Nancy Ann 
Magness became his third wife. She is a daughter 
of Josiah Magness, and was born in Fayette Coun- 
ty. Tenn., October 23, 1834, and, by Mr. Carter, 
is the mother of four children: Mary, wife of 
Thomas Nisbett; Noah, Alice and Eddie. Mr. 

41 



Carter has been a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church for forty-nine years, and in his 
political views is a Democrat. He belongs to the 
I. O. O. F , and has become a prominent citizen 
of the county, owing to his sound judgment, pro 
gressive ideas and unimpeachable honesty. 

Christopher Case, farmer, Batesville. No name 
is justly entitled to a more enviable place in the 
history of Independence County than the one which 
heads this sketch, for it is borne by a man who. 
though young in years, has yet been honorably 
identified not only with the agricultural interests 
of this county, but with its advancement in every 
worthy particular. He was born in the city of 
Batesville, Ark., on the 4th of December, 1851, 
received his education, and j)assed his youth in tliat 
city. He learned the harness- maker's trade, and 
followed this in Batesville until his marriage, after 
which he engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 
1883 he moved to where he now resides, and has 
since been engaged in tilling the soil and stock 
dealing quite extensively. He owns over 208 acres 
of good land, with 200 under cultivation. He deals 
principally in cattle, is at present engaged in the 
dairy business, and has forty head of good milch 
cows. He makes two trips a day into Batesville, 
and is doing a good business. He was manned, in 
1880, to Miss Cora Knowles. a native of Missouri, 
and they are the parents of three children : Eva, 
Henry K. and Robert R. Mrs. Case is a meml^er 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Case's 
parents, George and Sarah (Ridgeway) Case, are 
both natives of Pennsylvania. The father emi- 
grated to Mansfield, Ohio, thence to Illinois, and 
to Independence County, Ark., in about 1837. 
While in Illinois he met and married Miss Ridge- 
way, who had moved with her parents to that State. 
After coming to Arkansas, Mr. Case located in 
Batesville, where he carried on the mercantile busi- 
ness for some time. He died at Hopefield, Ark , 
in 1864. The mother is yet living, and resides in 
Batesville. They were the parents of seven chil- 
dren, now living: Mrs. Eliza Jolilin. JIrs, Mary 
Maxfield, Mrs, M. A. Joblin. Robert R., Chris 
topher, Dr. J. W. and George R. 

Simeon Cason is an enterprising farmer of In- 



f 



jvJ: 



650 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



dependence County, Ark., and the energetic man- 
ner in which he has ever taken advantage of all 
methods and ideas tending to enhance the value of 
his property has been the means of obtaining the 
competence he now enjoys. His farm consists of 
117 acres of excellent land, of which sixty-five 
acres are in a high state of cultivation. He was 
born in Georgia, August 25, 1823, and is a son of 
Hillary and Mary (Smith) Cason, natives of the 
" Old North State," the former's birth occurring 
April 3, 1779. Their marriage took place about 
1803, and of thirteen children born to them (seven 
sons and six daughters) only two are living: Simeon, 
and a daughter, who is the wife of Jesse Ward, 
and now a resident of Washington. Hillary 
Cason was a member of the Baptist Church, and 
his wife was a Methodist. Simeon Cason was edu- 
cated in the common schools of Madison County, 
111., and, after attaining manhood, was married to 
Miss Sarah J. Leggett, a native of Arkansas, who 
died on the 6th of November, 1887, leaving him 
with a family of six children: George, John B. , 
who died November 9, 1867; Zachariah, Henry 
Clay, James Y. and Mary V. Mr. Cason after- 
ward married Mary A. Swan, and to them were 
given seven children, three of whom subsequently 
died. Those who survive are: Mary A.. Drucilla, 
William T. and Benjamin F. Mr. Cason has held 
the office of justice of the peace and constable for 
the past fourteen years, and has been junior warden 
in the Masonic lodge. He and Mrs. Cason have 
long been members of the Methodist Church, and 
have always liberally contributed to churches and 
schools. In 1861 he joined the army, and was in 
a number of hotly-contested engagements. He was 
also a soldier in the war with Mexico, being first 
sergeant in Capt. A. R. Porter's company. First 
Regiment, Arkansas Cavalry, commanded by Col. 
Archibald Yell. He was captured with Maj. 
Bourland, Maj. J. P. Gaines and Capt. Cassius 
M. Clay, at Incarnation. Mexico, and taken from 
there to the City of Mexico, remaining until the 
city was captured by Gen. Wintield Scott. 

W. E. Chambers, merchant, Batesville. That 
the city of Batesville has a bright future before 
it is beyond all question. Situated as it is, with 



excellent railroad facilities, it could not be other- 
wise; noting this fact many wide-awake merchants 
are locating in this town, which affords the best 
inducements to energy and enterprise. Among 
those recently established may be mentioned Mr. 
Chambers, who. although a young man, is old in 
his mercantile experience. He was born in Harde- 
man County, Tenn., July 24, 1866, and his parents. 
William C. and Fannie M. (Moore) Chambers, are 
natives of Mississippi and Tennessee, respectively. 
The father carried on the mercantile business the 
most of his life at Saulsbury, Tenn. In 1886 he 
came to Batesville, Ark., and died there January 17, 
1887. The mother is still living. Their family 
consisted of two living children — Mrs. Ella Beane, 
of Newark, Ark. , and W. E. The latter was fav- 
ored with good educational advantages in Tennes- 
see, and in 1886 came with his parents to Bates- 
ville, Ark., and engaged in the insurance and real 
estate business with T. B. Padgett for some time. 
He subsequently clerked a short time for O. P. 
Moore & Bro. In December, 1887, he engaged 
in merchandising, and has since carried it on. He 
has a select line of merchandise, and is doing well. 
He was married, December 1-1, 1887, to Mi.ss Mattie 
M. Colton, of Ripley, Miss. Mr. and Mrs. Cham- 
bers are members of the church. Mr. Chamliers 
is the owner of considerable property in the State 
of Tennessee. 

Robert A. Childress, a prosperous farmer of 
Independence County, was born in Franldin Coun- 
ty, Va., in 1813. He is a son of John W. and 
Sarah (Ferguson) (Jhildress, both native of Vir- 
ginia. The Childress family are of English origin, 
but the family has lived in the State of Virginia 
for several generations. The grandparents, Robert 
and Rachel Childress, both lived and died in that 
State. John W. remained in his birth place until 
the year 1817, when he moved to Missouri, and in 
1819 again changed his location, settling in Ran- 
dolph County, Ark. In 1829 he came to Inde- 
pendence County, and was one of the earliest set- 
tlers of that section, where he made his residence 
until old age began to creep upon his shoulders, 
when he went to live with a son in Galveston, 
Tex., where he died. His wife resided in Inde- 



:£: 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



651 



pendence County up to the time of her death, in 
1840. Robert A. was the oldest child of this 
couple, and iu his youth received a somewhat lim- 
ited education in Independence County, on account 
of the very meager facilities for learning offered in 
that State. But after reaching his majority he 
returned to Virginia, where the educational advan- 
tages were greater, and attended some of the higher 
schools of that State until he had procured a satis- 
factory education. In 1841 he was married to Miss 
Martha A. Waugh, who was born in Virginia in 
1823, and died in ISfiO. This marriage gave them 
nine children, of whom four are yet living: Thomas 
B. , Julia C. (wife of Joseph B. Pritchett), Lewis 
W. and John \V. In 1802 Mr. Childress married 
again, his second wife being Mrs. Josephine Sulli- 
van, an amiable and pleasant widow lady, raised in 
Mississippi, and a daughter of Dr. Samuel Halli- 
burton, who has also passed away. This union 
gave them four children, of whom two lived to ma- 
turity, and those yet living are Samuel K. and 
Sarah J., wife of J. E. Moore. His third wife was 
Mrs. Lucilla J. Cross, a widow, youngest daugh- 
ter of Col. John Miller, an influential and prom- 
inent citizen of Independence County. Mr. Chil- 
dress has resided at his present home since 1840, 
excepting five years spent at Batesville, where he 
was engaged in business. He owns 642 acres of 
land, and has about 325 acres under cultivation, all 
of it comprising some of the richest land in the 
State. He has held the office of justice of the 
peace for a number of years, and has proven him- 
self to be an efficient officer, and a valuable man 
for the position. He is held in high esteem by the 
entire community, and enjoys that distinction which 
an old settler is entitled to. He was a member of 
the Masonic fraternity until the war, but since then 
has not been identified with any secret society. 
He has been a memljor of the Presbyterian Church 
since 1833, and an elder for over forty years. His 
wife is a memljer of the Baptist Church, and the 
children, ("xcepting two. l)elong to the Cumb(*rland 
Presbyterian Churcli. In politics Mr. Ciiildress 
is a stanch Democrat. 

J. N. Cliurchill, farmer and merchant, of Black 
River Township, and postmaster at Charlotte, .\rk. , 



is one of the representative citizens of Independ- 
ence County, and is a recognized leader in the 
public affairs of his locality. He was originally 
from North Carolina, born in Iredell County, in 
January, 1835, and the son of Charles C. and Ma 
tilda (Johnson) Churchill, natives, respectively, of 
Connecticut and North Carolina. The former was 
a relative of the three Churchill brothers, who came 
to one of the early colonies of Connecticut. Charles 
C. Churchill was born in 1791, and emigrated to 
North Carolina in 1829, where he met and mar- 
ried Miss Johnson. His principal vocation was 
tilling the soil, but he was well educated, and his 
true worth was soon appreciated. He was elected 
sheriff of his county, and served with credit in that 
capacity for some time. In 1842, be removed to 
Tennessee, bought a plantation, and successfully 
tilled the soil until his death, which occurred in 
1845. He was an old-line Whig, and exerted 
quite an influence in the politics of his county. 
He was a Mason, and a man universally respected. 
His excellent wife survived him until in April, 
1887, and then died at the ripe old age of seventy- 
four years. She was for sixty years a devoted 
Christian, a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. J. N. Churchill is the third of a family 
of seven children (five of whom are living): Samuel 
B., died at the age of fifty-four years (1885), and 
was a farmer and stock raiser of Texas; Harriet 
J., consort of one Grady Pickens, who was killed 
in Hood's retreat from Nashville; J. N. (subject of 
our sketch); W. P.. a farmer, married, and is liv- 
ing in Independence County; Curtis .T. , died on 
the 7th of April, 1877, at the age of forty-five 
years, a farmer and justice of the peace; Mary A., 
widow of William Hammond, who was a farmer of 
Black River Township; Marcia M. V.. wife of W. 
H. Walden, a merchant and farmer of Black River 
Township and postmaster of Hazel Grove. J. N. 
Churchill was reared from early boyhood to the 
arduous duties of the farm, and secured his edu- 
cation in the common schools of North Carolina 
and Tennessee. At the age of nineteen, or in 1852. 
he came to Independence County and joined his 
brother, who had made his appearance in that 
county the year previous. In 1854 J. N. returned 



A^ 



652 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



to Tennessee, and spent one year in Oak Grove 
Academy (Fayette County), having earned the 
money in Arkansas which enabled him to obtain 
that part of his education. Having completed the 
year at school, he returned to Arkansas in 1855, 
and spent the ensuing four years in wielding the 
ferrule, conducting private schools in that State. 
On May 12, 1858, he wedded Miss Charlotta 
T. Hogan, daughter of Elijah Hogan, one of the 
first settlei's of Arkansas. Heaven blessed this 
union with four childr-en, all of whom are living: 
Charles D. , born August 1, 1851), is a merchant of 
Charlotte, but contemplates merchandising in con- 
junction with his brother, Curtia J. (who was born 
in 1860), under the firm name of Churchill Bros., 
in Sulphur Rock; Mary M. was born on the 11th 
of March, 1861, and is the wife of W. H. Ward, a 
school teacher and farmer of Black River Township; 
and Lucy, wife of Dr. Robert C. Door, a successful 
physician of Black River Township. Mrs. Churchill 
departed this life on the 23d of March, 1889. She 
was a model mother and wife, and had long been a 
devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Since his marriage. Mr. Churchill has followed 
the different avocations of teaching, cotton gin- 
ning, threshing grain, and has also been engaged 
in merchandising. He built the first steam gin in 
Independence County, reduced the toll of ginning, 
and brought the second separating thresher into 
the county. In 1872, he embarked in the mercan- 
tile business on his farm, the present site of Char- 
lotte postoffice, and established a branch store at 
Sulphur Rock, which he conducted for five years. 
At present he is erecting a large store building in 
Sulphur Rock, in which to do a general mercantile 
business. The first land Mr. Churchill ever se- 
cured was from land bought with wages received in 
compensation for teaching his first school in Arkan- 
sas (180 in gold), with which he purchased eighty 
acres of land. This policy he followed for several 
years, or until 1859, when he bought 320 acres, 
and lived on the same for fifteen years, clearing 
about seventy-five aci'es. He then bought 160 
acres, cleared forty acres of the same, and in 1873 
moved to that place (Charlotte), where he has ever 
since lived. He now owns about 3,000 acres of 



land, and has cleared over 200 acres. He served 
in the late war about six months, but having been 
elected justice of the peace, and being a teacher, 
he was allowed to remain at home unmolested. 
However, he lost most of his personal property, 
and so, like a number of the old citizens of this 
county, had to begin anew when the war was 
over. In addition to his own family, Mr. Churchill 
has reared, and given the same opportunities in the 
common schools as his own children, ten orphan 
children. He votes with the Democratic party, 
and has a great deal of influence, politically. He 
holds a membership in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and also belongs to the Masonic frater- 
nity. He was W. M. of Bayou Dota Lodge No. 
126 for twenty years, and is the only charter 
member left of that lodge. He is a member of the 
Chapter and Council at Sulphur Rock. Mr. 
Churchill has always taken an active interest in and 
given his support to all public enterprises for the 
good of the county, and is now chairman of the 
executive committee on removal of county site from 
Batesville to Suljihur Rock. 

Churchill Bros., general merchants, Sulphur 
Rock, Ark. The above mercantile firm, successors 
of J. N. Churchill & Sous, consists of these 
brothers, C. D. and J. C. Churchill, who succeeded 
their father in the business at Charlotte, Black 
River Township, Independence County, on the 
15th of February, 1889. C. D., the senior mem- 
ber of the firm, is a native of Independence Coun- 
ty, Ark., and was born on the 1st of August, 1859. 
He is the eldest child born to J. N. Churchill, 
whose sketch may be seen preceding this, and 
was reared to the duties on a farm. He was edu- 
cated in Bayou Dota Academy, and later spent 
one year at Mountain Home Male and Female 
Academy, at Mountain Home, Baxter County, Ark. 
During the winter seasons, when not attending 
school, he spent his time in his father's store as 
salesman, there learning the principles of the busi- 
ness which have since made him a successful 
merchant. He was married, on the 16th of 
December, 1880, to Miss Callie Linn, daughter of 
J. H. Linn (deceased), who was a farmer, and also 
filled the position of county judge of Baxter 



^ i 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



653 



County, Ark. By this union two children were 
born: Daisy P., eight years of age, and is now 
living with her grandmother Linn, and attonding 
school at Mountain Home, and Oscar Linn, who is 
six years of age, lives with his father, and attends 
school at home. Mrs. Chm-chill's death occurred 
on the 31st of October, 1887. The early training 
of Mr. Churchill fitted him for a commercial life, 
and his future prospects are indeed bright. J. 
C. Churchill, the junior member of the same firm, 
was born in this county on the 1 1th of September, 
1863, and he, like his brother, was reared to farm 
life, and was educated in Bayou Dota Academy, 
where he spent ten months in the study of den- 
tistry, under the tutelage of Dr. W. G. Rosebor- 
ough, of Batesville. He was obliged to abandon 
the study of dentistry from the fact that one of his 
eyes was injured from the accidental discharge of 
a gun. Since then his entire time has been 
directed to commercial pursuits. On the 22d of 
January, 1885, his marriage to Miss Amanda Sor- 
rells was consummated. She was the daughter of 
R. L. Sorrells, a native of Illinois, and a farmer 
of Black River Township. C. D. Churchill first 
engaged in business at Sulphur Rock, in the spring 
of 1879, under the name of Churchill & Son, and 
in the spring of 1880 the title was changed to 
C. D. Churchill. In September of the last men- 
tioned year he removed to Hazel Grove, where he 
continued until the summer of 1887, when he 
removed to Charlotte; then, in January, 1888, he 
became a member of the firm of Churchill & Sons, 
composed of J. N. Churchill and the subjects of 
this sketch. Under this name they continued busi- 
ness until the 15th of February, 1889, when the 
present firm was formed. They recently erected 
a large store-building at Sulphur Rock, 82x60 
feet, consisting of three large commodious rooms, 
in which they became located about the 1st of 
September, and now carry on a general mercan- 
tile business. Both are members of Bayou Dota 
Lodge No. 126. A. F. & A. M., and also hold 
membership in Council U. D. and Danley R. A. 
Chapter No. 59, at Sulphur Rock. C. D. Church- 
ill is a member of Walnut Grove Church, Meth- 
odist Episcopal, South. They vote with the 



Democratic party, and exert quite an influence in 
local politics. J. .C. Churchill is notary public 
for Independence County. They take an intere.st 
in all improvements for the public good, and con 
tribute liberally to their support. 

J. C. Cobb, an honored ex-Federal soldier of 
the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry, was born in Fulton 
County, Ky. , in 1838, and grew to manhood on 
Blue Grass soil, but his educational advantages in 
his youth were of the luost meager description. 
He was left an orphan when a small lad, and was 
reared by strangers, but left- the family with whom 
he made his homo, before he attained his majority, 
on account of ill treatment, and started oiit to seek 
his own fortune. Ho first went to Mississippi 
County, Mo. , where he found a home with Dr. 
Snuzer, near Charleston, and remained with him 
until the war became an assured fact, when he 
joined the Federal forces at Indianapolis, Ind., 
being a member of the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry, 
and served honorably and well throughout the 
war, and was mustered out of service at Bull's 
Gap, in East Tennessee. He participated in the 
engagements at Elizabeth (Ky.), Franklin, Harts- 
ville. Galena, Clarksville, Knoxville, Jonesboro, 
and Bull's Gap, Tenn. At the latter engagement 
he was quite severely wounded, being shot from 
his horse and having his jaw l)roken. He served 
in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama and Florida. In 1883 his application for 
a pension was recognized, and he received back 
pay to the amount of $1,233. He returned to 
Kentucky at the close of the war, and was man-ied 
four months afterward, to Miss Nancy Whitlock, 
who was born in Kentucky, in 1841, and by her 
has a family of three living children: Martha A.. 
wife of Walker Duunagan; Mary L., and Myrtle 
May. Those deceased are John J. . who died when 
eight years of age; Elizabeth, at the age of six 
months, and Emma J., when ten months old. 
About one year after the war Mr. Cobb removed 
with his wife to Arkansas, but only remained a 
short time; then they returned to Kentucky, and 
remained six years. Since that time they have 
been residents of Arkansas, and up to January 1. 
1889, resided five miles from Sulphur Rock, but at 



\ 



A^ 



654 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



that date moved to the town, where they have since 
made their home. They are quite well-to-do, and 
each of their children owns forty acres of land, 
which was deeded to them by their parents. Mr. 
Cobb is a son of Amsy and Lettie (Ryan) Cobb, 
the former of whom was a native of North Carolina, 
and at an early day became a citizen of Kentucky, 
and lived and died in that State. The mother was 
born in Newcastle, Ky. , and of their five children, 
four are still living: J. C, Anna, wife of A. Mc- 

Nutt; Elizabeth, wife of Bert Watton, and . 

The maternal grandparents were John and Alsie 
(Smith) "Whitlock. John was born in North Caro- 
lina, but was left an orphan in his youth, and ran 
away to Kentucky. He lived in Monroe and Phil- 
lips Counties, but died in Crittenden County, at 
the age of seventy-six years, followed by his wife, 
who was of Kentucky stock, at the age of sixty -six 
years. 

William L. Coble, a highly-respected and well- 
known farmer and stock raiser of Independence 
County, is a son of Anthony and Nancy (Burris) 
Coble, of North Carolina and Virginia, respectively, 
whose marriage occurred in the latter State. The 
parents emigrated to Indiana about the year 1820, 
where their children were born, and in 1849 moved 
to the State of Ai-kansas, locating near the town of 
Sulphur Rock, in Independence County, where the 
father purchased a small tract of land and com- 
menced farming in connection with his trade as a 
carpenter. He remained here until 1860, con- 
tracting for and building a great many houses in 
that time, and then sold his farm and moved to 
Jackson County, where he rented some land. He 
resided in Jackson County for three years, but 
finding the desire to return to Independence County 
too strong to resist, he moved back to that place 
and j)urchased 160 acres of land, upon which he 
erected a dwelling, barns and all necessary ad- 
juncts to a well-regulated farm, and resided there 
until his death, January 8, INSl, at the age of 
ninety-one years. Mrs. Coble died in 1866, and 
was buried in what was then McGuire's cemetery, 
while her husband lies in Surrounded Hill ceme- 
tery. His son, William L. Coble, was educated 
at private schools in Sulphur Rock, and in connec- 



tion with his brother, F. A. J. Coble, cleared, im- 
proved and put the farm on a paying basis long 
before the father's death. In 1864 he enlisted in 
the Forty-sixth Arkansas Volunteer Cavalry, Col. 
Baber's regiment, and served as a courier for al- 
most the entire time. After peace had been es- 
tablished, in 1865, he returned to his home, and 
was shortly afterward married to Miss Mary J. 
Hinkel, a daughter of Selsor and Sarah E. (Hop- 
kins) Hinkel, of Missouri. Nine children were 
born to this union, which was a very happy one in 
every way, and four are still living: Laura, born 
March 2, 1875: Cordelelia. born September 4, 1879; 
Edna Asia, born July 13, 1883; W'illiam L., born 
November 7, 1888 ; all of whom are bright children, 
and Mr. Coble intends to give them the best edu- 
cation obtainable. At the time Mr. Coble came in 
possession of his farm, it consisted of 320 acres, 
with 160 acres under cultivation. He now owns 
480 acres, with 200 acres cleared, and under good 
cultivation. He is a Democrat in politics, and a 
strong supporter of that party and its men, and 
in religious and educational matters he is one of 
the county's most liberal contributors, as also one 
of its most progressive. Mr. and Mrs. Coble are 
both members of the Christian Church. 

George Cook, farmer, Independence County, 
Ark. Mr. Cook's birth occurred in Tennessee, on 
the 28th of August, 1826, and he was reared and 
educated in his native State. He was also married 
there, on the 26th of November, 1846, to Miss 
Elizabeth Haskins, who was also born, reared and 
educated in Tennessee. His parents, John D. and 
Mary (Montgomery) Cook, were both natives of 
Tennessee, in which State they were married. 
George Cook came to Arkansas in 1849, locating 
near Sulphur Rock, Independence County, where 
he farmed for one season. He then moved to a farm 
west of Batesville, where he entered forty acres of 
land, and cleared about five acres, erected a single 
log house, etc., but in 1854 sold this. He then 
moved to a farm on White River, Washington 
Township, where he has resided for the past twelve 
years. His children were all born in Arkansas, 
except John D. Cook, his eldest son, who was born 
in Tennessee. The latter was married ia Arkan- 



& - 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



655 



sas, and is now living on a farm in Oil Trough 
Bottom, wberti he rents a farm and carries on the 
business of general merchandising in connection 
with farming. Another son, William Thomas 
Cook, is deceased; Mary Ann Cook married Mr. 
John Morgan, and now resides in Oil Trough 
Bottom; J. H. Cook married Miss Mattie Glover, 
who is now deceased (J. H. resides on the farm 
with his father); B. A. Cook married Miss Rebecca 
Holloway, and now resides in Oil Trough Bottom; 
Jane M. Cook married Mr. G. F. Mannz, and now 
resides in Christian Township, Independence Coun- 
ty ; Martha Price Cook married Mr. Thomas Glover 
(deceased), and is now residing with her father; 
George M. Cook resides at home with his parents. 
Our subject's education was obtained in the sub- 
scription and public schools of this county. When 
he tirst came to Arkansas all was wild and unset- 
tled, wild animals abounded, and all the hardships 
necessary in a new country were experienced by 
this pioneer. He is a Wheeler in politics. Mr. 
and Mrs. Cook are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, as are also their daughters, Martha 
and Jane, and their son, J. D. Mr. Cook takes an 
active interest in religious and social progress, and 
has always been a liberal contributor to all such 
causes. 

Virgil Y. Cook, one of Independence County's 
most enterprising merchants and farmers, and also 
one of its wealthiest men, is a son of William D. 
and Pernecia (Dodds) Cook, the father a Kentuckian, 
and a son of John Cook, one of the pioneer mer- 
chants of that State. Mr. Cook was born in Boyds- 
ville. Graves County, Ky., on the 14th day of No- 
vember, 1848, and received his education in the ad- 
joining county, at what was then known as Spring 
Hill Academy, but previous to that he had attended 
the subscription schools of Boydsville. His life 
was uneventful until the outbreak of the war be- 
tween the States, when he joined the command of 
Gen. N. B. Forrest. He enlisted in the Twelfth 
Kentucky Cavalry, and served twelve months, and 
at the end of that time was transferred to the 
Seventh Kentucky Cavalry, formerly Seventh Ken- 
tucky Infantry, where he was in the capacity of a 
]}rivate soldier. Mr. Cook took part in the battles 



at Okolona (Miss.), Paducah (Ky. ), Tishimingo 
Creek, Han'isburg (Miss.) and a great many other 
engagements, and was in Gen. Forrest's Pulaski 
campaign, in the fall of 1864, after which that 
general was transferred to Gen. Hood's command, 
for the purpose of making the raid on Nashville, 
in the winter of 1864, He also took part in the 
battles at Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville, 
and later, in the spring of 1805, was with Gen. 
Forrest on his Alabama campaign, which termi- 
nated at Selma, on the 2d of April, 1865, and then 
surrendered at Gainesville, Ala., on May 10, 1865. 
Though serving as a private, Mr. Cook's record 
through the war would put to blush the actions of 
many men who held superior rank. He has in his 
possession yet the parole record received at Gaines- 
ville, on the occasion of his surrender, and values 
it highly, simply as a relic of those days. The 
brigade to which he belonged was the famous 
Kentucky brigade organized and commanded by 
Gen. Abe Buford, who afterward commanded the 
second division of Gen. Forrest's cavalry corps. 
After the surrender Mr. Cook returned to his home 
in Kentucky, where he remained until the year 
1806, and then moved to Grand Glaize, Ark., 
where his father, previous to the war, had carried 
on business in partnershij) with Mr. M. F. Thoma- 
son, under the iirm name of Cook & Thomason. 
Upon his arrival Mr. Cook, in comi)any with Mr. 
Thomason, re-organized the tirm and did business 
until the year 1874. when the partnership was 
dissolved, and Mr. Cook went to the town of 
Olyphant, on the St. Louis &Iron Mountain Rail- 
road, where he conducted a large business, with fair 
success, until 1884. He then came to Oil Trough 
Bottom, and located on his Midland farm, about 
one mile and a half west of Elmo, where he estab- 
lished himself in business, and still remains. He 
is one of the most successful merchants and plant- 
ers in that section, and his actions have always 
l)oen characterized by an energy and enterprise 
that could not end otherwise. He owns 2,300 
acres of land in Oil Trough Bottom, of which 1,600 
acres are under cultivation, which he leases annu- 
ally for a stipulated sum. Altogether Mr. Cook 
owns about 8,000 acres in Independence, Jackson, 



> "V 



^- 



650 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Clay and Greene Counties, and the total amount 
that he has under cultivation is 2,000 acres. He 
was united in marriage to Miss Ophelia Lamb, a 
daughter of Enos and Frances (Parish) Lamb, of 
Tennessee, his wedding taking place at Jacksou- 
port, Ark., on June 29, 1871. Six children have 
been born to Mr. and Mrs. Cook: Neva, M'hitfield, 
May, Jennie, a baby who died in infancy, and 
Varina. In business Mr. Cook carrieg a large line 
of general merchandise, in fact everything that is 
to be found in a first-class establishment, besides 
dealing in lands and having an interest in one of 
the finest ranches in Texas. He has erected a 
splendid dwelling and several buildings on his 
Midland farm, and owns a cotton-gin on the same 
farm that has no equal in Arkansas. His brother, 
Barnett M. Cook, is associated with him, but gives 
his attention, specially, to dealing in stock, cattle 
and horses, of which he has quite a herd. Barnett 
M. was also in the Confederate army, serving as 
a private soldier in the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry, 
and took an active part in all the engagements and 
campaigns in which his regiment participated. 
He is a bachelor of forty three years of age, having 
been born on the ISth of September, 1846, at 
Boydsville, Graves County, Ky. The maternal 
grandfather, Capt. John C. Dodds, commanded 
a company of soldiers in a Kentucky regiment un- 
der Gen. Jackson, in 1814-15, and participated 
in the battle of New Orleans, on the 8th of Janu- 
ary, 1815. His father took an active part in the 
Revolutionary War, serving with the South Caro- 
lina troops, of which State he was a native, and 
died after that war on his way with his family 
from South Carolina to Kentucky, whither his 
widow with his children proceeded, settling in 
Caldwell County, near Princeton. 

A. J. Craig, probate and county court judge 
of Independence County, was born on the farm 
upon which he now lives, one mile east of James- 
town, in 1844. He is a son of John L. and Mar- 
garet A. (Hardin) Craig, the former of whom was 
born in Alabama, in 1801, and the latter in Law- 
rence County, Ark., about 1817. When a young man 
Mr. Craig removed to Independence County, Ark. , 
where he married, and spent the remainder of his 



life, his death occurring in 1864; he was one of the 
earliest settlers of the county, locating in the dense 
woods, where he cleared a farm and reared his 
family. Mr. Craig was a member of the Metho- 
dist Church, of which church his widow, who is 
still living, is also a member. The latter is a 
daughter of Joseph Hardin, who was one of the 
pioneers of what is now Lawrence County. A. J. 
Craig was the fourth child in a family of live sons 
and three daughters. He received a common- 
school education, and during the last two years of 
the late war, served in the Confederate army, in 
Company C, Morgan's regiment. Price's cavalry 
troops; he was at the battles of Cape Girardeau, 
Helena, Pilot Knob, and many skirmishes, oper- 
ating in Missouri, Kansas and Indian Territory, 
until the sui'render at Jacksonport, in June, 18G5, 
when he returned home. In 1867 Mr. Craig mar- 
ried Louisa, daughter of Cary and Margaret Simms, 
who came to Independence County, when she was a 
little girl. Mrs. Craig, who was a native of South 
Carolina, died in 1878, leaving one son and two 
daughters. In 1879 Mr. Craig married Dorcas 
Engles, of Independence County. She is a daugh- 
ter of "William D. and Margaret Engles, natives, 
respectively, of Kentucky and Missouri, who re- 
moved to Independence County, Ark. , when young. 
Mr. Engles died in 1845; he was a member of the 
Methodist Church. Mrs. Engles is still living, 
aged seventy-one years; she is a daughter of Job 
and Elizabeth Stark, who both died in Independ- 
ence County, as did the parents of Mr. Engles. 
One son and one daughter have blessed the second 
marriage of our subject. Judge Craig has spent 
his entire life on the farm of his birth, which con- 
tains 127 acres, about eighty acres of which are 
under cultivation; forty acres he inherited from 
his father, and the balance he has earned. From 
1878 to 1886 he served as justice of the peace, 
being elected to the office of county and probate 
judge in 1886, serving in that capacity with much 
ability, and was re-elected to the same office in 
18S8. He is a Democrat politically, and he and 
wife are members of the Methodist Ej>iscopal 
Church, South. 

M. R. Craig, proprietor of meat market. Bates- 



>> 




ville. Dealing in articles necessary for our daily 
sustenance, it is not surprising that the number of 
those engaged in the butchering business should be 
large, but this field of enterprise is also a large 
one. Among those engaged in this pursuit is Mr. 
Craig, a native of Greenbriar Township, Independ- 
ence County, Ark., born on the KJth of March, 
1851, and the sou of John L. Craig, who was a 
native of Tennessee. The father came to Bates- 
ville when a young man, taught school for several 
years, and was married in Independence County, 
to Miss Margaret Harding, a native of Arkansas. 
They then located in Oil Trough Bottom, and af- 
terward moved to Greenbriar Township, where he 
purchased a farm, and there died in 18(54. The 
mother is still living, and resides on the old home- 
stead, in Greenbriar Township. They were the par- 
ents of eight childi-en, seven now living: John, 
was killed in Tennessee, while serving in the army; 
Lizzie, wife of P. Tucker; Joseph, Andrew, James, 
Mark R., Laura, wife of AV. L. Dunaway, and 
Jane, wife of William Cullens. M. R. Craig at- 
tained his growth in Greenbriar Township, and as- 
sisted on the farm until twenty-one years of age. 
At about 1875 he engaged in the butcher's busi- 
ness in Batesville, and has since carried it on. He 
owns a timber tract of land of forty acres, and is 
also the owner of town property in Batesville. He 
has been a member of the council of Batesville. 
In the year 1871 he selected Miss Sarah Elms as 
his companion in life, and the fruits of this mar- 
riage are four living children: Baswoll W. , Mag- 
gie, Andrew J. and Abernathy. One, deceased, was 
named Robert Henry. Mr. Craig is a member of 
the I. O. O. F. and the K. of H. 

Georse Washiugrtou Crow, a minister of the 
Missionary Baptist Ciiurch, of Independence Coun- 
ty, is a son of Robert and Margaret (Killinger) 
Crow, and was the fourth in a family of eight 
children bora to the parents, his birth occurring 
April 8, 1819, in what is now Smyth County, Va. 
The grandfather, George W. Killinger, was a pri- 
vate soldier in Gen. George Washington's army, 
and fought in many of the battles under that 
famous hero. The family on lioth sides are de- 
scendants of old Virginians. lu 1823 Robert 



Crow emigrated to Boane County, Tenn., and lo- 
cated near Kingston, the county seat, where his 
son, George W., gi-ew to manhood and received 
his education. In 1837 the father moved to the 
State of Alabama, which place he made his resi- 
dence until his decease, and is now buried at 
Gravel Hill, De Kalb County, in that State. Two 
years later his son, George W. Crow, was married 
to Miss Sidney Hines, of Tennessee, by whom he 
has had four children: William Harrison, who was 
killed in the battle of Seven Pines, in 1802; Eliza 
A., who was married to Mr. H. Fike, of Alabama, 
at the residence of the bride's father, in 1859, but 
lost her husband in 1871 ; Palestine, who was mar- 
ried to Mr. Joseph Wilburn, of Alabama, but now 
residing in Stone County, Ark. , and the last child 
dying in infancy. In 1847 Mr. Crow lost his first 
wife, who was buried in Garrett Cemetery, De- 
Kalb County, Ala., and in 1849, he was married 
to Miss Avadney J. Dutton, of Alabama. l)y whom 
he had eight children, all living until they had 
reached their maturity excepting one; Mary, wife 
of William Tate; Nancy E., married to Mr. New 
ton Cooper, and now residing near Mr. Crow; Ed- 
mond Thomas, who was married to Miss Amahda 
Cooper; Bankston W., who was married to Miss 
Fannie Ellis, and residing near the father' s home ; 
Margaret Spurgeon, wife of Rev. James L. Brown, 
this daughter dying in 1879: Jane, who was mar- 
ried to John Tate, and John D. , at home. Mr. 
Crow was ordained by the Missionary Baptist 
Church, in 1869, at Gravel Hill, DeKalb County. 
Ala. That year he moved to Arkansas and located 
near Sulphur Rock, where he purchased the farm 
upon which he still resides. He owns 35(') acres 
of land, with about ninety-tive acres under culti 
vation, and in partnership with his son, Bankston 
W., owns 160 acres, with twenty five acres under 
cultivation, and good buildings and improvements. 
Mr. Crow has worked faithfully in the interests of 
the church, and many times has contril)uted to its 
sui)port from his own private means. In 1887 the 
congregation at Maple Springs attemjited to erect 
a church to be paid for by sul).scrii)tion, and Mr. 
Crow came nobly forward with $112.00 for that 
purpose. He is at present the pastor at Ma])le 



A 



058 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Springs, but formerly was occupied a great part of 
the time in filling such vacancies as occurred in 
that section. Four of his children also attend the 
father's church. In politics Mr. Crow is a Demo- 
crat, and previous to coming to Arkansas, had held 
the office of treasurer of De Kalb County, Ala. , for 
two years. He has always been to the fi-ont in any 
enterprise for the advancement of religious and 
educational matters, and is a citizen of whom the 
county may and does feel proud. 

Capt. John W. Cullins, a prominent farmer 
and stock raiser of Greenbriar Township, Inde- 
pendence County, purchased his present farm of 
320 acres, which is situated near Jamestown, in 
1855; there was at that time little improvement on 
the land, which is now one of the best farms in the 
county. xMr. Cullins was born in Abbeville Coun- 
ty, S. C, in 1S28, and, receiving a limited educa- 
tion, he hired out on a farm at the age of fifteen, 
in which capacity he was employed until 1846. In 
the latter year he enlisted in Company C, Col. 
Coffee's regiment of Alabama Infantry, and served 
twelve months in the Mexican War, participating in 
the battle of Vera Cruz; he was honorably dis- 
charged at New Orleans in June, 1847, and after 
spending some time in Alabama, went to Missis- 
sippi, two years later returning to South Carolina, 
where he married and lived until his emigration to 
Independence County, Ark., in 1855, where he 
has since made his home. He devoted his entire 
attention to farming until 1867, when he built a 
store on the present site of Jamestown, and for 
twelve years engaged in merchandising in part- 
nership with Jacob Pate. Mr. Cullins has accumu- 
lated considerable property, owning in all 540 acres, 
about 220 acres of which are under cultivation, 
beside real estate in Jamestown. During the Civil 
War Mr. Cullins served about four years in the Con- 
federate army; the first year as captain of Com- 
pany C, Desha's battalion, operating in Alabama 
and Mississippi, and subsequently assisted in or- 
ganizing Company C, Arkansas Cavalry, of which 
he was appointed captain, in which capacity he 
served until the close of the struggle. He was in 
the battles of Marks' Mill, Big Blue, with Gen. Price 
on his raid through Missouri and Kansas, surrend- 



ering at Jacksonport in June, 1865, after four 
years of the hardships of war. Mr. Cullins first 
married in 1851, Mary Ann, daughter of Johnson 
and Margaret Simms, of South Carolina, who 
moved to Tennessee, in 1852, and three years 
later to Independence County, Ark., where Mr. 
Simms died before the war. Mrs. Cullins, who 
was also a native of South Carolina, died in 1856, 
leaving two sons, John S. and William S. In 1857 
Mr. Cullins married Mary, daughter of Jolj Starks. 
Mrs. Mary Cullins was born in Independence 
County, where she died in 1867, the mother of 
three children, Henry N., Francis M., and Estella, 
wife of William D. Hatton. Mr. Cullins next 
married, in 1868, Martha M. Davis, daughter of 
Jesse and Margaret Flinn. She is a native of 
Guilford County, N. C. One daughter, Ida. 
has blessed this union. Mr. Cullins was the only 
child of Elijah and Mary fSwain) Cullins, l)oth 
natives of Abbeville Coimty, S. C, who removed 
to Georgia when he was only a year old. There 
the mother died soon after, and the father was 
subsequently twice married, having three children 
by his second wife and three by the third. He was 
a farmer by occupation, and spent the latter part 
of his life in Alabama, where he died soon after the 
war, a member of the Baptist Church. Capt. Cul- 
lins belongs to the Neill Lodge, of Jamestown, 
of the A. F. & A. M., and he and wife are mem 
bers in good standing of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. 

Hon. F. D. Denton, of Batesville, is a native 
of that town, born there on the 28d of November, 
1841, and is one of the representative citizens of 
the county. His father, William F. Denton, was 
a native of Tennessee, and when a young man was 
united in marriage to Miss Margaret F. Desha, a 
native of Washington City, D. C. William F. 
Denton emigrated with his father, John Denton, to 
Washington County, Ark., in early territorial days, 
and there the latter died. He was a soldier in th(> 
War of 1812, under Gen. Jackson, and had followed 
agricultural pursuits all his life. The maternal 
grandfather, liobert M. Desha, was captain in the 
United States marine service, at Washington. He 
emigrated to Arkansas, and located at Helena, and 



U® w_ 



- < > 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



659 



subsequently, leaving his wife and two children 
there, while on his return to Washington, was 
stricken down with yellow fever, and died at New 
Orleans, in 1822. The great-grandfather, Gen. 
Jo. Desha, was governor of Kentucky from 1824 
to 1828, and was the first Democratic governor of 
the State. He commanded a division of Kentucky 
troops under Gen. Harrison. He died in Ken 
tucky. William F. Denton came to Independence 
County, Ark. , in about 1835, and one year later 
was made prosecuting attorney of this county. He 
was a lawyer by profession, and died in August, 
1845. The mother is still living. Of the four 
children born to their marriage, two only are now 
living, Frank D. and Elvira F. , wife of J. P. 
Boyd. One son, William F., was killed during the 
war, when only eighteen years of age. The other 
child, was Frances J. Mrs. Denton's brother, 
Capt. F. W. Desha, for whom our subject is named, 
was a captain in Yell's Arkansas regiment, in the 
Mexican War, and lieutenant- colonel commanding 
the Seventh Arkansas Battalion, C. S. A., in the 
Civil War. F. D. Denton attained his growth, and 
received a fair education in Batesville, but subse- 
quently pursued his studies at Fayetteville (Ark. ), 
College and Center College, at Danville, Ky. He 
was attending the last named institution, and was 
deeply immersed in his studies, when the breaking 
out of the war caused him to abandon his liooks 
and seek his home. Soon after he enli.sted in 
Company C, Desha's battalion, and served until 
the close of the war. He was in Gen. Johnston's 
army, and participated in the battles of Perryville, 
Chickamauga, and was in Johnston's campaign 
through Georgia. He was wounded at Murfrees- 
boro, by a gun-shot in the neck, cutting his wind- 
pipe, and lay on the battlefield two days. He 
was also wounded at the battle of New Hop? 
Church, Ga. , by a gun-shot in the side. He was 
then captured, and left in a hospital. He was 
carried to Nashville, where some ladies took care 
of him. He was exchanged in 1863, and again 
joined his regiment in Tennessee. After the sur- 
render he returned to his home, arriving there in 
August, 1805, and engaged in tilling the soil. In 
18()0, he was elected sheriff, which position he 



held until the reconstruction. In 1.S70, he en- 
gaged in merchandising, l)ut carried this on for 
only about two or three years, as he was quite un 
fortunate in this business venture. In January, 
1877, he established the Batesville Guard, and 
ran this paper in an able and capable manner until 
in July, 1885. In October of the same year he 
was ap[)ointed postmaster, and conlirmod in Jan- 
uary, 1886. Mr. Denton was married, in 1868, to 
Miss Mattie A. Lewis, a native of Holly Springs, 
Miss., and to them were born seven children, four 
now living: William F., Desha, Estella, and Kosa. 
Mr. Denton is a member of the I. O. O. F. , K. of 
P., K. of H., and K. and L. of H. He was elect- 
ed to represent his county in the legislature, in 
1881, and re-elected in 1883, serving two terms. 
Col. Eobert M. Desha, a prominent farmer of 
Independence County, was born in that county in 
the year 1847, and is a son of Col. Franklin W. 
and Elizabeth (Seavey) Desha, of Washington, D. 
C. , and Independence County, Ark., respectively. 
The parents were married in Independence County, 
and settled upon the land now occupied by the 
Desha family, and where the father died April 80, 
1869. He was a graduate from the law and lit- 
erary department of the Transylvania University, 
at Lexington, Ky., and became a successful lawyer 
as well as one of the most influential men in this 
county. He was prosecutor of his district at the 
outbreak of war, and was also a member of the 
convention that declared the State of Arkansas 
out of the Union. Upon reaching his sixteenth 
year he entered a business house at Clarendon, 
where he occupied a position of trust for some 
time, and then went to Kentucky, to attend col 
lege. He commenced to practice his profession at 
Batesville, and continued in the law at that point for 
twenty-tiTe years. At the outbreak of war be 
tween this country and Mexico, he enli.sted in 
Company D, First Arkansas Mounted Infantry, in 
which he held the rank of lieutenant, and on the 
occasion of the captain's death, at the battle of 
Buena Vista, Lieut. Desha was promoted to fill 
his place. During the Civil War he again enlisted 
and organized what was known as Desha's bat- 
talion, which he commanded until after the battle 



■nr 




of Shiloh. when he resigned on account of ill 
health, and returned to his home. Mr. Desha was 
at one time a member of Capt. Rutherford's com- 
pany in Price's raids through Missouri, and was 
afterward severely wounded at the Fitzhugh tight, 
in Arkansas. After his return home he again re- 
sumed his practice and became one of the most 
promising men of Arkansas, as also one of the 
wealthiest. His father was Robert Desha, a son 
of one of Kentucky's most famous governors in 
the early days. Robert Desha entered the United 
States marine service, and was for a good many 
years a captain in that body. Col. Desha's mother 
was a descendant of the famous Bledsoe family, 
whose name figured so prominently in the early 
history of Tennessee; while the Desha family are 
of French descent, the name being formerly De 
Shaze. The mother was a daughter of James and 
Martha Seavey, of Virginia, who were married in 
Alabama, and moved to Batesville, Ark., in 1829, 
being then among the first settlers of that country. 
Mr. Seavey was of Scotch descent, and served 
under Gen. Jackson in the War of 1812. He af- 
terward became a prominent farmer in Independ- 
ence County, where he resided until his death, in 
1835, his wife following him the same year. 
Their daughter, Mrs. Desha, is still living, and has 
been a member of the Presbyterian Church for 
over forty years. She was the mother of eleven 
children, of whom two sons and two daughters are 
yet living: Robert M. , Benjamin, Mary and Liz- 
zie. Col. Robert M. Desha, the oldest, now owns 
about 700 acres of land, and has some 250 acres un- 
der cultivation in valuable bottom land. In politics 
he is a strong Democrat, and from 1882 to 1886 
he was one of the best sheriffs Independence 
County could ever boast of. He is very largely 
interested in stock dealing, ginning, milling and 
farming, and is a model and influential citizen. He 
belongs to Mill Lodge No. 285, A. F. & A. M., 
and has held all the offices except master. As far 
as popularity is concerned. Col. Desha has a host 
of friends in Independence County. He is an act- 
ive politician and of value to his party, his services 
being well appreciated. He also belongs to the 
Royal Arch Chapter and Eastern Star. 



Dr. Lycurgus A. Dickson, a prominent physi- 
cian and surgeon, of Desha, Independence County, 
is a native of Murfreesboro, Tenn. , and was born 
in 1827. His parents were Enos H. and Cynthia 
(Howell) Dickson, both of Tennessee. Enos H. 
Dickson was a cabinet-maker by trade, and was a 
son of William Dickson, a native of North Caro- 
lina, who died in Tennessee; the latter was a sol- 
dier in the Revolutionary War, participating in the 
battle of King's Mountain. Lycurgus A. was next 
to the youngest of a family of seven sons, and is 
the only one now living; he was left an orphan at 
the age of fourteen years, and lived with an uncle. 
G. B. Lanham, till nearly grown. His education 
was that which he could obtain in the common 
schools, and at the age of nineteen he engaged in 
teaching, which profession he followed several 
years. In 1851 he began the study of medicine, in 
Gibson County, Tenn., and in 1853-54 attended 
the medical department of the University of Nash- 
ville, Tenn., graduating from Jefferson Medical 
College, Philadelphia, in 1855. He began the 
practice of his chosen profession in Gibson County, 
Tenn., where he remained until 1856; in the latter 
year he removed to Independence County, Ark. , 
where he has ever since been actively engaged in 
practice, with remarkable success. During the war 
he served two years as surgeon of the Eighth Ar- 
kansas Infantry, operating in Arkansas, Kentucky 
and Tennessee. In January, 1863, Dr. Dickson 
married Elizabeth G. , daughter of Judge Henry 
Neill. Mrs. Dickson was born not far from where 
she now lives. Their children are: Maude M. , 
wife of Dr. F. E. Jeffery; Dr. Henry N. , a grad- 
uate of the medical department of Vanderbilt Uni- 
versity, of Nashville, Tenn. ; Robert L. , Florence 
(deceased), Paul Lanham, Elizabeth Adair, and 
Enos H. The Doctor owns 280 acres of land, with 
150 acres under cultivation. He is one of the old- 
est physicians in the county, and is a leader in his 
profession. His practice is large and remunera- 
tive, and he has the respect and confidence of a 
large number of friends and patrons. Politically, 
he is a Democrat. He is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. Mi-s. Dickson is a member of the Meth- 
odist Church. 



V 




^ 



^ 



Mississippi CouNTr,ARKAN3AS . 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



661 



John H. Dickinson, clerk of the circuit court, 
Batesville. The public services of Mr. Dickinson, 
since 1880, have been characterized by a noticeable 
devotion to the vyelfare of Independence County, 
and his fidelity in his position of public trust has 
made a lasting impression upon the sphere of pub- 
lic duty. He was born in the city of Batesville, 
Independence County, on the 1 1th day of February, 
1849, and is one of three children now livinfj, born 
to the union of Benjamin and Maria L. (Slater) 
Dickinson, early settlers of Batesville. The father 
was a general business man, and kept hotel for 
several years. The three children now living are 
named as follows: Edward M., Elizabeth C. and 
John H. The latter was reared principally in San 
Joaquin County, Cal., and there he received a 
good practical education. At the age of twelve 
years he began learning the printer's trade at 
Stockton, Cal., in the office of the Stockton Inde- 
pendent, and there continued until twenty-one 
years of age. He then went to Delaware to visit 
his father, and subsequently came to Independ- 
ence County, where he engaged as clerk in a 
country store. He continued in this business for 
some time, and in 1888 was elected to his present 
position. On the 31st of December, 1879, his mar- 
riage with Miss Virginia Byers, was consummated. 
Mr. Dickinson is a member of the Masonic frater- 
nity ; a member of the K. of H. , and he also be- 
longs to the K. of P. 

William P. Dotson, a practicing physician and 
surgeon, of Union Township. Independence Coun- 
ty, resides on a farm four miles north of Cushman 
postoffice. He was born in Surrey County, N. C, 
in 184fj, and is one of two children born to John 
H. and Elizabeth Dobson, both natives of North 
Carolina. John H. was born in 1807 and died in 
his native State in 18(56; he was of English-Irish 
descent. Mrs. Dobson, whose maiden name was 
Martin, was born in Wilkes County in 1817, and 
died in 1867; her ancestors were Dutch. William 
P. was reared in North Carolina, where he was 
given the advantages of a common -school educa- 
tion. He obtained his medical knowledge at the 
University of Louisville, Ky., and. since the year 
1868, has been actively engaged in the practice of 



medicine. He located in Independence County, 
Ark., in 1870, where he has ever since resided and 
devoted the greater part of his attention to his 
practice, which is extensive and lucrative. In 
1875 Dr. Dobson married Miss Kittie Williamson, 
a native of Arkansas, who was born in 18r)6. Their 
six children are: John K., William T., David E., 
Burrus C. , Archibald H. and Mary E. The mother 
is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and the family is one well-known 
and respected. The Doctor owns 480 acres of land, 
of which he cultivates 125 acres. His politics have 
been Democratic ever since he cast his first presi- 
dential vote for Seymour and Blair. 

John S. Dodd, a well-known resident and farmer 
of Independence County, was born in that county 
on the 17th of May, 1841, and is a son of Abner 
H. and Mary Jane (Martin) Dodd, natives of Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky, respectively, the latter com- 
ing to Arkansas, with her parents, when only three 
years of age. The father moved to that State with 
his father, in 1812, when the country was very 
sparsely settled. At that time, as well as John 
S. Dodd can recollect from his father's account, 
there were but one or two families in Greenbriar 
Township, and a few in Oil Trough. There was 
also a settler livinij at what is now known as Ma<j- 
ness Ferry, from whom that place received its 
name. John S. Dodd received his education in 
Independence County, and grew to manhood in 
that place. It was here he met and won his wife, 
and also where he enlisted in the army, when the 
Confederacy's call to arms was heard. Ho l)ecame 
a member of Company D, Eighth Regiment, Arkan- 
sas Volunteer Infantry, in 1861, and served until 
December of the same year, when he was dis- 
charged at Nashville, Tenn. , and returned home. 
In 1862 he re- enlisted, becoming a member of Col. 
Ganse's regiment of infantry, and remained with 
that regiment until 1864, but having only one op- 
portunity to engage in battle, and that at Helena. 
Ark. He was afterward detached from his regi 
ment and served in the engineer corps until the 
army disbanded, in 1865, when he returned home. 
Mr. Dodd was united to Miss Mary Ann Wood 
at the home of the bride's parents, in Independ- 



662 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ence County, on September 26, 1867, and this 
happy marriage has given them seven children, of 
whom six are still living: Mary Ann, born Novem- 
ber 3, 1869; Joseph Abner, born March 21, 1871; 
William M., born February 21, 1873, (deceased); 
Melville J., born April 10, 1876; Benjamin Hardin, 
born November 17, 1878; John H. , born June 20, 
1880; Edna E., born May 22, 1880. Mrs. Dodd 
was a daughter of William M. and Lydia A. Rob- 
ertson, who moved to Arkansas in 1851, where the 
father carried on his trade of wagon-making in 
connection with his farming interests. From his 
father's estate Mr. Dodd inherited eighty acres of 
land in Christian Township, with about twelve acres 
under cultivation. He now has 150 acres under 
cultivation, besides owning considerable more, and 
has erected some good buildings, barns and cribs 
upon the latid. He also ovfus a grist-mill and 
cotton-gin, and is looked upon as one of the most 
progressive men in that section. He is certainly 
deserving of success for the enterprise displayed to 
make his community the foremost in that county. 
His children are being educated at the public 
schools, although the oldest children have attended 
the subscription schools principally. Mrs. Dodd 
and her eldest daughter are members of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church and devout Christians, 
while Mr. Dodd, although not a regular attendant, 
is one of the most liberal and open-hearted men in 
the community toward religious and educational 
matters. 

John G. Dodd is one of the successful small 
farmers of the county, and although his property 
only comprises eighty- seven acres of land, it is ex- 
ceedingly fertile and well tilled, and consequently 
yields a larger annual income than many larger 
farms. He, like his father, John Dodd, was born 
and reared in Greene County, Tenn. , the latter' s 
birth occurring on the 15th of April, 1801, and his 
on the 16th of June, 1841. John Dodd was reared 
and educated in his native State, and was there 
married to Miss Catharine Girdner, who was also 
a Tennesseean, and to them a family of four sons 
and four daughters was given. The living mem- 
bers are: Martha M., William W., John G., Mary 
L. , Catharine L. and Samuel R. Mr. Dodd was a 



successful farmer, and continued to follow that 
occupation until he was called to his long home, on 
the 12th of March. 1860, followed by his wife on 
the 18th of January, 1878. The elementary school- 
ing of John G. Dodd, our subject, was received in 
Greene County, Tenu., and he was there also ini- 
tiated into the mysteries of farming on his father's 
plantation. Concluding that he could do better at 
that occupation in some other locality, he moved 
to Independence County, Ark., in 1870, and here 
he has continued to make his home, his land, which 
is not under cultivation, being devoted to propagat- 
ing the usual farm stock. He was married in Bax- 
ter County, Ark., August 16, 1875, to Miss Juli- 
ette S. Horton, also a native of Greene County, 
Tenn., and the two children which have been given 
them are William E. and Orpha C, both of whom 
reside with and assist their parents. Mr. Dodd 
has manifested his social spirit by joining the 
Masons, and has served as secretary of his lodge 
for about six years. He was president of the Agri- 
cultural Wheel one year, and has held the office of 
justice of the peace six years. He and wife are 
connected with the Baptist Church, and he has 
been a liberal contributor to all worthy enterprises, 
and is especially interested in the cause of educa- 
tion. In 1862 he joined the Confederate army, 
and served under Gens. Wheeler, Fegram, Vaughn, 
Morgan, Breckinridge and Early until he was hon- 
orably discharged, on the 27th of April, 1865. 

James P. Dorr, M. D. , one of the progressive 
citizens of Black River Township, and an eminent 
physician and surgeon of the same, is the son of 
Dr. Francis A. and Mary J. (Powell) Dorr, natives 
of Selsea, Germany, and Ohio, respectively. Dr. 
Dorr, Sr. , came to Ohio at the age of tw^elve years, 
and spent his boyhood days in musical and literary 
studies. In his early manhood he entered a med- 
ical school in Cincinnati, and later graduated at 
Keokuk Medical College, Iowa. He was then 
married, and after living several years in Indiana, 
Illinois and Iowa, in 1870 moved to Jacksonjiort, 
Jackson County, Ark., and there practiced his 
profession. He remained there until the spring 
of 1889, when he went to Hot Springs, opened an 
office, where he is at present practicing. Dr. 



-?- 




k^ 



Jamps P. Dorr was born in Iowa on the 'Uh of 
December, 1856, and .spent his school days in that 
State and in Arkansas. He began the study of 
medicine in 1877, his father and Dr. Strauss (a 
doctor of natural sciences) being bis instructors. 
During the year.? of 1879, 1880 and 1881, he 
attended the llissonri Medical College, at St. 
Louis, and graduated from that institution in the 
class of 1881, l)ut bad [)racticed, however, several 
months prior to his graduation. In the spring of 
the last mentioned year, he located where he now 
lives, and has since been practicing in this section. 
He has built up one of the largest practices in the 
county, and has been very successful, as his many 
patients, yet living, can testify. He is the owner 
of eighty acres of land on Dota Creek, but gives 
his entire time to his practice. He is the fourth 
of a family of eleven children, nine of whom are 
living; J. F. Dorr (merchant, whose present loca- 
tion is not known), Hattie (deceased, wife of Marion 
F. Israel, a merchant of Richland and Keokuk, 
Iowa), T. B. R. (a farmer of Black River Town- 
ship), Samuel Asbton (a saddler, lives at Hot 
Springs), James P., R. C. (an M. D., of Black 
River Township, and enjoys a lucrative practice). 
A. P. (is a successful practicing physician, at Sul- 
phur Rock), B. J. (is also an M. D., and is prac- 
ticing his profession at Tupelo, Jackson County, 
Ark.), Grace G. (lives with her mother at Sulphur 
Rock). Mary and J. P. (the eldest of the family) 
died in childhood. James P. came from a long- 
lived people, his parents both surviving, his father 
aearly seventy, and the mother sixty five years of 
age. The latter' s parents both lived to the extreme 
age of one hundred years. Dr. Dorr, Sr. , was an 
active Democrat, and his son, Dr. James P. Dorr, 
is also a Democrat, and is quite an influential citizen 
in his county, politically. On the 15th of Novem- 
ber, 1888, the latter married Miss Mary E. Had- 
dock, daughter of Jordan Haddock, of Independ- 
ence County, Ark. The Doctor takes a great 
interest in the building of schools, and, in fact, in 
all put)lic enterjirises. 

Richard Madison Duck, farmer and stock 
raiser, Oil Trough, Ark. Prominent among the 
many enterprising and industrious farmers of In- 



dei)endence County appears the name of Mr. Duck, 
whose Isirtb occurred in Rutlierford County, N. C, 
on the 2d of November, 1816. He is the son of 
Robert and Margaret (McClure) Duck, both na- 
tives, also, of North Carolina. The paternal 
grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary 
War, and the maternal grandfather was a captain 
in the Continental army, and participated in the 
battle of King's Mountain. Richard Madison 
Duck received his education in his njitive State, 
and, after remaining upon a farm until about sev- 
enteen years of age, sought employment at the 
carpenter's trade. At the end of a year he found 
work with a carpenter and cabinet-maker by the 
name of Smith, a New Englander, with whom he 
worked about one year, receiving all his instruc- 
tion from this man. The thorough drilling he ob- 
tained enabled him to become very proficient in his 
trade as a carpenter, and this business he followed 
until he came to Arkansas, which was in the year 
1850. Mr. Duck selected as his wife Miss Martha 
Jane Redwine, of Chattooga County, Ga., and 
was united in marriage to her on the 22d of De- 
cember, 1842. They became the parents of nine 
children, five daughters and four sons: Olivia D., 
born on the 15th of January, 18-14, and the wife 
of John Bratton, of Searcy County, Ark. ; George 
A., born August 19, 1845. and died May 13, 1886: 
Melvin Lafayette, born August 17, 1847, married, 
and now resides in the Lone Star State; James B., 
born August 23, 1849; Robert D., born on the 
29th of December, 1851, and now resides with his 
parents; Nancy A. maiTied Jesse McCroskey, who 
died in February. 1885; Mary S. married Elijah 
Nichols, and now resides at Oil Trough; Martha 
Jane resides at home, and IMargaret O. married 
Alfred P. Aydelott, of Independence County, Ark., 
and now resides on a farm in Chri.stian Township. 
After coming to Arkansas Mr. Duck purchased a 
tract of land in Searcy County, in partnership with 
Samuel P. Williamson. This tract consists of 
about 300 acres, some fifty-tive acres under culti- 
vation, and Mr. Duck soon became the owner of 
260 acres. Later he sold this tract, and in 18(i() 
moved to Independence County, bought land in 
Liberty Township, and there lived until after the 



- v" 



M 



mi 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



war. He was in the Confederate service, enlisting 
in the latter part of 1861, in Col. Crabtree's regi- 
ment of Arkansas Volunteers, and served princi- 
pally on detached service, as tanner and shoemaker 
for the army of the Confed(>racy. In 1865 he was 
mustered out, and in 186',) he bought the farm 
upon vjrhich he is now living. There were at that 
time 113 acres in the lot, but at present he has 233 
acres, with about 100 acres under cultivation. He 
has a tine orchard, with fruit of all kinds in abund- 
ance. Mr. and Mrs. Duck have been members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church since 1845, and 
he has contributed liberally to the support of the 
church. Mr. Duck is also a member of McGuire 
Lodge No. 20S, Oil Trough, Independence County, 
Ark. , of which he was one of the charter members, 
and the only one now living. He is Democratic in 
his political views, and is a friend to progress. 

N. E. Duffey, deputy circuit court clerk, and 
one of the representative men of the county, was 
born in Bristol, Conn., on the 12th day of Au- 
gust, 1849, and is the son of Nicholas and Mary 
(Hogan) Duffey, natives of County Westmeath, Ire- 
land. The parents emigrated to America at an 
early day, and located in Connecticut. From 
there thej^ removed to Illinois, in 1859, and settled 
in Madison County, near Edwardsville, where the 
father followed agricultural pursuits, and where he 
remained for several years. The mother died in 
1851. Of their family there are three childi-en 
now living: James, Owen, and Nicholas E., who 
is the youngest of the family. He was principally 
reared in Illinois, and there received his education. 
At once, with the energy and industry of his fore- 
fathers, he devoted himself to tilling the soil, and 
this continued until in April, 1872, when he came 
to Arkansas, and located at Batesville. He first en- 
gaged in the livery business, which he continued 
for a number of years, and then embarked in mer- 
chandising. This he carried on in Oil Trough 
Bottom for about five years, and three years in 
Batesville. The last few years he has been practi- 
cally retired, with the exception of settling up his 
business. Since January, 1889, he has been acting 
as deputy circuit clerk. He is the owner of 
about 600 acres of land, with 240 under cultiva- 



tion. By his maiTiage. which occurred in 1878, 
to Miss Eglantine Gainer, a native of Arkansas, 
he became the father of three children: Mollie, 
Gainer and Nora. Mrs. Duffy is a member of the 
Episcopal Church. He is a very public- spirited 
citizen, and is always ready to assist any public 
enterprise. He is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , 
and is also a member of the K. of P. 

Thaddeus W. Dumas, business manager of the 
Co-operative Wheel Store, Pleasant Plains, Ark. 
The mercantile interests of this portion of Independ- 
ence County, have been ably represented for sev- 
eral years by Mr. Dumas, who is a pleasant, genial 
gentleman, and a good business man. His birth 
occurred in Lowndes County, Miss. , on the 20th of 
November, 1837. and he was one of six interesting 
children born to Winchester and Louisa (Jenkins) 
Dumas, both of whom were natives of South Caro- 
lina. They removed to Tipton County,. Tenn.. in 
1864, and there the closing scenes of their lives were 
passed. Thaddeus W. Dumas came to Arkansas 
in 1873, and settled in Independence County, where 
he has since remained. He received his education 
in the Manual Labor School of Franklin College, 
Tenn. , under the management of Toll)ert Fanning. 
During the late conflict he served in the Third 
Kentucky Regiment, and participated in the battles 
of Belmont, Shiloh, Port Hudson, Jackson, and 
several less important engagements. He chose for 
his companion in life. Miss Phcebe James, whom 
he married in 1878. They have no children. Mr. 
Dumas possesses 160 acres of mountain land, and 
on the same are several fine mineral springs. He 
is a Jacksonian Democrat in politics, is a member 
of the Wheel, and in religion a Baptist. 

Robert W. Earnheart is one of the leading farm- 
ers and business men of Washington Township, 
Independence County. He owns over 1,000 acres 
of land, of which only about 225 acres are culti- 
vated, but comprise one of the finest farms in the 
vicinity. Mr. Earnheart is also the proprietor of 
a distillery, which has a capacity of ten gallons of 
whisky per day, and is situated on his farm, seven 
miles west of Batesville. Mr. Earnheart is a na- 
tive of North Carolina, and was born January 25, 
1849. His parents were Edward and Sarah i Mull) 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



665 



[ 



Earnheart, the former of whom was bora in North 
Carolina, May 10, 1811, and died iu 1850; the 
latter was boru March 2, 1819, and died in Arkan- 
sas, June 28, 1859. In 1853, after the father's 
death, the family removed to Arkansas. There were 
six children, only three of whom are now living. 
Robert W., who was the youngest child, was reared 
in Independence County, Ark., and his (nliioation 
consisted of but four months' attendance at the 
common schools. At the age of twelve years he 
began providing for himself, and has principally 
devoted his attention to farming, at which lii^ has 
been very successful. December 29, 1869, Mr. 
Earnheart married Miss Martha E. Harmon, also a 
native of Independence County, who was born Oc- 
tober 23, 1850. Mrs. Earnheart died January 15, 
1886, the mother of six children, viz. : Lee Edward, 
Joseph W., Robert S. , Emma I., Jefferson B. 
(deceased) and Martha P. February 9, 1887, Mr. 
Earnheart married Miss Mattie Winston, and their 
union has been blessed with one child. Mrs. Earn- 
heart was born in Independence County, May 12, 
1867. Our subject and wife are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the for- 
mer is also a member of the Masonic order. He 
is politically a Democrat, and is one of the most 
extensive farmers in Washington Township. 

William J. Erwin, an enterprising and prosper- ; 
ous farmer of Independence County, was born in 
Maury County, Tenn. , on October 22, 1833. He is 
a son of Alexander K. and Elizabeth (Wilson) Er- 
win, of the same State. The paternal grandfather 
was an early settler of Tennessee, and a soldier 
in the War of 1812. His son, Alexander K. , was 
reared in that State, and followed the occupation 
of a farmer until the spring of 1840, when he emi- 
grated to Independence County, Ark., making the 
entire journey with his family in wagons. He lo- 
cated in Washington Township, where he entered 
a tract of land in the woods, upon which he lived 
until 1870, when he moved to Batesville, where he 
lived up to the time of his death, in 1S72, his wife 
following him six years later. They were the par- 
ents of seven children, of whom three are still liv- 
ing: William J., Laura, wife of Dr. D. C. Ewing, 
and Martha, wife of Clinton McGuire. William 



J. Erwin was only seven years of age when his 
parents arrived in Independence County, and he 
remained on the farm until he had reached his 
maturity, receiving in that time a fair education. 
In 1862 he enlisted in McCaulcy's cavalry com- 
pany. Seventh Regiment, and served in that body 
until the surrender. Mr. Erwin took part in all 
the principal engagements west of the Mississippi 
River, and, although disjilaying a recklessness in 
battle sometimes that was marvelous, he was 
never wounded or cajitured. After the surrender 
he came home and resumed his work on the farm, 
starting in with a determination to make that his 
business and to be successful at it. He has never 
aspired to be a politician, and rather shuns the 
notoriety that public office would bring— the only 
position he would ever consent to filling l)eing that 
of judge of election. In 1871 he moved to where 
he now resides, within one mile of Batesville, and 
in 1873 built a fine residence. He owns altogether 
about 1,000 acres, and has some 650 acres under 
cultivation, of which 550 acres are situated in Oil 
Trough Bottom, being some of the most valuable 
land in that section, and adapted to any growth. 
Mr. Erwin raises corn, cotton and hay, also cattle, 
sheep and hogs. In 1866 he was married to Miss 
Cornelia Glenn, by whom he had six children, 
three of them yet living: William A., M. E. and 
Nellie. His wife died after a happy married lif(^ 
of fourteen years, and he was united to Miss Ida 
Lipscomb, of Maury County, Tenn. , on June 26, 
1883. Mr. and Mrs. Erwin are members of the 
Presl)yterian Church, and the former belongs to 
the Royal Arch Masons, and in politics is a Dem 
ocrat. 

D. C. Ewing, M. D., a well known physician 
of Batesville, was bom in Madison County, Tenn. , 
on November 7, 1846, and is a son of David C. and 
Sophia (Dixson) Ewing, of North Carolina and 
Tennessee, respectively. The elder Ewing immi- 
grated to Tennessee about the year 1819, and 
settled in Madison County, where he died iu 1858, 
his wife following him in 1888. They were the 
parents of ten children, of whom six are yet liv 
iug: Elizabeth C, wife of W. S. Carson, a grand- 
nephew of the celebrated scout and Indian fighter, 



_jj^ 



666 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



Kit Carson; Jane W., who was married to James 
Steed, and died in 1871; Adeline E., wife of James 
F. Bray: Newton A. ; the Doctor: Joseph D. .who 
died in Los Angeles. Cal. ; Fannie, wife of Gran- 
ville Ingram, and Margaret, wife of Robert Davis, 
deceased. The Doctor was reared on his father's 
farm, in Madison County, Tenn. , and received his 
education at the Madison Academy. On September 
13, ISni, he enlisted in Company A. Thirty-iirst 
Tennessee Infantry, and served sixteen months, 
afterward joining Company B, Twenty-first Ten- 
nessee (Forrest's) Cavalry, in which he continued 
until his surrender at Gainesville Junction, Ala., 
to E. R. S. B. Canby, who was killed by Capt. 
Jack, a celebrated Indian chief. The Doctor 
served in a number of the most important battles, 
and, though one of the foremost in the ranks and 
in the thickest of battle, he was never once 
womided nor captiu-ed. After the war was over 
he remained in Madison County, Tenn., where he 
read medicine under Dr. D. M. Spencer, at the 
same time obtaining a knowledge of the drug busi- 
ness in a store at that place. In 1869 he entered 
the medical department of the University of Louis- 
ville, and upon graduating, in 1871, came to Arkan- 
sas and located at Batesville, where he has been a 
resident and practiced medicine ever since. He 
has built up a large and lucrative practice, and is 
well known throughout this section, not only for 
the skill displayed in his profession, but also for 
his personal qualities. The Doctor is a member of 
the Arkansas State Medical Society and the Amer- 
ican Medical Association. He also belongs to the 
Masonic fraternity and the Knights of Honor, and 
was an alderman of Batesville for four years. On 
July 2, 1874, he was married to Mrs. Laura A. 
Cox, of Mississippi, but reared in Arkansas. He 
has made his home one of the most attractive in 
Batesville. The Doctor owns considerable town 
property, and bis residence is unsurpassed. 

Elisha M. Flinn is a native of Guilford County, 
N. C, and was born in 1828. He is a son of Dr. 
Jesse W. and Margaret (Bowen) Flinn, both of 
North Carolina. Dr. Jesse W. Flinn was born 
September 4, 1801, and lived in North Carolina 
until our siibject was three or four years of age, 



when he removed to Madison County, Ky. , and 
thence, in 1839, to McMinn County, Tenn. , where 
Mrs. Flinn died in 1844. Mr. Flinn married again, 
and in 1857 located in Independence County, Ark., 
where he spent the remainder of his life as a farmer 
and stock raiser, also practicing medicine to some 
extent; when young he was for several years en- 
gaged as a circus performer ; his death occurred 
in Greenbriar Township in 1873. John Flinn, pa- 
ternal grandfather of Elisha M. , was of Irish de- 
scent, and served as a soldier in the Revolution; 
he died in North Carolina at the advanced age of 
one hundred and four years, still retaining his eye- 
sight. The maternal grandparents of oui- subject 
died when Mrs. Flinn was ipiite small. To Jesse 
W. and Margaret Flinn were born three children. 
Elisha M. received his early education in the com- 
mon schools, and afterward attended for eighteen 
months Eastmalla Academy, Eastern Tennessee, 
which qualified him to teach, which profession he 
followed only one term as assistant. In 1852 Mr. 
Flinn married Elizabeth, daughter of William and 
Tempie Moore, natives of North Carolina, who 
spent the latter part of their lives in Independence 
County, Ark. Mrs. Flinn was born in McMinn 
County, Tenn., and died in 1864, leaving one 
daughter, Mary, now the wife of Jefferson Porter. 
In 1866 Mr. Flinn married Anna Todd, a native of 
Randolph County, who died in 1872. Three chil- 
dren were born to the latter union, viz. : James R. , 
Emma Vernettie, and Jesse Lee (deceased). I\Ir. 
Flinn located on his present farm in Independence 
County in 1856, and for the past thirty-three years 
has made his home there. He has 200 acres of 
fine farm land, of which 140 acres are under cultiva- 
tion. He traded extensively at one time, driving 
stock to Georgia and Florida. In the latter part of 
1861 he enlisted in Company C, Col. Newton's 
regiment of Arkansas cavalry, and served as or- 
derly sergeant, and quartermaster three and a 
half years; he was in the battles of Little Rock, 
Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City, and others, and 
was with Gen. Price on his raid through Missouri 
and Kansas. During service he was twice slightly 
wounded. After the war he returned to his farm, 
to which he has since devoted his entire attention. 



^'* 



^« — ^ 



,u 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



667 



He is politically a Democrat, and for fifteen years 
has been a member of the A. F. & A. M. , Neill 
Lodge, of Jamestown. 

Kobert Gardner. Indej)endence County, Ark., 
has won an enviable reputation as a prosperous 
farming country, and this reputation has boon 
acquired through the enterprise and energy of such 
agriculturists as Mr. Gardner. He is now residing 
one mile southeast of Elmo. He was born in Gib- 
son County, Ind. , on the 3d of October, 1843. 
He received an excellent common school education 
in his native county, but in 1878 emigrated to Ar- 
kansas and located in Independence County, where 
he continued farming, having learned the details 
of this work in his youth of his father, who was a 
successful agriculturist. Off and on, for the tirst 
ten years of his residence here, he rented land of 
\V. D. Hodges. Mrs. Mary L. Bennard became 
his wife in February, 1874. She was born in Ar 
kansas, and died on the ISth of January, 1882, 
being buried in the Kirk family cemetery. She 
left four children: John and Sallie (twins), who 
were born on the 4th of July, 1873; Mary, born 
August 22, 1879, and Edna, born October 29, 1881. 
Mr. Gardner's second union was to Mrs. Minerva 
Scanlan, a native of Arkansas, their union being 
consummated January 6, 1882. He has always 
been a warm friend of education, and has kept his 
two eldest children in school for the past eight 
years, their attendance being ten months out of the 
year. He is one of the trixstees of the school, and 
prides himself upon the fact that their school is one 
of the best in the county, and that none but the 
best teachers are employed, the salaries they offer 
being suflSciently large to command only the 
best educators. While in Indiana he was a mem- 
ber of the Masonic order, and belonged to Gib.son 
Lodge No. 420, of Hazleton. His parents, John 
and Mary (Nixon) Gardner, were born in Indiana. 

W. A. Glass. The manufacturing industries of 
Independence County, Ark., are ably represented 
by the pottery ostaljlishment belonging to Mr. 
Glass, which is located at Sulphur Rock. Mr. 
Glass was born in Texas, in 1858, and came with 
his parents to Saline County, Ark. , where he grew 
to manhood and was educated. At the early age 



of fourteen years he commenced learning the pot- 
ter's trade, serving an apprenticeship under his 
father, and at the age of about twenty years be^an 
working on his own account, and operated a pot 
tery establishment in Benton for some time, and 
then followed the same occupation in Bradley 
County for about one year. Since that time he has 
been in Sulphur Kock, with the exception of three 
years, when he returned to Benton, and since June 
19, 18S8, he has had a permanent [jottory establish- 
ment at this place, which he considers a fine loca- 
tion, as the clay is of a superior quality, and the 
advantages for shipping are good. He has a very 
large trade, and although his establishment turns 
out 3,000 gallons per week, he can hardly supply 
the demand. He was married in Saline County, 
Ark., to Miss Mary Glidewell, who was born in 
Tennessee, but was reared in Arkansas. To them 
have been born four children : John C, William 
A., and Lula. Frederick died at the age of two 
years. Mr. Glass is a son of Lafayette and Eliza 
H. (King) Glass, the former of whom was born in 
Tennessee, on the 5th of July, 1830, and the latter 
on the 5th of December, also of that year. The 
father lived for many years in Saline County, but 
died in Mississippi. He and wife were the parents 
of seven children. W. A. being the third of the 
family. Grandfather Glass was born in Tennessee, 
emigrated to Texas at an early day, then came to 
Arkansas, and made his home in Sebastian County 
until his death. He was a hatter by tratle, and was 
a Master Mason, as was his son Lafayette. 

John W. Glenn, a retired merchant, and one of 
Batesville's leading citizens, was born in Inde 
pendence County, on April 29, 1850. His parents 
were William W. and Martha E. (Hassell) Glenn, 
of North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. 
The father emigrated to Tennessee at an early 
period, and met and won his wife in that State. In 
1828 or thereabouts he moved to what is now In- 
dependence County, Ark., and located on the old 
homestead, where he now resides. The Indians 
were still here when he arrived, and all the dangers 
of a pioneer's life were fully experienced. Wild 
game of every description abounded in plenty, and 
in retui'n for the warfare made upon his stock by 






^1 



668 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the savage animals in that country the elder Glenn 
hunted considerably. His first residence was a lit- 
tle log cabin covered with clapboards, and this 
section was chosen on account of his wagon break- 
ing down at that point. After stopping awhile and 
looking over the country, he concluded that it would 
be about the right place to locate, and immediately 
commenced building a home. Jeanette Hassell, 
Mr. Glenn's father-in-law, came with them, and 
built a home near by. He had but two cliildien 
with him, Martha E. and Mary, the latter shortly 
after being married to James Wilson, a Presby- 
terian minister, who emigrated to Arkansas with 
them, and after the war removed with his wife to 
Arkadelphia, where he resided until his death. 
Mr. Wilson was an officer in the late war, and served 
with distinction throughout the entire fight. Mr. 
Hassell died from a stroke of paralysis, at the 
home of his son-in-law, W. W. Glenn, in this 
county. He was a large slave-owner, and had accu- 
mulated a fortune in real estate. W. W. Glenn 
was born in 1808, and came to Independence 
County when in his thirty- second year. He passed 
through all the trials and obstacles of a new country 
with a determination of purpose that eventually 
made him a successful man, and he is now very 
wealthy. He is in his eighty -first year, but is still 
as active as a man with twenty years' less weight on 
his shoulders, and has been a resident of Inde- 
pendence County for over sixty years, watching it 
grow from infancy to a thriving and populous cen- 
ter of civilization. Five children were born to the 
elder Glenn and his wife, four of whom grew to 
maturity, and three still living: John W. , Mrs. A. 
M. Hickerson, and Mrs. T. R. Taylor (whose hus- 
band is the owner of the Arlington Hotel). Those 
deceased were the first child, who died in in- 
fancy, and Mrs. Nellie Irwin, the latter, a noble 
woman and loving sister. The father, W. W. 
Glenn, was sheriff of Independence County for a 
number of years, whose name was a terror to evil- 
doers, and it was through his efforts that a great 
many of the desperate characters of earlier j'ears 
were run to earth. He also held the office of coun- 
ty judge, besides a number of minor positions, all 
of which he filled honorablv. John AV. Glenn 



was educated in Batesville, and at various other 
places, and upon finishing his college life com- 
menced merchandising at the former city in 1872. 
He carried on this business until 1886, when he 
was burned out, causing a loss of $15,000. Since 
then he has been winding up the affairs of his old 
business and dealing in real estate. He owns be- 
tween 2,000 and 3,000 acres of land, some of it 
lying in the river bottom, and very valuable, and 
has a large amount of it under cultivation, one 
farm of 400 acres producing some of the best 
crops in that section. He also deals extensively 
in horses and mules, and owns some of the best an- 
imals in Arkansas. In 1875 Mr. Glenn was mar- 
ried to Miss Sarah E. Maxfield, a daughter of 
Uriah Maxfield, and sister of Maxfield Bros., 
prominent merchants of this locality. This mar- 
riage has given them five children: Edgar H. , 
Nora A. , Elfie M. , Nellie L. and June. Mr. and 
Mrs. Glenn are both members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, and Mr. Glenn belongs to the 
K. of H. and K. & L. of H. Both parents 
have attended the Methodist Church for a great 
many years, and are held in high esteem by the 
entire community. 

H. H. Goodwin. Among the representative 
farmers of Independence County, Ark., there are 
none more favorably known, or more highly re- 
spected, than Mr. Goodwin, for, like the majority 
of farmers, he has been sober, honest and indus- 
trious, and has won the property he now owns by 
the sweat of his brow. He is a native of the 
county, born in 1844, and is a son of O. P. Good- 
win, a Virginian by birth, born in Hanover County, 
in 1810. When about twenty-five years of age he 
moved to the State of Arkansas, and has since been 
a resident of Independence County, where he is 
well and favorably known. His wife, whose maid- 
en name was Elizabeth Hotchkiss, was born in 
Roane County, Tenn. , in 1817, and bore him fif- 
teen children, the following of whom survive: O. 
P. , who married Miss Carrie Bryant, a native of 
Mississippi; J. W., who wedded Miss Bettie Searcy, 
a native of Arkansas; P, J., who married Miss 
Emma Gibson, an Alabamian by birth; Martha G., 
who wedded William Hurt, a native of Arkansas; 



^ 6 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



669 



^ 



( 



Emma G., the wife of Richard Lee, of Arkansas; 
O. P. autl H. H. The latter, like the majority of 
farmers' sons, devoted his time and attention to 
farming as he was growing up, and in the mean- 
time acquired a good, common-school education. 
After reaching mature years he was married to 
Miss Mary Pope, a Georgian by birth, their nup- 
tials taking place March 6, 1870, and to their 
union have been born six children: Albert S., Rob- 
ert E., Elizabeth M., Kirby A., Hattie, and an 
infant unnamed. Mr. Goodwin is a Mason, and has 
held the office of treasurer of his lodge for three 
years. During the Rebellion he joined McBride's 
forces in August, 1862, and his first hard tight was 
at Prairie Grove. After receiving his discharge 
on the 16th of May, 1865, he returned home, and 
resumed the peaceful pursuit of farming, which 
occupation he has since industriously followed. 
He is an enthusiastic patron of education, and for 
five years has served in the capacity of school di- 
rector. Mrs. Goodwin is a daughter of M. L. and 
Melvina Pope, who were native Georgians. The 
father was killed at the battle of Baker's Creek, 
Miss., May 16, 1863, and was followed to his long 
home by his wife in 1867. Mr. Goodwin owns a 
good farm of 1 20 acres, of which about fifty are 
under cultivation, and since his marriage has cleared 
fifty acres of woodland. 

E. R. Goodwin, druggist, Batesville, Ark. 
There is no branch of business more important in 
the whole list of occupations than that of a chem- 
ist and druggist. A prominent and representative 
establishment devoted to this branch of industry, 
is that of Mr. Goodwin, who, for a number of 
years, has been before the public in this line, and 
whose house is one of the best in the city. He 
was born in Panola County, Miss., on the 19th of 
December, 1845, and is the son of Albert G. and 
Maria A. (Moore) Goodwin, both natives of Suf- 
folk, Nansemond County, Va. They were mar- 
ried in Virginia, and emigrated to Mississippi 
about 1838, locating in Panola County, where 
they remained until 1849. They then removed to 
Perry County, Ark., and in December, of the same 
year, moved to Batesville, of the same State. 
While living in Perry County the mother died, in 



1859, and ten years later the father died in Bates- 
ville. He was a merchant by occupation, but the 
war almost ruined him financially. They were 
the parents of eight children, only three living: 
Albert F., Charles E., and Eugene R., who is the 
youngest of the three living. He was but four 
years of age when he went to Memphis with his 
parents, and was but fourteen when ho came to 
Batesville. He received the principal part of his 
education in Memphis, Tenn., for after coming to 
Batesville ho remained in the store with his father 
until the opening of the conflict between the North 
and South. In 1862 he enlisted in Capt. McGuf- 
fin's company, and served until the surrender, in 
June, 1865. He was with Price's raid through 
Missoiui, and was in almost a continuous fight. 
At the close of the war he returned to Batesville, 
and began clerking in a dry-goods store. In Octo- 
ber, 1868, he started clerking in a drug store, and 
in 1872 he entered in partnership vnth A. W. 
Lyon, continuing until March, 1875, when Mr. 
Goodwin engaged in the business for himself, and 
this has since continued, a period of seventeen 
years. He carries a general line of drugs, sta- 
tionery, etc. He was married in 1871 to Miss 
Louisa F. Davies, a native* of South Carolina, who 
bore him foui- children: Lillio F., Cora D., Mabel 
T., and Lula H. Mr. and Mi's. Goodwin and 
family are members of the Presbyterian Church. 
He is a member of the K. of H., and also the Le- 
gion of Honor. 

Abraham Gossett is the proprietor of Distillery 
No. 154, at Newark, Independence County, Ark., 
which was established in November, 1888, and has 
a capacity of fifty gallons per day, which, it is ex- 
pected, will soon be increased to seventy-five gal- 
lons per day, consuming all the sui'plus com raised 
in that portion of the county. Mr. Gossett is a 
native of Independence County, and was born 
February 2, 1862. His parents are Allen and 
Charlotte (Brannan) Gossett, both natives of Ten- 
nessee, who, in early life, removed with their par- 
ents to Arkansas, where they married. They are 
active members of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and are among the most prominent residents of 
Independence County, where they now reside. 



.^ 



670 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Allen Gossett was in tbe Confederate service four 
years dm-ing the late Civil War, serving a greater 
portion of the time as orderly sergeant; he has 
been a farmer all his life, and has been most suc- 
cessful in his chosen occupation. He is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and his political sym- 
pathies are with the Democratic party. Nine chil- 
dren have been born to the parents of our subject, 
viz.: Abraham, Robert M., Cassandra, Florence 
(wife of William Kenman, a farmer of Independ- 
ence County), Williamson and John (twins), Mad- 
ison, Lena and Sarah (deceased); the latter was 
married to William Bruce, and died at the age of 
twenty-two years. Abraham Gossett received a 
common-school education, and at the age of twenty- 
one years began farming for himself, but after one 
year, abandoned the farm, and engaged in trading, 
in which he was successful for a time. In 1881 he 
turned his attention to the mercantile business in 
Johnson ville, Humphreys County, Tenn., and two 
years later removed to Newark, Ark., where he 
engaged in the same business, and built the second 
business house in that place. He continued mer- 
chandising until January 1, 1889, when he deter- 
mined to devote his entire time and attention to 
distilling, of which he is making a great success. 
April 22, 1885, Mr. Gossett married Miss Black- 
head Tomblinson, a daughter of John N. Tomblin- 
son. Mrs. Gossett is a native of Independence 
County. They have two children: Owen and 
Newel. Mr. Gossett is a member of the Baptist 
Church, the I. O. O. F. , and Masonic fraternity. 

Capt. Hiram Vardeman Gray (deceased). The 
above name is familiar to all the old citizens of In- 
dependence County, for it was borne by a man who 
was honest and upright, and whose life was without 
reproach in his intercourse with his fellowmen. 
Capt. Gray was born on the 22d of April, 1822, in 
Graves County, Ky. , and was the son of Capt. Gil- 
son and Rachel (Hodge) Gray, natives of North 
Carolina, who were among the early settlers of 
Graves County, Ky. The father was a captain in 
the War of 1812. In their family were five chil- 
dren. George M., a school teacher by profession, 
who went to Illinois in 1849, was elected and 
served two years as sheriff of Massac County. 



Later he represented a senatorial district in the 
Illinois legislature. In 1857 he contracted con- 
sumption and died at the age of thirty- nine years. 
Gilson, farmer and youngest son, on hearing that 
his brother Hiram had enlisted in the war, came 
to the home of his brother, ind then, learnin£r that 
the latter was at Helena, joined him there. He 
was his brother's nurse, remaining as such till his 
death, which occurred in Memphis in 1876, at the 
age of forty-eight years. Celia was the wife of 
Luke Ogden, a farmer of Kentucky, and her 
death occurred in 1852, at about thirty years of 
age. Malenia was the wife of Tillman H. Steele, 
a soldier of the Mexican War, and a farmer. She 
and her husband came to Arkansas in 1854, and 
here her death occurred in 1867, at the age of 
forty years. Capt. Hiram V. Gray was reared as 
all other farmers' boys, but was left an orphan 
when but a lad, and he and his brothers and sisters 
were left to look out for themselves. As might be 
supposed, his educational advantages were not of 
the best, but being naturally of a studious turn of 
mind he improved spare moments and became an 
average scholar. His early life on the farm gave 
him a strong constitution physically, and made him a 
practical, sensible man, and fitted him in an admira- 
ble manner for the public life he was destined to 
live. During his early manhood he followed agri- 
cultural 2)ursuits, and in 1840 was married to Miss 
Mahala Sweeny, a daughter of David Sweeny, who 
was a school teacher and a native of Tennessee. 
After his marriage Capt. Gray lived in Kentucky 
and tilled the soil until 1852, when he came to 
Arkansas, and at first stopped in White County. 
Not being pleased with the country, he started to 
return to his native State, but when he reached 
Black River Township, and became acquainted 
with some of the people, he concluded to settle 
there. He at first entered eighty acres of land, 
which he improved, and later bought 400 acres of 
J. N. Tunstill, which he added to this tract. He 
erected good buildings on the same and cleared 
forty acres of the land. Subsequently he bought 
160 acres about four miles from the first, which 
was woodland. In 1854 he was elected to the 
office of constable, which office included the duties 



^S 



of deptity sheriff, in which capacity he served, 
having been re-elected twice, until the breaking 
out of the war, in 1861. Being a strong Union 
man and his politics well known, he found plenty 
of opportunities to argue his opinions. In the 
spring of 1862, while in Batesville, he was asked 
under what flag he would fight, and made this 
answer: "I will be found iiuder the stars and 
stripes, battling for God and liberty," upon 
which he was struck by a citizen and surrounded 
by 100 others, one of whom had a rope to hang 
him. Being a highly respected Mason, some of 
the members of that order interfered in his behalf, 
and this saved his life. Later, in May, 1862, 
Mr. Gray organized a company of 100 men, and, 
on the 24th of June, he joined Curtis' army at 
Batesville, and was mustered in at Jacksonport. 
From there he went to Helena, where he remained 
stationed to await orders. While lying there one- 
half of his command, unused to malarial atmos- 
phere, sickened and died. Capt. Gray, himself, 
took sick with measles, and after sixty of his men 
had died, he and the remnant of his command 
were sent to Benton Barracks, St. Louis, for their 
health. Capt. Gray was sent to the Fifth Military 
Hospital, and, notwithstanding that he was at- 
tended by the best medical skill that could be pro- 
cured, and the most careful nursing, he continued 
to decline tintil December 2, 1862, when death 
came to his release. At present there are but 
eleven of his company of 100 men living, seven in 
Independence County. In this brief memoir it is 
impossible to do justice to the person whose mem 
ory it is designed to commemorate. His memory 
is perpetuated in Independence County by having 
his name given to the G. A. R. Post at Sulphur 
Itock, No. 33. His premature death left Mrs. 
(iray a widow with six children in the country of 
the enemy, and in the ibidst of the greatest fratri- 
cidal contest the world has ever known. Her oldest 
child was twenty years of age and the youngest 
six. ^Irs. Gray soon lost all her property, and 
was so harassed bj' the soldiers that she had to 
take refuge in another State, going to St. Louis in 
the spring of 1S63. In 1864 she moved to Illi- 
nois, and. afti'r a .short residence in that State, 



moved to Potosi, Washington County, Mo., where 
she met Gen. Price's army, and was robbed of her 
all. Thus she was left entirely without funds, and, 
to add to her trouble, her eldest son was taken pris- 
oner. However, on account of physical disability, 
and at the instance of some of his friends in the 
Confederate ranks, young Gray was released after 
a short time and allowed to return to his home. 
The subsequent trials of Mrs. Gray would fill vol- 
umes, and this continued until the close of the 
war, or in the fall of 1865. They then returned 
to their home in Arkansas, to find that the ruthless 
hand of war had taken everything movable away, 
the house alone remaining. Here she passed the 
remainder of her days, her death occurring on the 
14th of October, 1884, at the age of sixty years. 
She was the widow of Capt. Gray, at her death, 
never having married again, and devoted her life 
to her children. Capt. Gray and wife were both 
Christians, he having received the ordinance of 
baptism on his death-bed. Mrs. Gray had been 
for forty years a member of the Baptist Church. 
They were the parents of seven children: Henry 
C, born in August, 1841, was reared to farm life, 
was unmarried, and when the war broke out joined 
his father's company. He was one of the unfor- 
tunates who died at Helena, his death occurring 
in August, 1862; Sally A. was born August 2, 
1851, and died at Potosi, Mo., on the 30th of De- 
cember, 1864; AVilliam C. was born on the 2d of 
December, 1842, in Marshall County, Ky., and 
was reared to farm life. His education was lim- 
ited, but through his own efforts he is a good 
practical scholar. He came with his father to this 
State in 1852, and his career up to 1865 has been 
given. On the 31st of January, 1867, he married 
Mrs. Martha (Edward.s) Burt, a native of Tennes- 
see, and by her he has one child, Lydia A., who 
was born on the 5th of February, 1868, and is at 
present her father's housekeeper. Mrs, Gray 
died of consumption on the 30th of June, 1870; 
and. May 2, 1875, Mr. Gray mamed Miss Amelia 
A. Anderson, a native of Arkansas. Three chil- 
dren were born to this union: William C, born 
on the 9th of February, 1876; Thomas B., born 
on the 15th of September, 1877, and John H.. 



V 



Jd 



« k_ 



672 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



born on the 20th of September, 1879, and died in 
November. 1880. Mrs. Gray died on the 4th of 
October, 1879. She was an excellent woman, and 
a devoted member of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. Mr. Gray continued farming un- 
til his thirty- fourth year, when, on account of bad 
health, he picked up the basket and chair-making 
trade, which occupies his attention at the present 
time. He votes with the Republican party, and 
is a member of the Wheel. Capt. Gray's next 
child was Mary A. , wife of W. H. Gires, a farmer 
of Black River Town.ship; Benjamin J., was born 
on the 14th of January, 1847, and was married on 
the 6th of November, 1869, to Mrs. Margaret 
(Alexander) Hall, and has the following family: 
Hiram V., born January 3, 1871; James W., born 
December 24, 1872; Sarah A., born October 15, 
1875, and Robert B., December 30, 1878. Mr. 

B. J. Gray and his three sons are all natural 
musicians, all playing the violin. His principal 
occupation is that of a farmer. He votes with the 
Republican party, and like his brother, W. C, 
is a member of the A. O. U. W. The next child 
of Capt. Gray is James G., who was born on the 
7th of February, 1853, and on May 7, 1874, he 
married Miss Susan Kennedy, a native of Arkan- 
sas, and seven children were born to this union, 
five of whom are now living: Ida, born on the 
2l8t of February, 1875; Joseph I., born on the 
19th of March, 1881; Nellie Zora, born on the 
19th of February, 1884; Elam, born on the 10th 
of February, 1886, and James G., born on the 
16th of February, 1888. Those deceased are: 
Martha J., died on the 15th of May, 187S, at the 
age of one year, and the others were unnamed. 
James G. Gray has followed agricultural pursuits 
all his life, and also votes with the Republican 
party. He is a member of the Wheel. He and 
his wife are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and are highly- esteemed citizens. 

Hon. E. C. Gray, born in Guilford County, N. 

C, on the 9th of October, 1830, is a son of John 
Gray, a native of Randolph County, of that State, 
who was there reared to manhood, educated, 
and married, the latter event being to Miss Ver- 
linda Robbins, by whom he became the father of 



two sons and four daughters. After following the 
life of a husbandman in his native State until 1850, 
he removed to Arkansas and settled in Independ- 
ence County, where he became the owner of 500 
acres of land, and died in 1878. His wife had pre- 
viously expired in her native State, in 1844. They 
had been worthy members of the Methodist Protest- 
ant Church. E. C. Gray received an excellent ed- 
ucation in Trinity College, North Carolina, but it 
was then known by the name of the Union Insti- 
tute. After his removal to Arkansas with his par- 
ents, in 1850, he was married to Miss Ann S. 
Meacham, a native of Independence County, Ark., 
and their union resulted in the birth of eleven sons 
and six daughters. Of this large family fourteen 
are still living: Julius B., Aurelius G., Mary M., 
Sarah A. , Dr. Christopher C. , Dr. Elisa J. , James 
E., William A., Queen E., Thornsberry A., John 
W. , Virgil O. , Aurora, and Lillie. Mr. Gray is a 
wealthy planter of Arkansas, being the owner of 
1,300 acres of land, of which there are about 400 
acres under cultivation. In 1877 he was elected 
to represent his county in the State legislature, and 
discharged the duties of this office in a manner 
very satisfactory to his constituents. He has also 
served as justice of the peace, and during the late 
war (in 1862) enlisted under Col. Dobbins, in a 
company of Arkansas cavalry. He was discharged 
at Jacksonport in 1865, and after his return home 
resumed tilling the soil. His wife is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and, al- 
though not a member of any church, he is a liberal 
contributor to churches and schools. 

A. G. Gray. The subject of this sketch is a 
native-born resident of the county, and as such is 
looked upon with respect and esteem by his many 
acquaintances. His birth occurred on the 18th of 
December, 1854, and he is one of fourteen surviving 
members of a family of seventeen children, born 
to E. C. Gray and Ann S. (Meacham) Gray, his 
wife, the former of whom was born in North Car- 
olina, in 1830, and was educated in Trinity Col- 
lege, of that State. He was a member of the Agri ■ 
cultural Wheel for about four years, but withdrew 
on account, as he thought, of the political senti- 
ments which had crept in. He is one of the leading 



^ 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



673 



farmers of this locality; was elected to represent 
Independence County in the State hjgislature in 
1875 to fill the term of 1876, and received the 
largest vote of any man who ever ran for office in 
this county. He served faithfully and efficiently 
for one year, discharging his duties in a manner 
which needs no additional words of compliment. 
He has been justice of the peace for about eight 
years, and in this capacity also has been a faith- 
ful servant of the jiublic. In 1801 he enlisted in 
the Confederate army as a sergeant and served as 
such until the final surrender, when he returned 
home and again engaged in farming, and has be- 
come one of the most substantial husbandmen of 
the county. His wife has long been a member of 
the Methodist Church. From this sterling pioneer 
sprang the subject of this sketch, and, like his 
father, he has become an honored and respected 
resident of the county. His education was re- 
ceived in Independence and Sharj) Counties, and 
his attention, while growing, was given to farming 
his father's land. He was married in Independ- 
ence County to Miss Ella Albright, a native of the 
State, and a daughter of Alvis and Mary Albright, 
who are well-remembered pioneers of the county. 
To Mr. and Mrs. Gray have been born five chil- 
dren: Bertha F., G., Stella, Justin and Albert. 
A. G. Gray, like his father, was a member of the 
Agricultural Wheel, withdrawing for a like reason. 
He is also a member of the Masonic lodge, in 
which he has held the office of senior warden for 
about three years. He is a Methodist in faith and 
his wife a Presbyterian, and both are deeply con- 
cerned in all good works, being especially inter- 
ested in churches and schools. 

Hon. Robert H. Griffin resides in White River 
Township, Indejiendence County, Ark. He was 
born in Meigs County, Tenn. , May 2"), 1836, and 
is a son of William and Mary (King) Griffin, natives 
of Greene Connty, Tenn. W'illiam Griffin was a 
farmer by occupation, and was also a shoemaker by 
trade. He removed with his family to Roane Coun- 
ty, Tenn., when our subject was young, where 
they remained until 1860, in the latter year lo- 
cating in Independence County, Ark., which was 
his home until his death, that occurring Novem- 



ber 25, 1863, at the age of sixty- four years. His 
first wife, the mother of Robert H. , was a daughter 
of Robert King, a native of North Carolina, who was 
a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Griflin 
died in Roane County, Tenn., amember of the M(>th- 
odist Episcopal Church, of which church Mr. Griffin 
was also a member. He afterward married Hnnnali 
Cliauncy, who died in Texas; she was a member of 
the Baptist Church. Politically, Mr. Griffin was a 
life- long Democrat. To the jiarents of the subject 
of this sketch, five sons were born, viz.: John S., 
who is a farmer in Iowa; Robert H. ; Joseph W., 
engaged in the livery business at Whiting, Iowa; 
Thomas M., and William; the last two died in 
childhood. Robert H. received his early educa- 
tion in his native State, and at the age of twenty 
one began for himself. He married, August 5, 
1856, Margaret Chauncy, daughter of John and 
Hannah Chauncy, of Roane Country, Tenn. She 
was born January 13, 183-1. Mrs. Griffin died in 
Independence County, Ark., July 21, 1877, the 
mother of seven children, viz. : Mary E. , who died 
when quite young; James A., a farmer of Inde- 
pendence County; Lettie J., wife of T. J. Davis, 
of Texas; Sarah J., wife of Odell DeVauglum. also 
of Texas; John R., of Texas; William H. , at home, 
and Joseph S., at home. In 1878 Mr. Griffin 
married Elizalieth Rice, of Independence County. 
She is a daughter of William Rice, and was born 
August 15, 1855. Four childi-en have been born 
to this union: Eva, who died at the age of two 
years: Robert A., Ethel and Alda. Mr. Griflin 
has always been engaged in farming. In the fall 
of 1S60 h(> located in White River Township, In- 
dependence County, where in a few years he pnr- 

1 chased land, which has ever since been his home. 

I He owns 415 acres, of which 100 acres are under 
cultivation. In 1872 he was elected justice of the 
peace, in which capacity he served eight years; he 
was then elected county and probate judge, .serving 
three terms. Ho afterward represented the count} 

I in the General Assembly. In August, 1862, he 
was mustered into Company A. Col. Shaver's regi 
ment, and served until the surrender at Jackson 
port. Ark., June 5, 1865, as second lieutenant, 

i participating in many battles, among them Prairie 



A 



674 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Grove, Pilot Knob, Trading Post and Big Blue. 
Mr. and Mrs. Griffin are members of the Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church, in which he is an elder. 
Judge Griffin is a Democrat, and is one of the most 
enterprising and influential citizens of the county. 
McCurdy Hail, sheriff and collector of Inde- 
pendence County, was bom in Greene County, Ark. , 
on the 15th of September, 1851, and is the son of 
Dr. William P. A. Hail, a native of Tennessee, 
who, after growing to manhood, was united in 
marriage to Miss Sarah Underwood, also a native 
of Tennessee. In 1851 the parents immigrated to 
Arkansas, locating in Greene County, at Greens- 
borough, and here the father practiced his profes- 
sion until 1852. He was a graduate of the Ten- 
nessee Medical College, and was a physician and 
surgeon of considerable note, having followed this 
business all his life. He was a surgeon in the 
Mexican War. At the above mentioned date he 
moved to Smithville, Lawrence County, where he 
received his final summons in 1857. The mother 
died in the spring of 1863, at Powhatan, the coun- 
ty seat of that county. They were the parents 
of seven children, only two now living: Stevadson 
A. and McCurdy. The latter passed his youth 
and early manhood in Lawrence County, but the 
only education he obtained was by self -application; 
and although reared in town, when old enough he 
engaged in agricultural pursuits, thus continuing 
for four years. He then embarked as clerk in a 
store, at Evening Shade, and remained there until 
1871, when he moved to Hickory Valley, subse- 
quently working on the construction of the Kansas 
City Railroad as a carpenter. In 1873 he engaged 
in merchandising at Hickory Vallej', Independ- 
ence County, but lost nearly everything by being 
burned out in 1879. In 1886 he was elected sher- 
iff and collector of this county, and was compli- 
mented by being reelected in 1888. It is but a 
statement of the truth when it is said that no man 
could be found more capable to fill that position 
than Mr. Hail. He was postmaster at Hickory 
Valley from 1873 to 1884. By his marriage to 
Miss Mary A. Meacham, in 1873, he became the 
father of five children: Willie A., McCurdy, Jr., 
Lizzie W. , Nettie and Lena. Mrs. Hail is a mem- 



ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
He is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and K. & 
L. of H. He is the owner of 300 acres of land, 
with eighty acres under cultivation, and he also has 
a house and lot in Batesville. 

Mrs. Lou C. Hathcock (whose maiden name 
was W^atts), the relict of Seaborn A. Hathcock, 
was born in Independence County, Ark., March 
16, 1860, and is a daughter of Mrs. Manerva O. 
and William T. Watts, who were born February 
24, 1812, and January 22, 1831, respectively. 
They moved from Perry County, Mo. , to Independ- 
ence County, Ark., in 1849, where the father is 
now making his home with his daughter, Mrs. 
Hathcock. Mrs. Watts died October 2, 1883, 
leaving one single daughter, also residing with 
her sister. Mrs. Hathcock was reared and educated 
in Independence County, Ark., and was hero mar- 
ried, March 4, 1874, to Seaborn A. Hathcock, who 
was born in the State of Mississippi, November 20, 
1847. He there acquired his scholastic training, 
and came to Arkansas May 24, 1873, here engag- 
ing in the mercantile business in Sulphur Rock. 
After a career which marked him as one of the 
successful and representative business men of the 
count}', his death occurred on the 7th of January, 
1888. He was always noted for his intelligence, 
energy and honesty, and won the confidence and 
esteem of all with whom he had business or social re- 
lations. He left a wife and four interesting children 
to mourn his loss, the names of the latter being 
Minnie L., Henry C, Eddis W., Virgie O. Mr. 
Hathcock was a Democrat in his political views. 
Mrs. Hathcock is residing at her home at Sulphur 
Rock, where her family and the duties attendant 
upon domestic life engage her time and attention. 
She is not a member of any church, but is a be- 
liever in the Christian faith, and supports the cause 
by precept and example. 

C. R. Handford & Co. , manufacturers of 
mountain red cedar, telegraph poles, railway piling, 
sawed and split fence po.sts, cedar shingles and 
pickets, oak, yellow pine, sycamore, walnut, ash and 
Cottonwood lumber, have the largest enterprise of 
the kind in this part of the State, and do an im- 
mense business in the manufacturincr line. This 



*^; 



-d 9 



K^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



f)75 



business was established in 1884, and has been in 
successful operation since its organization. The 
firm employs a great many hands, and carries on 
business the year round. The senior member of 
this firm, Charles R. Haudford, was born in Mor- 
gan County, Ohio, in 1842, and was partly reared 
in that State, and in Philadelphia, Penn. He sub- 
sequently moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and thence 
to Kansas, leaving Philadelphia in 1854. In 1856 
he arrived in Wyandotte County, Kas., just as 
the border trouble was beginning, and there he 
worked at the lumber business, and at farming, se- 
cui'ing such education as the time afforded. He 
came to Arkansas in 1872, in August, before the 
Iron Mountain Railroad was built, and located in 
Pulaski County, going then to Saline County. He 
was married in Iowa, to Miss Sarah Brown, who 
bore him six children: Myrtle, Stanley, Charles, 
Jack, Willie and Frances. In 1884 Mr. Hand- 
ford came to Batesville with his family, and in 
that year the present business was established. He 
owns a nice residence in that town, and is also in- 
terested as a stockholder in the Bank of Bates- 
ville. His parents, Joseph and Narcissa (Robert- 
son) Handford, were natives of Philadelphia, Penn., 
and Ohio, and descendants of English and Scotch 
ancestors, respectively. Charles R. Handford en- 
listed in the Federal army while living in Wyan- 
dotte, Kas., in 1862, Company A, Sixth Kansas 
Cavalry, and served until August, 1865. He par- 
ticipated in all the principal engagements, and was 
never sick a day, nor was he ever wounded or cap- 
tured. The jimior member of the above-mentioned 
firm, J. S. Handford, was liorn in the city of Phila- 
delphia, in 1854, and went to Kansas with his 
parents. He engaged first as a clerk in a dry 
goods store, and was thus occupied for a uuml)er 
of years. In 1870 he engaged in the saw- mill 
business in Arkansas, and carried this on for about 
twelve years, being interested in it at the present. 
He became a member of the firm at Batesville in 
1884. He was elected president of the Batesville 
Bank on the 1st of July, 1889, at its organization, 
and now holds that position. He was married in 
December, 1879, to Miss Abbie J. Boyer, a na- 
tive of Illinois, and to them were born five chil- 



dren. Mr. Handford is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. , and is also a member of the K. of P. 

Anthony B. Harrelson, farmer and stock raiser, 
Dota, Ark. Mr. Harrelson is a native of Lawrence 
County, Tenn., born on the 30th of March, 1837, 
and when sixteen years of age, emigrated with his 
parents to Independence County, Ark., landing in 
Black River Township on Christmas day, 1853. 
His father, Vincent Harrelson, was a native of the 
Blue Grass State, born in 1800, and when a young 
man was wedded to Miss Mary Anthony, also a 
native of Kentuclcj', and born in 1802. After mar- 
riage they came to Arkansas, and there the father 
died in 1875, and the mother — previous to this — 
in 1861. The father tilled the soil successfully all 
his life. During his youthful days lie was a play- 
mate of David Crockett, of pioneer fame, and they 
were great friends. Both the parents were church 
members — the father a Baptist and the mother a 
Methodist. The maternal and paternal grandpar- 
ents were natives of Kentucky, in which State they 
passed their last days. Anthony B. Harrelson 
passed his boyhood days on the farm, and not being 
favored with many opportunities for attending 
school, his educational advantages, in consequence, 
were quite limited. He began life for himself at 
the age of twenty-three, by following agricultural 
pursuits on his father's farm, and this continued 
until 1862, when he enlisted in the Union army. 
Company A, First Arkansas Infantry, for si.\ 
months' service, and was discharged at St. Louis. 
He then moved to Illinois. Previous to this, in 
1860, he led to the matrimonial altar Miss Phoebe 
A. McDonald, daughter of John and Jane (Brown) 
McDonald, natives of Mississippi. The McDonald 
family emigrated to Arkansas in the 50' s, and 
after a few years' residence in this State, returned 
to their native State, where the parents passed the 
remainder of their days. To Mr. and Mrs. Har 
relson were born nine children, seven of whom are 
living: William F. , born in IS'il, is now married, 
and engaged in tilling the soil near his father: 
Mary E., wife of W. D. Bowlby, a farmer of Black 
River Township; Labau V. , married and engaged 
in farming on the farm of his father; John A. 
Logan (deceased); Burrilla (deceased); James El- 



J^l 



G76 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



don, at home with his father, and eighteen years 
of age; Thomas Monroe, age sixteen, at home; 
Charles L., at home, and fourteen years of age; 
and Mattie Nora, eleven years of age. For several 
years after the war Mr. Harrelson rented land in 
Illinois, and returned to his home in Arkansas in 
1807, where he has resided continuously ever since. 
He also rented land in Arkansas until about twelve 
years ago, when he traded for 136 acres of land, 
and on this he is now located. He has 100 acres 
under cultivation; has good buildings, orchards, 
and fences, and is doing well. In the year 1885 
he erected a cotton gin, and has been very success- 
ful in this enterprise. Mr. and Mrs. Harrelson 
have taken great interest in school and church mat- 
ters, and have given their children each a fair 
education. Mrs. Harrelson is a member of the 
Baptist Church. Mr. Harrelson takes an active 
part in politics, and he votes with the Union Labor 
party. He holds membership in the following so- 
cieties: The G. A. R., H. V. Gray Post No. 33, 
Sulphur Rock; A. F. & A. M. , and Ladies' Chap- 
ter, and also the Agricultural Wheel. He came to 
Independence County when there were verj' few 
settlers in the County, and when wild game was 
plentiful. Where fine farms and growing towns 
are at present situated once flourished heavy tim- 
ber. Mr. Harrelson is one of the progressive citi- 
zens of the community, and has aided materially 
in developing this part of the county. 

James W. Headstream is well known in Wash- 
ington Township, Independence County, as an en- 
terprising and successful farmer. He first located 
there in 1845, at which time he entered a consid- 
erable tract of land, and devoted his entire atten- 
tion to the pursuit of agriculture. He now owns 
340 acres in Independence Couaty, 150 acres of 
which are under cultivation, and about 200 acres in 
Stone County, Ark. His early experiences in the 
county (which has for so many years been his home) 
were those of the pioneer, and his present pros- 
perity is the result of many hardships endured and 
the practice of economy as well as good manage- 
ment and enterprise. Mr. Headstream was born in 
Hickman County, Tenn., about the j^ear 1827. His 
parents were John P. and Harriet (Hassel) Head- 



stream. John P. Headstream was a native of 
Sweden, and was bom in 1810. When a young 
man he left his native country and came to Nash- 
ville, Tenn., afterward locating in Hickman Coun- 
ty, where he married. About 1835 he removed 
to Helena, Ai-k. , his death occurring in 1844 in 
Monroe Count}% Ark. His wife was born in 
North Carolina, in 1812, and lived imtil 1880. 
Of their nine children but three are now living. 
In 1849 James W. married Rachel M. Ford, whose 
birth occurred in Tennessee in 1831. She was the 
daughter of James G. and Martha A. (Roland) 
Ford. She lived to be the mother of twelve chil 
dren, of whom six survive, viz. : Harriet O. , who 
married Claiborn Pierce; Sarah P., wife of John 
Olvey ; James P. ; Margaret, who married Robert 
Baird; Felix J. and Virginia L. In 1869 Mr. 
Headstream married Mahulda Pierce, who was also 
a native of Tennessee, and was born in 1837. 
Seven children have been born to this union, all 
living, viz. : David R. , Anna J. , Dora H. , Laura A. , 
Samuel B., Maude and William T. B. Mrs. Head- 
stream is a daughter of Zadock and Nancy Pierce. 
Mr. Headstream is a Democrat in politics, and he 
and wife are membei's of the Presbyterian Church. 
They reside near Victor postoffice, six miles west 
of Batesville, and are among the earliest settlers 
of the township. 

John A. Hinkle, of the firm of Hinkle & Co., 
Batesville, owes his nativity to Izard County, Ark., 
where his birth occurred the 20th of December, 
1852. His father, Jolin D. Hinkle, was a native 
of Tennessee, and after reaching manhood was 
united in marriage to Miss Arena Beckham, also a 
native of Tennessee. They emigrated to Arkansas 
in the 40' s, locating in Izard County, and there he 
followed the profession of teaching, but in connec- 
tion carried on farming also. The father died in 
1852, but the mother is still living. She was mar- 
ried the second time to Stephen Taylor, by whom 
she had five children, three living: Mrs. Elizabeth 
Williams, Mrs. Amanda Bone and Mrs. Emeline 
Haley. Mr. Taylor died in 1876. The mother re- 
sides on the old homestead in Izard County, and 
enjoys fairly good health. John A. Hiukle secured 
a fair education in the common schools, and re- 






"■% i>\ 



mained on the farm until seventeen years of age. 
He then engaged as a clerk for Hinkle & Son (his 
uncle and cousin), at Lunenburg, where he re- 
mained until 1876, after which, in May of that 
year, he embarked in merchandising for himself at 
Melbourne. He carried on business at that place 
until 1883, when he sold out and removed to Bates- 
ville, where he carried on the business alone. The 
firm was changed in 1885 to J. A. Hinkle & Co., 
by adding Jeff P. Hinkle, a cousin, and thiis con- 
tinued until H. H. Hinkle, another cousin, and 
brother of Jeff P. , became a member of the firm, 
and the title was changed to Hinkle & Co. This 
firm carry a full line of general merchandise, valued 
at from $12,000 to $15,000. They are doing a 
good business. Jeff' P. died in April, 18S9. 
H. H. Hinkle retired from the business in 18S8, 
and engaged in the banking business, which bank 
was consolidated into a stock company in July, 
1889, with H. H. Hinkle as ca.shier. Thus John 
A. was left alone to run the mercantile department. 
Mr. Hinkle has a wide experience in merchandis- 
ing, having followed the business from seventeen 
years of age. He was married, in 1879, to Miss 
Talitha Kilpatrick, of Hazlehurst, Miss., and the 
daughter of William A. Kilpatrick. Mrs. Hinkle 
is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Hinkle 
is a member of the Masonic fraternity and of the 
Batesville Telejihone Company; is also vice-pres- 
ident of the board of directors of Batesville Tele- 
phone Company; is a member of the board of 
directors of Batesville Printing Company, and of 
the board of directors of the Bank of Batesville. 
"William D. Hodges, who is classed among the 
most independent and progi'essive farmei-s of 
Northeast Arkansas, was born August 18, 1833, 
and is a son of Fleming and Sarah (Kimzey) 
Hodges, both natives of North Carolina. The 
father died in the State of Alabama about the year 
1843, and the mother was again married some 
time afterward, her second husband being David 
C. Whitehead of that State. They emigrated to 
Arkansas in 1855, where the mother died in 1878. 
The birthplace of William D. Hodges was in Flat 
Rock, N. C, and he received the greater portion of 
his education at Burrett College, in Spencer, Tenn. 



In 1879 he was married to Mrs. Mary Hinkle, a 
charming widow, by whom he had one child, 
William D., Jr. Mr. Hodges commenced in busi- 
ness for himself in 1855. and continued up to 1862, 
accumulating in that time considerable property, 
and being quite a large slave-owner. In 1862 he 
enlisted in the Confederate army, and served about 
three years in the commissary department, and at 
the close of hostitilities he returned to Independ- 
ence County, and again commenced farming and 
milling. In connection with those two I)ranehe8 
he operates a cotton-gin, which has been one of the 
most successful in that section. Mr. Hodges is a 
]>ublic spirited and enterprising citizen, and is 
always foremost in aiding and encouraging any- 
thing, which, in his judgment, will advance the 
interests of his county and State. He is a Demo- 
crat in politics and has held several offices, but has 
declined time and again to fill any political office 
for the last year or two. He attends the Methodist 
Episcopal Church with his wife, and is always 
interested in educational and religious matters, 
and in secret orders he is a member of Jackson- 
port Lodge No. 91, A. F. & A.M., as well as of 
Danlis Chapter of the R. A. M., at Oil Trough. 
Mr. Hodges is one of the largest land owners in 
this section, his land comprising 8,000 acres, with 
some 850 acres under cultivation. The balance, 
which is almost all bottom land, and situated in 
Jackson and Independence Counties, is rented by 
tenants, and some of it used for grazing purposes. 
He owns 200 head of cattle, horses and mules, and 
at one time kept a great many sheep, but finds the 
latter are not an advantage financially. 

H. M. Hodge, examiner of puljlic instruction 
and loan agent, Batesville. The history of every 
community is made up, so far as its more inter- 
esting features are concerned, of the events and 
transactions of the lives of its prominent, repre- 
sentative citizens. In any worthy history of 
Independence County, an otitline of the career 
of the subject of the present sketch should not 
fail to be given, together with a sketch of 
his family. His parents, Louis and Willie (Cav- 
enar) Hodge, are natives, respectively, of North 
Carolina and Tennessee. They are still living in 






078 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the latter State, and are happy and comfortable in 
their declining years. H. M. Hodge owes his 
nativity to Marshall County, Tenn. , where his birth 
occurred March 13, 1849. He received his educa- 
tion at the Morrisville Male and Female College, 
at Marshall, graduating from the same in 1869, 
and subsequently became a teacher in that institu- 
tion. One year later he went to Western Tennes- 
see, and here wielded the ferrule' for four years. 
In 1875 he came to Independence County, Ark., 
and here continued his former occupation for sev- 
eral years. In 1885 he turned his attention to the 
manganese mines, and was very successful in this. 
He had charge of the Keystone mines for one year, 
and was one of the first men employed. He was 
also acting collector. He now owns a mining in- 
terest in Izard County, and property in Batesville. 
He was married, in 1871, to Miss Fannie Benton, 
and both he and wife are members of the Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church. In April, 1889, he re- 
ceived his appointment as public instructor. Mr. 
Hodge is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
is also a member of the K. of H. 

Robert H. Hodges, M. D. Among the people 
of Independence County, the name of Dr. Hodges 
is a familiar one, for during his twelve years' prac- 
tice here he has won an enviable reputation, not 
only as a practitioner, but as a citizen and neigh- 
bor. He was born in Tennessee, May 1, 1850, 
but reared and educated in the State of Kentucky, 
and at the age of twenty -three years began the 
study of medicine under W. A. Lively, M. D. 
He is a graduate of the medical department of the 
University of Louisville, and has been a citizen of 
Independence County since September 1, 1877. 
He is a member of the Independence County 
Medical Society, also the Stale Medical Society of 
the State of Arkansas. He owns some valuable 
property at difFerent places in the county, and a 
comfortable and pleasant home in the town of Sul- 
phur Rock. He was married to Mrs. D. J. Mag- 
ness, nee Bone, December 10, 1879, and the hapj^y 
results of their union are two boys, Eugene and 
Armstrong, and three girls, Ethelind, Jessamine 
and Nettie Roberta. Dr. Hodges is a modest, con- 
servative and unassuming gentleman, and he and 



his wife are both consistent members of the Metho- 
distrEpiscopal Church, South. 

Hon. William P. Huddleston is the name of a 
prominent farmer and a fitting representative of 
Independence County, who moved to that locality 
when the surrounding country was a wilderness, 
and has remained to see its present fortieth year 
of civilization under the leadership of sturdy 
spirits like himself. He was born in McNairy 
County, West Tenn., on March 24, 1836, and is a 
son of William P. and Sarah (Hodges) Huddleston, 
of Claiborne County, East Tenn. The father was 
a man of more than ordinary ability, and for a 
number of years was a teacher in the public schools 
of his native State, and a noted scholar. In 1849 
he emigrated with his family to Independence 
County, Ark., and located in what is now Gains- 
boro Township, where he purchased a tract of land 
and began a home. He filled many civil offices 
with distinguished ability. None but the pioneers' 
of Arkansas can fully understand the dangers and 
hardships that surrounded the early settlers of this 
State, when, for days and weeks, they had to con- 
tend with the terrors of a new country without the 
support and companionship of any civilized beings 
besides themselves. On May 1, 1877, the elder 
Huddleston died, and was followed by his wife on 
April 3, 1886. William P. Huddleston grew to 
manhood with his parents, assisting them with the 
duties of the farm, and in the early struggles of 
his life displayed the same strong character and 
firmness of will that characterized his father. He 
commenced in life on a farm of eighty acres, but his 
industry and tine judgment have increased it to 500 
acres, of which '200 acres are under cultivation. 
During the struggle between the Union and the 
rebellious States he was an ultra-Union man. In 
the spring of 1861 he became a member of the 
Arkansas State militia, and from the 28th of May, 
1862, until the close of the war, served in the 
Federal army as dispatch-bearer and scout. It 
was in the stirring times of battle that the finer 
metal of the man was discovered; when the modesty 
and unassuming appearance of the individual gave 
way to the brave and gallant soldier in many a 
charge through shot and shell. On July 28, 1861, 






_J| 9 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



079 



Mr. Huddleston was married to Miss Martha J. 
^\'!U•d, of Lincoln County, N. C, who emigrated 
to Arkansas with her parents in 1859. This union 
was a happy one, and six children were given to 
the parents, of whom four are yot living. After 
the death of this wife Mr. Huddleston was married 
on September 9, 1877, to Miss Orpha E. Blair, 
and by this marriage has had four sons and one 
daughter. Mrs. Huddleston is a native of East 
Tennessee, and came to Arkansas with her mother 
ill 1809. Her father, Napoleon Blair, was a sol- 
tlier in the Confederate army, and met his death 
from a wound received at the battle of Atlanta, 
(la. Politically Mr. Huddleston was formerly a 
supporter of the Democratic party, and still ad- 
heres to the true principles of Democracy as laid 
down by Jefferson. In 1885 he identified him- 
self with the labor organization, known as the Ag- 
ricultural Wheel, and was elected to the lower 
house of the XXVIIth General Assembly of Arkan- 
sas as the candidate of that body, which position 
he tilled with distinguished ability and to the 
satisfaction of his constituents. He is a member 
of the Knights of Honor and a Royal Arch Mason. 
He has filled all the stations in the Blue Lodge with 
distinction to himself and satisfaction to the craft. 
He is a past High Priest of Dannerly Chapter No. 
57, of Sulphur Rock, Ark. He is an active mem- 
ber of the Missionary Baptist Church, and a liberal 
contributor to the cause of Christianity and suf- 
fering humanity wherever dispersed about the in- 
habitable globe. 

Wiley B- Huddleston has become closely ident- 
ified with the progress and development of Inde- 
pendence County, Ark. He was born in McNairy 
County, West Tenn., March 2, 1843, and is one of 
six surviving members of a family of eleven chil- 
dren born to W. P. and Sarah Huddleston. who 
were also Tennesseeans, the former's birth occur- 
ring in Claiborne County. He was a farmer and 
teacher by occupation, and in both callings l>ecame 
well and favorably known. He emigrated to Ar- 
kansas iu the year 1849, and settled in Independ- 
ence County, eight miles northeast of Batesville, 
where he endured the privations incident to pioneer 
life. He was an active member of the Baptist 



Church for a period of forty- five years, filling many 
important stations, among which were the positions 
of deacon, clerk of the association, church clerk, 
and licensed minister. He filled several civil of- 
fices with dignity to himself and satisfaction to his 
constituents. He died May 1, 1877, in his sixty- 
seventh year. Sarah, his wife, survived him nine 
years, and died April 2, 1880. in her seventy- 
third year. She was a consistent member of the 
Baptist Church for more than thirty-five years, 
and died in the full triumph of a living faith. 
Wiley B. Huddleston was reared in Independence 
County, Ark., receiving the greater part of his 
education near Rolla, Mo. After returning home 
he was married to Miss Martha H. Wainwright, a 
native of Arkansas. Soon after this event he set- 
tled on a farm consisting of 134 acres, which 
yields annually a golden harvest of the diversified 
products of this climate. This result has enabled 
him to become an independent and prosperous 
citizen. To him and his worthy companion eight 
children were born, of whom six were boys and 
two girls. Six are now living. He is a m(>mber 
of the institution of F. & A. M. , and has filled a 
number of stations in the order with credit to 
himself and satisfaction to his lodge. He is a 
member of organized labor. He was formerly 
identified, politically, with the Republican party, 
but is now a nonpartisan, and votes for men and 
measures, and not for party. He and his wife, 
Martha H. , are members of the Baptist Church. 

Kelley Monroe Hulsey, farmer and stock-raiser. 
Among those who have become intimately associ- 
ated with the farming and stock-raising intere.sts 
of this county we cannot fail to mention Mr. Hul- 
sey, who, from a very early period in life, has 
given his attention to this channel of business-life, 
gaining for himself a reputation which may be a 
.source of pardonable pride. He is the son of Kel- 
ley and Sarah (Smalley) Hulsey, the former prob- 
ably a native of Georgia, and the latter of South 
Carolina. The elder Hulsey was married in Ar- 
kansas, about 1820, and was a successful agricult- 
urist all his life. He served five years in the War 
of 1812, and participated in one of the principal 
battles. His father, Charles Hulsey, probably 



IZ 



680 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



moved to Arkansas abont 1811 or 1812, and was 
one of the earliest settlers of the northeast part of 
the State. Joseph Smalley, the maternal grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, moved to Ar- 
kansas abont 1812. Kelley Monroe Hulsey was 
born on the 12th of December, 1827, in Independ- 
ence (Jounty, Ark., within one mile of his present 
home. Like other farmer boys, he early learned 
the principles of farm life, and received his educa- 
tion in the schools of the county. He was one of 
live children born to his parents: Allen (deceased), 
Rachel A. (deceased), Charles (deceased), Warren 
and Kelley M. After the death of his first wife 
the brother married Miss Eliza Adams; Rachel A. 
Hulsey married Mr. John W. Fowler, by whom she 
had one child (she and her husband are now both 
deceased) ; Kelley M. Hulsey chose for his compan- 
ion in life Mrs. Mary Jane (Wiley) Gibbons, and 
was married to her on the 20th of October, 1850. 
In 1863 he enlisted in Col. Dobbins' cavalry, and 
served until cessation of hostilities. He partici- 
pated in the battles of Helena, Little Rock, Grand 
Prairie, and numerous skirmishes. In 1870 he 
purchased 148 acres of land, in its virgin state, 
and eighty acres of this he has cultivated, and is 
now living on the same. It is considered one of 
the finest small farms in Independence County, 
beautifully situated, on the banks of White River. 
While Mr. Hulsey has not attempted to raise fancy 
stock, he has upon his farm good grades of horses, 
cattle, sheep and hogs. He is a member of Mc- 
Guire Lodge No. 208, A. F. & A. M., Oil Trough, 
Independence County, Ark. , and he and wife are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
has filled the offices of justice of the peace and con- 
stable in a very satisfactory and creditable manner. 
John M. Hurley, farmer and stockman, was 
born in Franklin County, Tennessee, in 1850, and, 
at the age of ten months, he was removed by his 
parents to Independence County, Ark., and here 
has received his education and rearing. At the age 
of fourteen years he moved with his parents to the 
State of Illinois, and dui-ing his four years' resi- 
dence in that State his time was employed in 
attending school, his educational advantages being 
excellent. They next settled in Jasper County, 



Mo., near Carthage, where John M. made his 
home for eight years, then removing to Benton 
County, Ark. Prior to this, he had spent about 
eighteen months in Colorado, and had worked in the 
mines in Leadville, accumulating thereby quite a 
sum of money. He was married in Benton County, 
to Miss Anna Hale, a native of the county, and two 
children blessed their union: William M. and Fan- 
nie C, who died at the age of four months. In 
March, 1876, his wife died in Dallas County, Tex., 
and he was afterwards married to Miss Sarah J. 
Haddock, who was bom in Independence Coimty, 
Ark. Three of their four children are living: 
Charles A. , James A. , who died at the age of three 
years; W. W. and Thomas W. Since 1878 Mr. 
Hurley has resided in Independence County, and 
has turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, 
being engaged in tilling forty acres of his eighty- 
acre farm. He is a Republican in politics, and is a 
member of the Agricultural Wheel. His father, 
John Hurley, was born and reared in Tennessee, 
and was married there to Miss Sarah A. Har- 
rington. He is yet living, and resides in Webb 
City, of Jasper County, Mo. The mother died in 
1875, on her birthday (the 14th of October), at 
the age of fifty-five years. The paternal grand- 
father was born in the State of Maryland, was an 
early resident of Tennessee, and a hatter by occu- 
pation. He was of Scotch descent and lived to be 
107 years old. His wife was a Denton. John 
Hurley, the father of our subject, reared a family 
of fifteen children, eleven sons and four daughters. 
The first ten childi-en were sons, then came a 
daughter, then another son, and afterwards three 
more daughters. Of the ten sons who grew to 
manhood none of them ever drank liquor or used 
tobacco until after they were grown. All are mar- 
ried and have families of their own. They held a 
family reunion in January, 1889, and the father 
was there, aged seventy- seven years. 

J. B. James, of the general mercantile firm of 
A. M. James, of Sulphur Rock, Ark. . was born in 
the State of Texas, in 1855, but was reared mainly 
in Randolph County, Ark., whither his parents 
moved when he was quite young. His rudimentary 
education was acquired in the common schools, and 



er - 




in 1878 he was united in marriage to Mrs. Anna 
M. (Robison) Bonner. Possessing keen business 
foresight, ho conehided to embark in tlie general 
mercantile business, which he did at O'Kean, in 
ISSl, and remained there some three years, when 
lie closed out his business at that place, and came 
to Sulphur Kock and opened up his present gen- 
eral mercantile establishment. In 1887 he again 
engaged in busiue.ss at O" Kean, and gave it in charge 
of his stepson, W. F. Bonner, the latter receiving 
a one-half interest in payment for his services. 
The style of the firm is James & Bonner. Mr. 
James has resided at Sulphur Rock for five years, 
and is doing an exceptionally good business. His 
stock is valued at about $4,(XiO, and his annual 
sales amount to $20,000. Besides this possession 
he owns a business house and lot and a line resi- 
dence property. His wife assists him in the store, 
and deals in general millinery goods, and shows 
remarkable taste in arranging her stock and in the 
goods she sends out. She is a highly-educated 
lady, and received her education in the schools of 
Alton, 111. Mrs. James was born and reai'ed in 
Wheeling. ^\'. Va. , and during the Civil War at- 
tended school at St. Louis. Her father was a Ger- 
man by descent, and was a tobacco merchant in 
Wheeling. Mr. James has been jsostmaster of 
Stilphur Rock for the past eighteen months, and 
his step-daughter. Miss Bertie Bonner, is his prin- 
cipal deputy. He is a Democrat, and belongs to 
the K. & L. of H. 

Dr. Finis E. Jeffery, senior member of the tirm 
of Jeffery & Dickson, physicians and surgeons of 
Jamestown, Independence County, was born in 
Izard County, Ark., in 1855. He is a son of Hon. 
Miles and Sarah (Williams) Jeffery, the former 
born in Missouri, in 1816, and the latter in Izard 
County, Ark. , about 1820. The parents were mar- 
ried in Izard County, which county was always 
their home, the father dying in 1868, and the 
mother in 1875, both members of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church. Hon. Miles Jeffery was 
reared in the wilds of Arkansas with no educational 
advantages, but liecame one of the most intluential 
men of the county, and held many positions of 
trust and honoi-. taking an active interest in every- 



thing pertaining to tlie upbuilding of the com 
munity. He sc^rved as justice of the peace for 
many years, was sheriff of Izard County from 1844 
to 1846, and from 1856 to I860 represented that 
county in the legislature with credit and di.stinc- 
tion. In his death the county was deprived of one 
of its most valuable men. Hon. Miles Jeffery was 
a son of Judge Jehoiada Jeft'ery, who was of a Vir- 
ginian family of English descent, and in 1816 re- 
moved to the White River country. Ark., settling 
in what is now Izard County, where h(< sjtent the 
rest of his life. In 1824 he represented Independ- 
ence County in the Territorial legislature, and 
brought forward a bill to make a new county, call- 
ing it Izard, for the then governor of Arkansas; he 
subsequently represented Izard County in the legis- 
lature, and brought forward anothc^r bill to divide 
the county, naming the new county thus formed, 
Fulton, for the man then governor of the State. 
For perhaps a dozen years he served as judge of 
the county and probate courts of Izard County, and 
was one of its most prominent men. He was a 
soldier in the War of 1812, and had a personal en- 
counter with an Indian, whom he killed and whose 
scalp he brought into camp; he died at his White 
River residence in 1846, esteemed by many. The 
maternal grandfather of our subject was also a pio- 
neer of Izard County, but in an early day went to 
California and was never afterward heard of. Dr. 
Finis E. was one of the younger members of a 
family of nine sons and six daughters. He was 
reared on a farm, receiving a good education at 
the common schools and the La Crosse Collegiate 
Institute. He began the study of medicine in 1 876, 
with Dr. O. T. Hunt (deceased), of Izard County, 
and graduated in 1879 from the University of 
Louisville, Ky., after a two years' course; he was 
in a class of 105, and was one of ten who stood 
the best examination, being awarded the degree 
of honor. He immediately returned to Arkansas 
and began practice in partuershiji with Dr. L. A. 
Dickson, of Jamestown. Dr. Jeffery is now one of 
the leading medical practitioners of the county, 
and has an extensive and remunerative practice. 
June 10, 1886, he married Maud Dickson, daughter 
of his former partner, Dr. L. A. Dickson. Mr.s. 



682 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Jeffery is a native of Greenbriar Township, Inde- 
pendence County. Dr. JefiFery is a prominent 
member of the Independence County Medical So- 
ciety, the Arkansas State Medical Society, and the 
American Medical Association. He is the present 
mayor of Jamestown, and takes an active interest 
in all public enterj)rises, being one of the influen- 
tial men of his town. He is a member of the A. F. 
& A. M. , and belongs to the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. Mrs. JefiPerj^ is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

L. C. Jernigan, of the general mercantile firm 
of L. C. Hathcock & Co. . wa.s born in Henry Coun- 
ty, Tenn., in 1854, but has been a resident of In- 
dependence County, Ark., since 1859, and was 
prominently identified with its agricultural inter- 
ests up to 1883. Although he never attended 
school for more than three months at a time, he re- 
ceived the fovirth first-grade certificate ever issued 
in Independence County, and taught school with 
marked success from 1875 to 1883. In the latter 
year he became associated with Mr. Hathcock as 
salesman, in his general mercantile store, but upon 
the death of the senior member of the firm of S. 
A. Hathcock & Co., Mr. Jernigan became con- 
nected with the business, and has remained thus 
interested up to the present time. He is the owner 
of some valuable real estate in the county, and had 
done much to build up the commercial standing of 
the city of Sulphur Rock, and was one of the first 
members of the city council. -January 16, 1883, 
he was married to Miss Victoria, a daughter of 
Rev. J. W. Bell, of Cotton Grove, Tenn., and two 
children, Bonnie P. and Kate C, have blessed 
their union. The paternal grandfather moved from 
his native State of North Carolina to Tennessee, 
and there spent the rest of his days. His son, our 
subject's father, was born in North Carolina, and 
now resides in Sulphur Rock, and makes his home 
with his son, L. C. The family have been mem- 
bers of the Methodist Church for generations, and 
Mr. Jernigan, the father, has always been known 
for his uprightness and purity of character. L. 
C. Jernigan' s older brother, T. M. , joined the 
Confederate army before he was eighteen years 
of age, and during his four years' service, was a 



participant in nearly all the regular engagements, 
and was neither wounded nor taken prisoner. His 
brother, James F., is a noted Methodist divine, and 
although he received a limited early education, dur- 
ing his early manhood he formed the resolution of 
devoting his life to the ministry, and was very suc- 
cessful from the first. After several years' preach- 
ing in different counties in Arkansas, he was given 
charge of the Sulphur Rock circuit, and in one 
year's work, over 150 souls were converted to 
Christianity. He is now located at Osceola, White 
River conference. He was first married to a Mrs. 
Shoup, at Jacksonport, Ark., and after her death 
he wedded Miss Lizzie Kamp. The mother of our 
subject was born in 1814 and died in 1878. In 
1889 the brothers and sisters held a family re-union, 
the first time all had been together in ten years. 
It was a joyful and happy occasion, and when the 
time for parting came, the old father read a chapter 
in the sacred family Testament, and led in prayer. 
Instead of feeling sorrowful, all were shouting at 
the parting. Many will see this who knew and 
loved the good old father and grandfather, now 
eighty-two years old, recalling the name of Will- 
iam H. Jernigan with tender memories. 

John Kimmer is the youngest but one of the 
family of eight children, five sons and three daugh- 
ters, born to Henry and Sarah Kimuier, both of 
whom were natives of North Carolina, where they 
spent their lives. Henry Kimmer was a farmer by 
occupation. John Kimmer was born February 2, 
1815, and was reared in his native State of North 
Carolina,- where he received a common-school edu- 
cation. In the year 183(5 he married Miss Esther 
Eford. Mrs. Kimmer was born in North Carolina 
in 1817, and died in Arkansas, March 3, 1888, 
leaving nine children, four sons and five daughters, 
viz. : Henry, Margaret, wife of John York; Sarah 
A., who married William McBride; Mary, now 
Mrs. William Fulbright; George AW, Robert, Lou- 
isa, wife of J. B. Fulbright; Martha, now Mrs. A. 
D. York, and Jacob. About the year 1867 Mr. 
Kimmer removed with his family to Independence 
County, Ark. , where they have since resided. He 
owns a fine farm of 267 acres, about sixty acres of 
which he has under cultivation. In polities he is a 



*F|« — *" 



« k. 



'-^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



683 



Democrat, and, as an enterprising farmer and well- 
to-do citizen of tbe township, he is most hif^hly re- 
spected. He resides about two miles southeast of 
Cusbman postoffice. 

C. C. Kirkland, a well-known planter and cot- 
ton-raiser of Independence County, Ark., was born 
in Alabama, in 1826, and is a son of Richard and 
Elizabeth (Anderson) Kirkland. who were born in 
South Carolina and East Tennessee, and were mar- 
ried in Alabama, whither the mother was taken when 
a child, but where the father moved after reaching 
manhood. Mrs. Kirkland died in 1882, at the age 
of seventy-five years. Mi". Kirkland died in 1845, 
aged fifty three years. Five of their eight children 
are now living: Two brothers, besides our subject, 
reside in Arkansas; Lucinda is the widow of Will- 
iam Tate, and resides in Tate County, Miss. ; W. 
R., died in Alabama, at the age of thirty-five years; 
J. W., died in Mississippi, aged about thirty-five 
years, also; Martha, who married Mr. Garrison, 
died in Mississippi, and Ellen, wife of Ed John- 
son, now resides in Memphis, Tenn. C. C. Kirk- 
land grew to manhood in Northern Alabama, and 
in 1860 came to Independence County, Ark. Dur- 
ing the Rebellion he served in the Confederate 
army three years; was at the battle of Helena, was 
a participant in a great many skirmishes, and was 
assistant ordnance master on Price's raid through 
Missouri. Since the war he has been engaged in 
farming, and for eight years past he has been col- 
lecting agent for the Singer Sewing Machine Com- 
pany during four or five months of each year. He 
was first married, in 1851, to Miss Charlotte Parks, 
who was born in Alabama, in 1829, and the result 
of their union has been six children: W. T., who is 
now employed with The Goodspeed Publishing 
Company; Mary E. , wife of W. P. Sneed; Frances 
C. ,wifp of Tom Hardin; James W., Calvin A., and 
Joan, wife of John A. Thomas. In 1872 Mr. Kirk- 
land was called upon to mourn ' the death of his 
wife, and after remaining a widower for some time 
he was united in the bonds of matrimony with Miss 
Jane Whaley, by whom he has one child, Cora. 
Mr. Kirkland has always supported the men and 
measures of the Democrat party, and has shown 
his approval of secret organizations by becoming a 



member of the Masonic fraternity, in which order 
he has ascended to the Royal Arch degi-ee. He 
has a good and fertile farm of ninety acres, im- 
proved with buildings, fences and orchard, and 
supplied with all necessary stock. 

Martin Lacy is one of the prosperous general 
merchants of Independence County, Ark., and by 
his superior management and rare business ability 
and efficiency, he has done not a little to advance 
the reputation the county enjoys as a commercial 
center. He was l)orn in the " Emerald Isle " in 
1846, and two years later was brought by his 
mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Lacy, to America, but the 
latter' s death occurred soon after her arrival in 
New Orleans. He was then taken in charge by 
his father, James Lacy, who had previously come 
to the United States, and was removed by him to 
Missouri, where he was reared and educated. 
Martin Lacy is the only surviving member of two 
children born to this couple, and after first acquir- 
ing a fair knowledge of the English branches, in 
the common and subscription schools of Clark 
County, he entered on a cours(> of study in the 
Christian Brothers' College, of St. Louis, and was 
graduated from this institution in 1869, at the age 
of twenty-two years, his course there lieing marked 
by hard study and rapid progress. After leaving 
school he engaged as a clerk and book-keeper with 
M. L. C. Bevans, of Canton. M(3. . and after remain- 
ing thus employed for about four years, he went 
to Shreveport, La. , where he was occupied as book- 
keeper with John "W. Bowers & Co.. wholesale 
grocers. At the end of two years he removed from 
there to Winchester, Mo., and again resumed his 
old occupations of clerking and book-keeping, but 
this time was an employi? of John Hennessy. In 
the year 1877 he came to Arkansas, and filled the 
latter position for N. E. Duffy, at Oil Trough, 
Ark. , where he remained three years, purchasing, 
in April, 1880, a stock of general merchandise, 
and embarking in business at Oil Trough, in a 
store-house which had previously been erected for 
the purpose. His stock consists of dry goods, 
boots, shoes, clothing, hats, caps, hardware, tin- 
ware, drugs, etc., and Mr. Lacy is also engaged in 
dealing in cotton. Upon his shelves will at all 



ii "*y ' 



V 



Af 



684 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



times be found an excellent assortment of the various 
articles in which he deals, and in all his relations 
with the public, he is strictly honest and fair. He 
is assisted by James M. Nichols. He is a commu- 
nicant of the Catholic Church, and his wife is a 
Baptist. On the 24th of March, 1880, he was 
married to Miss Sallie E. Toler, a native of Mis- 
souri, the wedding taking place at the home of the 
Ijride's parents, in Oil Trough. They have had four 
chOdi'en: Martin, who was born December 31, 1880, 
and died March 81, 1882; Jesse, born May 18, 
1883: Dollie May, born December 5, 1884, and 
James Edwin, whose birth occurred March 26, 
1888. Mr. Lacy has always supported the prin- 
ciples of the Democratic party. 

Byron Lacy is a prominent merchant, and the 
postmaster of Elmo, Ark. The olde.st of two chil- 
dren, he was born January 16, 1860, in Dublin, Ire- 
land. His parents were Frank and Fanny I. (Byron) 
Lacy, natives of Ireland, and both fiom among 
the oldest families in that country. The father 
received his education in France, and was one of 
the most polished and gallant men of his day, while 
the mother was educated at the home of her par- 
ents by private tuition. Mrs. Lacy' s father, Thom as 
Byron, occupied a high position on the Queen's 
Bench, Dublin, and at the time of his decease, was 
succeeded by Mr. Frank Lacy, who held the of- 
fice until its abolishment, when he was retired on 
full pay until his death, in 1885, at the advanced 
age of eighty-iive years, his wife having gone be- 
fore him ten years. The second child was a 
daughter, Ada Lacy, who was born June 8th, 
1862, and was married, in 1887, to Mr. Edgar Lit- 
tle, who occupies a position of trust in the Bank 
of Ireland, Dublin. Byron Lacy came to America 
in the spring of 1880, and located at Elmo, where 
he was employed by M. & W. D. Hodges on their 
farm. He remained in this position for a short 
time, and then applied for and obtained the post of 
watchman on the A\'hite River bridge near the St. 
Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad, two miles below 
Newport, Ark. He remained in this capacity un- 
til the autumn of 1881, when, in company with a 
friend, he went into the business of hunting, trap- 
ping and trading in furs up to the spring of 1882. 



His tirst experience in commercial life, was with 
Mr. Oliver Bro^vu, who kept a grocery and bakery, 
and with whom he remained until the beginnine 
of 1884, and then bought Mr. Brown out, and con- 
tinued the business for two years longer at Newport. 
In the summer of 1886, he retired fi'om business 
at Newport, and returned to Elmo, and in January, 
1887, purchased the .stock of merchandise of G. A. 
Duck & Bro. , at that place. The stock consists of 
general merchandise and plantation supplies, and 
Mr. Lacy's shelves will at all times contain a fine 
assortment of every line in which he deals. In 1887 
Mr. Lacy was united in matrimony to Miss Laura 
Hodges.a daughter of W. D. Hodges, and this happy 
marriage has given them two children: Fannie and 
Mable. Mr. Lacy is a member of the Episcopal 
Church, while his wife attends the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and is much admired for her active 
work in that faith. Upon locating in America, Mr. 
Lacy declared his intention of becoming a citizen 
of the United States, and at the proper time re- 
ceived his naturalization papers, voting the Demo- 
cratic ticket since then. He is a charter member 
of Newport Lodge No. 26, Knights of Pythias; and 
postmaster of Elmo, Ark. He has become one of 
the leading citizens of Independence County, and 
has set an example worthy of emulation not only 
by his former countrymen, but by the rising gen- 
eration of America. His thrift, enterprise and 
ability have procured for him the success that al- 
ways attends those virtues. 

Wbitmill Leggett, a pioneer of Independence 
County, Ark., was born on the lOth of January, 
1829, in the old log cabin on the place where he 
now lives. He is the son of Whitmill, Sr. , and 
Elizabeth (Masters) Leggett, the father a native 
of North Carolina, and the mother of Pennsyl- 
vania. The elder Leggett came to Tennessee and 
served about two years in the War of 1812, under 
Gen. Jackson. He got his brother to take his 
place while he came on and settled in what is now 
Ruddell Township, Independence County. The 
county was then a territory, and called Lawrence 
County. He was among the very first settlei's of 
this locality, and erected a little log cabin of rough 
character. Everything was wild and unbroken. 



^1 







^' Sharps + Roads, 



Independence County.Arkansas. 



3n 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



685 



a few Indians were here, and the woods abounded 
in wild animals. The clothes and shoes were all 
home-made, and one pair of shoes was to last 
through the year. Although they experienced 
many hardships, they at the same time enjoyed 
themselves most thoroughly. He moved to the farm 
where Whitmill Leggett, Jr., now lives, in about 
1825, and bought the land of the government. 
There were no improvements whatever at that 
time, but he set to work, and after several years of 
hard work had made considerable changes. He 
died on this place in 1855. The mother died 
in 1864. They were the parents of a large family 
of children, two now living: Jeremiah, and Whit- 
mill, who was reared and educated in the district 
where he now lives. He has followed the duties 
on the farm from early childhood, and this he con- 
tinues at the present time. He owns 240 acres of 
land, with 150 under cultivation, over half of which 
he has cultivated himself. In the conduct of his 
estate, Mr. Leggett gives each detailed portion of 
work his personal and close observance, and the 
care and methods ever exercised have contributed 
to place him among the foremost farmers of the 
vicinity, as he is one of the most intelligent citi- 
zens. He had one brother, Zechariah, who was 
killed at Chickamauga during the war. Mr. Leg- 
gett was married, in 1855, to Miss Virginia Lean- 
eave, by whom he has two children living: Ee- 
becca and Lou May. He was married the second 
time, in 1873, to Miss Victoria Ann Mack, who bore 
him three children: Emma A., Rachel C. and 
Whitmill, Jr. Mr. Leggett is a Royal Arch Mason, 
and has been a member of that fraternity for over 
thirty years. Mrs. Leggett is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as is her 
daughter, Emma A. 

L. C. Lindsey, treasurer of Independence Coun- 
ty, is still less than thirty-eight years of age, but is 
holding, nevertheless, one of the most important 
and responsible offices in the county and discharg- 
ing the duties of this position with an energy, effi- 
ciency and ability surpassed by few, if any, pub- 
lic officials. He was born in Lawrence County, 
Tenn., September 30, 1851, and is the son of 
Daniel and Sallie (Dalton) Lindsey, the father a 



native of Tennessee and the mother of North Car- 
olina. They were married in the former State, and 
in 1853 emigrated to Independence County, Ark., 
located first in Liberty Township, then in Inde- 
pendence, where ho purchased a tract of land. He 
owned the first mill in the county, which was run 
by water power. He was also the first mechanic 
in that section and there resided until his death, 
which occurred in December, 1862. The mother 
is still living. Ten children were born to this 
union, three now living — Mary, wife of Jacob 
Elms; Lewis C. , and Tennessee, wife of Robert 
Simmons. The father was justice of the peace for 
a number of years and deputy sheriff in Tennes- 
see. L. C. Lindsey was but two years of age when 
he came with his parents to Arkansas, and here he 
was reared and received his education. He assist- 
ed on the home place until the death of his father, 
and in 1871 removed to Greenbriar Township, In- 
dependence County, where he still resides. He 
owns 120 acres of land, with about 90 acres under 
cultivation. He was elected to his present office in 
September, 1888, but previous to this had served 
as deputy sheriff from 1886 to 1888 under Mc- 
Curdy Hail. For his companion in life he chose 
Miss Elizabeth C. Pritchard, who became his wife 
in 1876. They have five children -Sallie, Lenora, 
Daniel, OUie and Ii-a. Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
the former is a Democrat in his political views. 

Dr. Henry G. Logan, of Independence Coun- 
ty, was born in Cleveland County, N. C. . January 
30, 1847, and is a son of John R. and Saiah P. 
(Jackson) Logan, natives of York District, S. C. 
The family is of Scotch-Irish descent, and the i)a- 
ternal grandfather of our subject was John B. 
Logan, a native of Virginia, who spent the greater 
part of his life in York District, S. C, where he 
died. John R. Logan was an extensive farmer, 
and acquired considerable means, though he was a 
heavy loser by the war. He was one of the most 
prominent men of his county, and held many posi- 
tions of trust and honor. He was a representative 
in the State legislature four years, and was a life 
lone Democrat. Both he and his wife were mem- 
bers of the Missionary Baptist Church, though 



f 



686 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



Mrs. Logan was formerly a Presbyterian. They 
had ten children, viz.: Benjamin F., Leonardas 
M., Henry G. , Elizabeth Bomer, Emily Herndon, 
Amanda McBrayer and Ida Hogue, living; and 
David J., who was captain of Company F, Eigh- 
teenth South Carolina Confederates, and was killed 
by pickets in the trenches of Petersbiu'g, June 18, 
1864; John Pinkney was killed at Hatch's Kun, 
February 6, 1865, while serving in the Twelfth 
North Carolina Infantry; Hugh G. died at the 
age of three years. The mother died in 1865, at 
about the age of fifty-one years, and Mr. Logan 
afterward married a Miss Allison, of York District, 
S. C, who now resides at the old homestead, in 
Cleveland County, N. C. John R. Logan died in 
Cleveland County, N. C, April U, 1884, aged 
seventy- three years. Henry G. received his early 
education at Shelby, N. C. In May, 1864, he en- 
listed in Company D, Second North Carolina Re- 
serves, and served as first lieutenant until the close 
of the war, surrendering at Greensboro, N. C 
After the close of the war he attended school one 
year, and the following two years engaged in 
teaching. He also learned photography, at which 
profession he worked at Shelby. While traveling 
through North and South Carolina and Mississippi 
he studied medicine, and, in 1874, attended a 
course of medical lectures at Louisville Medical 
College. In 1879-80 he attended the Atlanta 
Medical College, where he graduated, returning to 
Arkansas, where he entered upon the practice of 
his chosen profession. He has been very success- 
ful as a physician, and now has an extensive prac- 
tice. In 1874 he married Sarah Howell, daughter 
of Henry Howell, of Independence County. She 
was born in 1855, and reared in Mississippi. They 
have two children living, viz. : Emma E. , aged 
eight, and Jefferson D. , aged five. Marion P. died 
at the age of three years. 

Isaac J. Long, D. D. , president of the Arkan- 
sas College, located at Batesville, one of the most 
noted institutions of learning in that State, is of 
Scotch-Irish ancestry. His paternal grandfather, 
Joseph Long, was born in Virginia, but in early 
life removed to East Tennessee and settled on the 
Holston River, in Hawkins County, where the 



father of the Rev. Isaac Long, was born and grew 
to manhood. Dr. Long's maternal grandfather 
was Luke Hamilton, of Scotch parentage, but born 
in the North of Ireland. In early life he emi- 
grated to America and settled on Rocky River, in 
what was then Pendleton District, now Ander- 
son County, S. C. Isaac Long, Sr. , was a lieu- 
tenant in Gen. Jackson's command during a part 
of the War of 1812, and at the close of that con- 
test he went with his kinsman. Col. Joseph Cal- 
houn, to South Carolina, and settled among his 
relatives in Abbeville District, then known as 
"Calhoun Settlement;" but the climate being un- 
favorable to his health, he soon removed to Ander- 
son, where he was married in 1816, and on May 
23, 1844, died from the sting of a poisonous spider 
before completing his fifty-seventh year, his widow 
following him in 1848. Rev. Isaac J. Long was 
the fifth son and youngest child of his parents, and 
was born near the Savannah River, in Anderson 
District, S. C, on the 23d of February, 1834. 
His early life was spent at the home of his parents, 
and at the time of his father's death he had only 
reached the age of ten years. After his mother's 
death, four years later, he was left to act upon his 
own judgment, and immediately began his battle 
with the world. The only schooling he obtained 
during his parents' lifetime was nine months at- 
tendance, when in his eighth j'ear, and this was 
reached after a walk of nearly three miles along a 
lonely country path. The start obtained in this 
manner, however, developed a strong desire for an 
education, and many difficult points were mastered 
and problems solved by studies pursued at night 
by the light of pine knots, gathered at the close of 
the day's labor. On reaching the age of sixteen 
years, and squaring up accounts with his fellow- 
men, he found his worldly possessions amounted 
to only two suits of clothes and a single barrel 
shot-gun, worth about |6. Thus equipped he 
started out to seek fame and fortune. His first 
engagement was to labor as a common farm hand 
on a cotton plantation at a compensation of $5 per 
month and his board, rising at 4 o'clock in the 
morning and working though the day with the 
foremost laborer on the place. In this way he saved 



^. 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



687 



lip enough money to complete bis English educa- 
tion. His classical and mathematical course was 
obtained chietly at Tbaliau Academy, in South Car- 
olina, where, in addition to keeping up with his 
classes, be tilled the laborious position of tutor 
for three hours each day, as a means of defraying 
expenses. Receiving encouragement and assistance 
from a fiiend and pastor, the llev. David Hum- 
phreys, he entered Center College, at Danville, Ky. , 
in 1855, and graduated from that institution with 
the second honor in a class of twenty seven 
gathered from thirteen States. Having chosen 
the ministry (Presbyterian) as a profession, he en- 
tered the Theological Seminary at Danville, four 
days after graduating from college, and remained 
here for some for some time enjoying the instruc- 
tion received from men of national reputation. 
In 185U he was selected as one of the principals of 
the preparatory department of his alma mater, and 
here began his work as an instructor in ancient 
languages, in which he has been identified during 
a large portion of his subsequent life. He was 
licensed to preach after the usual examinations by 
the Presbytery of Transylvania, at Lebanon, Ky. , 
on the 12th of April, 1860, and after preaching 
the gospel for several months, he resigned his 
position as instructor, and repaired to the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Columbia, S. C, for the pur- 
pose of attending the lectures given by the cele- 
brated Dr. Thornwell, professor of theology at 
that institution. He entered in October, 1860, and 
remained a portion of that winter and spring, e.x- 
pecting at the close of the session to return to Ken- 
tucky, but the Civil War beginning in the spring 
of 1S()1, thwarted all his plans. He then accepted 
a call to the jiastorate of Concord Presbyterian 
Church, in Sumter County, S. C, and was or- 
dained and installed by the Presbyter}' of Harmony, 
October 31, 1M61. At the outbreak of war, al- 
though strongly opposed to secession, yet believing 
that bis allegiance as a citizen was due primarily 
to the State, his fortunes were cast with the South- 
ern Confederacy. He served for a time as an inde- 
pendent volunteer chaj)lain, accepting neither com- 
mission nor comf)ensation from the government. 
Dr. Long founded an academy at Batesville, by 



employing teachers and boarding them partly with- 
out compensation, and giving a part of his own 
time to the work. This formed the nucleus from 
which the Arkansas College was organized, in the 
fall of 1872, and of which he was elected the first 
president, with the professorship of ancient lan- 
guages and moral science, holding this position at 
the present time, besides preaching regularly to 
his pastoral charge. This institution has been 
pressed forward by Dr. Long's perseverance in 
the face of many discouragements and difficulties 
incident to such an undertaking, until it has 
achieved a success almost unprecedented. He 
was married at Itonia, S. C, on August 30. 185'.l, 
to Miss Callie Penelope, second daughter of the 
Rev. J. L. Kennedy, A. M., a widely-known and 
eloquent Presbyterian clergyman, who was also an 
eminent classical teacher in the northwestern part 
of South Carolina, and at one time professor of 
mathematics in Oglethorpe University, Georgia. 
Mrs. Long is of Scotch Irish descent, and a rela- 
tion and namesake of Mrs. William Preston, of 
South Carolina. Dr. Long and his wife are the 
parents of seven children, sis sons and one daugh- 
ter, of whom three sons died in infancy. Eugene 
R. was born in Sumter County, S. C, December 
10, 1862; the only daughter, Irene, was born Octo- 
ber 3, 1864; Ross K., bom June 12, 1871, and 
Mack H., born July 24. 1873. Dr. Long is a 
thoughtful, deliberate speaker, and a profound 
theologian and logician. In addition to his labors 
here as a minister, he has founded and conducted 
the Arkansas College, at Batesville, of which he 
has been president since its commencement. He 
is a thorough educator, and many young men and 
women of Batesville and elsewhere have ahundant 
reason to feel grateful that they were placed under 
his care. He is one of the most useful men in 
the community, and one whom the people greatly 
appreciate. 

M. C. Long, an enterprising business man of 
Jamestown, Independence County, is a dealer in 
general merchandise, farm implements, etc., and 
is also postmaster. He was born in McMinu 
County, Tenu.. in 1851, and is a son of William R. 
and Susan C. (Scoggin) Long, natives, respective- 






'vt* — «>- 



088 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ly. of Tennessee and North Carolina. They were 
married in the latter State in 1850, and subse- 
quently in 1857 removed to Independence County, 
Ark., where Mr. Long died in March, 1889. Mrs. 
Long is still living, and is about fifty-eight years 
of age; the former was a tanner by trade in early 
life, Vj)ut afterwards turned his attention to farm- 
ing. He served a shoi't time in the Civil War. He 
is a son of Moses Long, a native of Tennessee, who 
died in that State in 1880. The parents of our 
subject were both members of the Baptist Church. 
They had ten children (six living), of whom M. C. 
was the eldest. The latter attended the common 
schools and one year at high school in Houston, 
Mo. , after which he taught one year in Texas, with 
which exception he has lived in Independence 
County since six years of age. In 1875 he married 
Ruth A., daughter of William and Emeline Jessup, 
the former a native of Indiana, and the latter of 
North Carolina. They lived several years in Greene 
County, Mo., and soon after the war removed to 
Lawrence County, thence to Independence County, 
where Mr. Jessup died in June, 1889. He was a 
blacksmith, and served as justice of the peace sev- 
oral years in Missouri. Mrs. Jessup is still living. 
Mrs. Long is a native of Missouri. Mr. Long 
engaged in farming a short time after marriage, 
and, then in 1878, established a grocery in James- 
town, in connection with which he taught school. 
In 1882 he enlarged his stock, and now keeps a 
general stock of merchandise, valuing the same at 
about $4,000. In 1878 he was appointed post- 
master, which position he still holds. He served 
two terms as mayor of Jamestown, and is one of 
the most influential citizens of the place. Mrs. 
Long is a member of the Baptist Church. They 
have five children, and the family is most highly 
respected by all who know them. The great-grand- 
father of Mr. Long, George Long, was a native of 
Virginia, where he prol)ably spent his life; he was 
a prominent Baptist minister. 

Andrew G. McCauley, merchant, and notary 
jjublic, Pleasant Plains, Ark. As might naturally 
be expected, mention is made in the present work 
of many citizens of Independence County, Ark. , 
now prominent in their different callings, but none 



more so than Mr. McCauley, who represents the 
mercantile interest of this vicinity. Born in Cov- 
ington, Tipton County, Tenn., on January 29, 
1851, he is the son of John A. and Emaline, 
(Cheek) McCauley, both natives of North Carolina. 
The parents were married in 1844, and five years 
later moved to Arkansas, where the father received 
his final summons. His excellent wife still sur- 
vives. They became the parents of six childi'en, 
all now living with the exception of one. Andrew 
G. McCauley secured a good practical education in 
the private schools, and subsequently engaged in 
merchandising at Pleasant Plains (then Fairview), 
Independence County, Ark., in 1875, and has con- 
tinued there since. He carries a first-class stock 
of goods, such as dry-goods, boots, shoes, hats, 
caps and general supplies. He has assisting him 
Mr. Blackburn, an accomplished salesman, who 
gains many customers by his pleasant, social man- 
ners. Mr. McCauley is also notary public, has been 
postmaster for thirteen years, and also filled the 
office of justice of the peace in a satisfactory man- 
ner for four years. His marriage was consummated 
in 1878 to Miss Gertrude Gan-etson, of New Jer- 
sey, and they have two children, Beulah B. , aged 
nine years, and Garrie G. , who died at the age of 
seventeen months. Mr. McCauley is the owner of 
120 acres of fine land, and also valuable property 
in the town of Pleasant Plains. He is a stanch 
Democrat and a firm l)eliever in Democracy. He 
also takes a great interest in the progress of the 
State and county. 

Eli McClain, M. D., a young physician of ac- 
knowledged merit in Independence County, Ark., 
was l)orn in Randolph County, this State, April 24, 
1859, and is one of four surviving members of a 
family of eight children born to the marriage of 
Matthew McClain and Alcy HufPstedler, that mar- 
riage occun-ing August 7, 1851, in the State of 
Tennessee, where they were born, the former May 
20, 1822, and the latter November 27, 1882. They 
moved to this State in the year of their marriage, 
procuring a place in Randolph County, where the 
father continued to till the soil up to his death. 
April 29, 1864. His widow married John S. Camp- 
bell, August 7, 1867. They, with all the children 



^ 




that have an-ived at the years of accountability, 
are members of the Christian Church. The Mc- 
Clain children still surviving are: Margaret, born 
October 23, 1856; Martin, bom January 14, 1801; 
Julia, born December 23, 1862, and Dr. Eli. At 
first, the latter attended school in his native coun- 
ty, but a strong desire to study medicine led him 
to enter the Medical College of St. Louis, Mo. , in 
which institution he made progress sufficient to 
justif)' him in entering into active professional life, 
which he did in his native State, and has continued 
successfully in this calling up to the present date, 
and many can testify to his ability. He is an 
active member of the Christian Church, and is un- 
married. 

William B. McClendon, farmer, Jamestown, 
Ark. For many years, or since his location in this 
county, the reputation which Mr. McClendon en- 
joys has been not only that of a substantial and 
progressive farmer, but of an intelligent and thor- 
oughly-posted man in all public affairs. He is the 
son of Joel and Matilda (Mauldin) McClendon, 
the former a native of North Carolina. The father 
moved to Alabama while young, from there to Mis- 
sissippi in 1840, and in 1853 to Independence 
County, Ark., where he departed this life in 1858. 
Mrs. McClendon came to Arkansas with her hus- 
band, and died at their home in 1857. William 
B. McClendon was born in Springville, St. Clair 
County, Ala. , on the 28th of December, 1838, and 
began business for himself at the age of twenty 
years. He married his present wife, Mrs. Martha 
J. (Morgan) McClendon, the same year. Her 
parents, John and Mary Morgan, were natives of 
South Carolina, and both are deceased. Mr. Mc- 
Clendon, by his marriage, became the father of ten 
children, seven living: David E., aged twenty -nine 
years; Laura E., aged twenty -seven years; Cynthia 
E., aged twenty one years; Henry C, aged eight- 
een years; George D., aged sixteen years; Bertha 
A., aged thirteen years, and Claude O., aged seven 
years. The three deceased are: Thomas J., aged 
twenty-four years; Neaty E., aged eleven months, 
and Effie. aged four weeks. Mr. McClendon owns 
260 acres of excellent land in Independence Coun- 
ty, on which he has a pleasant home with all mod- 



ern improvements. He was with the Eighth Ar- 
kansas Regiment, Govan's Brigade, Cleburne's 
Division, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee, for 
over three years during the late war; was wounded 
and captured at the battle of Murfreesboro, but 
made his escape, and came back to his home in In- 
dependence County, in 1864, where he l)egan lifi- 
anew by renting land for four years. In 1868 he 
bought land in the woods, his present farm. He 
has held the office of justice of the peace for two 
years; is a member of the Masonic lodge at James- 
town, and is a Democrat in politics. He has also 
been a member of the Missionary Baptist Church 
for thirty years. 

Dr. M. McClure is the owner and manager of 
"The Batesville Steam Patent Roller Flour Mills," 
supposed to have cost over $20,000, including 
steam cotton-gin, with steam compress for baling; 
also wood-working machinery, planing-mills, re- 
saws, and woolen mills; also the owner of very 
valuable city property and thousands of acres of 
land in this and adjoining counties. He left home 
when but seven years old, and has paddled his own 
canoe ever since. From what we can learn from 
his fi-iends, he educated himself and made all his 
property by his untiring industry, notwithstanding 
his father's estate (who died when the Doctor was 
but two years old) left a competency to have edu- 
cated all the heirs, if it had been properly man- 
aged by the administrator. The above shows what 
a boy can do if he has the will and determination. 
Dr. McClm'e was born twenty miles north of Mays- 
ville, Ky., and obtained the most of his education 
in Ohio. He graduated in the dental profession in 
Cincinnati. Practicing his profession in Decatur, 
111., for six years, he went South in 1858, and settled 
in Batesville, Ark., where he has remained since. 
He married a Miss H. A. Sigler, in Ross County, 
Ohio, in 1861. He joined the Confederate army 
in 1864, and surrendered as assistant surgeon, at 
Jacksonport, in I860. He put several thousand 
dollars in a newspaper. The North Arkansas Times, 
a Democratic sheet, now owned by Batesville Print- 
ing Company, and slill Democratic. We under- 
stand Dr. McClure has about (juit his profession, 
but still keeps things moving. 



^ 



A 



690 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



William L. McGuire, farmer, Batesville. The 
name that heads this sketch is one long and worth- 
ily identified with Independence County, and, 
indeed, no history of this immediate vicinity would 
be complete which failed to make proper men- 
tion of Mr. McGuire. Originally from St. Louis 
County, Mo., his birth occurred near the city 
proper now, on the 5th of September, 1840. His 
father. Elam S. McGuire, was a native of North 
Carolina, but emigrated to Missouri while single, 
and was married in St. Charles County, of that 
State, to Miss Catherine E. Lewis, who was a 
native of Virginia, but who had emigrated to Mis- 
souri with her jaarents. They moved to St. Louis 
County a short time afterwards, and located near 
St. Louis, where he followed tilling the soil for 
one year. He lived in a little cabin, cut wood 
and haiUed it to St. Louis. In 1841 he moved to 
Independence County, Ark., and stopped in Bates- 
ville, where subsequently he and his brother, Wil- 
liam L., engaged in farming in what is now 
Greenbriar Township. They farmed in partner- 
ship for a number of years. He then moved to 
Batesville and carried on the drug business until 
about 1856, when he bought and moved upon the 
Lee farm, adjoining his flouring-mill property, 
a mile and a half northeast of the town, which he 
had purchased three or four years before, and 
which farm, with a part of the mill property (210 
acres, 100 under cultivation), is owned and culti- 
vated by his heirs. He there remained until his 
demise, in December, 1858. The mother died in 
December, 1888. He and his wife, being faithful 
Christians, members of the Presbyterian Church, 
were among the few to organize a Presbyterian 
Church in Batesville, in 1849. He was elected 
and ordained a ruling elder. They gave a hearty, 
cheerful, helping hand to all religious, educa- 
tional and benevolent efPorts and enterprises in the 
community. They were the parents of seven chil- 
dren — all living: William L., Charles E., Thomas 
W., Walter S., John AV., Elam A., and Laura B. 
The father was postmaster at Batesville through one 
administration (Taylor and Filmore' s) and was also 
school commissioner. He was a Whig in politics, 
and was also a Know Knowing. He was a promi- 



nent Mason. William L. McGuire was but one 
year old when he came to this county, and here he 
received a good, thorough education. He attended 
the Literary and Military Institute in St. Louis 
County, Mo. , for some time, and was there at the 
time of the death of his father. He then came 
home and there remained. His father was a man 
who believed in making his boys useful, and re- 
quired their assistance in his business. There the 
son tirst learned in some degree the ways and forms 
of business — drug store and postofiice, and fur- 
ther on, milling, running of machinery, etc. When 
his father sold out his drugs and moved on the 
farm, he being the oldest, naturally became the 
leader in carrying out the directions of his father ' 
until his death, when he became more the mana- | 
ger on the farm, on which he has continued, with ( 
the exception of two years in the employ of his | 
uncle, E. R. McGuire, and cousin, J. C. McGuire, 
in Oil Trough Bottom, this county, in charge 
of a gin and mill; and one year in the employ 
of his aunt, Mrs. S. S. Watson, St. Charles 
County, Mo. He is a member of the Presbyterian 
Church, and in his politics he affiliates with the 
Democratic jjarty. In 1862 he enlisted in Com- 
pany C, Dobbins' Regiment and served through 
the war. He was wounded twice at LaGrange, 
Ark., by a pistol shot, once in the right leg and 
once in the shoulder. He was in a great many 
hard skirmishes and witnessed many hardships. 

James Clinton McGuire, a prominent and suc- 
cessful farmer of Independence County, is a son of 
Edwin R. and Emeline (Craig) McGuire, of North 
Carolina and Missouri, respectively, and is the old- 
est of four children born to the parents, the next 
in order being Mary E. , Cordelia and William E. 
The father was one of the earlier settlers of this 
county, having come here in 1837, and locating at 
Oil Trough Bottom. He was one of the largest 
land-owners in Independence County at that period, 
owning about 1,700 acres, with some 600 acres 
under cultivation, and resided there in content- 
ment and prosperity from 1837 to 1864, when he 
was burned out of house and home by a band 
of marauding jayhawkers, who were roaming 
over the country plundering honest settlers. He 



^ 



'k^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



fU»l 



was well known and active in political circles, as 
well as all [lublic enterprises, and was a man who 
commanded considerable influence in his day. He 
attended service at the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and was an honorable man in every action. Mr. 
McGuire was also a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, and took an active part in developing and 
organizing lodges. He belonged to Mount Zion 
Lodge No. 10, and was also a member of Bates- 
ville Chapter No. 9, besides being at one time a 
member of De Molay Commandery, at Louisville, 
Ky. His son, Jamos Clinton McGuire, was born 
at Oil Trough on the 17th of October, 1839, and 
received his education at that place. In early life 
he showed some of his father's characteristics, and 
the course he pursued in after life fully entitles 
him to be "a chip o' the old block." He is a 
member of the same Lodge and Chapter as his 
father was before him, and the same iron will and 
determined character mark his career as they did the 
older man. He now owns about 700 acres of land, 
and has placed some 500 acres under cultivation, 
and is a true representative of the progressive 
farmer. In 1871 he was married to Miss Mattie 
E. Erwin, who has been a devoted wife. She is a 
member of the Presbyterian Church, while her 
husband attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Richard A. McHenry is an extensive farmer of 
Big Bottom Township, Independence County. He 
was born in Batesville, Ark., January 12, 1840, 
and is a son of James and Mary (Parker) McHenry, 
natives, respectively, of Tennessee and Kentucky. 
James McHenry went to Kentucky when quite 
young, where he married, subsequently settling at 
Batesville, Ark., when there were but few people 
living in that part of the State; he was a mechanic 
by trade, but devoted the greater part of his atten- 
tion to farming. He died in Batesville, in 1844. 
Of his five children, our subject is now the only one 
living. Mrs. McHenry afterward married Will- 
iam May, to which marriage one daughter was 
born, now deceased. The mother died in Inde- 
pendence County, in 1862, aged about forty-eight 
years. When but thirteen years of age, Kichard 
A. left home to work for himself, engaging at any- 
thing that he could, farming and working on a 



steamboat. In July, 1861, he enlisted in Company 
K, Eighth Arkansas Confederate Infantry, and 
sei-ved nine months, being discharged at Nashville, 
Tenn., on account of disability. In 1803 he re- 
enlisled, and was under command of Capt. Knight, 
Col. Sweet's regiment, during the Missouri raid, 
participating in several skirmishes — among them 
Pilot Knob, Independence and Kansas City. After 
the war Mr. McHenry returned to Independence 
County, Ark., and turned his attention to farming, 
his first purchase being eighty acres of land in the 
bottoms of the White River. He now owns 880 
acres of as fine farming land as there is in the 
county, which he has acquired through enterprise 
and good management. January 21, 1863, he 
married Rose Tunstall, a daughter of Thomas Tun- 
stall. She was born in Independence County, 
April 4, 1847. They have three children living — 
Richard K. , Katie N., wife of James Brooks, a 
farmer of Independence County, and Rosa L. 
Those deceased are: Mary E., James L. , James 
I. and an infant. Mr. McHenry is a Royal Arch 
Mason, and in politics is a Democrat. He is an in- 
dustrious farmer, and has been very successful in 
his chosen occupation. 

John Lemviel McKee. From this brief and in- 
complete review of the life record of Mr. MeKee 
it will be seen that his life from earliest youth up 
to the present time has not been uselessly or idly 
spent. He is a progressive planter, residing in 
Christian Township, but was born in Tennessee, in 
February. 1S39. and is a son of John and Bar- 
bara Ann (Smith) McKee, who were born, reared, 
and married in North Carolina. The parents emi- 
grated to Arkansas in 1848, and located one mile 
west of where our subject now resides, on what is 
known as the Newport and Batesville road. His 
land was heavily covered with timber, and con- 
sisted of 160 acres, and during a fourteen years" 
residence on this place he cleared and improved 
the entire tract. This property he sold in 1862, 
and bought the farm on which his .son, Jolui 
Lemuel, is now residing, and here lived until his 
death, which occurred during the war. He was 
followed to his long home by his good wife in 
1870. The subject of this sketch received the 



v4' — ^ 



692 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



greater part of bis education in Arkansas, and re- 
mained with his parents on the farm until the 
breaking out of the late Rebellion, when he volun- 
teered as a private in Company G, First Arkansas 
Infantry, and served until wounded at the battle 
of Chiekamauga, having taken an active part in 
the battles of Bull Run, Manassas Gap, Mur- 
freesboro, Shiloh, and in various skirmishes. He 
was honoralily discharged in 1864, by reason of 
disability caused by the wound received at Chieka- 
mauga, the ball having penetrated the left eye, and 
lodging just above the left ear. He remained in 
the hospital at Marietta, Ga. , for about seven 
months after the battle, and after recovering suf- 
ficiently to travel he was discharged, and returned 
home, which place he reached about the middle of 
May, 1864. October 28, 1866, he wedded Miss 
Lucy McCravy, a daughter of John and Permelia 
(Newton) McCravy, the former a native of North 
Carolina, and the latter of Alabama, in which 
State Mrs. McKee was also born. In 1860 Mrs. 
McKee came to Arkansas with her married sisters, 
Mrs. Eliza Kennemur and Mrs. Mary Haney, but 
her early education was received in her native 
State. Mr. and Mrs McKee have two children, 
Jesse H. , who was born on the 'ilst of Sep- 
tember, 1867, and died October "28, 1867, and 
George F. , whose birth occurred on the 13th 
of December, 1868, he being now the mana- 
ger of the home farm. Mr. McKee has always 
lived the life of a farmer, and, although he has 
been a life-long Democrat, he has never held an 
office, or aspired to do so. Mrs. McKee and their 
son, George, are members of the Methodist Epis 
copal Church, and, although Mr. McKee has never 
united with a religious denomination, he has 
always contributed liberally to the support of 
churches. His uncle, George McKee, held the 
position of major in the volunteer army through- 
out the Mexican War. 

Y. M. Mack, farmer, Batesville. The subject 
of this sketch, well and favorably known to a host of 
acquaintances in this community, is a fair example 
of what can be accomplished by industry and per- 
severance. He was born November 13, 1838, his 
birth occurring in Wayne County, Tenn., and is 



the son of A. W. and Serene (Hutson) Mack, the 
father a native of Rockingham County, N. C, and 
the mother of Maitry County, Tenn. The father 
emigrated to Maury County at an early day, and 
there met and married Miss Hutson. After resid- 
ing here for twenty-two years they removed to 
Wayne County, of the same State, and there re- 
mained for another twenty- two years. In the fall 
of 1854 he came to Independence Count}', and 
located four miles northeast of Batesville on what 
is known as Blue Creek. He bought a tract of 
land, with about fifty acres under cultivation, 280 
acres in all, and there resided until his death, 
which occurred on the 7th of May, 1876. W^hile 
living in Tennessee he held a number of minor 
offices. He was a carpenter by trade, having 
learned the same in Maury County, Tenn. , and 
followed this for many years. He was born in 
1793, and was eighty-three years of age at the time 
of his death. His great-grandfather was a native 
of Scotland, and was an early emigrant to North 
Carolina. Some of the family were soldiers in the 
Revolutionary War. The mother died August 9, 
1844. There were eight childi-en in their family, 
six daughters and two sons, three now living: 
Aseneth R. , wife of John W. Ingalls ; Young M. , 
and Victoria A. D. L. J., wife of Whitmill Leg- 
gett. Y'oung M. came to Independence County, 
with his parents, when about sixteen years of age, 
and here he received the principal part of his edu- 
cation. In 1861 he enlisted in Company H, De- 
sha's battalion, and this was consolidated into the 
Eighth Arkansas at Shiloh, in 1862. He enlisted 
as a private and was promoted to corporal, ser- 
geant, second, third and first lieutenant, and final- 
ly to the rank of a captain. He was at the bat- 
tle of Perryville, was in all the engagements of the 
Army of Middle Tennessee, and was in the 120 
days' fight during the fall of Atlanta. He was 
wounded, by a gun- shot, in the right arm, at New 
Hope Church, was taken to the hospital at Macon, 
Ga. , and there remained four weeks. He was 
again disabled at Franklin, Tenn., but not seri- 
ously. He was within twenty feet of Clayborne 
when that officer was shot. Capt. Mack was cap- 
tain of Company H, Eighth Arkansas, and served 



A 



:?; 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



<-m 



with great bravery in every oBice. He went home 
on an eighty days' furlough, but the war was over 
when the time expired, and he surroiidorod at 
Jacksouport in 1865. They were mustered in with 
eighty three men, and at the close there were but 
twenty-three left. After cessation of hostilities 
Capt. Mack engaged in agricultural pursuits, and 
has carried on this calling ever since. When he 
left the army he did not have a decent suit of 
clothes. He is now the owner of 300 acres of ex- 
cellent land, with 160 acres under cultivation. He 
has a good residence and all out-buildings are in 
good condition. By his marriage, which occurred 
in 1874, to Miss Lou Gilbreath, a native of Arkan- 
sas, he became the father of six children : Maud 
M. , Minnie P., Leonidas L. , Sidney C. , Louie D. 
and Jeff D. Mrs. Mack and two daughters are 
members of the Methodist Church. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic Blue Lodge and Chapter, the 
K. of H, and the K. & L. of H. 

Col. Morgan Magness (deceased) was one of 
the earliest settlers and most prominent residents 
of the State of Arkansas. He was a son of Jona- 
than Magness. and was born in Davidson County, 
Tenn., December 18, 1796, his death occurring in 
Independence County, Ark., September 1, 1871. 
When sixteen years of age he removed with his 
parents from Tennessee to Independence County, 
Ark., locating on Miller's Creek, northwest of 
Batesville; one year later the family removed to a 
point sis miles southeast of Batesville, and subse- 
quently settled in Big Bottom Township, where 
they entered land, and from that time were most 
prosperous. Col. Magness won very distinguished 
success as a farmer, and at the time of his death 
was one of the most substantial men in the State; 
he was also extensively interested in stock rais- 
ing and planting. He represented Independence 
County in the lower house of the State legislature 
several years, and his honorable service in that 
capacity will long be remembered by his constitu- 
ents. His first wife was Keziah Elliott, a native of 
North Carolina, who died in Independence County, 
Ark., leaving no children. In 1845 Col. Magness 
married Susan Dunnigan. who was born in Dick- 
son County, Teuu., in 1815. To this union were 



bom five children, four of whom gr<«w to maturity, 
viz.: William D., D. P. W. (a jilanter and stock 
raiser, died in November, 1875, at about the age 
of twenty-five years), Elizabeth F. (now the wife 
of Joseph J. Waldrop, a prominent farmer of Inde- 
pendence County, Ark.), and Morgan J. (who was 
born in 1855, and died December 2, 1882). Mrs. 
Magness died March 16, 1877. William D. Mag- 
ness was born in Big Bottom Township, Independ- 
ence County. August 1, 1846. He received the 
advantages of a common school education, and re- 
mained at home the greater part of the time until 
his father's death, having spent some time with 
him in Texas during the latter part of the war. 
He then began farming for himself, and is now 
the owner of about 1,000 acres of fine land. Feb- 
ruary 5, 1879, he married Mary E. Edgar, a native 
of Jefferson County, East Tenn., who was born 
March 15, 1852. They have one son, Morgan E. 
Politically, Mr. Magness is a Democrat; his father 
was formerly a Whig, and during the latter |)art 
of his life sympathized with the Democratic party. 
Benjamin Magness is one of the influential men 
and enterprising farmers of White River Town- 
ship, Independence County. His birth occurred 
in Rutherford County, N. C, January 27. 1821. 
and he is a son of Jacob and Eda(Webb) Magness, 
who were also natives of Rutherford County, N. 
C. Of their family of eleven children, five grew 
to maturity, and but two are now living, our sub- 
ject and a sister, Mrs. Sallie Chetwood, of North 
Carolina. Benjamin Magness was an extensive 
and successful farmer in his native State, where he 
spent the whole of his life, his death occurring at 
the age of seventy-seven years; his wife died when 
sixty-three years old. Both were consistent mem- 
bers of the Missionary Baptist Church, in which 
church he served as deacon for over forty years. 
The paternal grandfather of our subject was also 
named Benjamin Magness: he was a native of North 
Carolina, and served in the Revolutionary War. 
Mrs. Magness was a daughter of Robin Webb, also 
of North Carolina. Benjamin Magness, subject of 
this sketch, received his education in his native 
county, and remained on his father's farm until 
1840. In the latter vear he married Charlotte Me- 



f 



s r,- 



A 



9 k^ 



694 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Brayer, daughter of Samuel INIcBrayer, of Cleve- 
land County, N. C. Mrs. Magness only lived a 
short year after her marriage. Mr. Magness next 
married Adaline Sweega, who was a native of Ruth- 
erford County, N. C. Her father was Elijah Sweega. 
To this union were born seven children, five sons 
and two daughters, viz. : Robert L. , a farmer of 
Independence County, Ark. ; Alonzo, also a farmer; 
Almina, wife of John McFarland, of North Caro- 
lina; George O., merchant at Newark, Ark. ; Elijah, 
engaged in farming in Independence County; 
Susan, who died in North Carolina, and Jacob, en- 
gaged in merchandising in Independence County. 
Mrs. Magness died in 1865, at the age of thirty- 
two years. Mr. Magness subsequently married 
Barbara Ann Rice, who was born November 24, 
1843. The following children have blessed this 
union: Martha A., wife of Frank Martin, of Newark; 
John M. , a farmer; William W., also a farmer; 
Ella (deceased), Amanda W., Julia, Benjamin A., 
Hugh T. E. D.. Gertie A. P., Bonnie B. and 
Leona. After his first marriage, Mr. Magness 
worked a farm of 365 acres, which his father gave 
him in Rutherford County. In 1858 he removed 
to Arkansas, locating in Independence Coxmty, 
where his first purchase consisted of 330 acres; he 
now owns 1,000 acres of good farm land, and is 
one of the most extensive farmers in the county. 
For forty-eight years he has been a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. He is also a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and though taking no 
active part in politics, his sympathies are with the 
Democratic party. He supports liberally the cause 
of education, and is ever ready to assist in the ad- 
vancement of its interests. Mr. Magness is one of 
the most substantial men of Independence County, 
and is highly respected by all who know him. 

Isaac Magness is a properous farmer and stock- 
man, residing on Section 14, Christian Township, 
Independence County, Ark. , his postoffice address 
being Oil Trough. He is a son of Josiah and Pari- 
lee (Williams) Magness, his maternal grandfather 
being Isaac Williams; the paternal grandfather was 
a soldier in the W'ar of 1812, and a participant in 
the battle of New Orleans. Isaac Magness was 
born in Fayette County, Tenn., May 24, 1836, and 



was there reared to manhood and educated, but 
came with his parents to Arkansas in 1857. They 
resided in Cross County until 1867, then moved to 
Independence County, and purchased 130 acres of 
land, a portion of which was under cultivation, and 
here resided until the father's death, in 1870, he 
being the owner of 1 50 acres at that time. His wife 
died in 1880. Isaac Magness enlisted in the Con- 
federate army in 1862, and was a member of Col. 
Bob Shaver's regiment, serving until June, 1885, 
and was a participant in the battle of Little Rock, 
and numerous skirmishes. After bis return from 
the war he again took up the implements of farm 
life, and has continued in this calling up to the 
present time. His first purchase of land was in 
1870, and consisted of eighty acres, but he sold 
this two years later and purchased land in Christian 
Township, which he also sold in 1879. His present 
farm consists of 243 acres, and at the time he pur- 
chased it there were but fifteen acres under culti- 
vation, and it was only improved by a small log 
cabin. He now has 130 acres cleared and 110 
acres under cultivation, and on this is an excellent 
frame dwelling-house and other good buildings. 
He i.s a member of McGuire Lodge No. 208, of the 
A. F. & A. M., at Oil Trough, and has always been 
known as a liberal and public spirited citizen. He 
was married on the 1st of September, 1868, to 
Miss Missouri Hungatte, a native of Arkansas, 
whose father was born in Illinois and her mother 
in Indiana. To them the following family have 
been given: Willie Lee, who was born on the 22d 
of August, 1869; Elisha T., whose birth occurred 
September 9, 1871; John M. , who was born Feb- 
ruary 22, 1 875, and Hardy Marquis, born January 
4, 1880. The eldest child. Miss Willie Lee, was 
married to James Monroe Nichols on the 26th of 
May, 1889, her husband being a son of John G. 
and Nancy (McGuire) Nichols. 

Jacob F. Martin, one of the well-to-do and 
most highly respected farmers of Washington 
Township, Independence County, resides five miles 
southwest of Victor postoifice. He was born in 
Independence County, August 18, 1839, and is a 
son of John and Sarah (Fulbright) Martin, natives, 
respectively, of Tennessee and North Carolina. 






INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



695 



The parents of John Martin were early settlers of 
Lawrence Connty, Ark., where they died. John 
Martin was married in Independence County, where 
he died about 1858. He was a farmer by occupa- 
tion. The mother of our siibject died in 1887, 
and of her eleven children ten lived to be grown. 
Jacob F. was the sixth child. He was reared in 
his native county, but was deprived of the advant- 
ages of an education, his help being required at 
home. In 1859 he married Miss Elizabeth F. Net- 
tles, who was born in the State of Tennessee, April 
15, 1841. Of the nine children who have blessed 
their union but four survive, viz. : Henry, Frances 
(now the wife of William F. Shaw), Laura and Min- 
nie. In 1861 Mr. Martin enlisted in the Civil War 
on the Confederate side, serving faithfully until 
the surrender, in 1865. He is a stanch Democrat 
in politics, and east his first presidential vote for 
John Bell, of Tennessee. He owns 353 acres of land, 
about 115 acres of which he has under cultivation. 
Mr. and Mrs. Martin are members of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, South, in which they take 
an active interest. The family is most highly es- 
teemed by their many friends, and their long resi- 
dence in the county has made their name a famil- 
iar one here. 

Adam Martin, of the firm of Martin & Bradley, 
publishers of The Wheel, at Batesville, Ark., is 
a native of Sulphur Rock. Independence County, 
Ark., and the son of Hon. John G. Martin, a 
native of North Carolina. The elder Martin was a 
successful agriculturist by vocation, and became 
a very prominent man later in life. He was 
elected to the house of representatives in 1878, 
and served one term. He was also justice of the 
peace before the war, and discharged such duties 
as were incumbent upon that office in a capable 
and efficient manner. He died at Sulphur Rock 
in 1881. He was married in Indiana, and in about 
1849 located at Sulphur Rock, where his widow 
still lives. Twelve children were born to their 
union, three of whom are mutes, two sons and one 
daughter, all of whom were educated at the same 
school and were graduates. Six children are now 
living: Mrs. Sallie J. Bradley, George D.. Mrs. 
Lee TuUev, Urban, Pike and Adam, all of whom 



reside at Sulphur Rock, except Pike, who is in 
Little Elm. Tex. Adam Martin graduated at 
Little Rock, Ark., in 1869. and was in school for 
seven years, in the first school which was organ- 
ized for the deaf and dumb. He was appointed 
teacher in 1878, following this profession for four 
years, and resigned in 18S2. He learned a part of 
the printer' 8 trade at the Deaf and Dumb Institute, 
and he and his partner established the Sulphur 
Rock Wheel in 1887. One year later they moved 
their paper to Batesville. where they have since 
continued its publication. They have a large cir- 
culation, and issue a good, spicy sheet. Mr. 
Martin was married in 1882 to Miss Eunice N. 
Walls, at Holly Grove, Monroe County, A.rk., and 
she is also a mute. They have two sons, Ralph 
H. and Adolphus W. W. Mr. Martin is a mem- 
ber of the old Presbyterian Church of Little Rock, 
and is also a member of the Wheel and Alliance. 
He and his partner are both mutes and get along as 
well as most business men. During the year 1880 
Mr. Martin traveled extensively through Texas, 
New Foundland, Canada, and all the New Eng- 
land States. Most of the time was spent on the 
ocean. During this trip Mr. Martin met with 
about 1 , 500 mutes. 

George L. Massey is a man of more than ordi- 
nary energy and force of character, and no agricul- 
turist of this region is deserving of greater success 
in the conduct and management of his farm than 
he. He, as well as his father, Jason Massey, was 
born in Orange County, N. C the latter's birth 
occurring in 1802, and the former's. May 6, 1830. 
The latter was married, in his native State, to 
Rachel Peirson, also a native of the ' ' Old North 
State," and to their union wore born two sons, of 
whom our subject is the only one now living. The 
father was of Irish descent, and both he and wife 
were earnest members of the Methodist Church at 
the time of their death, the father's demise occur- 
ring in 1882, and the mother's in 1871. George 
L. Massey received a good practical education in 
the common schools of Tennessee, and at the age 
of sixteen years removed to Arkansas, and was 
afterward married in that State to Miss Margaret 
E. Lowe, who was a native of Arkansas, and died 



# 



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<5 W. 



696 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



in March, 1874, having become the mother of four 
sons and one daughter, three of the family surviv- 
ing: Edwin L., who married Miss Missouri Gunn, 
a native of Mississippi, who died in March, 1874 
(he afterward married Miss Vida E. Morgan, a na- 
tive of Alabama); Ida, wife of Frank J. Leggett, a 
native of Arkansas, and Henry M., who wedded 
Mattie McClendon, of Alabama. After the death 
of his first wife Mr. Massey married Miss Sarah 
Jane Bryant, who was a native of Mississippi. 
Her parents, Richard and Elizabeth Bryant, were 
Virginians, and became the parents of twelve chil- 
dren, six of whom are now alive. Mr. Bryant 
died in April, 1876, and his wife in December, 
1873. Mr. Massey owns land to the amount of 
1,000 acres, and has about 300 acres under cultiva- 
tion. In 1862 he joined the army, and after par- 
ticipating in the battle of Helena and other engage- 
ments, he was discharged in 1865, and returned 
home to again take up the implements of the farm. 
Mr. Massey is a Mason, and a member of the 
Agricultural Wheel. He is a liberal contributor 
to schools and churches, and he and wife are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Church. 

David B. Maytiekl, farmer, Desha, Ark. No 
worthy reference to the agricultural affairs of this 
county would be complete without mention of 
Mr. Maytield, among others engaged in tilling 
the soil. Besides this, he enjoys to an unlimited 
extent the confidence and esteem of all who 
know hi7ii, and is one of the influential men of 
the county. His birth occurred in Cobb County, 
Ga., February 26, 1840, and he is the son of 
Elisha and Elizabeth (Blackwell) Mayfield, both 
natives of Georgia. The mother died in 1841, and 
the father then married Miss Catherine Blackwell, 
a sister of his first wife. The elder Maytield re- 
moved to Izard County, Ark. , in 1858, and there 
he received his final summons in 1869. His second 
wife followed him to the grave in 1888. David B. 
Mayfield received his education in the private 
schools of Georgia. He entered the Civil War at 
its commencement, and was with his regiment, the 
Eighth Arkansas, until the surrender. He was in 
active service, and participated in the battles of 
Chiekamauga and Shiloh, being woimded in the 



last named battle. He was captured at Lookout 
Mountain, and, after a long confinement at Rock 
Island, made his escape and went to Canada, where 
he remained until after the surrender. He then 
came to Batesville, Ark., where he met and mar- 
ried his present wife, Mrs. Elizabeth (Massey) 
Mayfield, in 1867. They have two children living 
and two deceased. Those living are Jesse and 
William, who are now at home. Mr. Maytield is 
the owner of 380 acres of land. He is a member 
of the I. O. O. F. , and is a prominent member 
of the Wheel. He and Mrs. Maytield are members 
of the Methodist Church, and are much esteemed 
citizens. 

B. F. Mayhue possesses those qualities of in- 
dustry and energy which are characteristic of 
people of Ohio nativity. He was bom in Scioto 
County, August 28, 1843, and was one of nine 
sons and three daughters born to the marriage of 
Amos Mayhue and Margaret Stumbaugh, who were 
also of Ohio birth. They were reared, educated 
and married in that State, and there the father be- 
came possessed of about eighty acres of land, which 
he gave to his youngest son. He subsequently 
removed to Illinois, and afterward came to Arkan- 
sas, and in these two States served the public in the 
capacity of justice of the peace. He and wife are 
members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. 
B. F. Mayhue received his schooling near Shaw- 
neetown. 111., and while a resident of that State 
was married to Miss Sarah A. Fowler, on the 10th 
of October, 1861, and their marriage has been 
blessed in the birth of seven children; Benjamin 
W., William A., Marion M., Mary M., Sarah A. 
and Dora C. On the 22d of July, 1883, he was 
called upon to mourn the death of his wife, she 
having been a native of Illinois, and a daughter of 
William and Amy Fowler. Mr. Mayhue afterward 
married Miss Matronia Steed, a Kentuckian, their 
marriage taking place on the Tith of November, 
1883. Their family consists of three sons and one 
daughter. Mr. Mayhue has eighty acres of his 
160-acre farm under cultivation, well siipplied with 
all necessary stock and buildings. He is a Mason, 
and was a member of the Agricultural Wheel, but 
resigned his membership in that organization, not 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



(•>U7 



because ho objected to its principles, but to the 
way it was conducted. lu 1862 he enlisted in the 
army, under Capt. McCaleb, and the first hard 
combat in which he took part was Mobile Bay, Ala. 
After receiving his discharge, in November, LSGS, 
he returned home and resumed his farming opera- 
tions, to which he has since given his attention. 
Mrs. Mayhue is a member of the Methodist Church. 
James A. Meacham, an energetic tiller of the 
soil, in Independence County, Ark. , was born on 
the west fork of the Cumberland River, in Mont- 
gomery County, Tenn. , October 29, 1810, and is 
one of three living members of a family of eight 
children born to John W. Meacham and Mary 
Allen, both of whom were born in the State of 
Tennessee, the former a native of Montgomery 
County, where he was also reared and educated. 
He was an industrious and fairly successful agri- 
culturist, and showed his approval of secret socie- 
ties by joining the Masonic order, of which he was 
an active member. In 1814 he moved to the State 
of Arkansas, which at that time was a Territory, 
and the nearest market where he could sell the 
products of his farm, and the results of his hunt- 
ing and trapping expeditions, and purchase neces- 
sary articles, was St. Louis, Mo. His wife was 
a member of the Methodist Church. James A. 
Meacham was educated in the common schools of 
Independence County, attending a school taught 
by John Daniels, in Batesville, which was the tirst 
house of the kind erected in the town. He was 
married to Miss Mary N. Eenley, a Georgian, who 
was bom on the 23d of January, 1812, their nup- 
tials taking place on the 30th of April, 1835. Of 
six daughters and two sons born to them, five of 
the family are still living. Mr. Meacham owns 
220 acres of fertile land, and. by industry and 
judicious management, has put about 120 acres 
under the plow. He has been a member of the 
Masonic order for about thirty years, and is an 
active member of the Methodist Church. He was 
a border ranger for one year during the 30' s, 
but his services were not afterward needed. James 
A. Meacham, who is still a hale and hearty old 
man, has sixty-six grandchildren, and twenty-one 
gi-eat-gi-andehildren. 



T. A. Meacham is a prosperous farmer of In- 
dependence County, Ark., and was l)orn in this 
county Septemlier 14, 1831, being a sou of John 
W. Meacham, who was born in Orange County, 
N. C, May 8, 1786, and was reared and educated 
in Virginia, and afterward married in Montgomery 
County, Tenn., on the 24tli of December, 1809, to 
Miss Mary Allen, who wjis also a native of the 
"Old North State." James and T. A. Meacham, 
and Margaret Carter are the only ones of th(Mr 
family of eight eliildren who are now living. The 
father was a farmer. T. A. Meacham was reared 
and educated in Independence County, and was 
married on the 13th of March, 1856, at which date 
Miss Elizabeth Allen, also a native of the county, 
became his wife. The following children havi- 
been born to this union: MoUie A., Sarah A., 
James A., Eliza E., Leona. JefF, Cora L., William 
A. and Robert R. Mr. Meacliam's acreage amounts 
to 500, of which there are about 150 acres under 
cultivation, which he has cleared and put under 
the plow himself, and in tilling his broad acres he 
has met with more than average success. He has 
shown his approval of secret organizations by join- 
ing the Masonic Lodge, and in this order held the 
position of junior warden for some time. He 
served in the late war under Gen. Hindman, and 
in 1862 participated in his first hard battle at 
Prairie Grove, Ark., which combat lasted for about 
twenty-nine hours. He and family attend the 
Methodist Church, and. owing to their long resi 
dence in the county and their many admirable 
qualities, they enjoy an extensive acquaintance and 
are highly resjjected. 

F. B. Meriwether is a native-born resident of 
the county, his birth occurring in 1861, and he re- 
ceived his early scholastic training in the common 
and graded schools of his native county. From his 
earliest youth he clerked in his father's store, and, 
after attaining a suitable age, became a partner 
with his father in a store in Batesville, and was 
married, in 1880, to Miss Queen Berry, whose birth 
occurred in Mitchell, Tenn., in 1862. To them have 
been born two children, but only one is living, 
Nettie. The wife died on the 3d of September. 
1887. After his father's death, Mr. Meriwether 



<s »^ 



698 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



engaged in business with G. W. Browning, and 
came to Sulphur Rock, where he was engaged in 
merchandising until 1880, and has since been in 
the lumber business. He is quite well fixed finan- 
cially, and the father, at the time of his death, 
owned nearly 2,000 acres, his estate being one of 
the largest and richest in the county. F. B. Meri- 
wether is one of the leading young business men 
in Independence County, and, as a young man, is 
very popular with his associates. Unlike most 
persons to whom a competence is left, he has not 
foolishly squandered it, but has continued to add 
to it, and is now ranked among the wealthy resi- 
dents of the county. His parents, W. D. and 
Eleanor Meriwether, were Kentuckians, the former 
being a native of Shelby County, where he was 
born September 5, 1822. He was taken by his 
parents to Mississippi, thence to Independence 
County, Ark., where both his father and mother 
died. At the time of his marriage, he had 
very little property with which to commence life, 
but he opened a country store on his forty -acre 
farm, and at the breaking out of the war, owned 
an extensive tract of land, a lucrative mercantile 
business, and thirty-five negroes. He was a very 
heavy loser during the war, and during this period 
the most of his time was spent in St. Louis and 
Little Rock. After the war he again opened busi- 
ness on his farm, and did exceptionally well until 
1871, when he and family moved to Sulphur Rock, 
and for the next eight years were engaged in busi- 
ness at this point. From that time until 1883, when 
the father died, they were occupied in merchandis- 
ing at Batesville. He was one of the shrewdest 
and most successful merchants of the State, and 
was justly called the " Cotton King of Northeast 
Arkansas." In his family were twelve children: 
Mary, who died when six years of age; Julia, the 
wife of G. Brown; Buck, George, Martha, Jo- 
hanna, wife of Dr. J. W. Hodges; William, Frank 
B. (our subject), Clinton, David, who died at the 
age of three years; Eliza, who died at the age of 
three and one-half years, and Thomas, who died 
when an infant. The maternal grandfather died 
at the age of one hundred and three years. 

Killis J. Mills, an enterprising farmer and 



stock raiser of Greenbriar Township, Independence 
County, was born in White County, Tenn. , in 
1835. His parents were James and Rachel (Pen- 
nington) Mills, natives, respectively, of South Caro- 
lina and Tennessee. At the age of five years James 
Mills went with his mother to White County, 
Tenn., his father, Lewis Mills, having been killed 
in the War of 1812. He was a farmer by occupa- 
tion, and spent the greater part of his life in White 
County, Tenn., where he died in 1883. His wife 
is still living in White County, aged about seventy- 
four years; she is a member of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian Church, and is a daughter of John 
Pennington, also of White County, where he died, 
having made his home there for many years. To 
James and Rachel Mills were born three sons and 
six daughters, of whom our subject was the third. 
In February. 1858, Killis J. married Lean, daugh- 
ter of Thomas and Deidamia Elms, who located in 
Independence County in 1859. Mrs. Elms is still 
living. Mr. Elms was a teacher by profession, 
and for several years served as sheriff in Putnam 
County, Tenn. ; he died in 1 860. Mrs. Mills is a 
native of White County, Tenn. The year after his 
marriage Mr. Mills located in Van Buren County, 
but throe years later removed to his present farm 
in Independence County, which was then' unim- 
proved; he has two farms, 136 acres in all, which 
he now has well improved and under cultivation. 
During the late war he served nearly four years in 
the Confederate army ; he first enlisted in Company 
D, First Arkansas Infantry, in which he served 
nearly three years, subsequently joining Capt. 
McGuftin's company of cavalry, remaining until 
their surrender, at Jacksonport, in June, 1865; he 
participated in the battles of Prairie Grove, Hel(>na 
and Little Rock, and while serving in the cavalry 
was with Gen. Price on his raid through Missouri. 
At the close of the war Mr. Mills returned to his 
home, and again turned his attention to farming, 
at which he has been very successful. He is a 
member of Neill Lodge No. 82, A. F. & A. M. , at 
Jamestown. Politically, he was reared a Whig, 
but is now a Prohibitionist. Mrs. Mills is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Church. They have two 
children — James T. and Elizabeth. 



u 



.L 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



699 



H. L. Miniken, a prosperous business man of 
Batesville, and one of its leadinir citizens, was 
born in that city on August 9, 1850, and is a son 
of John and Jane (Middleton) Miniken, of Washing- 
ton County, Penn. The Miniken family were early 
settlers of Pennsylvania, whose ancestors origin- 
ally came from England. The great-grandfather's 
brother was a noted Tory, who, at the outl)reak of 
the Revolution, returned to England, where all trace 
of him was lost. John Miniken emigrated to Zanes- 
ville, Ohio, and remained at that place for a few 
years, when he traveled further west, making the 
trip by water. The boat in which he took passage 
contained a great number of emigrants, and 
one day an explosion occurred, which completely 
wrecked the vessel and killed a number of people. 
Fortunately, however, the greater portion of them 
were picked up out of the water, and among the sur- 
vivors was Mr. Miniken, who returned home, and 
again started west with his family, but traveling this 
time by wagon, and coming all the way overland. 
He arrived at Batesville, with his family all in good 
health, and immediately entered into the drug 
business at that place, afterwards carrying a large 
stock of general merchandise. Mr. Miniken rose 
rapidly in the estimation of the people in his 
new home, and after residing here some time, rep- 
resented Independence County in the legislature 
for one term, and also served as county judge. 
He was was a very prominent man and influential 
citizen up to the time of his death, in 1852. The 
mother is still living and enjoying fair health. 
They were the parents of fifteen children, of whom 
only four are living: Julia, wife of Charles Bag- 
ley, a resident of California; Jane A., wife of the 
Rev. P. Hickerson; Helen, and Harvey L. , the lat- 
ter being the youngest of the family. He was 
reared and educated in Batesville, were ho was 
engaged for some years in the livery business. In 
1879 he commenced dealing in general merchan- 
dise, a business he has continued ever since, meet- 
ing with great success, owing to his method of 
transacting business. Mr. Miniken has adoj)ted 
certain rules for his establishment from which he 
never deviates. His practice is to sell the best 
goods at the lowest price, to be fair and square in 



all of his actions, and these methods have given 
him a reputation and enlarged his business to such 
an extent that he is now looked upon as an author- 
ity in commercial circles. He was married, in 1882, 
to Miss Sarah J. Lawton, of Washington Coun- 
ty, Penn. . by whom he has had one child — Dona 
hue L. Mr. Miniken is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, and a stockholder in the Building and 
Loan Association of Batesville and St. Louis. He 
also has an interest in the Batesville Canning and 
Evaporating Company. 

D. C. Montgomery is a man well remembered 
in Batesville, and one with whom many of the old 
landmarks of that city are associated. He was 
born in Guilford County, N. C, in 1810. and was 
reared and educated at that place. Upon reaching 
his maturity he learned the carpenter's trade, and 
after becoming proficient in that, moved to the 
State of Illinois, where he followed his avocation 
of carpentering for some years. He next moved 
to Missouri, and there formed the acquaintance of 
Urban E. Fort, at one time a well known and pop- 
ular citizen of Independence County, and from 
him learned of the opportunities offered in Bates- 
ville. He came to that place in 18-10, and. after a 
few years' residence, was one of its most prosper- 
ous and enterprising young mechanics. It was 
here that he met his first wife, Miss Pheamster, by 
whom he had one child, who died in infancy, and 
was shortly afterwards followed l)y the mother. In 
1859 he was married to Miss Mary A. Rutherford, 
a sister of ex- State Senator Rutherford, but had 
no children by this wife. In time, Mr. Montgom- 
ery became the leading carpenter and contractor in 
Batesville. and many of the old buildings were 
erected by him and his then young associates, 
George Case, Samuel B. Wycough and Thomas 
Wamac. At the close of the war, or about 1867. 
he moved to his late residence, some six miles from 
Batesville, where he led a quiet and easy exist- 
ence up to the time of his death. He was one of 
the thirteen persons who formed the organization 
of the Presbvterian Church in Batesville. many 
years ago, all of whom have since died, and he was 
one of the leading spirits in all public enterprises. 
Mr. Montgomery was one of the few men who were 



» r 



JiJ- 



700 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



not afraid to express their candid opinion on polit- 
ical or religious subjects, and in every case his 
views were correct and judgment good. He hold 
a high place in the hearts of his fellow- citizens, 
and out of the entire community it would have 
been impossible to pick his enemy. During the 
war he was appointed postmaster at Batesville, and 
previous thereto was elected, through his own 
merits, to the legislature for five successive terms, 
and tilled the position honorably. Mr. Montgom- 
ery helped to build the first house in Hughes' ad- 
dition to Batesville, and had no superiors in his 
trade. He left no children at his death, but his 
widow still survives him, and resides on the home 
farm, where she owns some 300 acres of land, with 
about 100 acres under cultivation, and which is 
creditably managed by her brother, James Ruth 
erford. Many of the citizens of Batesville have 
passed away to their eternal sleep, but none have 
ever left a void in the hearts of their fellowmen 
as did Mr. Montgomery, who, although his form 
has departed forever from the gaze of loving friends, 
his name still lingers, and will last in their memory 
as long as life remains in the community. 

Jesse A. Moore, a well-known and respected 
citizen of Independence County, is a native of Jef- 
ferson County, Tenn. , where he was born Febru- 
ary 7, 1840. His father, I. W. R. Moore, was also 
born in the same county and State in the year 
1808. It was there he met and married Miss Julia 
Moore, of Hawkins County, Tenn. , whose parents, 
Hugh and Sarah Moore, of Virginia, had first set- 
tled in that place shortly after marriage, and some 
years later moved to Jefferson County. This hap- 
py marriage was productive of seven children, 
three sons and four daughters: George L., a resi- 
dent of New Orleans ; Hugh L. , who married Miss 
Eliza Dickson, of Hawkins County, Tenn. ; Mary, 
wife of John Coke, of Tennessee; Martha R., wife 
of Matterson Love, a native of North Carolina; 
Julia Ann, who married Lucian Welch, of North 
Carolina; Sarah, not married — now residing in 
Chattanooga, Tenn., and Jesse A., who, like his 
father, married a Moore, the lady being Miss Eli- 
zabeth Moore, of Arkansas. This union gave Mr. 
Moore and his wife three boys and two girls, of 



whom three children are still living: Jessamie, Mal- 
colm and Ernest. By industry, economy and good 
management Mr. Moore has accumulated quite a 
snug competence. He owns about 400 acres of 
land, and has 200 acres under cultivation, besides 
possessing ten town lots in a valuable portion of 
Moorefield. He is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, and has held the ofBee of Worshipful Mas- 
ter for four years, and was also elected a member 
of the legislature in 1873, but through some polit- 
ical chicanery Mr. Moore was not allowed to take 
his seat in that body that year. In 1885, how- 
ever, he was elected and served in the legislature, 
and also has charge of the postoffice at Moorefield. 
His wife is a regular attendant of the Methodist 
Church, and a devout Christian lady. 

M. M. Moore, grocer at Sulphur Rock, is a son 
of James F. and Anna G. (Dillingham) Moore, 
both of whom were born in North Carolina, the 
former' s birth occurring in Iredell County, and the 
latter's in the year 1813. They were married in 
Independence County, Ark. , whither the father 
came in 1819, and the mother with her parents 
when a child. They reared their family in this 
county and here the father was engaged in black- 
smithing, carriage-making, farming and stock rais- 
ing. In these enterprises he accumulated a large 
fortune, and died in 187'2, at the age of sixty-tive 
years, and his wife when thirty five years old. He 
was a Whig in politics, and two of the four chil 
dren born to himself and wife are now living. The 
paternal grandfather, John Moore, was born in 
Scotland and came to the United States, locating 
in North Carolina, where he married and spent 
his life, dying at the age of one hundred years. 
M. M. Moore grew to manhood in Indejiendence 
County, but owing to the scarcity of schools in his 
youth, he received a limited early education. 
Brought up to a knowledge of farm life, he very 
naturally chose that as his calling at first, but when 
the war broke out laid down his farm work to en- 
list in the Confederate army. He participated in 
the battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded, and, 
accepting Lincoln's proclamation, he did not return 
to service, but came home and resumed farm work, 
continuing until 1875, when, with keen business 



^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



701 



foresight and realizing the advantages to be gained 
in conducting a grocery, he embarked in the busi- 
ness at Sulphur Rock. In connection with this he 
looks after the interests of his farm, which com- 
prises ",240 acres. He is a member of the Metho- 
dist Church, and in his political views is a Repub- 
lican. He was first married when twenty-seven 
years of age to Miss Fannie Rushing, who died in 
1876, having borne the following children: John, 
who died when six years of age; Mary, wife of 
Everett Murphy; Daniel, Susie, who died at the 
age of ten years; Rosa and Enoch. His second 
wife was Miss Mary Moore, and their two children 
are named John N. and Fannie. In his younger 
days Mr. Moore taught school for about ten years 
in Northern Alabama and some in Independence 
County, Ark. 

Col. T. J. Morgan, farmer and stock raiser, 
and one of the best known men in Independence 
County, was born near Hamburg, S. C, in the 
year 1827. He is a son of John and Mary Ann 
(Vaughn) Morgan, of Edgefield District, South 
Carolina, and Augusta. Ga. . respectively, who 
were married in Abbeville District, South Caro- 
lina, where they resided until 1882, and then 
emigrated to Independence County, Ark. The 
parents were among the earlier settlers, and came 
here when Independence County was a wilderness. 
They bought some land and began improving it, 
and in time, as the country began to settle up, the 
father became one of its leading men. He was a 
successful farmer and a highly res]iected citizen, 
and for some years held the office of justice of the 
peace, being also associate judge of the Imlepend- 
ence County court. His father, William Morgan, 
was also a native of South Carolina, of Irish and 
Welsh descent, and fought in the War of 1812. 
In 1832 he moved to Texas, where he resided until 
his decease, his occupation during that time being 
that of farmer, trader and saw-mill operator. His 
father, Elias Morgan, was a native of Ireland, who 
emigrated to America when a young man and re- 
sided in South Carolina for the remainder of his life. 
The maternal grandfather. Thomas J. Vaughn, 
was a prominent contractor and builder, of Eng- 
lish and Welsh oritrin, who died when Mrs. John 



Morgan was a girl. Col. Thomas J. Morgan was 
the oldest of four sons and seven daughters, of 
whom four are yet living, and all residing in Inde- 
pendence County. He is strictly a self-made man. 
having attended school but very little in his young- 
er days, but is possessed of a wonderful amount of 
knowledge and information on almost every con- 
ceivable subject, which his natural ability and fine 
intellect have enabled him to understand thorough- 
ly. At eighteen years of age he enlisted in Com- 
pany D, of Yell's Arkansas regiment, and at the 
battle of Buena Vista was a member of Wood's 
division of Gen. Taylor's army. He gave four 
year's service to the Confederacy, and distinguished 
himself in every action, winning promotion from a 
private up to his present title. He left the army at 
Corinth, Miss., and shortly afterward assisted in 
the organization of Company C, of Col. Robert 
Newton's regiment of Arkansas Cavalry, and com- 
manded that company until the fall of 180:5, when 
he was promoted to colonel, his regiment being 
known as Morgan's regiment. He never lost a day 
by sickness or any other cause, and was in almost 
every battle of note, as weU as Price's raids through 
Missouri. After the surrender at Jacksonport he 
returned to his home and family to enjoy the peace 
he was so well entitled to. Col. Morgan was mar- 
ried in 1855 to Miss Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of 
Abram and Sebilla Allen, of Alabama, who were 
among the early settlers of this State, first locating 
in the river country, and a few years afterwards 
moving to Independence County, where Mr. Allen 
became a successful and wealthy farmer. Nine 
children were born to Col. Morgan and his wife, of 
whom five sons and two daughters are still living 
Eliza Jane, wife of H. F. Dwight; Andrew David, 
Jefferson D., Mar}' Ann, wife of John T. Powell; 
William A., Thomas E. and John A., all of them 
having been well educated. Col. Morgan and his 
family lived in different portions of Arkansas and 
bought land in various sections. He owns 340 
acres in one tract, 640 acres in another and 150 
acres in still another, besides giving each of his 
children a generous portion, and has about 300 
acres under cultivation. In 1874-75 he represented 
his county in the legislature, after repeated solicitn- 



jy: 



702 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tion, but since then he has had no further political 
aspirations. He is a Democrat in politics, and a 
member of the A. F. & A. M., belonging to Neill 
Lodge No. 285. His grandfather, Elias Morgan, 
was a cousin of the famous Gen. Daniel Morgan, 
of Revolutionary fame, and it is believed that they 
were the only two of the Morgan family who ever 
came to America. 

Judge Henry Neill, retired tanner of Green- 
briar Township, owes his nativity to Mason County, 
Ky. , where his birth occui'red in 1808, and he is 
a prominent citizen of this county, respected and 
esteemed for his sterling integrity, sober, soimd 
judgment, broad intelligence and liberal, progress- 
ive ideas. He is a man whose career has been 
above reproach. His parents, Robert and Mag- 
daleua (Black) Neill, were natives of Wilmington, 
Del., and the father's birth occurred in 1767, the 
same year in which Gen. Jackson was born. The 
mother was born some years later, in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century. They removed to 
Mason County, Ky., at an early day, and later 
crossed the Ohio River and settled in the Buckeye 
State. There the father died at the age of eighty- 
three, and the mother at the age of eighty one 
years. She was a member of the Presbyterian 
Church. The paternal grandfather of Judge 
Neill, Robert Neill, was a native of the Emerald 
Isle. Judge Neill, the sixth of nine children, live 
sons and four daughters, born to his parents, 
received a limited common school education, and 
began for himself at the age of seventeen by learn- 
ing the tanner' s trade. Before reaching his twenty- 
first year he went to Northeast Missouri, and found 
a position in a tan- yard, remaining there about 
three years. In 1832 he came to Independence 
County, where he followed his trade in a tan-yard 
until 1834, and then established one of his own on 
his present farm. This he continued until his age 
would not permit of further work. In 1830 he 
married Miss Dorcas Stark, daughter of Job and 
Elizabeth Stark, natives of Kentucky and North 
Carolina, respectively. Mr. and Mrs. Stark went 
to Missouri when single, were married there, and 
there remained until 1832, when they came to 
Independence County, and there passed their last 



days, the mother dying in 1844 and the father in 
1845. Both were members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church for many years. Mr. Stark followed 
the occupation of a farmer all his life, and served 
faithfully and well in the War of 1812. Judge 
and Mrs. Neill reared six children: Job S., who 
was killed at the battle of Oak Hill, on the 10th of 
August, 1861, while serving in the Confederate 
army; Robert, Elizabeth, wife of Dr. L. A. Dick- 
sou; Florence, wife of Captain George Rutherford; 
Delia, widow of M. D. Hulsey, who was murdered 
in 1869; Henry L., who died with consumption, 
aged twenty-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Neill cel- 
ebrated their golden wedding in 1886, and were 
the recipients of many tokens of affection and 
esteem by their numerous relatives and friends. 
In 1846 the Judge was elected to the legislature 
and served one term. He was register of the 
United States laud office at Batesville one year, 
was county supervisor a few years, and, after the 
war, was county judge. He was a man whom all 
relied upon, for his decisions were not made with- 
out careful and painstaking study of the evidence 
adduced. He also discharged si;ch duties as are in- 
cumbent upon the office of justice of the peace for 
several years. He is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, Neill Lodge being named for him; was a 
charter meml)er, and Master for a number of years. 
He is an honorary member of Mt. Zion Lodge, 
Batesville, aud was Master over iour years. He 
also belongs to the Chapter at Batesville. He is 
Democratic in his political preferences, and cast his 
first presidential vote for Martin Van Buren, in 
1836, and has voted for every Democratic candi- 
date since. Mrs. Neill has been a member of the 
Methodist Church for forty years. 

Gen. Robert Neill, one of the best known law- 
yers of Northeast Arkansas, was born in Inde- 
pendence County, November 12, 1838. His par- 
ents were Henry and Dorcas (Stark) Neill, natives 
of Kentucky and Missouri, respectively. The 
father was principally reared in Southern Ohio, 
and from the town of Aberdeen in that State, he, 
about the time of his majority, went to New Or- 
leans, the trip being made on a fiatboat. He next 
came to St. Louis, Mo., by steamboat. After re- 



siding in Missoiu-i a year or two he redo on horse- 
back from St. Louis to the then Territory of Arkan- 
sas, arriving at Batesville on ]\[ay 1, 1832, and 
soon afterward settled in Greenbriar Township, on 
the place where he still resides. Job Stark, the ma- 
ternal grandfather, a native of Kentucky, arrived in 
Independence County, Ark., with his family, in the ' 
month of December, 1832, and purchased a farm 
three miles east of Batesville, whore he resided 
until his death. He was a noted Itidian tighter in 
his earlier days, and took part in the War of 1815. 
Robert Neill, the paternal grandfather, was born 
and reared in the State of Delaware, and emi- 
grated to ' Kentucky, near Maysville, about the 
year 1800, where he resided for some time, and 
then moved to Southern Ohio, where he remained 
until his death, when he was over eighty years old. 
Henry Neill was a tanner by trade, and soon after 
his arrival in Arkansas established a tannery, where 
he now resides, and did business in that line for 
forty-eight years. In 1846 he was elected a mem- 
ber of the legislature and served one term, and, in 
the years 1847-48, he held the office of register 
of the United States land office at Batesville. 
Later on he was elected judge of the county and 
probate coui-t, serving from 1874 to 1876. and was, 
before that, a justice of the peace for several years. 
He was one of the most prominent citizens of In- 
dependence County, and a man of gi'eat influence, 
and though now in his eighty-second year, still en- 
joys much activity for his age. The mother is yet 
living in good health, in her seventy-third year. 
They were the parents of eight children, of whom 
four are yet living: Gen. Kobert Neill, Elizabeth, 
wife of Dr. L. A. Dickson; Florence, wife of Maj. 
George AV. Ilutberford, and Delia, widow of Mar- 
ion Hulsey. Gen. Kobert Neill received a fair 
English education in his youth, in the schools of 
the county, and in 1859 went to Ohio and took a 
course in land surveying. He followed that pro- 
fession until the outbreak of the war, in 1861, and 
then enlisted at Batesville, in Company K, First 
Regiment of Arkansas Mounted Riflemen, Con- 
federate Army. He entered service as a private, 
but was soon promoted to the grade of first ser 
geant, and at Corinth, Miss., in 1862, received the 



rank of first lieutenant, and later that of captain 
of the company, on the death of his captain. His 
bravery was rewarded, and his gallant actions 
through the war won for him promotion up to his 
present title. Gen. Neill took part in the battles 
at Oak Hills, Mo., Richmond, Ky., and the skir- 
mishing around Corinth, Miss., in 1862, and in 
the spring of 1864 was captured in Louisiana, 
while attempting to make his way back to his reg- 
iment. Ho was taken as a prisoner to Camp Chase, 
and from there to Fort Delaware, where he was 
confined for seventeen months. After the surren- 
der, in 1865, he returned to his home and taught 
school for three months, and then entered into the 
tanning business with his father until 1866. when 
he was elected clerk of the circuit clerk, an office 
he held until the reconstruction of the State, in 

1868. During this time he read law and in No- 
vember. 1868, was admitted to the bar, but entered 
into commercial life until 1872, when he commenced 
to practice his profession, which he has continued 
ever since. Ho has the reputation of being one of 
the ablest lawyers in Arkansas, and as a speaker 
has but few superiors. In 1874 he was appointed 
lieutenant-colonel in the State Guards, b}- Gov. 
Baxter, and gave efficient aid to the State during 
the Brooks-Baxter embroglio. Gen. Neill was 
severely wounded and disabled for many months 
at the battle of Oak Hills in 1861, while fighting 
on "Bloody Hill," by a musket ball passing 
through his left thigh; in the same battle his 
brother. Job S. Neill, a youth of twenty years, 
who belonged to the same company, was killed on 
the field, after displaying great courage and cool- 
ness. In 1877 he was appointed a brigadier-gen- 
eral in the State militia, by (tov. Jliller. his for- 
mer law partner, and assigned to the command of 
the fifth military district of the State, a position 
which his large army experience rendered him en- 
tirely capable of filling with credit. In April, 

1869, Gen. Neill was married to Miss Mary Adelia 
Byers, one of Batesville's fairest daughters and 
almost a native of the town. Ten children have 
resulted from this union, of whom seven are living: 
Arthur. Ernest. Hugh, Clare. Ella Byeis, Es-ther 
Annie and Robert, Jr. Geu. and Mrs. Neill are 



704 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



members of the Mt>tb()dist Episcopal Church, 
South; the former is a member of the order of 
Free and Accepted Masons, and a companion of 
the Royal Arch degree; has been a member of the 
Masonic fi-ateruity since 1861, and has served for 
two years as a district deputy grand master of 
Masons of Ai-kausas. He is a stockholder in the 
Batesvillo Telephone Company, the Batesville 
Water and Electric Light Company, the Batesville 
Printing Company and the Batesville Building and 
Loan Association, for which last named corpora- 
tion he is attorney. He is also the Arkansas attor- 
ney for the St. Louis Manganese Company, a for- 
eign corporation, engaged in mining and shipping 
manganese ore from Independence County, and is 
the attorney for the Adler Bank, located and doing 
business at Batesville. In June, 1888, he attended 
the National Democratic Convention at St. Louis, 
as one of the delegates from the First Congres- 
sional district of Arkansas, and was the vice-presi- 
dent of the convention from his State. 

W. T. Nesbit is a young man who is rapidly 
and surely making his way to the front among the 
energetic business men of Independence County, 
and, although only twenty nine years of age, he has 
built up a large patronage by strict attention to 
each minor detail of his chosen calling, and can not 
fail to succeed. He is a native resident of Independ- 
ence County, and was born May 28, 1860, being 
there brought up and educated; and in addition to 
attending the common schools, he entered the 
Arkansas College, at Batesville, in which institu- 
tion he finished his education. His attention dur- 
ing his early youth was given to assisting his father 
on the farm, but in 1884 he gave this up to engage 
in the mercantile business in Sulphur Rock, where 
he does an annual business of about 130,000. He 
has recently built a business house, 60x24 feet, 
which is the only two-story business house in the 
town. His average stock amounts to nearly $4. 500, 
and his credit l)usiness amounts to $12,000. He 
employs two clerks. On commencing business for 
himself, in 1883, his capital amounted to about 
$2.50, but as mentioned in the beginning of this 
sketch, his success is owing to his energy, excel- 
lent business qualifications and attention to details. 



Mr. Nesbit' s wife, whom he married in 1885, was 
formerly Miss Mollie Carter, also a native of Inde- 
pendence County, Ark. They have one child. 
William E. Mr. Nesbit is a son of W. H. and 
Catherine (Herrington) Nesl)it, both Tenne.sseeans, 
who emigrated to Arkansas about 1850, whei-e the 
father died ten years later. The mother is still 
living and is the worthy companion of William 
Wilson. To her first marriage five children were 
born, of whom our subject is the youngest. The 
great-grandfather was a native of Ireland, who emi- 
grated to the United States and settled in North 
Carolina, where the grandfather was born. He 
afterwards moved to Mississippi. The father was 
a soldier in the Mexican War. He is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, a Democrat, and 
belongs to the Blue Lodge and Chapter in the A. 
F. and A. M. , also holding membership in several 
benevolent associations. 

William B. Norvell is a prosperous agricultur- 
ist of this region, and successfully manages his 
farm of 240 acres, which lies in section 84, Gains- 
boro Township, and is an exceedingly fertile tract 
of land. In addition to this, he has devoted his 
attention to the profession of school-teaching, in 
which occupation he has met the universal ap- 
proval of those whom he has served. He was 
born in Bedford County, Tenn. , on the 23d of 
July, 1846, and is a son of E. M. B. and Jerusha 
(Arnold) Norvell, who were born in Bedford 
County, Tenn., and North Carolina, respectively, 
and were married in the former State in 1837; 
nine of their ten children being yet living. The 
father was a farmer by occupation, a member of 
the I. O. O. F. , and he and wife were consistent 
members of the Baptist Church. William B. Nor- 
vell first attended the common schools of Bedford 
County, Tenn. , and then entered as a student the 
Cedar Grove Academy, in which well-known insti- 
tution he remained for some time and received an 
education of more than ordinary thoroughness. 
Miss Sarah A. Rogers became his wife, she having 
been born in Independence County, Ark. , and 
their marriage has resulted in the birth of three 
sons and five daughters, one daughter being a deaf 
mute. Mr. Norvell has held the ofiice of justice of 



w 



the peace for about two years, and for about six 
years has been a school director. While iu Ten- 
nessee he joined the Masonic and I. O. O. F. 
lodges, and still holds his membership in that 
State. He belongs to the Agricultural Wheel, and 
he and wife are members of the Baptist Church, 
in which he is an ordained deacon. Mr. Norvell 
is an exceptionally intelligent man, and is thor- 
oughly posted on all the current topics of the 
day, and takes an active interest in all enterprises 
tending to benefit the county. 

Robert G. Osborne, one of the leading citizens 
of the county of Independence, was born in Hay- 
wood County, North Carolina, November 27, 1853, 
and is a son of Enoch M., and N. E. (Howell) 
Osborne, also natives of Haj'wood County, North 
Carolina. Enoch M. Osboiiie died in Independ- 
ence County, Ark., in 1876, at the age of sixty- 
one years; his widow is now residing in Ashe- 
ville, N. C. , having returned to her native State 
after her husband's death, for the purpose of 
educating her children. They removed in 1855 
from North Carolina and bought 550 acres of land 
in Independence County, Ark., which they cleared 
and cultivated. Enoch M. Osborne was a man of 
great enterprise and ability, and was a very suc- 
cessful farmer. He and wife were members of 
the Missionary Baptist Church, and of their family 
of eight children, seven are now livinsr, viz. : 
Robert G. ; William H. , a minister of the Missionary 
Baptist Church, now located at Jonosboro, Tenn. ; 
Thomas S., a lawyer of Ft. Smith, Ark. ; James 
H., a merchant of Asheville, N. C. ; Fannie, wife 
of Thomas Drummond, land agent at Greenville, 
Tenn.; Joseph C. died October 21, 1888, at the 
age of twenty years, while attending college at 
Asheville, N. C. ; Mary A. with her mother, and 
John M. also at college. Robert G. , the eldest 
child, received his education in Independence 
County, Ark., and after the death of his father 
continued farming on the old homestead, which he 
now owns. He also owns 193 acres in White 
River Township. 160 in Black River Township, as 
well as town property in Sulphur Rock, all of which 
has become his through close application and en- 
terprise, that have won for him so much success 



in his chosen occupation of farming. In 1880 
Mr. Osborne married Aiuaiida E. McPhearsou. a 
daughter of Joseph McPhearson, now deceased. 
She was born in Alabama in 1860. Of the live 
children born to their marriage three are living, 
viz. : Fannie, Morgan and Maudie, the last two 
twins. Adolphus and Willie are deceased. Polit- 
ically, Mr. Osborne is a Democrat, as was also his 
father. The family is of English descent, and is 
widely known and highly respected in Independ- 
ence County. 

Joseph Ottinger. Within the limits of Inde- 
pendence Co\inty, Ark., there is no man of more 
progressive spirit or of greater recognized worth 
than Mr. Ottinger. Born in Cocke County, Tenn., 
June 15, 1838, he is a son of Michael and Eliz- 
abeth (Winter) Ottinger, also Tennesseeans, the 
former's birth occurring in Greene County, in 1802. 
He was also educated in this county, and, as he 
grew up, learned the lessons of industry, frugal 
habits and economy — lessons which he ever re- 
membered and which stood him in good stead in 
after life. He became a wealthy planter of that 
State, and at one time owned 1,020 acres of land. 
He was married in 1823, and eleven children were 
born to himself and wife, six of whom are yet liv- 
ing. He held the office of constable for some time. 
He and wife were members, iu good standing, in 
the Lutheran Church. He died iu 1877. followed 
by his wife a few years later, in 1881. Josejih 
Ottinger was educated near Newport, Tenn., and 
for a number of years has been a resident of Inde- 
pendence County, Ark. He owns 239 acres of 
average land, and, from his earliest recollections, 
has been familiar with farm work (a secret, doul)t- 
less, of his success). He was married near Now- 
port, Tenn. , to Miss Sarah A. Davis, who was born 
and reared in that State. To them a family of 
nine children have been given, eight sons and one 
daughter, and eight of the family are still living. 
Mr. Ottinger is a member of the Masonic order, 
and has held the office of secretary and treasurer 
of his lodge. He is also a member of the Agri- 
cultural Wheel, and he and wife are connected 
with the Baptist Church, and are always interested 
in enterprises tending to benefit their adopted 



r 



700 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



county. The maternal grandparents were Penn- 
sylvanians, who were among the pioneer settlers ' 
of Tennessee. 

Margaret F. Owen, widow of John M. Owen, 
of White River Township, Independence County, 
was born in Alabama in 1850. She is a daughter 
of Michael K. and Matilda (Dutton) Crow, both 
natives of Virginia. Michael K. Crow was born in 
1825; he grew to manhood in Virginia and Tennes- 
see, and was married in Alal)ama, to which State 
his parents had removed. In 1860 he emigrated 
to Arkansas, locating on a farm in Independence 
County, where he spent the remainder of his life. 
He was a Confederate soldier, and was wounded by 
the fall of a horse at the battle of Helena. He 
died in 1883, and his wife, who was also born in 
1825, died in 1881. A double monument marks | 
their graves in the neighborhood in which the lat- 
ter part of their lives was spent. They were the 
parents of seven children, viz.: Margaret F., 
Mary M. , Reuben M. , George ( who died in infancy), 
William C, Riddie A. and Thomas J. Though 
not a member of any church, Michael Owen was a [ 
great Bible student, and was exceedingly charitable. 
He was of German descent, while his wife was of 
Irish origin. Margaret F. attended the common , 
schools of Independence County, and at the age of ; 
eighteen years married John M. Owen, who was 
born in Big Bottom Township, Independence Coun- 
ty, in 1836, being nearly fifteen years her senior. 
They were blessed with live children, viz. : Alfred 
C. , Edward, Thomas, Eunice and Mabel. Mr. 
Owen served the Confederacy four years during the 
late war, and lost his health while in the army. 
He died March 22, 1884, leaving a good farm, upon 
which his widow now resides. He was a member 
of the Christian Church, and in politics was a 
Democrat. 

T. B. Padgett, real estate and insurance agent, 
Batesville. In all business communities the matter 
of insurance holds a jiromincnt place. It is a 
means of stability to all business transactions, and 
a mainstay against disaster, should devastation by 
fire sweep property or merchandise away. Among 
those engaged in the insurance business in Bates- 
ville is Mi\ T. B. Padgett, who is a native Vir- 



ginian, born in Fairfax County, in September, 
1839. The Padgett family comes of Virginia 
stock, settling there at an early day. William B. 
and Harriet T. (Ossmonj Padgett, parents of T. B. 
Padgett, were also natives of Virginia, and the 
father was a farmer by occupation, which pursuit 
he carried on for years. He died in Virginia, and 
the mother in Missouri. T. B. Padgett passed 
his youth and early manhood in the grand old 
State of Virginia, and there received a good com- 
mon education. Early in life he was apprenticed 
to the drag business in Washington City, D. C, 
and there remained until 1860, when he came to 
Batesville, Ark., and engaged as clerk in the drug 
trade. In 1861 he enlisted in Company E, Seventh 
Arkansas Infantry, and served until the close of 
the war. He was in the battles of Chickamauga, 
Murfreesboro, Shiloh, and all the principal engage- 
ments of the Western army. He was wounded 
both at Murfi-eesboro and Chickamauga, and quite 
severely at the last named place, being disal)led 
from duty for some time. He ranked as second 
lieutenant. After the surrender he went to Alex- 
andria, Va., and after remaining there a little over 
a year, he returned to Batesville. He again en- 
gaged in the drug business, and carried it on until 
1875, when he commenced in his present business. 
He represents fifteen of the leading insurance 
companies, is a thorough-going, persevering and 
enterprising business man, and is deserving of all 
business success. He has been a member of the 
town council, and has also tilled the position of 
town treasurer, recorder, covmty assessor, and 
deputy collector for ten years. He was married 
in 1868 to Miss Elvena Maxfield, by whom he has 
four children living. He was married the second 
time, in 1882, to Miss Martha E. Moore, and two 
children were born to this union. 

Robert A. Patterson is a native farmer and 
stock raiser of Independence County, where he has 
lived all his life. He was born in 1824, and is a 
son of Thomas and Martha (Bruce) Patterson. 
Thomas Patterson was born in Tennessee, where 
he grew to manhood and married, and soon after 
the War of IS 12 moved to Missouri, settling on the 
James Fork of White River, from which location 



^ 




1^ 



he was driven away by the Indians. He then re- 
moved to Indei^endence County, Ark., and settled 
on a small improvement on Polk Bayou, where he 
improved a good farm, to which he devoted his at- 
tention the remainder of his life; he was among 
the pioneer settlers of White River Township, and 
his death occnrred in 1S57. Mrs. Patterson was a 
native of North Carolina, and survived hor hus- 
band until 1875. Of their large family three sons 
and seven daughters lived to be gi'ovvn, of whom 
oui" subject was the third born. The mother was 
a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Patter- 
son served as a soldier in the War of 1812. Robert 
A. was deprived almost entirely of anj' school ad- 
vantages, as the country was so sparsely settled, and 
schools were not organized. He lived at home 
until twenty-one years of age, when he worked one 
year as a mill hand, and afterward engaged in ' 
farming. In March, 1848, he married Mary Ann, 
daughter of Johnston and Elizabeth Clark. Mr. 
Clark was reared in Illinois, but was married in 
Missouri, in which State the parents lived until 
Mrs. Patterson was nine years old. They then re- j 
moved to Independence County, Ark. , where Mrs. | 
Clark died, in November. 1802. Mr. Clark died 
the same month in St. Louis while servinij as lieu- 
tenant of an Ai'kansas regiment, Federal army; he 
was a millwright by trade, and also a farmer. Of 
the nine chikh'en born to Mr. and Mrs. Patterson 
seven are living, viz. : Mary J., wife of William I. 
Marshall; Sarah I., wife of J. M. Patterson; 
Thomas S. . Robert A. R., John H. , George W. 
W. and Lauretta. After his marriage Mr. Patter- 
son settled on his present farm, which was then 
entirely unimproved; of his 288 acres he now has 
about sixty under cultivation. He also carries on 
wagon-making in connection with his farming. He 
is one of the oldest residents of Independence 
County, whose birth occurred here, and is one of 
the best known and most respected citizens. Mr. 
Patterson was formerly a Democrat, but since the 
war he has been a Republican. He is a member ; 
of the A. F. & A. M. . and he and wife are con- 
sistent members of the Methodist Church. Mrs. 
Patterson's maternal grandfather, Lewis Roan, 
was a native of England, and when but twelve 



years of age came to America, where he fought all 
through the Revolution for the freedom of the 
colonies. He reared a large family in this country, 
where he spent the remainder of his life. James 
Clark, paternal grandfather of Mrs. Patterson, was 
an early settler of Illinois. He afterward liveil 
some j'ears in Missouri and snbse«piently located 
in Independence County, Ark. , where he died. It 
is supposed that all of the family, except himself 
and one sister, were killed by the Indians when he 
was a boy. 

William C. Pearce, postmaster, justice of the 
peace and notary public. Oil Trough, Ark. A 
representative citizen of Independence County, 
and a man recognized and respected as such wher- 
ever known is Mr. Pearce. He never engaged very 
largely in agricultural pursuits, but is generally in 
business, and is also occupied in his official duties. 
He owes his nativity to Henderson County, Tenn., 
where he was born on the 18th of March, 183(), 
and is the son of John and Lucy (Collins) Pearce. 
John Pearce came to Arkansas, with bis family, 
in bSoO, located on land near Fairview, Independ- 
ence County, where he remained for about eight 
years. He cleared about twenty-five acres, erected 
log houses, stables, etc., but exchanged this for 
land nearer B'airview, and made this his home for 
fifteen years. The mother died in 1875, and he 
one year later. William C. Pearce received his 
education principally in the schools of Independ 
ence County. In 1858 ho left the parental roof to 
engage as clerk with Col. James H. Patterson, who ^ 
carried a general line of merchandise in Jackson 
County, and remained there until ISfil, when he 
enlisted in Company A. Eighth Regiment, Arkansas 
Volunteer Infantry, in the capacity of private, hos- 
pital steward and druggist. He participated in all 
the battles in which his command engaged, but 
space will allow the mention only of some of the 
most prominent: Shiloh. Mnrfreesboro, Chicka- 
manga. Missionary Ridge. Buzzard Roost, Resaca, 
and, in fact, all the engagements of the Atlanta cam 
paiga. Jonesboro Vieing the la.st. He was with 
Gen. Hood in his campaigns, during his command 
of the Confederate army, but left his company on 
a sixty days' furlough in the latter part of the war. 



708 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



The conflict closed before the expiration of the fur- 
lough, so he remained at home. In 1865 he put 
in a crop on a farm near Pleasant Plains, Inde- 
pendence Conoty, and in October of the same year, 
engaged in business with Mr. A. J. Cheek, the 
latter furnishing the means, and Mr. Pearee man- 
aging the business and receiving a salary for his 
services. He continued in business with Mr. 
Cheek until in March, 1868, after which he passed 
his time in collecting for other business men until 
1869. He was then united in marriage to Miss 
Sarah Calhoun, of Arkansas, but originally fi-om 
South Carolina. Her father was a cousin of John 
C. Calhoun of historical fame. To Mr. and Mrs. 
Pearee were born five childi'en : Zachary H. , born 
in 1870 and died in 1885; his body is interred in 
the cemetery at Maple Springs, Independence 
County. Mollie, Lama, Cornelia and Culbert L. 
Mr. Pearee moved to Oil Trough in 1875, and was 
engaged in various occupations until appointed 
postmaster under President Garfield's administra- 
tion, in 1882. The same year he was elected jus- 
tice of the peace, and notary public in 1887. He 
has taken a great deal of interest in politics, ident- 
ifying himself with the Democratic party, to which 
he has always strongly adhered. While Mr. Pearee 
is not a member of any Church, he has always been 
a strong friend to religious and social advancement, 
and contributes liberally to all. He is a great 
friend to education, and his children have had good 
ojjportunities for schooling. He was made a Mas- 
ter Mason in 1866, was exalted to the first sublime 
degree of Royal Arch Mason in 1868, and at this 
time is a member of MeOuire Lodge No. 208, Oil 
Trough, Independence County, Ark. He is also 
a member of Oil Trough Chapter No. 84, Oil 
Trough, Ark. 

John L. Pierce is worthy in every way of being 
classed among the successful agriculturists of this 
region, for by his own industry he has become the 
owner of 320 acres of land, about seventy of which 
are in a high state of cultivation, and 100 acres of 
land he lias cleared himself. His birth occurred 
in McMinn County, Tenn., January 11, 1838, and 
he was educated near Athens, and, after attaining 
manhood, was married there to Miss Lucie Herod, 



who was a native of the State. Of eight sons and 
three daughters born to them, eight of the family 
are still living, and one is at home with his parents, 
helping to till the farm. Mr. Pierce is a Mason, 
a member of the Agricultural Wheel, in which 
organization he has held the office of vice-president, 
and he and wife, for a number of years, have been 
earnest and consistent members of the Baptist 
Church. The manner in which Mr. Pierce has 
acquired his present estate denotes him to be an 
energetic, successful agriculturist, and the secret 
of his success, perhaps, lies in the fact that he was 
reared from earliest boyhood on a farm and inher- 
ited some of the sterling qualities of his Scotch 
ancestors. His parents, Thomas and Elizabeth 
(Wyatt) Pierce, were born in Tennessee and Vir- 
ginia, respectively, and became the parents of two 
sons and nine daughters, five of the family sur- 
viving: Sarah, Ursulia, LinaM., David and John. 
The father died in 1868, followed by his wife in 
1872, she having been a member of the Lutheran 
Church for many years. The paternal grand- 
father was a Scotchman, who came to America 
many years ago. 

William Ramsey, farmer, Batesville. Nowhere 
within the limits of Independence County can 
there be found a man who takes greater interest in 
its agricultural and stock affairs than Mr. Ramsey, 
or who strives continually to promote and advance 
these interests to a higher plane. He has a native 
pride in this county, for he was born here, and it is 
but natural that he should strive to see all its mat- 
ters placed on a footing equal, if not superior, to 
the affairs of other counties in the State. He is 
the son of Allen D. and Helen F. (Slater) Ramsey, 
and the grandson of William Ramsey, who settled 
in what is now Independence County, Ark., in 
about 1819, when there were but few settlers in 
tliis country. He was a farmer by occupation, and 
died in Independence County. During his early 
residence in this county he underwent many hard- 
ships, and had many stirring adventures. He was 
sheriflF of Independence County at one time. Allen 
D. Ramsey was born on the place where the fami- 
ly now resides, and there passed almost his entire 
life. Perhaps few men in North Arkansas, aside 




' f 






£ 



Mississippi CouNnAflHANSAa . 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



701) 



from those in professional or politioiil life, were 
better known. He was edueateii near Alexandria, 
Va., and was possessed of a high order of intelli- 
gence. He was an honored, influential and exem- 
plary citizen. He died December 31, 1878. The 
mother is still living, and is a native of North 
Carolina. Her parents were natives of Scotland, 
and came to the United States at an early day. 
Her mother came to Ai-kansas, and located at 
Batesville. To Mr. and Mrs. Allen Ramsey were 
born five children, three now living: Margaret, 
William and Maria. The two deceased were 
Mary, married George Weaver, who is also de 
ceased, and left one child, Allen R. Weaver, who 
makes his home with the subject of this sketch, 
and David. William Ramsey (subject) was born 
and reared on the farm where he now lives. 
Being reared to the arduous duties of the farm, he 
has always followed this calling, and has made a 
complete success of the same. The family now 
own 1,050 acres of land, with about 325 acres un- 
der cultivation, and the principal productions are 
corn, cotton and hay. Mr. Ramsey also raises 
some stock. He is an enterprising young man 
and a first-class farmer. He is a member of the 
Episcopal Church, and his mother and family are 
members of the same. When the Ramsey family 
first settled in Independence County, Indians were 
here, and all kinds of wild gam^ abounded. The 
now fine and productive river bottoms where then a 
dense canebrake. One incident that the father 
used to relate to his children was that, when the 
first steamboat came up the river, that had a whis- 
tle, it roused every one from their slumbers, and 
the people were very much frightened. The great 
grandfather of the subject of this sketch, at a very 
early date, lived in Kentucky, where he met with 
experiences worthy of record. On one occasion, 
while in the hay field, in comjiany with a hired 
man, a party of Indians came upon them unaware. 
The hired man started to run, but was killed by 
the savages. Mr. Ramsey's great-gi"andfather was 
taken prisoner, and kept as such for a long time, 
finally being sold to some French traders for a 
pair of lilaukets. He was then so far from home, 
that the only way to return in safety, and avoid 



being recaptured, was to cross the ocean to France 
and back again, which he did. He at last made 
his way to his family, who had mourned him as 
dead, after an absence of three years. 

C. T. Rosenthal, dealer in hardware, stoves, 
tin-ware, etc. , Batesville. Among the resources of 
the town of Batesville, which go to make up its 
commercial fabric, the trade carried on in hard 
ware, stoves, tin-ware, etc., forms a most import- 
ant feature. Prominent among those engaged in 
it is Mr. C. T. Rosenthal, who has been in this 
line of business for twenty five years. In 1865 he 
engaged as clerk in the wholesale hardware house 
of Pratt & Fox, then the largest hardware firm in 
St. Louis. He remained with them over three 
years, after which he went to Helena, M. T., and 
there worked for Clark, Conrad & Miller for a short 
time. He then returned to St. Louis and entered 
the firm of Adolphus Meier & Co., remaining with 
them about three years, or until they sold out 
to McCombs, Keller & Byrnes, with whom he 
remained until 1878, although the firm again 
changed, this time to McCombs, Caruth & Byrnes. 
At the above mentioned date, Mr. Rosenthal came 
to Batesville, Ark., engaging in business for him- 
self. The first two years the firm was Rosenthal 
& Stritter, and since that time 'he has carried on 
the business alone. He has one of the neatest and 
best stocked hardware stores in Arkansas. Mr. 
Rosenthal has been an alderman three terms, and 
was school director for one term of two years. He 
owns the building that he occupies, which is a large 
two- story stone building, and which he has had 
erected since coming to Batesville. He does a 
good business, carries a large stock of goods, and 
employs five men. 

Joseph M. Runyan, who has a reputation of 
owning some of the best stock in Independence 
County, and is also an experienced farmer, is a son 

of and Elizabeth (Burke) Runyan. of 

Tennessee, in which State Jose[)h was l)om and 
educated. His early life was spent on the home 
farm, but in 1842, when he was united in marriage 
to Miss Sarah Baker, also of Tennessee, he com- 
menced to make a home for his bride. Three 
children were born to them in that State, and seven 



3?: 



liL 



no 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



in Arkansas, of whom eight children are still living. 
Their names are Jerome, born in Tennessee in 
1S66; John Richmond, born in Tennessee in 1867; 
Russell M., born in 1869; Cora B., born in Ten- 
nessee in 1871; William D., born in 1873; Katie, 
born in 1877; Josie, born in 1880; Bertha, born in 
1882; Thomas J., born in 1884, and dying at the 
age of three years, and James C, born in 1887, 
dying in 1888. Mr. Kunyan moved to Arkansas 
in 1870, and located in Christian Township, where 
he rented land and farmed up to 1876, when he 
purchased 160 acres of heavily-timbered land, com- 
prising sycamore, which was 6 feet in diameter; 
oak trees, 5 feet in diameter; walnut, d^ feet; Cot- 
tonwood, 8 feet : box elder. 2 J feet; pecan 5 feet: hack 
berrj', 4 feet, and corn that was 20 feet tall. This 
was the condition Mr. Runyan found the land in 
upon his arrival, and out of the 160 acres he has 
now placed eighty acres in cotton and 30 in corn, 
besides gathering 2,800 pounds of cotton seed, 
that being the average of the field. He has raised 
386 bushels of corn from three acres of ground, 
and 41 bushels of wheat to the acre. Also from 
seventy- five to 100 bushels of oats per acre. Mr. 
Runyan is also cultivating 500 acres of new land, 
and has placed sixty acres in clover, from which 
he expects to get three and one-half tons at the 
first cutting; one and one-half tons at the second, 
and the signs are very favorable toward getting 
one and one-half tons per acre at the third cutting. 
He also raises a tine stock of cattle and Berkshire 
hogs, as well as high-grade poultry. His land has 
upon it a fine orchard of apple, pecan and pear 
trees, and several good dwellings, barns, cribs, etc. 
He is a member of the Missionary Church, while 
his wife and the three oldest children attend serv- 
ice at the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Run- 
yan is a member of McGuire's Lodge, A. F. & A. 
M. , Oil Trough, and also belongs to the Knights of 
Honor and Royal Arcanum. In politics he is a 
stanch Democrat, and has served one term as justice 
of the peace, but only held the office from a sense 
of duty, as he can not well spare the time. 

Hon. James Rutherford, ex-State senator, a 
highly- esteemed citizen of Independence County, 
was born in Rutherfordton, Rutherford County, 



N. C, on July 7, 1825. This county was named 
after Gen. Rutherford, of Revolutionary fame, and 
a distant relative of the senator's. AV alter B. 
Rutherford, the father, was a Scotchman, who emi- 
grated to America when twenty years of age, and 
resided for twenty-five years in Rutherford County, 
afterward moving to Batesville, Ai-k., in 1850, 
where he died October 17, 1865. The elder Ruth- 
erford was a man firm in his convictions, and sen- 
sitive of his honor, and up to the time of his 
death was a citizen of considerable influence in the 
community. His father, Alexander Rutherford, 
was one of the leading lawyers of Edinburgh, 
Scotland, and his wife, Sarah (McTyre*) Ruther- 
ford, was a native of Georgia, who died in Inde- 
l^endence County, Ark., in 1870, at the age of 
seventy-five years. They were the parents of nine 
children: Catherine, Isabelle, Alexander, Walter, 
James, William, Mary A., Amelia and George. 
James Rutherford remained in North Carolina un- 
til the age of twenty-three years, when he moved 
to Batesville, in 1849, two years in advance of his 
parents, and has resided at that place ever since. 
His education was limited to a common school and 
academic course, but his natural abilities and liter- 
ary tastes soon placed him on a level with some of 
the smartest men of that section. It has been a 
common belief that for one to be successful in 
after life he must, as a rule, sow his wild oats in 
boyhood, but in Mr. Rutherford's case this theory 
has been exploded. He has never sowed his wild 
oats, has never gambled, drank, nor sworn an oath, 
and in his later life he has remained always the 
same practical, moral man, and becoming more 
successful year after year. He owns several valua- 
ble farms, having nearly 1,000 acres under culti- 
vation, and raises almost everything that the soil 
will produce, commencing his life with only 160 
acres of land. Public offices have been bestowed 
upon him, on account of his intelligence, tact and 
integrity, and these talents have commanded for 
him the respect of every citizen interested in pub- 
lic affairs. In 1861 he went into the State service 
as fii'st lieutenant of Dye's company, in Colonel 

*This name is spelled Tyrie, by Capt. George W. 
Rutherford. 



v 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



711 



Shaver's regiment, afterward known as Seventh 
Arkansas Regiment, and then transferred to the 
Confederate service. He commanded a company 
at the battle of Shiloh. in which the lieutenant- 
colonel was killed, and Mr, Rutherford was imme- 
diately promoted to fill his place, serving until the 
reorganization, in August, 1862, when he resigned 
and came home. AtBatesville he accepted the po- 
sition of provost marshal, remaining in that ca- 
pacity for four or five months, and for the balance 
of the war he was enrolling officer at that town. 
At Grand Glaize he was taken prisoner, on Febru- 
ary 4th, 1863, and detained at Little Rock for 
three months. Senator Rutherford became an Odd 
Fellow at Lincolnton, N. C, and is the oldest liv- 
ing member of the Batesville Lodge. He is a 
member of no other secret order. In politics he 
was a Whig from boyhood until the death of that 
party, when he became a Democrat. He was a 
Secessionist in theory, but contended that it was 
bad policy to secede, although he stood firmly with 
the Confederacy to the bitter end. For the last 
six years he has attended as a delegate to the State 
conventions of the Democratic party, but has never 
taken an active part in politics, except when can- 
vassing for himself. In 1850 he was elected jus- 
tice of the peace, just one year after moving to the 
county, and served four years. In the trouble- 
some times of 1874 he was elected a delegate fi'om 
Independence County to the constitutional con- 
vention that framed the present constitution of the 
State, and in 1879 he was elected for four years 
as State senator for the counties of Independence 
and Stone. During the session of 1880 he was 
chairman of the finance committee, and also of the 
special senate committee on revenue, and re- 
ported the famous revenue law which Gov. 
Churchill vetoed. Senator Rutherford was mar- 
ried in Batesville, on November 112th, 1802. to 
Miss Maria Louisa Hynson, of Independence 
County, a daughter of Henry Hynson, one of that 
county's well known merchants. Mrs. Rutherford 
is a charming lady, and is almost her husband's 
equal in tact and good judgment. In fact, it is 
partly due to her advice and good management 
that the senator has built up his fortune. Their 



marriage has been blessed with four sons and two 
daughters; George L.. James B., "William A., 
Medford M., May B. and Sophia A. The senator 
is a man who never allows politics to interfere with 
his friendships, as is shown by the fact that some 
of his political opponents are his personal friends. 
He is regarded as the best financier in Independ 
ence County, and, as an eminent citizen of Arkan- 
sas says of him, " He has an undisputed charac- 
ter for honesty and integrity, and is strictly moral " 
Capt. George W. Rutherford, a prominent cit- 
zen and leading farmer of Independence County, 
was born in Rutherfordton, Rutherford County, 
N. C, on July 10, 1883. and is a son of Walter 
B. and Sarah (McTyre) Rutherford, the former a 
native of Scotland, and the latter, who was also of 
Scottish origin, from Fairfield County, S. C. The 
elder Rutherford landed at Charleston. S. C, in 
December, 1815, some six months after the battle 
of Waterloo was fought, and while the world was 
still ringing with the news of Napoleon's defeat. 
His voyage across the ocean occupied four weeks, 
and the vessel encountered many heavy storms in 
that time, causing consternation on board. Alex- 
ander Rutherford, the father of Walter B., was at 
one time a captain in the British Reserves, and an 
old friend of Robert Burns. He resided in Scot- 
land and practiced law up to the time of his death. 
Walter B. Rutherford was a tanner by trade, hav- 
ing served seven years' apprenticeship at Edin- 
burgh, Scotland, and still pursued that occupation 
in South and North Carolina. In 1830 he made a 
trip to Arkansas, coming the entire distance on 
horseback, and after returning to North Carolina, 
where he resided until 1850, he moved with his fam- 
ily to Independence County, traveling all the way 
by wagons. Following his arrival here he bought 
a section of land in 1S3'.I, comprising 640 acres, with 
about seventy-five acres under cultivation, and which 
is the farm upon which Capt. George W. now resides. 
The land was purchased from a man named Dilling 
ham, who settled here in 181 t, and the old house, 
which was built in 1816, is still standing on the place. 
The elder Rutherford died in 1865, and the wife fol- 
lowed him five years later. They were the parents 
of nine children, of whom five are still living. 



712 



HISTORY OP ARKANSAS. 



Caj)t. Rutherford was the youngest of this family, 
and received his education in the schools of North 
Carolina. He came to Arkansas with his parents 
when seventeen years of age. and has always been 
a farmer. In 1862 he enlisted in the Second Ar- 
kansas Cavalry, and served until the close of the 
war, taking part in the battle of Helena, and a 
great many cavalry skirmishes, and on one occa- 
sion captured a train of Federal soldiers. He raised 
a company of partisans under ui'ders of Gen. Hind- 
man, in 1862, being joined to Chrisman's battal- 
ion of Arkansas Cavalry, and subsequently to 
Dobbins' regiment of Arkansas Cavalry. In May, 
1 864, he was captured at Sugar Loaf Springs, and 
taken to the Little Rock penitentiary, where he 
was confined in a cell, though only at night, for 
eleven months, and after obtaining his liberty, re- 
turned home, to once more lead a peaceful life 
and cultivate the land. Capt. Rutherford owns 
about 1,000 acres, and has some 350 acres under 
cultivation. His farm is well improved, and 
adapted to the stock business, in which he is an 
extensive dealer. In 1868 he was married to Miss 
Florence Neill, a daughter of Judge Henry Neill, 
and has had ten children by this marriage, of whom 
nine are living: Anna and Lizzie, Mary and Amelia 
are twins; Delia, George and Neill. twins; Nina 
and Genevieve. Mrs. Rutherford is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a devout 
Christian. She has made her home one of the 
most pleasant in Northeast Arkansas, and is a de- 
voted wife and fond mother. 

Calvin Rutherford, farmer and stock raiser, 
Elmo, Ark. Mr. Rutherford owes his nativity to 
Cocke County, Tenn., where he was born in 1848. 
He left his native county in 1871, journeyed to Ar- 
kansas, and located in Oil Trough Bottom, Chris- 
tian Township, Independence County. The same 
year he was united in marriage to Miss Catherine 
Baker, a native of Tennessee, and after coming to 
Arkansas he rented land, thus continuing until in 
1887, when he bought forty acres. Heaven has' 
blessed his married life with four children — Lounz, 
Oscar, Mary and John. The forty acres purchased 
by Mr. Rutherford was at tliat time very heavily 
timbered, but of this he has cleared twenty acres, 



and has built on the same a good log house. He 
is a member of the Masonic Fraternity, McGuire 
Lodge No. 208, Oil Trough, Independence County, 
and takes a prominent part in all public enterprises, 
whether of a religious, social, or educational nature, 
in his county and State. He has two children in 
school, and contemplates educating them as far as 
his means will permit. He is the son of Calvin 
and Nancy (Lane) Rutherford, natives of Ten- 
nessee, and the grandson of Lane, who was 

a soldier in the Mexican War, and drew a pension 
until his death. Mr. Rutherford is not only a 
public spirited, enterprising citizen, but is a man 
universally respected by all acquainted with him. 
In the history of Independence County, in its de- 
velopment and growth, Mr. Rutherford has borne 
a prominent part for the last eighteen or twenty 
years. 

James F. Saffold, a popular and enterprising 
farmer and stock raiser, of Independence County, 
is a son of James F. and Elizabeth (Hulsoy) .Saf- 
fold, both natives of that county, where James, Jr., 
was born on the 2d of July, 1854. The elder 
SafFold was a noted and brilliant politician during 
his life, as also a leading spirit in all public enter- 
prises for the advancement of his county. He was 
elected to represent Independence County in the 
State legislature, and filled the office with credit 
to himself and to the satisfaction of his constitu- 
ents, besides filling several minor positions. On 
the occasion of his death, at the age of forty -five 
years, the county lost one of her most valued citi- 
zens and one whom she well appreciated. He be- 
longed to McGuire Lodge No. 208, A. F. & A. M. , 
and was also a member of Oil Trough Chapter No. 
84. His loss was deeply mourned by the public, 
as well as his wife and six children, to whom he 
was a kind husband and an indulgent father. He 
was strictly a self-made man, having received but 
a limited education in his youth; but the brain and 
power of the man were equal to any emergencj', and 
in after life he had educated and qualified himself 
for any position he might have been called uj)oii to 
fill within the gift of the people, or in the ordinaiy 
demands of business. His son, James F. Satl'old, 
Jr., follows closely in the light of his father's 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



71 H 



ll>£ 



uiauy f^ood ([ualities, and is a roijresentative citi- 
zen of the conuty. Added to what he inherited 
fiom his father's estate, he now owns 250 acres of 
land, with 175 acres under cultivation, and has 
(irected one good dwelling, several tenant houses 
and barns upon the place. Mr. Saffold is not a 
member of any particular religious faith, but he 
has contributed to a great many causes, both re- 
ligious and educational; and outside of his large 
circle of friends in Christian Township, is well 
known throughout Independence County. 

Allen H. Saviors, farmer and stock raiser, Dota, 
Ark. One of the foremost men among the agri- 
culturists of Independence County, is he whose 
name appears above, and who has borne an influ- 
ential part in promoting the various interests of the 
county. His birth occurred in what is now Jack- 
son County, Ark., on the 81st of December, 184-1:, 
and he has always made this State his home. He- 
was reared between the handles of a plow, figura- 
tively speaking, and received his education in the 
common schools of Jackson County. Although 
his educational attainments were rather limited, ho 
improved his time in later years, and is now con- 
sidered one of the well-posted and intelligent cit- 
izens of the county. He is the second in a family 
of six children, born to John C. and Martha (Oli- 
ver) Saylors, natives of Missouri, who came to 
Arkansas about 1820 or 1824, and first settled at 
Litchfield, in Jackson County. A few years later 
they sold out and moved a few miles further south, 
where they opened up a large tract of land, 160 
acres. He then moved three miles east of Jack- 
sonport, and there died, in 1855. At that time 
he was the owner of 480 acres. He was the first 
clerk of Jackson, and also held the office of mag- 
istrate for a number of years. The mother died in 
1859. at the age of forty-four years. She was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 
six childi'en born to their union are named as fol- 
lows: Eliza J. (wife of Oliediah Wilkinson, died 
in 1871). Allen H., Annette S. (died in 1863, at 
the age of sixteen years), John R. (died in 1869, 
at the age of twenty years), Mary M. (wife of 
Craig Simmons, lives in Craighead County, and 
was born June 10. 1852), Charles A. (died at the 

45 



age of four years. 1858). In 1859, after the 
death of his mother, Allen H. Saylors began life 
for himself, and at the age of fifteen engaged in 
the calling to which he was reared, and this con- 
tinued until 1862, when he joined the Southern 
army, and was on duty several months. He then 
came home, and, to escape the strife, went to thi' 
"Lone Star State;" but he found that it was '"war 
times" of a certainty, and the following year joined 
the army again, entering Col. Morgan's regiment, 
Campbell's brigade cavalry. He was in the battles 
of Pleasant Grove, Marks' Mill, the Saline River 
tight, and besides was in a number of sharp skirm- 
ishes. In an engagement at Pilot Knob, in the 
fall of 1864, he was wounded by a piece of bomb- 
shell. He was with Gen. Price on his rai<l through 
Missouri, and his army was disbanded in Texas, in 
May, 1865. At the close of the war Mr. Saylors 
return to Arkansas, and in July, 1868, united his 
fortune with that of Miss Nannie Timstall, also a 
native of Arkansas. To their maiTiage were bom 
two children; Mary Lavenia, born on the 8th of 
September, 1869, and Nannie E., born on the 4th 
of September, 1873, and died on August 30, of 
the following year. Mrs. Saylors died on the 13th 
of September. 1873, in full communion with the 
Methodist Ejjiscopal Church. She was an excel- 
lent mother and wife. Mr. Saylors was married a 
second time on the 15th of October, 1874, to a 
cousin of his first wife. Miss Martha Tunstall. 
Seven children have been the result of this union: 
Gertie, born on the 20th of April, 1876; Martha 
A., born on the 15th of October, 1877; James H. . 
born on the 25th of February, 1879; Claude, born 
October 5. 1880, and died March 24, 1881; Logan, 
born on the (ith of October, 1883; John Guynii. 
bom October 7, 1885, and Sylvia, born November 
3, 1887. Mr. Saylors' principal occupation has 
been farming, and he first bought eighty acres, 
the most of which he has improved. Since his 
first purchase he has added to this at different 
times, and now is the owner of 240 acres, eighty 
of which are in a high state of cultivation. He 
has good orchards, good buildings, and his prin- 
cipal crops are corn and cotton. At different times 
be has followed the vocation of merchandising, and 



r 



^f 



714 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



has also been ene;aged in the livery business, but 
at the same time carried on agricultural pursuits. 
Mr. Saylors votes with the Labor party, but does not 
take an active part in politics. He served as con- 
stable, and also acted as deputy sheriff in Jack 
son County until deposed by the war. In Septem- 
ber, 1888, he was elected magistrate of his town- 
ship, which office he now holds to the satisfaction 
of all. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. Newark 
Lodge, No. 52, and is also a member of the 
Agricultural Wheel. He takes an active part in 
all public enterprises, and contributes liberally to 
their support. Mrs. Saylors is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

A. N. Simmons, farmer and miller, Batesville. 
Ark. The milling industry' is well represented in 
Batesville by the above named gentleman, who is 
a progressive business man. and who is also closely 
associated with the farming interest of Indepen- 
dence County, Ark. He was born in Weakley 
County, Tenn., on the 28th of August, 1833, and 
is the son of Anthony N. Simmons, a native of 
North Carolina, who, after growing up, married 
Miss Penelope O'Neil, also a native of North Car- 
olina. In 1882 they emigrated to Tennesse, located 
in Weakley County, and after remaining there a 
short time, emigrated to Gibson County. At one 
time be and a man by the name of Nolen, bought 
160 acres of land apiece where Memphis now 
stands, but owing to the sickness of Mr. Simmons, 
he gave up his part, thus depriving himself of an 
independent fortune. He died in Gibson County, 
Tenn.. in 1834, and the mother in 1854. The 
father was a farmer, a mechanic, and was said to 
be the finest cabinet-workman in the State. Of 
their six children, three are living at the present 
time: Joseph, Fordice and Anthony N. The latter 
was reared in Tennessee until fourteen years of age, 
and secured but a limited education. In the spring 
of 1848 he removed with his mother to St. Francis 
County, Ark. , and while living there the county was, 
respectively, St. Francis, Jackson and Woodruff 
Counties. In 1861 Mr. Simmons enlisted in Com- 
pany C, McCrea's regiment, and served thirty-six 
days, when he was taken sick and sent home. He 
was detailed to take charge of some negroes. While 



living in St. Francis County he was engaged in 
farming, and also carried on the milling business. 
In 181)5 he came to Independence County and 
located where he now lives. He bought a mill, 
ran it for some time, and then bought another. 
Since living here he has erected several mills, and 
has carried on the milling business for thirty-three 
years. He erected the first stone mill on the 
bayou. He owns 210 acres of land, with about 
sixty acres under cultivation, but turns his atten- 
tion principally to his milling business. He now 
owns two mills, both running most of the time. 
By his marriage to Miss J. A. O'Neil, in 1S54, he 
became the father of five living children: Samuel, 
John. JefFerson, Fannie (second wife of G. I. 
Dwinal) and Delbert. Mr. Simmons is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
also filled the office of the justice of the peace in a 
very successful and satisfactory manner while liv 
ing in Woodruff County. 

Drury D. Smart. Among the many eminent 
and enterprising agriculturists of Independence 
County, Ark. , worthy of mention in these pages, is 
Mr. Smart, who has been identified with the farm- 
ing interests of the community since 1856. He is 
a son of Reuben and Margaret (Melton) Smart, na- 
tives of Rutherford County, N. C. , and he was born 
in the same place. He partly completed his edu- 
cation in his native county, and after the death of 
his father, in June. 1S45, he and his mother, in 
the fall of that year, emigrated to East Tennessee, 
and here finished his schooling and e:rew to mature 
years. From 1856 to 1859 he worked as a farm 
hand in Independence County, Ark., but at the 
latter date removed to Little Rock, and engaged 
in stage driving, being employed by Messrs. Hanger 
& Gaines, who were extensive mail contractors, and 
remained with them about two years. In 1861 he 
again returned to Oil Trough Bottom, where he 
gave his attention to tilling the soil until 1862, at 
which date he enlisted in Col. Dobbins" Cavalry 
regiment of Arkansas Volunteers, and remained 
in the army until 1865, participating in the battles 
of Helena and Marks' Mills, where 1.300 of Gen. 
Steele's command were captured, together with 



V 





INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



nn 



ninetj'-six wagons and teams and four pieces of 
artillery, this blow effectually putting an end to 
the Ked River expedition. In 1864 he was in the 
saddle forty-two days, in pursuit of Gen Steele's 
command, who was attempting to form a jupction 
with Gen. Bunks in his Ked River expedition, hut, 
us stated above, the attempt only met with failure. 
June 5, 1865, he was mustered out of service and 
returned to civil life, locating in Cache Township, 
Jackson County, Ark. He was married in the 
summer of the same year to Miss Sarah Obarr, of 
Jackson County, a native of Georgia, from which 
State her parents emigrated to Arkansas, in 1848 
or 1849. After making three crops in Jackson 
County, he returned to Oil Trough Bottom, and was 
an extensive farmer of that region until 1871, when 
he moved to Faiilkner County, this State, and 
homesteaded eighty acres of heavily-timbered land, 
and at once set energetically to work to clear and 
improve his land. He cleared and put forty acres 
under cultivation, built a good double log house 
and other buildings, and made many other valuable 
improvements during his twelve years' residence in 
the county. In 1885 he returned to Independence 
County, the hul) around which he had so long re- 
volved, and has since been farming on land belong- 
ing to E. L. Watson, of Newport, Ark. Mj-. Smart 
and his wife are the parents of six children, two 
of whom have attained their majority : James D. , 
Jesse Y., Reuben T., JohnM. . Alice L. A., and 
William Asher. Mr. Smart is a patron of educa- 
tion, and is giving his children good advantages. 
He is a Democrat in politics, and while in Jackson 
County, held the office of justice of the peace of 
Cache Township. He was a member of the Wheel 
during its existence, and he and wife are in com- 
munion with the Missionary Baptist Church. 

Capt. John T. Smith, farmer and stock raiser, 
Oil Trough, Ark. Like so many of the representa- 
tive citizens of this county and township. Mr. 
Smith is a native Tennesseean, born in Williamson 
County of that State, June 14, 1841, and is the son 
of Daniel Smith, who was also a native of that 
State. When a young man the latter was united 
in marriage to Miss Martha Ragsdale, a native of 
Tennessee, and whose father was a colonel in the 



AVar of 1812, and participated in the battle of New 
Orleans, and died in 1862 at the age of eighty- 
seven years. The paternal grandfather was also a 
soldier in the War of 1812, and died in Tennessee, 
in 1849, of Asiatic cholera. Capt. John T. Smith was 
but eight years old when he moved with his parents 
to Humphreys County, Tenn., and there attended the 
private schools of the coilnty. He was reared to 
agricultural pursuits, and assisted his father on the 
farm until the breaking out of the late war, when 
he enlisted in the Forty-second Tennessee Volun- 
teer Infantry, Confeilerate Army, as a private. 
Upon the organization of the company he was 
elected to the position of orderly sergeant, sei-ving 
in that capacity until 1862. He was captured, witli 
his regiment, at Fort Donelson, and afterward, when 
the regiment was reorganized at Port Hudson, La.. 
Mr. Smith was promoted to the rank of .second 
lieutenant, in which capacity he served until May, 
1863, when he received his commission as captain 
and commissary, serving as regimental commissary 
until the battle of Franklin, Tenn. He then re- 
ceived a furlough to go home, which was the close 
of his military career. In 1886, in partnership 
with Mr. M. Reeves, he bought a stock of general 
merchandise, and carried on the business of a mer 
chant at Buffalo postoffice, on Buffalo River, Tenn. 
Mr. Reeves died that year, and Mr. Smith there- 
upon closed out and engaged in farming, purchas 
ing a tract of land on Buffalo River, Humphrey 
County, Tenn,, the tract comprising 2(10 acres. In 
1866, he was married to Miss Margaret Owens, a 
native of Tennessee. One child. Mollie A., was 
born to this union. Mrs. Smith died, in 1867, of 
cholera, and was buried in the cemetery at Buffalo. 
In 1868 Mr. Smith took for his second wife Miss 
Lou Gray, of Perry County, Tenn.. and to this 
union were born live children, all living: Cordelia 
C, born December 15, 1869: Dorsey Thomas, born 
November 9, 1870; Margaret L, , born March 21. 
1872; William Martin, born March 10, 1874, and 
Lou .Jennie, born November 20. 1875, The mother 
of these children died July 8, 1876, and is interred 
in Perry County, Tenn. May 20. 1877, Capt. Smith 
married Miss Eliza S, Teas, a native of Humphreys 
Conntv, Tenn. , and the fruits of this union were four 



^^ 



(16 



HISTOEY OF AEKANSAS. 



children: Florence Agnes, born in February, 1879; 
Amanda R. , born April 1, 1880; Robert Ernest, 
born October 3, 1883, and Lillian, born August 2, 
1885. Capt. Smith moved to Arkansas January 
30, 1879, purchased 160 acres of land in Section 
11, Christian Township, the principal part of it 
being timber land, with about thirty acres cleared, 
and on this were several log-cabius. The Captain 
has cleared sixty- five acres since he became the 
owner, and now has ninety-five acres itnder cultiva- 
tion. He has added by purchase 120 acres, but, 
selling eighty acres of this, has now 200 acres left. 
He has good buildings on his farm, and has an 
excellent orchard. Capt. and Mrs. Smith are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church, and Cordelia is also 
a member of that church. Capt. Smith is a mem- 
ber of McGuire Lodge No. 208, A. F. & A. M., is 
also a member of Oil Trough Chapter No. 84, R. 
A. M. In politics he affiliates with the Republican 
party, and is an ardent supporter of all enterprises 
for the good of the county. 

John W. Starues, farmer and stock raiser, 
Jamestown, Ark. Mr. Starnes is a man whom na- 
ture seems to have especially designed to be a tiller 
of the soil. The pursuit of agriculture has af- 
forded him high gratification, and in the conduct 
of a farm the principles which he has held have 
been peculiarly adapted to the successful develop- 
ment and improvement of the varied elements of 
farm life. He was born in Haywood County, N. 
C, on the 27th of September, 1823, and the son 
of Benjamin Starnes, a native of North Carolina, 
who, after reaching manhood, was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Sophia Snyder, who was also a native 
of North Carolina. Later in life they moved to 
Tennessee, and there passed the remainder of their 
days. Their family consisted of ten children. 
John W. Starnes began for himself at an early 
age, and when twenty -one years of age, was united 
in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Chapman. Six in- 
teresting children were the result of this union. 
His second marriage was in 1864, to Miss Susan 
McDougal. They have no children. Mr. Starnes 
has some very valuable land, 500 acres in all, and 
on this has several fine mineral springs that have 
quite a local reputation. He thinks that he has 



valuable mineral also on his place. In politics, he 
is identified with the Democratic party. He is a 
member of the Agricultural Wheel, and he and 
wife are members of the Christian Church. 

L. D. Stone, dealer in musical instruments, 
stationery, etc. , is a native of Arkansas, and the 
son of Rufus and Fannie A. (Flournor) Stone, who 
were both natives of Independence County, Ark. 
The grandparents were early settlers of this coun- 
ty. Rufus Stone and his brother were killed in 
the late war, the brother at the battle of Chicka- 
mauga. The former was taken prisoner, and while 
in prison at Little Rock, in trying to escape, jumped 
o£F into the Mississippi River just below Memphis, 
and was drowned. The mother died in Memphis 
of the small-pox. L. D. Stone was the only child 
born to this union, and was left an orphan when 
but a lad. He was educated principally at Bates- 
ville, and took a commercial course at Lexington, 
Ky. In February, 1886, he engaged in his present 
business, and has since carried it on. He has an 
extensive trade, which he has built up entirely him- 
self, and his career affords an excellent example 
of what pluck and energy can accomplish under 
adverse circumstances and against keen competi- 
tion. He carries a full line of musical instru- 
ments, stationery, etc. Aside from this, he is the 
owner of about 380 acres of White River bottom 
land, which is under cultivation, and carried on by 
tenants. He deals extensively in stock. 

Hon. John Christopher Stroud, present repre- 
sentative of Independence County in the State 
legislature, resides on a farm about one mile west 
of Graham postoffice. He was born in Independ- 
ence County, October 3, 1854, and is the eldest 
child and only son of 'the five children born to 
Andrew J. and Mary Ann (Winkle) Stroud. An- 
drew J. Stroud was born near Knoxville, Tenn., 
March 3, 1826, his parents having settled in Ten- 
nessee at an early day. When a young man he 
went to Kentucky and for four years was a resi- 
dent of Paducah, MeCracken County, where he 
was married. In 1854 he removed to Independ- 
ence County, Ark., where he died in 1881, having 
always been a farmer by occupation. His wife 
was born in North Carolina, in 1829, and is still 



& — 



living. Andi'ew J. was a son of Christopher 
Stroud, a native of North Carolina, whose father 
was born in Iroland. John C. received his early 
education in the free schools of his native county 
and completed his studies in the Washington High 
School of his home township. At the age of nine- 
teen he began teaching school, which profession i 
he successfully followed until 1886. In the latter 
year he was elected to represent the county in the 
State legislature, and two years later was again 
chosen to fill the same position, serving his con- 
stituents honorably. He takes an active interest 
in politics and was formerly a Democrat, but now 
is an Independent. He also takes an active part 
as a member of the I. O. O. F. , and has several 
times represented his lodge in the Grand Lodge. 
Mr. Stroud owns 290 acres of fine creek bottom 
land, about seventy- five acres of which he has un- 
der cultivation. December 3, 1879, he married 
Miss Adelia Barnes, who was born in Independence 
County, January 19, 1860, and is a daughter of 
George W. and Martha J. Barnes. Mr. and Mrs. 
Stroud have four children, Emma A., Estella, 
William A. and Martha J. Our subject is one of 
the most popular young men of the community, 
and is deserving of the public favor bestowed on 
him. He is well-to-do and is highly esteemed by 
all who know him. 

N. J. Suit, a successful horticultm-ist of 
Batesville was born on the 17th of February, 
1831, in the town of Sardis, Mason County, Ky., 
and is the son of John and Angeletta (Grover) 
Suit, who were also natives of Kentucky. The 
grandparents on both sides were natives of Penn- 
sylvania, and resided in Maryland, and then in 
Kentucky at an early day, in fact in the days of 
Daniel Boone. John Grover, the maternal grand- 
father, once lived in a fodder house and baked his 
corn cakes on a hoe, liut by hard labor and honesty 
he accumulated a comfortable fortune. He was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His 
death occurred at the age of eighty-four. He 
served for some time in the War of 1812, and both 
he and his wife died in Kentucky. They were among 
the first settlers of that State. John Suit was also 
a farmer and died in Kentucky. He was also a 



successful tiller of the soil and belonged to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and was one of the 
most moral men who ever lived. The mother mar- 
ried the second time to James Engles, and in 1843 
emigrated to Arkansas, coming there by water, and 
settled near batesville. They located near Sul- 
phur Rock, and there lived for several years. He 
was a carpenter by trade and died near Moonfiold. 
There were but two children born to the first mar- 
riage, of whom N. J. is the only one now living, 
William H. having died. By the second mairiage 
Mrs. Suit became the mother of nine children. 
She died in 1884. At her death she had about 
seventy-three childi'en, grandchildren and great- 
grandchildren. N. J. Suit was about twelve years 
of age when he came with his parents to Arkansas. 
He received a limited education, there being no 
good schools. At the age of about sixteen years 
he served an apprenticeship at the tanners' trade, 
and followed the business until about 1880, or 
for over thirty years. In 1865 he moved to Bates- 
ville, and ran a tannery for some two years. In 
1868 he built the tannery he now owns and ran 
this until 1880. Since that time he has been en- 
gaged in the nursery business. He has a good 
fruit orchard of pears, peaches, apples and small 
fruits. He has planted all the trees and carried 
on the business quite successfully ever since. He 
owns forty acres of land on which his orchard is 
located, and is one of the prominent fruit growers 
of the county. He was married in 1854 to Miss 
Susan F. Wright, and to them was born one child, 
deceased. Mr. Suit's second marriage was to 
Miss Melissa J. Quails, in 1861, and three chil- 
dren were born to this union : Etta, wife of Henry 
Richards, of Spencer County, Ind. ; Walter, and 
Florence, wife of George Wade, and the mother 
of one child. Mr. Suit's third marriage was 
with Mrs. Margaret Herrin, a native of Tennes- 
see, whose parents came to Arkansas, in 1849. 
Mrs. Suit is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Ephraim Drake Swain owns a fine farm of N40 
acres, in Washington Township. Independence 
County, situated about one and a quarter miles 
east of Victor po--tiil1ic(>. He wa> Ihum (Vtulier 2. 



At 



718 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



] 



1828, in what is now Yadkin Coiinty, N. C. , and 
his parents were Michael and Elizabeth (McGiiire) 
Swain. Michael Swain was also a native of North 
Carolina, and was born in 1809; he died in the 
house in which he was born, and which was always 
his home, January 8, 1886. He was a farmer, of 
English descent, and for about forty years prevr- 
oiis to his death was afflicted with blindness. The 
mother of our subject was born in North Carolina 
in 1811, and died in her native State in May, 1882. 
Ephraim D. was the third in a family of twelve 
children, five of whom are living. He lived with his 
parents until about twenty-four years of age, re- 
ceiving his education in the subscription and free 
schools of the State in which he was born. In 
1854 he married Miss Lucinda Chappel, a native 
of North Carolina, who was born in 1830. Of the 
nine children who have been born to them five sur- 
vive, viz. : Sarah, Pleasant M. , James M. , Rosa 
and Buck. Mr. Swain emigrated from North Car- 
olina in 1871, and settled in Independence County, 
Ark., where he has since resided and been success- 
fully engaged in the pursuit of farming. He has 
300 acres of his large farm under cultivation, and 
is one of the well-to-do and most enterprising farm- 
ers of the township. His first presidential vote 
he cast for Pierce, and he still votes the Demo- 
cratic ticket, thoiigh not an active politician. Mrs. 
Swain is a member of the Missionary Baptist 
Church. The paternal grandfather of our subject 
was also Michael Swain, whose life was spent in 
his native State of North Carolina. 

John Thomas Tarpley, merchant and farmer, 
Elmo, Ark. This name is not unfamiliar to those 
in the vicinity of Elmo, as well as to those in the 
county, for he who bears it is numbered among the 
highly-respected citizens of this community. Born 
on the 16th of October, 1857, he is the son of John 
Wesley and Sarah Elizabeth (Phillips) Tarpley, 
who were originally from Alabama. The parents 
came to Arkansas in March, 1S70, located in Inde- 
pendence County on what is known as the Baily 
farm, where the father died on the June following, 
after an illness of three years. In their familj^ 
were eight children: Edward Everett, born on the 
5th of February, 1855, residing in Independence 



County; John Thomas, Dora Ann, married M. J. 
Harris; Eugene, lives in Texas; Lucella, married 
F. M. Copps; Belle P., lives in Boone County; 
Murillah, married Mr. William L. McMullen, and 
lives in Christian Township, and Finis Wesley, 
now attending school. John Thomas Tarpley com- 
menced business for himself at the age of twenty- 
one years, first as a farm hand, and in 1881 he 
rented land. In 1885 he made his first purchase 
of land, twenty acres, all under cultivation, and in 
1888 he bought twenty acres more adjoining his 
first purchase, this being also under cultivation. 
In 1885 he also purchased 120 acres in Jackson 
County, all of which was covered with heavy tim- 
ber, which Mr. Tarpley has cleared and has about 
thirty acres under fence. On the 20th of January, 
1889, he purchased a stock of drugs and groceries, 
which he opened up in Elmo, and is now carrying 
on in a ver}' successful manner. He contemjilates 
putting in a good line of dry goods in the near 
future, and will have one of the best stores in the 
township. In his political principles he is closely 
associated with the Republican party, as was his 
father before him. His grandparents on both sides 
were old-line Whigs in their political views. Mr. 
Tarpley is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity, McGuire Lodge No. 208, and Oil Trough 
Chapter No. 84. He is active in all enterprises, 
whether religious, social or educational, and con- 
tributes liberally of his means to each and all. 

Hon. J. S. Trimble. A worthy history of In- 
dependence County, Ark., could not be given with- 
out mentioning the name of Mr. Trimble, who for 
over three-score-years and ten, has been a promi- 
nent resident of the county. During his long term 
of years here, his good name has remained un- 
tarnished, and he has well and faithfully per- 
formed every duty, both public and private, that 
has fallen to his lot. He is a native of the Blue 
Grass State (Kentucky), his birth having occurred 
at Smithland, in Livingston County, March 28, 
1815. His father's name was James Trimble; he 
was born in Augusta County, Va., in 1774. His 
mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Stewart; 
she was born in Culpeper County, Va. . in 1 782. 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



il'J 



^ — V — ; 

After their marriage his father moved to Ken- 
tucky, in quite an early day, wliere Mr. Trimble 
was born, as above stated. In 1817, his parents 
moved to what was then a portion of Missouri Terri- 
tory, but which is now the State of Arkansas, and 
here J. S. Trimble grew up to manhood, his early 
education being received in the common schools of 
the country and at Batesville. Immediately af- 
ter completing his school dajs, he commenced to 
apply himself closely to agricultural pursuits, and ! 
in 1850, he was elected from Independence Coun- 
ty, Ark., as a member of the lower house of the 
State legislature. He was always a Jeffersonian, 
and a Jackson Democrat of the strictest sect; he 
believed in the strict construction of organic law, 
both State and National ; he also believed that it was 
by strict construction, alone, that the rights of the 
minority were to be protected in the government; 
and, if the declaratory and restrictive clauses of 
the constitution be removed, the rights of the few 
could not be maintained or protected. His great 
speech in the house of representatives, December 
24, 1850, and the introduction of the joint reso- 
lutions on Federal relations, which were published 
in the Arkansas Banner at the time, places 
him at once in the front rank as a sound and al)le 
debater. In 1856 he was elected to the senate 
of the same body, and served by re-election until 
1804. At this date, he was again chosen to the 
same position, by the soldiers in the service of the 
Confederate States, by virtue of a bill passed for 
that purpose, but, owing to the unsettled condi- 
tion of affairs at that time, this legislature was 
disorganized after the first year of its existence. 
Thus, Hon. J. S. Trimble has served his county 
nine years in the State senate, and four years in 
the house of representatives, making thirteen 
years' service, as a faithful legislator, and in both 
of these capacities he has discharged his duties 
with ability, and to the entire satisfaction of his 
constituents. This was during the most turbulent 
times of our American history. He has always 
believed in the State rights doctrine, and when 
South Carolina withdrew from the Union, he was 
a warm advocate of secession, and was a strong 
friend of the South during its entire struggle; 



and, although exempt from military duty 
(by virtue of his being a member of the senate 
of Arkansas during the entire war), yet he was 
too strong a Southern sympathizer not to partic- 
ipate in the great war Ijotween the States, which 
he considered just, and for some time served in the 
Confederate mail service, in the State of Texas. 
After the war, he was elected Treasurer of Inde- 
pendence County, on only a few days' notice, to 
fill out an unexpired term of R. Lee, deceased, and, 
althougli there were three worthy candidates in 
the field, who had for some time been canvassing 
the county, he was elected by a very large major- 
ity. He gave bond for S40,nOO, served the peo- 
ple faithfully, quit the office with clean hands, 
but declined re-election. Mr. Trimble has al 
ways kept up with the times in reading, has shown 
himself to be a man of strong native intellect, 
sound judgment, sterling principles, well posted 
in governmental affairs, and is perhaps as highly 
esteemed and respected as any man in the county. 
In 1850, he was married to Miss Catherine P. Ham- 
ilton, of Conway County, Ark. , and l\v her he be- 
came the father of one child, a daughter bamed 
Elvira, who is now the wife of Joseph Wright, of 
Sulphur Rock, Ark. Mr. Trimble lived in Green 
briar Township, Independence County, for about 
seventy two years, and on New Year's eve, 1886, 
moved into his new buildings in Sulphur Rock, 
to be near his only child and grandchiklren dur 
ing his declining years. He is of old Virginia 
stock, his father, James Trimble, having been born 
in that State, in 1774. His mother was also a 
Virginian, bom in Culpeper County, and after their 
marriage moved to Kentucky, in quite an early 
day, where they reared the must of their family, 
ten children in all. three only of whom survive 
The father was a surveyor by occupation. Immi 
grating to Arkansas in 181 7. he used to get contracts 
of surveying, and return his work to St. Louis, 
Mo., before there was any land office established 
in the State. Shortly after his removal to Sulphur 
I Rock, Mr. T. assisted in having the town incorpo- 
1 rated, and became first mayor, but declined a re- 
election. In his younger days, he was active in 
the cause of education and temi)erance, and has 



9 k_ 



720 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



never lost interest in either cause. He is a rapid 
and impressive speaker, and as a legislator has 
few equals, being always in his seat when the 
senate was in session, and his place was never va- 
cant at the meetings of the committees with which 
he was connected. Mr. Trimble was always 
prompt, industrious, efficient and conscientious. 
With his superior business qualifications, clear 
head, and excellent practical common sense, he 
was much respected by his associates, and soon be- 
came one of the most honored and influential mem- 
bers of the senate. His social and domestic at- 
tachments are very strong. His friendship is sin- 
cere and true; his grasp of the hand warm and cor- 
dial. Of him it might be said: 

"His life is gentle, and the elements 
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, this is a man." 

H. W. Vaughan, M. D., deserves honorable men- 
tion, as one of the successful practicing physicians 
and surgeons of Sulphur Rock, Ark. He was born 
in North Carolina, July 16, 1828, and was reared 
in Fayette County, Tenn. , where he also received 
his literary education, and, in 1849, began his 
study of medical lore under an instructor, entering 
in 1850 the Louisville Medical College, where he 
took a regular course of lectures. He came to Ar- 
kansas soon after, and, in 1856, located in Inde- 
pendence County, where he was for years the only 
college practitioner, and enjoyed a lucrative and 
extensive practice, his patients being among the 
best class of citizens in the county and in North- 
east Arkansas. Sulpjiur Rock was a very small 
place, indeed, at the time of his location, and con- 
sisted of one store and a postoffice. The Doctor 
has been married twice — the first time to Miss 
Maria L. Tumey, a native of Independence Coun- 
ty, and of this union four children were born; Ella 
v., Solon. Phoebe M. and Clarence P. Mrs. 
Vaughan, after having performed well and faithful- 
ly the duties of a wife and mother, was called to 
her final home on the 14th of August, 1873. The 
Doctor is a son of S. F. and Phoebe Vaughan, the 
former of whom was a Virginian, who subsequent- 
ly became a citizen of North Carolina, and after- 
ward of Tennessee. He died in the State of Mis- 



sissippi, in 1856, at the age of fifty -eight years. 
Dr. Vaughan is a Master Mason, and in his political 
views is a Democrat. His wife belongs to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Joseph J. Waldrip of Big Bottom Township, 
Independence County, was born in Lauderdale 
County, Ala., November 4, 1839. He is a son of 
Thomas W. and Serena Waldrip, natives, respect- 
ively, of Maury and Giles Counties, Tenn. The 
father of Thomas W. Waldrip was James Waldrip, 
a native of South Carolina, of Irish descent, his 
ancestors having emigrated to this country about 
1690. Several of them served in the War for Inde- 
pendence, and James Waldrip took part in the 
War of 1812, participating in the battle of New 
Orleans. He died in Lafayette County, Miss. , at an 
advanced age, having been a life-long farmer. 
Thomas W. was born August 14, 1805, and died 
in the fall of 1875, in Panola County, Miss. 
When young, he moved, with his parents, to Lau- 
derdale County, Ala., where he was reared on a 
farm; he educated himself after he was grown, and 
engaged in teaching, but abandoned that profes- 
sion for farming, in which he was most successf nl. 
February 8, 1831, he married Serena German, 
who was born May 13, 1814, and was a daughter 
of Joseph German, an early settler of Tennessee, 
who was born January 18, 1784, and died in Mon- 
roe County, Miss. , at the age of eighty-four years. 
He was an en tensive farmer, who moved from Ten- 
nessee to Lauderdale County, Ala. , and thence to 
Monroe County, Miss. Ten children were born to 
Thomas W. and Serena Waldrip, but four of whom 
arenow living, viz. : Joseph J., Thomas ^\'., afarmer 
of Independence County; Amanda Louisa Aldridge, 
wife of John W. Aldridge, also a farmer of Inde- 
pendence County, and Romelia Catherine, wife of 
W. M. Keating of Independence County. Those 
deceased are Eliza J. Rieder, William P. Waldrip, 
Fannie E. Aldridge, Rachel E. Carpenter, James 
M. Waldrip, and Mary A. Bivens. The parents 
were members of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and took an active part in church work. They 
settled in Panola County, Miss., in 1856, where 
they made their home the remainder of their lives. 
Thomas W. was a stanch Democrat in politics and 



4^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



?1\ 



served several years as justice of "the peace; his 
wife died in PanoUt County, Miss., in 1885. 
Joseph J. Waldrip received a common school edu- 
cation, and at the age of eighteen left his home 
for Northern Alabama, where for a short time ho 
worked and went to school; he tlien returned to his 
home and assumed control of his father's farm 
until 1861. March 28, of the latter year, he was 
mustered in Pettis" artillery, which was afterward 
known as the Hudson Battery, and was the first 
battery organized to leave the State. Although 
n>peatedly tendered an office, Mr. Waldrip refused 
to accept a more responsible one than that of 
sergeant. He served faithfully until the sur- 
render of his company, June 13, 18(35, and took 
part in many of the principal battles of the war, 
among them Shiloh, Corinth, Port Gibson, Siege 
of Vicksburg and others. At Shiloh he was 
severely wounded in the left side by a bursting 
shell, at Port Gibson received a flesh wound, and 
at Vicksburg was wounded in the right side. At 
the close of the war he returned to Mississippi 
and worked on a farm until 1868, when he went 
to Arkansas and engaged in the mercantile busi- 
ness until 1870. He then turned his attention 
exclusively to farming and stock-raising, and now is 
one of the most enterprising and successful agricul- 
turists of Independence County. December 28, 
1869, he married Elizabeth Magness, daughter of 
Col. Morgan Magness. She was born in Inde- 
pendence County, September 22, 1852. They are 
the parents of four children, viz.: Thomas M. , 
William J., Joseph R. and Mirtle (deceased). 
Mr. Waldrip has been a member of the Masonic 
fraternity since 1866; he is a member of the 
Council, and has frequently represented his lodge 
in the Grand Lodge, both in Mississippi and Ar- 
kansas. He is a Democrat politically, and in 1874 
was elected justice of the peace, in which capacity 
he served two years. 

Dr. M. C. Weaver, of Independence County, 
now engaged in merchandising, is the youngest of 
seven sons and one daughter born to Abram and 
Mary ( Burton ) Weaver, and was born in Phila- 
delphia, in the year 1855. The parents were 
natives of Pennsylvania and Virginia, respectively, 



who settled in Chester Valley, Pa., after their 
marriage, and in 1859 moved to Batesville, Ark., 
where Mrs. Weaver died in 1867, and the father 
at Pocahontas, in 1882. The elder Weaver was a 
lawyer and real estate dealer in Memphis, Tenn. , 
at one time, who afterwards practiced his profes- 
sion in Pocahontas. He was a member of the 
'I. O. O. F., and a leading man of Northeast Ar- 
kansas. His wife was a member of t\w Episcopal 
Church and a daughter of Dr. P. P. Burton, a 
prominent physician of Virginia, who moved to 
Batesville in 18-11, and contributed largely to the 
building up of that town. In 1847 or 1848 he 
removed to Little Rock, where he practiced his 
profession for twenty -five years, and died in that 
city in 1875. Dr. M. C. Weaver was educated at 
Batesville and St. John's College at Little Rock. 
His choice for a profession was medicine, and in 
1877 he graduated from the Louisville Medical 
College, and began practicing in Greenbrier Town- 
ship. The following year he went to Kentucky, 
where he remained a short period, but soon 
returned to Independence County, and engaged in 
practicing at Jamestown until 1888. The Doctor 
about this time had built up a large practice, but 
his mercantile interests became so pressing that 
he was forced to abandon his chosen profession, 
although now he is one of the leading merchants 
in that section. In 187S he was married to Miss 
Theodora, a daughter of the Rev. C. H. Albert of 
Pennsylvania, in which State Mrs. Weaver was 
born. The Rev. Albert, during his life, was an 
eloquent minister, whose fame as a speaker had 
rapidly spread to the surrounding country soon 
after his arrival. He was the first Episcopal min- 
ister to settle in Independence County after the 
war, and was killed after a long life of usefulness 
by a runaway horse. Doctor Weaver and his wife 
have two daughters, and are members of the Epis- 
copal Church at Batesville. In politics he is a 
Democrat, but owing to his large commercial inter 
ests. has always declined to accept office of any 
kind. The Doctor has a splendid residence and 
magnificent home in Jamestown, situated on the 
spot noted as being the birthplace of Congiessman 
Samuel Peele. 



4 



722 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Calvin Houston ^Vebb, farmer, stock raiser and 
ex-assessor of Independence County, Ai'k. Al- 
though a young man, Mr. Webb has, by his native 
energy and progressive ideas put into execution, 
won for himself an enviable reputation that entitles 
him to a place among the representative citizens of 
the county. He owes his nativity to this county, 
where he was born on the 18th of April, 1855. 
His parents, Holland Revere and Luciuda E. 
(Hogan) AVebb, were natives, respectively, of Ten- 
nessee and Arkansas, the former born on the 27th 
of Jivne, 1825, and died on the 21st of February, 
1876. The father was reared to agricultural pur- 
suits, received his education in Weakley County, 
Tenn. , and came to Arkansas at an early day, 
settling on a farm in the foothills of Black River 
Swamp. Here he was surrounded by wild game, 
from liear down to quail, and there lived a bachelor 
life until he met and formed the acquaintance of 
Miss Hogan (daughter of Hamblin Hogan, one of 
the very early pioneers of this country, who is 
spoken of in another part of this history), and a 
love match was the result. They were married on 
the 8th day of June, 1854, Squire Thomas Lloyd 
officiating. At the time of his marriage, Mr. 
Webb was the possessor of 160 acres of land, 
twenty under cultivation, and a rude log hut. 
Many were the interesting stories of pioneer life 
that they were able to tell their children in after 
years. Once, when the father was absent at court, 
a bear came and robbed the bean patch. Mrs. 
Webb was alone in the house, which was without 
doors, and the nearest neighbor quite a distance 
away. Mr. Webb continued farming until his 
children were large enough to need some school 
advantages, and in order to give them the best, in 
1866 he built a school-house on his farm, for the 
benefit of his own and the neighbors' children, and 
this was attended by young and old for about two 
years, doing a great amount of good. Mr. Webb 
was itn active and influential Democrat, and was a 
member of Bayou Dota Lodge, A. F. & A. M. 
At the time of his death he owned 600 acres of 
land, with 100 under cultivation, and all the im- 
provements good. Though he never held member- 
ship in any church, he was a man of perfect morals 



and strict integrity, and contributed liberally to all 
public enterprises for the public good. His excel- 
lent wife survives him, and makes her home with 
her sou, the subject of this sketch. She owns and 
controls 160 acres of the old homestead, which 
makes her a bountiful living. She is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Since 
the death of her husband she has never mari'ied. 
To Holland and Lucinda Webb were born the fol- 
lowing children: C. H. (subject), Sarah T. , born 
on the 5th of November, 1856, and the wife of 
Joseph McDaniel, died in spring of 1S84, a farmer 
of Black River Township; Fredonia A., born on 
the 10th of February, 1858, and the wife of Henry 
McDaniel, also one of the farmers of the county, 
and Luciuda Holland, born on the 16th of July, 
1876, and now living with her mother. C. H. 
Webb was reared to the occupation of farming, 
and attended several months in his father's school. 
By this means the children all received a fair edu- 
cation. C. H. began life for himself at the age 
of nineteen by raising a crop on his father's farm, 
and received half of the same. On the 21st of 
May, 1874, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Mary C. Killingsworth, daughter of E. R. and 
Sarah A. (Martin) Killingsworth, and a native of 
Arkansas. Her father was one among the first 
brick masons of Bates ville. Mr. Killingsworth 
was a large contractor and builder, and in the 
50' s was engaged in erecting brick buildings in 
that city; later he turned his attention to agricul- 
tural pursuits. Mrs. Killingsworth was a daugh- 
ter of Adam and Elizabeth Martin, and a sister of 
Senator George Martin [see sketch]. After his 
marriage Mr. Webb lived on his father's farm for 
two years, and at the latter' s death he sold his 
portion of the same, and then purchased the farm 
on which he now lives. This farm consists of 
eighty acres, with fifty under cultivation, twenty 
of which he has cleared himself. On this farm lie 
has erected one of the finest farm-houses in Black 
River Township. He has a good orchard of five 
acres, a nice vineyard, and has perhaps one of the 
finest farms in the county. In addition to his 
home place, he has bought 200 acres joining it, 
and has ninety acres under cultivation. He has 






• >. 




three tenement houses on it, and gives homes and 
employment for three families. Mr. Webb believes 
in thorough farming, and so in addition to his 
crops of corn and cotton, he raise's all kinds of 
grain. He depends entirely for his support on the 
products of his farm. He was reared a Democrat, 
and voted with that party until the Wheel was 
organized in his county. He was solicited as a 
charter member June 27, 1884, for Wheel No. 
388, and since that time has thoroughly identified 
himself with that order, and in 1886 was nominated 
by the farmers for assessor, and elected. He has 
served in that capacity with credit to himself and 
his constituents. He and his wife are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a mem- 
ber of Sulphur Rock Lodge No. 1189, K. & L. of 
H. , and is one of those liberal, free-hearted men 
upon whom depends, to a great extent, the future 
progress of his country. His future prospects 
look bright. 

R. D. Williams. The merchants of Batesville 
have the reputation of being among the most en- 
terprising in Arkansas, and Mr. Williams stands 
in the foremost ranks of commercial life at that 
point. He was born in Henry County, Tenn., on 
October 28, 1836, and is a son of William R. and 
Evaline (Moody) Williams, of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, respectively. The parents were married in 
the latter State and moved to Arkansas about the 
year 1839, locating in Independence County. They 
remained here two years and then removed to 
Lawrence County, now Sharp County, and located 
near the county seat. Evening Shade. They were 
among the early settlers of that section, where the 
father's occupation was farming, and where they 
resided imtil the time of their death. They were 
the parents of eight children, of whom three only 
are living at present: Richard D., Cordelia, wife 
of M. G. Wainright, and Nancy J., wife of W. T. 
Cunningham. Richard was only three years old 
when he came to Lawrence County with his par- 
ents, and was educated in the common schools of 
that place. Some idea of the schools of that i)eriod 
may be obtained from the one he attended, which 
was merely a log cabin, and had nothing l)ut the 
bare earth to serve as a tloor. He remained on 



the farm until he reached maturity, and then oc- 
cupied a responsible position with a business house 
at Evening Shade, in which he was emjtloyed for 
two years. In 1858 he became a merchant himself, 
and carried on a profitable business until the war 
commenced, when he left it in charge of a friend 
and enlisted in Company D, Fourteenth Arkansas 
Regiment. He was taken violently ill shortly after 
joining the army and returned home, but after re- 
covering he again enlisted, becoming a member of 
Wade's Company, and served a short time in 
Price's raids through Missouri. He was captured 
near his home soon after this raid, l)Ut after two 
weeks' confinement was paroled, and after the sur 
render returned home and took charge of his busi- 
ness at Evening Shade, continuing there until the 
fall of 1887, when he moved to Batesville and 
0])('ned up a large and well stocked store. He 
still retains his interest in the business at Evening 
Shade, however, the firm there' being Williams, 
Price & Co. , while that one at Batesville is known 
as R. D. Williams & Co. He owns about 1,200 
acres of land in Sharp County, and has about 500 
acres under cultivation. Mr. Williams is a true 
representative of the wide-awake, active and en- 
terprising business man, and his ability has made 
him one of the mo.st successful men in commercial 
circles in Batesville. He was married in 1867 to 
Miss Mary E. Shaver, by whom he has one child 
living — Clara. He lost this wife," and was again 
married in 1882, his second wife l)eing Mrs. Mat- 
tie Wasson, widow of \V. G. Wiisson. Mr. M'il- 
liams is a member of the Masonic fraternity and 
the Knights of Honor, and, with his wife, attend-; 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

James Alfred Williamson, M. D.. a prominent 
physician of Elmo, whose name is familiar in many 
homes throughout Independence County, is a son of 
Alfred and (Caroline Virginia (Sanders) William.son, 
the former a native of Maine, and the latter of 
Kentucky. The parents were married near what is 
now Saloma. Taylor County, Ky., where James 
Alfred was born, on the 20th of March, 1857. 
The parents moved from Kentucky the same year, 
and settled in Arkansas, at a point near Batesville. 
where the father commenced i)racticing his pro 



724 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fession in addition to cultivating a farm. The Doc- 
tor was reared on the home farm, and educated in 
the schools of Independence County. After grad- 
uatinsr from these schools he took a course in liter- 
ature at the Batesville High School, and in 1880 
commenced the study of medicine under his father. 
He received his first course of lectures at the Mis- 
souri Medical College, of St. Louis, Mo., in 1882 
and 1883, and afterward located at Elmo, Ark., 
where he practiced until the fall of 1884, when he 
matriculated at Vanderbilt University, and gradu- 
ated that term, also graduating from the medical 
college at Nashville, Tenu. , in 1885. Dr. William- 
son was married to Miss Henry Clay Tunstall, of 
Arkansas, a daughter of Clay and Nancy (Arnold) 
Tunstall, both natives of Tennessee, but among 
the earlier settlers of the former State, and Clay 
Tunstall' s name is associated with much of Inde- 
pendence County's early development. To the 
Doctor' s marriage were born three children : Jessie, 
Basil and Imogene, and they contribute to make 
this one of the brightest and happiest homes in 
Northern Arkansas. The Doctor has built up a 
large practice in this section, and enjoys the con- 
fidence of everyone with whom he comes in contact. 
He is a general practitioner, and skillful in his pro- 
fession, having made it the study of his existence. 
In the winter season, when pneumonia, bronchitis, 
croup and kindred diseases are jirevalent, he has 
his hands full, and in the summer months, when 
malarial affections are lurking everywhere, he is 
one of the busiest men in that county. In politics 
the Doctor is a Democrat, and in religious faith he, 
with his wife, attends the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Dr. Williamson is a member of McGuire 
Lodge No. 208, Oil Trough, Independence County, 
and filled the chair of Senior Warden at one time, 
but is now the Senior Deacon. He also belongs 
to Oil Trough Chapter No. 84, at Oil Trough, and 
holds the position of Captain of the Host. 

W. G. Wilson is the mayor of Sulphur Rock, 
Ark., and is the proprietor at that place of one of 
the best livery stables in the county. He is a native- 
born resident of the county, his birth occurring in 
1837, and during his early youth and manhood he 
attended the subscription schools, and worked with 



his father on the home farm. On the 26th of Jan- 
uary, 1859, he was married to Miss Mary E. West, 
a native of the ' ' Bay State, ' ' who came with her 
parents to Arkansas when a child. Her death oc- 
curred on the 27th of January, 1873, and she left 
her husband and three children to mourn her loss, 
the names of the latter being: Ed. M. , Charley G. 
and Florence, who died aged twenty -seven years, 
the wife of Solon Burkett, and left two children. 
Mr. Wilson took for his second wife Miss R. F. 
Morgan, a native of Alabama, and the following 
childi'en have been given them: Emma, Myrtie, 
Bertha, Fay, and Julia A. Two children died 
when quite small. When ihe thunders of war re 
sounded through the land, Mr. Wilson enlisted in 
the Confederate army, in the First Arkansas Cav- 
alry, and served from July 26, 1862 to June 5, 
1865, surrendering at the latter date. He was in 
Little Rock, Helena, and various fights in Missouri, 
being with Price on his raid through the latter 
State. After the war he returned home and re- 
sumed farming, continuing until 1885, when he 
came to Sulphur Rock and embarked in his pres- 
ent business, which is one of the most popular es- 
tablishments of the kind in the county, and is meet- 
ing with well-deserved success. He has a fine 
farm, two miles north of Sulphur Rock, and is well 
fixed in a worldly point of view. In April, 1889, 
he was elected mayor of Sulphui- Rock, Ark., and 
also served part of an unexpired term of the pre- 
vious year. Besides this, he served one term as 
constable and four terms as justice of the peace. 
He belongs to the Blue Lodge of the A. F. &A. M., 
is a Royal Arch Mason, and Royal and Select 
Master Mason, and is a member of the K. and L. 
of Honor. In his religious views he is a Methodist. 
He is one of the substantial residents of the county, 
and is well known and highly respected by all. 
His parents, William M. and Hannah (Masters) 
Wilson, were born in Tennessee and Missouri, re- 
spectively. The father moved to the mother's na- 
tive State after reaching manhood, and afterward 
went to Arkansas, and located in Independence 
County, where he died in November, 1864, at the 
age of seventy-five years, followed by his wife in 
November, 1868. Of the ten children born to 



*^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



725 



them, only two are living — our subject, W. G. 
Wilson and his sister, Mrs. Davidson. 

Samuel M. ^\'yatt, a genial and popular farmer 
and stock raiser, of Independence County, was 
born in Davidson County, Tenn., in 1S37, and is 
a sou of Isaac and Eleanor (McCutchen) Wyatt, of 
North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, the 
mother dying when Samuel was four years of age. 
The father moved to Gibson County, Tenn., the 
following year after her death, where he resided 
until 1857, and then came to Independence Coun- 
ty, Ark., spending the balance of his life in that lo- 
cality. He was a prosperous and highly-respected 
farmer at the time of his death, in 1885, and a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. His parents both 
died when he was still very young, and he was 
reared by an uncle in Tennessee. After the death 
of his wife he sincerely mourned her absence, and 
remained a widower all his life. Mrs. Wyatt' s 
parents were natives of Ireland, who emigrated to 
America and settled in Tennessee, where they re- 
sided until their decease. The father, John Mc- 
Cutchen, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and 
fought under Gen. Jackson, at the battle of New 
Orleans. Samuel was the fourth child of one son 
and four daughters born to his parents, and re- 
ceived a good common school education in his 
young days. He moved to Arkansas with his fa- 
ther and sisters, and has made that State his home 
ever since. When the war broke out he cast his 
lot with the Confederate army, and enlisted in 
the First Arkansas Mounted Riflemen, operating 
through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Florida, and, in 
fact, all the Confederate States. He took part in 
almost all of the principal battles during that mem- 
orable period, besides a great number of skirmishes 
and minor engagements, and though the Confed- 
eracy had followers for her cause whose names 
are far better known to the world, she had no 
braver soldier than Mr. Wyatt. After his surren- 
der at Jacksouport, in 18(55, he returned to his 
farm, and again commenced cultivating the soil. 
In 1S()7 he was married, in Independence County, 
to Mrs. Mary Gainer, a charming young widow, 
and a daughter of John and Tobitha Rodman, of 



famous old Bourbon County, Ky. Two sons and 
one daughter were born to this union: Isaac R., 
John and Mamie. Immediately after his marriage 
Mr. Wyatt settled on 'VN'hite River, and commenced 
farming in that neighborhood, residing there ever 
since. He has become one of the leading farmers 
in that section, and now owns about 1,000 acres of 
land, in different tracts, with about 500 acres un- 
der cultivation. He inherited a portion of his 
land, but the greater part has been derived from 
his own industry and enterprise, and outside of 
being a practical farmer he is a wide-awake and 
energetic business man. In politics he is a Dem- 
ocrat, and has been a stanch adher(>nt to that party 
all his life. Mrs. Wyatt is a member of the Epis 
copal Church, and a devoted wife and mother, who 
makes her home one of the most pleasant iu Indi' 
pendence County. 

William C. Wyatt is a successful farmer and 
stockman of Independence County, Ark. . iind is a 
man who, by his sterling characteristics and genial 
and hospitable disposition, has won a host of warm 
friends, and the universal respect of those whom 
he meets. He is a son of James and Martha 
(Davis) Wyatt, the former a native of North Caro- 
lina, and the mother of old Virginia, and of Swiss 
and Scotch descent, respectively. The paternal 
ancestry is traced back as far as the great-grand- 
father, and the grandfather particijiated in the 
Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, in the 
latter war taking part in the battle of New Orleans. 
His death oecuiTed while coming home from that 
battle. In the year 1852 James Wyatt emigrated 
with his family to Arkansas and located in Inde- 
pendence County, where he turned his attention to 
farming, an occupation which he had always fol- 
lowed, on forty acres of land which he had pur 
chased. He cleared this of timber, and many of 
his early days were spent in hunting, his trusty 

I rifle bringing down many wolves, bear, panthers, ( 
deer and wild turkeys. In 18(57 Mr. Wyatt re 
turned to Tennessee, where he had lived a numl>er 

i of years, to dispose of his possessions there, and 
after receiving the money for the sale of his land 
he started for his home in Arkansas, but. after 
crossing the Tennessee River, he disappeared and 



'.^ 



120, 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



has never been heard from since. He is supposed 
to have been killed for his money, and his family 
mourn him as dead. William C. Wratt was one 
of his eight children, and was the fourth in order 
of birth, this event occurring on the 5th of January, 
1842. He came to Arkansas when ten years of 
age, and was reared to farm life and educated in 
this State. When the war broke out he enlisted 
in Company B, Eighth Arkansas Volunteer Infan- 
try, United States Army, and participated in the bat- 
tles of Stone River, Perryville, being captured at 
the former battle on the Slat of December, 1862, 
anil was exchanged on the 22d of March, 1863. 
In the same engagement in which he was captured 
he was severely wounded, having his left arm 
broken, but thinks he has now entirely recovered. 
After being exchanged at Petersburg he returned 
home on furlough, and this ended his services as a 
soldier. On the 18th of January, 1866, he was 
married to Miss Mary M. Dodd, a native of Arkan- 
sas, and a daughter of Abner H. and Mary Jane 
(Martin) Dodd. the father born in Tennessee and 
the mother in Kentucky, the latter being a great- 
granddaughter of Col. Ben Hardin, of Kentucky. 
To Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt have been born the fol- 
lowing children: William Abner, who was born on 
the 25th of November, 1866; Andrew David, who 
was born August 11. 1869; George Washington, 
who was born July 24, 1877, and Edna Inez, born 
January 14, 1887. Mr. Wyatt made his first pur- 
chase of land in 1876, it consisting of forty acres 
of timber land, and has added to it until he now 
has seventy-eight acres in the home farm, the re- 
mainder being inherited by Mrs. Wyatt from her 
father's estate. About fifteen acres were under 
cultivation, and he now has thirty-five acres cleared 
and improved. He has a good frame dwelling 
house and substantial barns, stables, etc. His en- 
tire acreage at the present time amounts to 290 
acres, with sixty- five under cultivation. He and 
wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and he is a Democrat in his jiolitical views, and is 
a warm friend of progress, and a liberal contributor 
to all worthy enterprises. 

M. A. Wycough, county clerk of Independence 
County, and one of its most scholarly men, was 



born February 3, 1835, and is a son of Samuel B. 
and Malinda H. (Bandy) Wycough, of Lincoln 
County, N. C. In 1835 the parents emigrated to 
Independence County, Ark., and located at Bates- 
ville, where their son was born. The father was 
a carpenter, and master of his trade, as some of 
the finest buildings in Batesville, and also some of 
the first, will testify. He held the office of county 
treasurer for five successive terms, and also repre- 
rented Independence County in the legislature for 
one term, and was one of the most prominent and 
brilliant politicians in Independence County at 
that period. His word carried considerable weight, 
and his influence was eagerly sought after by 
others. The Wycough family are of German ori- 
gin, and the name has been illustrious for several 
generations as soldiers, statesmen and honorable 
men. The grandfather was a soldier in the War 
of 1812, and his bravery was often the theme of 
conversation among his fellow-comrades, while 
Samuel B. Wycough, though dying in 1880. his 
brilliant career in the political arena is still remem- 
bered in Arkansas. The mother died in 1864, 
leaving: eight children, of whom five are still liv- 
ing: Marion A., Martin A. R. , Samuel B. , Henry 
C. and William H. , the latter a Presbyterian min- 
ister in Texas. M. A. Wycough was reared and 
educated at Batesville. The facilities for attend- 
ing school at that period were very limited, conse- 
quently young Wycough did not receive quite the 
learning that he wished for, but his natural ability 
and bright intellect made up for any deficiency. 
At fifteen years of age he occupied a position of 
trust for several years, with a firm in Batesville, 
and then followed the carpenter's trade for a 
number of years after his marriage. In 1861 he 
enlisted in Capt. McGutfin's company, and accom- 
panied Gen. Price in his raids through Missouri, 
and while on a scouting expedition, he received a 
gunshot wound in the left foot. After the war 
Mr. Wycough entered into commercial life up to 
the time of his election to the present office, in 
1879. He took charge of the position in 1880, 
and his distinguished services have been recog- 
nized to that extent that he has been re elected 
five times in succession — the first and third terms 



<s - 






*-^ 



INDEPENDENCE COUNTY. 



727 



[ 



without opposition. Iq 185(5 he was married to 
Miss Emma A. Bevins, and has had thro(< childnMi 
by this union, of whom one is yet living, Ralph, 
who resides in Colorado. Mr. Wyeough was mar- 
ried a second time, in 1870, to Miss Sarah J. Ken- 
nedy, by whom he has had two children, one of 
them, Jessie, still living. He is a stanch Demo- 
crat, and that party has no more able and loyal 
supporter. Mr. Wyeough and wife are both mem- 
bers of the Presbyterian Church, and are much 
respected by their neighbors and follow citizens. 

M. A. R. Wyeough, who has the honor of be- 
ing the oldest native-born individual in Batesville, 
was born in that city, on November 27, 1839, and 
is a son of Samuel B. and Maliuda H. (Bandy) 
^^'ycough, of North Carolina, who emigrated to 
Arkansas, in February, 1835, and located at Bates- 
ville, where the father died. Mr. Wyeough was 
reared and educated in Batesville, and reached his 
nuiturity in the same year that the Civil War com- 
menced. He enlisted in Company K. First Ar- 
kansas Mounted Riflemen, and served with that 
body until after the battle of Murfreeslioro. in 
1863, when he was granted a furloiigli and returned 
to his home. He again entered the army, joining 
Crabtree's cavalry, and was assigned to the quart- 
ermaster's department. He was present at the 
battles of Oak Hill, Elkhorn. Farmington, Mur 
fi'eesboro and in Price's raids through Missouri, 
up to Jefferson City, where he was captured and 
taken prisoner to St. Louis, Mo. . and kept in con- 
tineiueat until February 25. 1865. He was then 
exchanged, and went to Richmond, but immediately 
left for Mobile and from there to Jackson, Miss. , 
where he was paroled, and came home. On his re- 
turn he commenced farming and speculating, and 
also keel boating to some extent from Jacksonport 
to Batesville. Shortly after settling down at Bates- 
ville again, he was elected deputy sheriff, collector 
and clerk, liolding that office for about twelve 
years, and for a short period was engaged in the 
United States revenue office. He has also been 
the assistant assessor of Independence County, but 
during all this time he still continued looking after 
his farm interests, and at the present time owns 
about 2,000 acres of land, with some 800 acres 



, under cultivation. In 1865 Mr. Wvcouwh was 
married to Mrs. Catherine E. Cullens, a pleasant 
lady and widow of James Cullens. Four children 
were born to this marriage, two boys, now deceased, 
and two girls: Monnie M. , wife of C. W. Maxfield, 
and Nettie A. The wife died in 1872, and on July 
14, 1873, he was again married, his second wife 
being Miss Mary E. Neely, by whom he has had 

j three children: LilJie Lee, and two boys, now de- 
ceased. This wife died in 1877, and after his 
period of mourning, Mr. Wyeough was maiTied a 
third time, the lady being Miss E. A. Boone, of 

I Callaway County, Mo., by whom he has had two 
children, Emma A. and Agnes B. Mr. Wyeough is 
a Mason and has been secretary of the Blue Lodge 
for some time. He is a member of the Knights of 
Honor, and in religious faith belongs to and at- 
tends the Methodist Episcopal Church, with his 
wife, having served on the official l)oard for a num- 
ber of years. For several years he was engaged 
in commercial life, but gave it up on finding that 
his farms would need all of his attention, and 

! since then he has built uj) and improved it so well 
that he now owns one of the finest farms in North- 
east Arkansas; together with some very valuable 
town property. He is an enterprising man. and a 
prominent figure in Batesville circles, where he 
enjoys a large degree of popularity. 

Col. J. C. Yancey, a prominent attorney of 
Batesville, and a man of brilliant attainments, 
whose words of eloquence have often been heard 
in the halls of justice, was born in Orange County, 
Va. , on July 10, 1853. He is a sou of James E. 
and Mary E. (Waller) Yancey, both natives of the 
same county in Virginia, who moved to Jefferson 
County, Ky., in 1859. and remained at that place 
until 1873, when they repaired to Phillips County, 
Ark., in which ])lace the father died in 1876, while 
the mother still survives him, and resides in that 
county. They were the parents of sis children: 
Archilles N., Charles C, Elizabeth, Amelia, John 
C. and George W. Col. Yancey was reared in 
Virginia and Kentucky, and received his education 
from the schools of both States, his inclination for 
the law being developed at an early age. At eight- 

] een years of age he began the study of law, and 



nr>c 



'k 




in 1874 was admitted to the bar in Crittenden 
County, Ark. , where he practiced about one year. 
He then formed a partnership with Col. A. Crockett, 
a grandson of famous Davy Crockett, and moved 
to Arkansas County, Ark., to practice. They re 
mained at this place until 1878, when Col. Yancey 
came to Batesville, and established a law office, 
where he practiced alone until 1882, and then 
formed a partnership with Col. H. S. Coleman, 
under the firm name of Coleman & Yancey. In 
1885 Col. Yancey was elected to the XXVth Gen- 
eral Assembly, serving one term, and in 1889 
was elected mayor of Batesville, an office he holds 
at the present time, and fills with distinction. In 
1884 he was married to Miss Ella A. Dunnington, 



by whom he has had three children: Nona W., 
Dunnington A. and James C. Col. Yancey is a 
man of excellent ability, and one whose oratory 
at times is grand. His shrewdness and foresight 
have won for him many cases, where facts and 
argument were needed, and his eloquent addresses 
to many a jury have given him victory where it 
needed a man who could play upon the human 
heart. He is attorney for the Keystone Mining 
Company, and is president of the Telephone Com- 
pany of Batesville. Also president of the Char- 
coal and Chemical Plant, and a principal stockholder 
in the Bank of Batesville, and also interested in the 
Batesville Printing Company, and Oil Trough Tel- 
ephone Company. 




-In- 



:fv: 



SHAKP COUNTY. 



729 



SiiAiti- County — Lo(;ation and TopooitAi-iiY -Tiih Watkk Sui'FLy— Minkkals, Timbkk and 8uii.- 
Pkoducts— Valuation of Puoperty— Public Highways— Population— Erection of the 
County— The J.egal Centkk— County BuiLDiN(is— Days of the Pioneers- Law 
AND EyuiTY Practiced— The Stkugqle over Slavery and Secession 
—Villages Located and Described— School Statistics- 
Church People— Catalogue of County Offi- 
cers—Personal and Business Memo- 
randa—Elections. 



' The liusy world shoves angrily aside 
The man who stands with arms akimbo set 
Until occasion tells him what to do."' 




^HARP COUNTY, lying in the 
northern tier of coiinties in 
Arkansas, is bounded north 
by Oregon County, Mo., east 
by Randolph and Lawrence, 
south by Independence, and 
west by Izard and Fulton 
counties, in Arkansas. It has an 
area of 290 square miles, or about 
377,600 acres, of which nearly 
60,000 belong to the United States, 
about 20,000 to the State, and the 
remainder to individuals, and to 
mining, timber and railroad com- 
panies. 

The boundary lines of the county 
are as follows: Beginning at the 
southeast corner of Township 15 north. Range 4 
west; thence north on the range line to the line 
between Townships 18 and 19 north; thence east 
on the township line to the south-east corner of 
Section 85, Township 19 north. Range 3 west; 
thence north on section lines three miles; thence 
west on the section line one mile; thence north on 

46 



section lines live miles; thence in a northwesterly 
direction on the line between Sharp and Ran- 
dolph Counties to the State line; thence west, 
about eighty rods, to the line dividing Ranges 
4 and 5 west; thence south on the range line 
to the northeast corner of Township 19 north, 
Range 5 west; thence west to the northwest 
corner of said Congressional township; thence 
south to the southwest corner of the same; thence 
west on the township line to the northwest corner 
of Section 1, Township 18 north, Range 7 west: 
thence south on section lines to the middle of said 
township; thence east one mile to the range line; 
thence south on the range line to the northeast 
corner of Section 36, Township 16 north. Range 7 
west; thence west one and a half miles; thence 
south on sub-divisional lines to the middle of Town- 
ship 15 north; thence east on section lines to the 
line between Ranges 4 and 5 west; thence south 
on the range line to the line between Town- 
ships 14 and 15 north; thence ea.st on the town- 
ship line to the place of beginning. 

The most of the surface lies high and dry, and 
is drained by waters flowing south tributary to 



i V 



■^j]^ w- 



730 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



White River, and others flowing east tributary to 
Black River. It is classed in the State with the 
northern barrens and hill region. Its surface pre- 
sents a variety of features, some portions being 
hilly and broken, others rolling or undulating, 
with summit plateaus, while still other portions 
eshil)it a level or flat surface. The ridges, which 
are from tifty to three hundred feet high, show 
outcroppings of sandstone and cherty limestone. 

The principal difficulty encountered on some 
of the uplands consists in the loose rocks and 
bowlders lying scattered on the surface or slightly 
embedded in the earth; but, when these are re- 
moved, there remains a light soil, easily cultivated 
and always possessing to a greater or less extent 
the elements of fertility. The valley and bottom 
lands are dark loams, very rich and productive, 
usually drained by clear and never- failing streams 
of wholesome water. The latter, however, com- 
pose but a small percentage of the area of the 
county. A large portion of the uplands, as well 
as all of the valley lands, are comparatively free 
from rocks, and as the growth of timber is light 
upon the former it is easily cleared for the plow. 

Spring River, flowing from the great Mammoth 
Spring of Fulton County, enters Sharp from tte 
north, near the middle of the north line of Town- 
ship 19 north. Range 5 west, flows thence in 
a southeasterly direction across the county, and 
contains several good mill seats on its route. 
South Fork, its principal tributary from the west, 
enters the county at the northwest corner of 
the Congressional township just described, and 
empties into Spring River in the same township. 
Martin's Creek rises in the extreme northern por- 
tion, and flowing southwardly, empties into Spring 
River, in Range 3 west. Many smaller streams 
empty into this river within the county. Straw- 
berry River enters from the west, and flowing a 
little south of east on its general course, crosses 
the south central portion, its route also offering a 
number of desiraVjle sites for mills. Piney Fork, 
another important stream, makes its appearance 
from the west a few miles south of Strawberry 
River, and empties into the latter in the south- 
west part of Township 17 north. Range o west. 



William's, or South Big Creek, and also Reed's 
Creek flow into Strawberry River from the south, 
while North Big Creek. Mill and Harry's Creeks 
join it from the north. Many smaller streams also 
find an outlet here. Polk Bayou and Sullivan's 
Creek, rising in the southwestern portion of 
the county, flow into White River. Cave Spring, 
a large body of water, flows through a cavern a 
few yards from the road leading from Evening 
Shade to Batesville. at a point about ten miles 
south of the former place. There are numerous 
springs in this vicinity, all producing cold, clear 
and pure water unexcelled in quality. Good 
well water can also be obtained in many places at 
a moderate depth, but where springs are not con- 
venient, cisterns are generally in use. The streams 
mentioned are not sluggish, but run with a swift 
current, thus making the water pure and healthful 
for stock. 

Sharp County lies in the mineral belt, and zinc 
has been successfully mined and smelted at Cala- 
mine, on Section 22, Township 16 north. Range 4 
west, in its southeast part, and also on Sections 
12, 28 and 29, Township 18 north, Range 4 
west, and there are indications of its existence 
in other localities. Evidences of the presence 
of copper have been discovered in Section 32, 
Township 17 north. Range 6 west. Some two 
miles from Calamine, in Sections 22, 23, 25 and 
30, Township 10 north. Range 4 west, and the 
surrounding region, lies an immense bed of pot 
iron or looking-glass ore. Here, before the late 
war, iron was successfully made in a rude furnace, 
operated by Bevens & Co. The iron was of a 
fine quality, and found a readj' sale then. The 
supply of ore is said to be almost inexhaustible. 
Hematite is found in various parts of the county, 
cropping out and lying loosely about the ground. 
Lead ore has also been found in the county, but 
its extent has not been ascertained. The best 
of lime has been made at Calamine and other 
points, and a light-grey, nearly white, marble, 
which takes on a fine polish, and has been used 
for grave-stones, lies in illimitable (juantities near 
Highland, and but a few miles from Hardy. Good 
building stone may be had in various sections. 



SHARP COUNTY. 



731 



The timber growth of tlip county includes pine, 
all the varieties of oak, walnut, hickory, ash, syca- 
more, elm, gum and cedar. In the southwestern 
portion is a belt of yellow pine, of excellent quality. 
This pine region is about fifteen miles long and 
from two to five miles wide. Several good saw- 
mills are now at work in this region, converting 
the pine trees into lumber for the local trade. * 

The resources of the county are almost entirely 
agricultural, but the natural mineral and horti- 
cultural provisions, if developed, might be made 
very profitable. But little scientific farming has 
been done. Clover and the tame grasses, thousrh 
they are said to do well, have scarcely been 
introduced. Individuals seem content to raise 
such crops of cotton and corn as the land will 
produce without re-fertilizing it. More thorough 
methods of farming must come. In 1880 the 
county contained 1,183 farms and 44,674 acres of 
improved land. The vegetable productions for 
the year 1879, as shown by the United States 
census of 1880, were as follows: Indian corn, 
432,570 bushels; oats. 52,241 bushels; wheat, 
18,908 bushels; hay, 282 tons; Cotton, 4,350 
bales; Irish potatoes, 4,285 bushels; sweet pota- 
toes, 5,917 bushels; tobacco, 10,070 lbs. 

The number of head of live stock, as given by ; 
the same census, was: Horses, 2,186; mules and j 
asses, 960; neat cattle, 8,653; sheep, 8,458; hogs, I 
19.731. The number, as shown by the assessment 
rolls for 1888, was: Horses, 2.31 1 ; mules and asses, 
1.003; neat cattle, 11,149; sheep, 7,535; hogs, 14,- 
497. The apparent decrease in the number of sheep 
and hogs is accounted for by the fact that the as- 
sessment rolls show only those on hand when the 
assessment was taken, and do not, like the census 
of 1880, include the number slaughtered and oth- 
erwise disposed of during the year. The census of 
1890 will show a large increase over that of 1880. 
The county is well adapted to the raising of live 
stock, the winters being so mild and the range so 
extensive that but little shelter or feed are required. 
The stock industry can easily be made a very pro- 
fitable occupation. 

*CJuotalions from North Arkansas Land Company's 
description of Sliarp County. 



In 1880 the real estate of Sharp County was 
assessed for taxation at $426, 363, and the personal 
property at $363,420. making a total of $788,783, 
on which an aggregate amount of taxes to the 
extent of $11,596 was charged. In 1888 the real 
estate assessment was $754,901, and personal prop 
erty, $502,085, making a total of S1,256,9S6. 
The total taxes reached $ 1 2, 752. This comparison 
shows that since 1880 the taxable wealth of the 
county has increased nearly sixty per cent, while 
the amount of taxes charged is only a trifle more. 

The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Rail- 
road passes through and across the northern part 
of the county, in the valley of Spring River. It 
is assessed for taxation here at $173,4U6. 

The population of the county in 1870 was : 
White. 5,286; colored, 114; total 5,400. In 1880 
it was white, 8,871; colored. 176; total 9,047. 
This shows an increase from 1870 to 1880, of a 
little over sixty-seven per cent of the white popu- 
lation and a little over fifty-four per ceat of the 
colored. The immigration l)eing somewhat rapid, 
the next census will probably present a still larger 
growth. 

The organization of this territory was in accord- 
ance with an act of the General Assembly of the 
State, approved in July, 1868. It was named after 
E. Sharp, one of the representatives of the dis- 
trict composed of Lawrence, Randolph and 
Greene Counties, and who presented the bill for 
its formation. The territory composing it was 
nearly all taken fi-om Lawrence County. By sub- 
sequent acts of the General Assembly, the original 
boundary lines have been slightly changed .so as to 
conform to the present limit, as elsewhere noted. 
The county is now divided into eighteen municipal 
townships. 

Upon the organization of the county the seat of 
justice was located at Evening Shade, where it still 
remains, though strenuous efforts have been put 
forth for a change to a more central point. Soon 
after the seat of justice was determined upon, work 
was commenced for the construction of a court- 
house which was completed not later than 1H70. 
This house was a two-story frame, al)0ut 40x60 feet 
in size, with office rooms below, and the court-room 



:e 



732 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



above. It stood until 1879, whea it was consumed 
by fire, together with nearly all of the public 
records. It is not known how the fire occiUTed. 
Since then the county has rented and still con- 
tinues to rent a building for a court-house. A 
very substantial wooden jail with an eighteen-inch 
wall made of planks securely spiked together, 
containing two rooms with a "cage" in one of 
them, was constructed soon after the county was 
organized. It is still standing and is in use. The 
county owns a "poor farm" consisting of 165 
acres, located in Washington Township, on which 
there are good and comfortable buildings for the 
use of the paupers of the county, and the super- 
intendent of the farm. The contract for the 
keeping of the paupers is annually let to the low- 
est responsible bidder. The poor are here well 
cared for. 

Among the pioneer settlers of (now) Sharp 
County were John King, who settled where Center 
postofiice is now located; Robert Lott, who located 
two miles west; Nicholas Norris and his son-in-law, 
William McKinley, who settled on Strawberry 
River, all about the year 1810. Prominent among 
the pioneers along Spring River were William 
Morgan, at the mouth of Rock Creek; William J. 
Gray, William Williford, Solomon Hudspeth, 
Colby Crawford, Stephen English, Robert J. 
Moore, Joseph Kellett, John Walker, Samuel 
Beasley and L. D. Dale. Ferguson B. Boothe 
settled at the head of Martin's Creek, John C. 
Garner and his four sisters farther down, and Jo- 
seph Kellett at the mouth of the same creek. Mr. 
Garner and two of his sisters, Mrs. Wilkinson and 
Mrs. Baker, all at a very advanced age, are living 
at this time. John and Joseph Hardin, R. P. 
Smithee, John MUliggan and J. W. Mobley were 
early settlers on Reed's Creek. John M. Vanhoo- 
zer, William Norris and Serrel Mobley early made 
a home on South Big Creek. The first settlers in 
the southwest part of the county were John Luce, 
Josiah Richardson, Plummer Baxter, A. J. Hodges 
and Judge A. H. Nuun, whose settlement dates 
fi-om early in the 40' s, and Col. William G. Math- 
eny, a pioneer of 1849. 

The many very old jjeople now residing in the 



county, who have lived here nearly all their lives, 
prove that this is a remarkably healthy section, 
notwithstanding all that can be said to the con- 
trary. Several of the old settlers named are over 
eighty years of age, and two ladies, Mrs. Sarah 
Galloway and Miss Mary Caton, mention of whom 
should not be omitted, are ninety-eight and eighty- 
eight years of age, respectively. In 1876 there 
were in the county, by actual count, seventy-four 
persons each over seventy years old. 

The county court of Sharp County convenes 
for its regular sessions on the first Mondays of Jan- 
uary, April, July and October of each year, and 
the probate court on the first Mondays of February, 
May, August and November. The circuit court 
convenes for its regular sessions on the first Mon- 
days of June and December of each year. This 
county belongs to the Third judicial district, of 
which J. \V. Butler, of Batesville, is the present 
judge. 

The legal liar of the county consists of the fol- 
lowing named attorneys: Col. J. L. Abernethy, 
S. H. Davidson (present State senator), John B. 
McCaleb, W. A. Turner, and A. J. Porter, the 
present county judge. 

There has never been an execution for the of- 
fense of murder committed within Sharp County. 
A few years ago, however, one Joseph Camp was 
tried at Evening Shade, upon a change of venue 
from another county, for the killing of one Hulsey, 
was found guilty, and was hanged for the otfense. 
For crimes committed within the county, there 
has been no conviction for murder in the first de- 
gree, and but one in the second degree, and two 
for manslaughter. Neither have there been but 
few homicides. The laws are generally well en- 
forced, and the citizens are law-abiding. 

At the beginning of the Civil War of 1861-65, 
the citizens of this locality were, with only a few 
exceptions, in full sympathy with the proposed 
Southern Confederacy, and did all in their power 
to help establish it. There were but a few Union 
men, and they refugeed to the North. A number 
of companies of soldiers commanded, respectively, 
byCapts. M'illiam Adams, William G. Matheny, A. 
H. Nunn, M. V. Shaver, and perhaps others, were 



^} 










■^cA^ot, 



Mississippi UoiiMTV Ahkamsas. 



SHAEP COUNTY. 



733 



recruited and organized in Lawrence County, from 
that part which now composes Sharp, for the Con- 
federate army, in which they served during the 
war. No engagement worthy of mention took 
jilace here, until the spring of 1864, when Col. 
Freeman and Maj. M. V. Shaver, with the Third 
Missouri Confederate Cavalry, met Col. Woods, 
with a Kansas regiment of Federal cavalry, on the 
Baker farm on Martin's Creek, in what is now the 
northern part of the county. On this occasion the 
Federal troops were routed and compelled to fall 
back toward headquarters, at Batesville, suffering 
some loss. There was no bushwacking amoncr the 
citizens during the war, but several persons were 
killed by scouting parties passing through. The 
territory was generally over-run and devastated of 
its provisions, in consequence of which considera- 
ble suffering resulted for the want of food. 

Sharp County can boast of no large towns, but 
it has a number of small villages distributed to 
suit the convenience of the people. 

Ash Flat, located on Section 10, in Richwoods 
Township, contains four general stores, a drug 
store, a grocery and saddlery store, two blacksmith 
shops, two church edifices (one of which is also 
used for school purposes), a grist and flouring-mill 
and cotton-gin coml)ined, a saw-mill and cotton- 
gin combined, one hotel, a lodge each of Masons, 
Eastern Star, and Knights and Ladies of Honor, 
one physician, and has a population of about 200. 
It is located in the best agricultural district of the 
county, and enjoys a considerable trade. 

Some time prior to 1849 a postoffice was estab- 
lished in the hollow south of the east end of what 
is now the business street of Evening Shade. The 
office was so situated that after 3 o'clock P. M. of 
each day it remained in the shade of the tall pines 
standing on the rising groimds south and west, and 
for this reason it was named Evening Shade, the 
name that the place still retains. In June, 1849, 
Samuel Cammack opened the first store here. The 
site of its location is now occupied by the business 
street of the town, immediately in front of the 
present store of R. D. Williams. The building 
containing the gootls was a canvas tent, with the 
rear end boarded up, the lock used at the front being 



a large and savage female bull-dog. In September 
following, J. W. Shaver joined Mr. Cammack in 
the business, and together they formed the firm of 
Shaver & Cammack. About 1852 a party of na- 
tives met J. M. Hiland, a young man from Ten- 
nessee, in a saloon kept by one William Vanghaii, 
and there gave him rum until he became intoxi- 
cated, after which he was induced to play cards. 
The victim was soon dispossessed of his money — a 
considerable amount. Upon sobering up, he ex- 
claimed: "They gave me rum, and hooked my 
money." In consequence of this. Evening Shade 
was, for many years, vulgarly called ' ' Hook lium. ' ' 

At the beginning of the Civil War, Evening 
Shade contained three stores and a saloon, and 
about 100 inhabitants. It now has two general 
stores, two groceries, a drug store, bookstore, two 
hotels, mechanics' shops, a large public school- 
house, three church edifices, three grist-mills, two 
cotton-gins, five saw-mills, in the town and its im- 
mediate vicinity; two shingle-mills, two wool-card- 
ing mills, a bed spring manufactory; a lodge, 
Chapter and Eastern Star lodge of the Masonic 
fraternity, and a lodge each of Odd- Fellows, 
Knights of Honor and Knights and Ladies of 
Honor, also five physicians, a real estate agent and 
an insurance agent. Society is refined and culti- 
vated; the town offers attractive advantages; it is a 
pleasant place in which to live, and a large amount 
of business is transacted. The population is about 
350. The Sharp County Record, a weekly news- 
paper, in its twelfth volume, is published here by 
E. G. Henderson, its proprietor. It is well edited 
and advocates Democratic principles, though ably 
serving the general interests of its community. 

Hardy, located on Spring River and on the Kan- 
sas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railroad, consist* 
of the railroad buildings, a general store, drug 
store, saloon, blacksmith shop, cotton-gin, a school- 
house, church and Masonic hall combined, and 
about twenty families. Williford, on the same 
river and railroad, ten miles below Hardy, has 
three general stores, a saloon, cotton-gin, black- 
smith shop, railroad section house, a school- house 
used also for religiojis services, and two stone 
quarries. 



<S w_ 



734 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



At each of these places is a postofiSce, the one 
at Evening Shade being the only money order 
ofiBce within the county. Other postoffices and 
post-hamlets, the latter having a store or black- 
smith shop, and sometimes both, are Armstrong, 
Calamine, Canton. Center, Coats, Grange, King's 
Mills, Loyal, Martin's Creek, Maxville, Polk Bayou, 
Poughkeepsie, Reed's Creek, Sidney and Winsted. 

The subject of education has not been lost sight 
of in the progress and advancement of other mat- 
ters. In 1873 a two-story frame college building, 
40x80 feet in size, was erected at Evening Shade, 
and a college was incorporated, but never supplied 
with a faculty. The building, however, was used 
for school purposes until 1882, when it was con- 
sumed by fire. In general, the people of Sharp 
County are in favor of popular education. This is 
evidenced by the fact that nearly, if not all, the 
districts recently voted a local school tax for 1889. 
The following statistics are taken from the offi- 
cial report of the State superintendent of public 
instruction for the year ending June 30, 1888: 
Scholastic popiUation — White 3,909; colored 66; 
total 3,975. Enrollment in the public schools — 
White, 2,'2'28; colored, 13; total, 2,241. Number 
of districts 06; number reporting enrollment 45; 
teachers employed 45; number of institutes held 2; 
number of teachers attending 33: average monthly 
salaries paid teachers — first grade, males $42.50, 
females $40.00; second grade, males $37.50, 
females $35.00; third grade, males $27.50; females 
$25.00. If these figures indicate a true condition 
of the schools of the county, it readily appears 
that only 57 per cent of the white and only 20 
per cent of the colored scholastic population at- 
tended the public schools. In submitting the 
above figures to the State superintendent, P. H. 
Wilkerson, the county examiner, complaining of the 
failure of school directors to make full reports, said: 
' ' The reports are never correct excepting the num- 
ber of children; all other data are almost entirely 
neglected." Evidently the school law should be 
thoroughly revised, so as to compel full and com- 
plete reports of all school officers. It is argued 
here by those most favorable to popular education 
that all school tuition taxes should be levied by 



the State, collected into the treasury, and distrib- 
uted pro rata to the scholastic population of the 
State. This would give to each and all an equal 
share of the school fund, and dispense with all 
contention and quarreling in school districts about 
the levy of taxes. The amount expended in Sharp 
County for the sujjport of the public schools for 
the year referred to was $7,499.75. 

The religious denominations of Sharp County 
are the Methodist Episcopal, South, Baptist, Chris- 
tian, Cumberland Presbyterian and one or two 
organi;zations of the Methodist Episcopal and 
Methodist Protestant Churches. The Methodist 
Episcopal Church at Evening Shade belongs to 
the Evening Shade Circuit, the other appointments 
all being in Izard County, where proper men- 
tion is made. Ash Flat Circuit of the Methodist 
Episcopal Chui'ch, South, Rev. F. M. Smith, pas- 
tor, has eight appointments: Ash Flat, Shiloh, 
Liberty Hill, Bethlehem, Pleasant Hill, Pleas- 
ant Ridge, Stacy Church and Hickory Flat — 
the latter two being in Izard County — with an 
aggregate membership of 320. The Mammoth 
Spring Circuit, composed of Mammoth Spring, 
in Fulton County, and Hardy and AVilliford, 
in Sharp County, Rev. J. F. Troy, pastor, has 
a membershiji of forty-five, as given in the last 
conference minutes. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, at Maxville, in this county, be- 
longs to Bethesda Circuit, in Independence Coun- 
ty. All these belong to the Batesville District. 
An organization of this denomination at Cala- 
mine, another at Cross Roads and another in 
that vicinity belong to the Calamine Circuit, of 
Newport District. Other appointments outside 
of the county belong to this circuit. Rev. S. W. 
Register is the pastor, and the aggregate mem- 
bership is 231. 

The Baptist Church organizations within the 
county are Evening Shade, Ash Flat, Bethlehem, 
Pleasant Hill, George's Camp Ground, aud Big 
Creek. Rev. J. L. Foard is pastor of all except 
the latter, of which Rev. William Johnson has 
charge. 

Of the Christian Church the following organi- 
zations are well known: Ash Flat, Evening Shade, 



Center, Blannville, Poughkeepsie, and one in the 
Higginbottom neighborhood, iu the northeast part 
of t)ie county, none of which have a regular pas- 
tor at this writing. 

The Cumberland Presbyterians have a congre- 
gation at Mt. Carmel, one near Calamine, and one 
near Highland. Rev. A. C. Evans is pastor at 
Mt. Carmel. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church has an organ- 
ization at Powell's Chapel, six miles east, and one 
at Pine Hill, four miles northwest of Evening 
Shade. The Methodist Protestants have an organ- 
ization at Liberty Hill. 

The following is a list of the names of the 
county officers of Sharp County, together with 
the date of terms served by each from the organi 
zation of the county to the present time: 

Judges: Solomon Yeager, 1868-72; commis- 
sioners, 1872-74; C. G. Wilson, 187-4-76; C. G. 
Hunn, 1876-78; A. J. Porter, 1878-80; W. G. 
Matheny, 1880-86; J. M. Montgomery, 1886-88; 
A. J. Porter, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Clerks: N. McLeod, from August, 1868, until 
after election; "W. T. Cunningham, 1868-72; J. 
P. Cochran, 1872-76; J. M. Wasson, 1876-78; T. 
J. Davidson, 1878-80; J. M. Wasson, 1880-82; R. 
E. Huddleston, 1882-86; Joshua Waim, present 
incumbent, first elected iu 1886. 

Sheriffs: James K. Jones, 1868-72; T. Y. 
Huddleston, 1872-80; A. C. Higginbottom. 1880- 
83; George R. Hall, present incumbent, appointed 
iu 1883, elected in 1884, and served continuously 
since. 

Treasurers: D. C. Wolfe, 1868-72; Robert 
Gray, 1872-78; T. J, Spurlock, 1878-80; W. G. 
Hor'ton, 1880-82; E. G. Henderson, 1882-84; C. 
W. Shaver, present incumbent, first elected in 
1884, and served continuously since. 

Coroners: J. G. Wolfe," 1868-72; J. T. Mc- 
Cord, 1872-74; A. R. Hipp, 1874-80; J. D. 

Hankins, ; A. T. Porter, 1884-86; Charles 

Horn. 1886-88: B. H. Couch, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Surveyors:. W. B. Leverton, 1872-76: T. A. 
McGea, 1876-78: W. W. Hill, 1878-80; T. J. 
Gay, 1880-82: W. W. Hill, 1882-86; D. D. Spur- 



lock, 1886-88; Horace Hill, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Assessors: T. Cunningham, 1868-71; F. Goss, 
1871-72; J. R. Metcalf, 1872-74; J. J. T. Mc- 
Adams, 1874-76; J. W. Bristow, 1876-78; R. B. 
Bellany, 1878-84; A. C. Higginbottom, 1884-86: 
John Norman, 1886-88; A. C. Higginbottom, 
present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

The political aspect of the county is shown by 
the number of votes cast for candidates as follows: 
At the September election in 1888, for governor, 
James P. Eagle (Dem.), 983; C. M. Noi-wood 
(combined opposition), 711. At the November 
election for president, Cleveland (Dem.), 1)13; 
Harrison (Rep.), 115: Streeter (U. L. ), 407: 
Fiske (Pro.), 2. 



Mr. J. L. Abernethy of Evening Shade, Sharp 
County, Ark., was born at Morganton, on the 
Little Tennessee River, in Loudon County, East 
Tenn. . on the 3d of March. 1835. He is the young- 
est son of Rev. Berry and Myra (Cobb) Aber 
nefhy, formerly of Lincoln County, N. C. The 
Abernethy family are purely Scotch -Irish blood. 
As early as the sixteenth century. Rev. John Aber- 
nethy, a dissenting minister of the Presbyterian 
faith, in the Highlands of .Scotland, attained gn-at 
distinction as a theologian and author. Later, Dr. 
John Abernethy, another member of the family, 
who emigrated to London, was greatly renowned 
as a physiologist and surgeon. He was a pupil of 
Sir Astley Cooper, and gave medical lectures for 
thirty-five years at St. Bartholomew Hospital. Hi- 
wrote and published many books on medical and 
kindred topics. Mcllwain, in 1835, published a 
book entitled " Memoirs of Abernethy," which was 
re-published in America by the Harpers, and is ex- 
tensively read. Mr. Abernethy' s ancestors came 
to America [)rior to the Revolutionary War, set- 
tling first in Virginia and then in North Carolina. 
To a man they stood for the colonies, and against 
the British. His parents emigrated from North 
Carolina to Tennessee 'seventy-four years ago. 
Rev. Berry Abernethy was licensed to exhort by 
Bishop Asbury. and to preach by Bishop Roberts, 



r 



-C, .a 



736 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of the Methodist Church. In his day, he was a 
minister and revivalist, and well known in the 
Holston conference. In 1844 he went with the 
Church South, and fully maintained his Christian 
character as a minister and a citizen for about sixty 
years, and died at Rhea Springs, Rhea County, 
East Tenn., in 1871, aged eighty- eight years. Mr. 
Abernethy's mother is still living, at the age of 
eighty-nine years, and is a hale, hearty and active 
old lady — a woman remarkable for her strong na- 
tive intellect, and is thoroughly posted in the great 
events which have transpired during her long and 
pleasant life. The parents had eight children: 
Eliza D., Susan R., Martha M. and Artie A. ; John 
C. , A. Sylvester, James T. and Joseph L. Eliza D. 
and Sylvester are dead; balance, except the subject 
of this sketch, now living in East Tennessee. Dr. 
John C. Abernethy is an eminent physician and 
surgeon. He was surgeon of the Sixty-second Ten- 
nessee Confederate Regiment and Brigade, sur- 
geon of Gen. Vaughan's brigade at Vicksburg. 
James T. , who was residing in Missouri at the be- 
ginning of the war, adhered to the Union side of 
the controversy, and became colonel of the Tenth 
Tennessee Cavalry. The subject of this memoir 
was educated at the Morganton Academy, under 
the Rev. T. K. Munsey, and Hiawassee College, 
under Profs. Doak, Bruner and Duncan. He first 
studied medicine with Dr. Bickwell, at Madison- 
ville, Tenn. , and attended lectures in 1855-56 at 
the University of Nashville. Subsequently, in 
1861, he enlisted in the Confederate service. He 
enlisted as a private in Capt. Cawood's company, 
Forty-third Tennessee Regiment, commanded by 
Col. J. W. Gillespie and Lieut. -Col. D. M. Key, 
now United States judge, residing at Chattanooga. 
He was soon transferred to the medical service, 
and was assigned to duty at Loudon Post, in charge 
of the sick and woianded, where he remained until 
the spring of 1863. He then resigned for the pur- 
pose of aiding Col. John A. Rowan in raising the 
Sixty-second Tennessee Regiment, with a view of be- 
ing surgeon in the field. After the formation of the 
regiment, he was, on account of domestic afflictions, 
compelled to decline the position, and his place 
was filled by his brother. Mr. Abernethy retired 



to Rhea Springs, and had no further connection 
whatever with the war of the States. He began the 
study of law in August, 1863, and gave it unremit- 

I ting attention for more than two years, when he was 
licensed to practice by Judge E. T. Hall, of Knox- 

j ville, Tenn., and Chancellor D. C. Trewhitt, of 
Chattanooga, Tenn. He was fir.st admitted to the 
bar at Washington, Rhea County, Tenn. Subse- 

I quently, he removed to Knoxville, and practiced 
there until 1870, when, having professional busi- 
ness in Arkansas, he visited that State, and was so 
well pleased with the country, and especially with 
his prospective wife, that he removed to the State 
of Arkansas, and located at Evening Shade, the 
county seat of Sharp County, where he has since 
remained, engaged in the practice of the law, and 
in farming. In 1880 Mr. Abernethy was the 
Democratic elector on the Hancock and English 
ticket, for the Fourth Congressional district of Ai-- 
kansas, and made a thorough canvass of the same. 

j He is now serving his third term as State's attor- 
ney for the Third judicial circuit of Arkansas, and 

' is faithfully discharging the duties of the office 

, to the best of his ability. In 1858 he was mar- 
ried to Miss Mary A. Johnston, a daughter of 
James H. Johnston, a leading citizen of Monroe 
County, Tenn. By her he had three children. 
One, Josejjh L. , is dead; the others, Allie and Eifie, 
their mother having died July 9, 1863, he brought to 
Arkansas in 1871. They are accomplished young 
ladies. John B. McCaleb, an attorney of good 
promise, married Miss Allie, and they have three 
children. Robert E. Huddleston married Miss 
Effie. They reside at Ash Flat, and have charge 
of the high school at that place. Mrs. Huddle- 
ston is an accomplished music teacher, and now 
has charge of a large class of pupils. In the fall 
of 1871, Mr. Abernethy married the widow of 
James S. Shaver, on Reed's Creek, Sharp County. 
She was the daughter of James P. Monger, de- 
ceased, and is a native of Roane Coimty, East 
Tenn. The Shaver and Shelby families are closely 
connected, and were noted people in Southwestern 
Virginia, and Upper East Tennessee many years 

ago. Mrs. Abernethy had one son by Mr. Shaver, 

James R. Shaver, who is now engaged in the stndv 



SHARP COUNTY. 



of law in his step-father's law oflict'. Mr. and 
Mrs. Abernethy had three children : -Artie and John 
Loudon living, and Elsie Pearl, who is dead. Mr. 
Abernethy owns a farm of about 400 acres, situated 
on Piney Fork of Strawberry River, one and a half 
miles from town. On this he has two neat and 
substantial residences, and about 110 acres in cul- 
tivation. His home residence is in the suburbs of 
Evening Shade, surrounded by shrubbery, flowers, 
forest trees and orchards of the different kinds of 
fruits. He calls it ' ' Forest Home. ' ' Evening 
Shade is 

" The loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and plenty cheer the laboring swain." 

At the beginning of the National troubles in ISGO- 
61, Mr. Abernethy doubted the expediency and 
right of separate State action, and was in favor of 
remaining in the Union, but after the disruption 
was an accomplished fact, and the tragedy of war 
began, he allied himself to the cause of the South, 
and remained faithful thereto. He believes in 
maintaining the supremacy of Federal States and 
individual rights under the laws, and in a revenue 
tariff, and in a strict construction of the constitu- 
tion in every article and section thereof. Whilst 
he is a Democrat from principle and choice, he is 
conservative, and is neither loud nor illiberal in the 
expression of his political opinions. He is not a 
member of any church, but believes all denomina- 
tions of Christians are meritorious and doing good, 
more or less. In matters of faith, he is attached 
to the old-fashioned Methodist doctrines and polity, 
and thinks the best religion is to live well, die 
poor, and go to Heaven. 

William Jasper Adams, a farmer of North 
Townshij), one mile soiith of Armstrong postoffiee, 
was born in Pulaski County, Mo., May 16, 1836, 
being the fourth child of a family of nine chil- 
dren. He was raised in Missouri, receiving his 
limited education in the common schools. Septem- 
ber 2, 1859, he married Miss Sarah M. Lee, who 
was born in Phelps County, Mo., September 2, 
1S42, and died January 13, 1878. She was the 
mother of seven children (five of whom are living): 
William M., John H. (deceased), Elizabeth (de- 
ceased), Halcoyn (wife of Alex. Smittle), Orlena, 



Bethelda and Thomas S. Mr. Adams married his 
second wife, the widow Gardner, in February, 
1879; she was a daughter of Wiley and Matilda 
Jones, of Tennessee, who were among the early 
settlers of Phelps County. They have had two 
children: James M. and Nettie M. Our subject 
worked three years in Public Iron Works, was two 
years in the livery stable business, and has been a 
farmer. In 1887 he came to Sharp County, Ark., 
where he now resides. He has about 120 acres of 
land, some eighty-five under cultivation. May 11, 
1861, he enlisted in Company G, Confederate army, 
and served about four years, having been wounded 
in the right arm by a gunshot. He was in the 
battle of Lexington. He is a member of the 
Knights of Honor; in politics is a Democrat, hav- 
ing cast his first presidential vote for Buchanan. 
His wife is a member of the Baptist Church. Our 
subject's parents were William and Charlotte (Ma- 
lone) Adams, who were born and raised in Wash- 
ington County, Ky. , he having been Iwrn in 1808 
and she in 1811. Mr. Adams was a farmer, and 
came to Pulaski County, in 1833, his nearest 
neighbor being twenty miles away. He returned 
to Kentucky in 1840, remaining till 1-S43, when he 
returned to Pulaski County, his father coming 
with him, and settling on the Merrimac, in Dent 
County. He died August 18, 1885. He was a son 
of Coonrod and Rebecca (Hawk) Adams, who died 
in 1S4G and 1848, respectively. They wore about 
the first settlers of Dent County, and were of 
Dutch descent. 

Jeremiah Pitt Baird, one of the early settlers 
and leading farmers of Union Township, residing 
one and one-half miles east of Williford postoffiee, 
was born in Smith County, Tenn., October 10. 
1824, the son of Jeremiah and Mary (Pennington) 
Baird. His father, of Scotch descent, was born in 
Rowan County, N. C, about 1785, and died in Law- 
rence County, Ark., in 1857. He married in North 
Carolina, emigrated from that State to Kentucky in 
1817, resided there for one year, when he moved to 
Smith County, Tenn., and from tbere to Lawrence 
County, Ark., in 1841. Mrs. Baird was Iwrn in 
Montgomery County, N. C, near 1791. and died in 
Lawrence County, Ark., about 1N51. Our subject. 



4 



738 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the only child livinn; of a family of nine, received 
most of his education after arriving at maturity, his 
parents being poor, and he being obliged to work 
instead of attending school. After coming to Ar- 
kansas he lived vpith his parents till their death. 
In 1859 he married Miss Susan A. More, v?ho was 
born in Tennessee about 1830, and died October 8, 
1884, in Lawrence County. In 1888 he married 
Isabelle (Wassen) Crawford, a widow. Mr. Baird 
enlisted in 18fi3, in the Union Army, in Company 
C, First Missouri Cavalry, participating in the 
battle of Jenkins' Ferry, and was discharged in 
1865. He has resided on Spring River since 1841, 
and has about 200 acres of laud, eighty-five under 
cultivation. He has held the ofiBce of justice of the 
peace several terms in Lawrence County, and was 
one of the assistants of the county court, when it 
consisted of the judge and two justices. He is a 
Republican, voting first for Zaehary Taylor. He 
and his wife are members of the Christian Church, 
as was his first wife. Mr. Baird is an influential 
citizen, well-to-do and highly resjaected. 

James P. Cochran, of the firm of J. P. Cochran 
& Son, general merchants and dealers in farming 
implements, was born in De Kalb County, Tenn. , 
in 1832. His parents were William T. and Jane 
K. (Duncan) Cochran, of Smith and DeKalb Coun- 
ties, Tenn. , respectively, being married in the lat- 
ter place. The parents moved to Dresden, Weak- 
ley County, Tenn., when James was very young, 
and resided there until their decease, Mr. Cochran 
dying in 1802, and his wife several years after 
their arrival. The elder Cochran was a tailor and 
clothier, and, later in life, established a general 
merchandise store. He built uji a large trade, and 
was one of the most popular merchants of that 
section in his day, bearing a reputation for hone.sty 
and enterprise that has been well guarded by his 
son. He fought in one of the Indian Wars, and 
was a member of the I.O.O.F. His father, Henry 
Cochran, of Scotch-Irish descent, died in Smith 
County, Tenn., where he had resided for a great 
number of years. The mother of James P. Coch- 
ran was a member of the Christian Church, and 
died in , that faith. Her father, Josiah Duncan, 
was an old resident of De Kalb County, Tenn. , 



where he died. James P. Cochran is the eldest of 
two sons and three daughters. He was educated 
at the Dresden (Tenn.) Academy and schools in 
the vicinity, receiving a good English education 
and business training. At thirteen years of age 
he held a position of trust with a firm in Dresden, 
and remained with them eight years. The experi- 
ence gained in commercial life during that time 
made him one of the shrewdest business men in 
his section, although just attaining his manhood, 
and shortly afterward he entered into partuershij) 
with his father, in the same place, and continued 
with him until an excellent opportunity was pre- 
sented at Hickman, Ky. , to which place he re- 
moved and established a livery business. Mr. 
Cochran's marriage occurred at Dresden, in 1857. 
to Julia, daughter of David and Harriet Shaver, 
natives of Tennessee, where Mr. Shaver died, 
when his daughter was very young. The mother 
afterward moved to Sharp County, where she died 
a few years later. Mrs. Cochran's death occurred 
on the 27th of December, 1866; she was the moth- 
er of one son and one daughter. Mr. Cochran 
was again married on January 10, 1870, his second 
wife being Miss Martha M. Shaver, a sister of his 
first wife, this lady dying March 23, 1886. In 
1861 he moved to Salem, and established himself 
in business, but was compelled to close up on ac- 
count of the war. In 1865 he was apjaointed clerk 
of Fulton County, and in 1866 was re-elected, and 
held the office for three years. He moved to 
Sharp County, in 186U, and in 1872 was elected 
clerk of Sharp County, holding that office for four 
years. He next occupied the present building 
and commenced a commercial career, and since 
then has been one of the most successful business 
in Sharp County. The firm have a fine stock of 
goods valued at $5,000. Besides this, Mr. Cochran 
owns several good farms and some 2,000 acres of 
land in Sharp County. He is a representative 
merchant, a shrewd and fair-dealing business man, 
and one of the most progressive citizens of this 
section. He has in his possession the first dollar 
he ever earned, and has kept it as a memento of 
the early days when he had nothing in the world 
but his own pluck and determination to succeed. 



^ 



SHARP COUNTY. 



?30 



lu politics Mr. Cocbrau is a Democrat, and in re- 
ligious faith a Methodist, as also were his two 
wives. 

David Collins, a farmer of North Township, 
nine miles northeast of Afton postoifice, Fulton 
Comity, was born in Indiana, Jnue 2, 1835. His 
grandfather, Aaron Collins, who was bom in North 
Carolina and married there, moving to Morgan 
County, Ind. , and afterward coming to Missouri 
about 1884, where he died. David's father, Stephen 
Collins, was born in Kentucky about 1800, but 
came to Indiana with his parents when quite young; 
there he married Mary Lang, moving to Missouri 
in 1837, and in 1803 went to Lawrence County, 
and died there in 1864. Our subject's mother was 
born in Ohio about 1801, and died in Fulton 
County, Ark., in 1881. She was the mother of 
five childi-en. David being the third; he was raised 
in Douglas County, Mo., his schooling being lim- 
ited to three months. He lived at home till after 
his father died, and in 1867 married Miss Martha 
Hopper, who was liorn in Indiana in 1841. They 
have a family of twelve children: Lee, Aaron T., 
Rosa T. , Daniel N., David (infant), now living. 
Mr. Collins was a resident of Lawrence County for 
six years, and has resided in Sharp County since 
1869. He has 160 acres of land, twenty-five acres 
of which are under cultivation. In 1862 he en- 
listed in the Confederate army, and served about 
two years. In politics he is a Democrat, his first 
presidential vote being for Cleveland. He is a 
good citizen and highly respected. 

Sam H. Davidson, of Sharp County, was born 
near Camden, Benton County, Tenn. , January 2'J, 
1846. He is a son of John Wallace and Susan L. 
(Prance) Davidson, born in Huntsville, Ala., in 
1814, and Montgomery County, Tenn., in 1818, 
respectively. The parents were married in Hum- 
phreys County, Tenn.. in 1836, and lived in that 
State, at Camden, until 1805, when they moved to 
Graves County, Ky. In 1866 they lived a short 
time at Jackson, Mo. , but during that year changed 
their residence to Randolph County, Ark., and in 
1867 to Doniphan, Ripley County, Mo., thence to 
Evening Shade, Ark., in 1869, where the father 
died in October, 1870. Previous to 1852, the 



elder Davidson was clerk of the circuit court of 
Benton County, Tenn., and after that year he 
practiced law up to the time of his death. In 
1859-60 he was a member of the Tennessee legis- 
lature, representing Benton and Humphreys Conn - 
ties in the house, and was present at the extra 
session that paved the way for the secession of 
Tennessee, giving earnest support to the vigorous 
war measures of the governor, Isham G. Harris. 
For many years he was a zealous Mason, and was 
a member of the Methodist Church from 1865 uu 
til his death. His father, John Davidson, was 
born in "Virginia or North Carolinji during the lat- 
ter half of the eighteenth century, removed to and 
was an innkeeper in Huntsville, Ala., and died 
there in 1815. His mother was Mary Wallace, of 
Scottish ancestry, noted for her beauty and culture 
among the early settlers of North Alabama. The 
father of John Davidson was Abraham Davidson, a 
native Pennsylvanian, a soldier of the Revolution, 
who settled in North Carolina, and afterward in 
Montgomery County, Tenn., and who died in Ben- 
ton County, Tenn., in 1838. The father or grand- 
father of Abraham, James Davidson, was a native 
of Scotland, who came with his family, and settled 
near the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania, and 
claimed to be the first Davidson to settle in North 
America. The mother of Sam H. Davidson is still 
living, a devout Christian, and has been a member 
of the Methodist Church for more than forty yeai-s. 
She is a daughter of John Prance, of Scotch and 
Irish descent, who died in Montgomery County, 
Tenn. His wife. Mary Cooper, was born in Mont- 
gomery County, Tenn. , and died in McCracken 
County, Ky. Sam H. David.son is the seventh child 
of five sons and five daughters, of whom seven are 
still living. He attended the Camden (Tenn. ) Acad- 
emy until 1861, when the Civil War closed up the 
schools of West Tennessee, after which he pursued 
his studies at home until the latter |)art of the war, 
when he enlisted, serving first in the Tenth and 
afterward in the Nineteenth Tennessee Cavalry, 
and taking part in many sharp engagements and 
brilliant dashes, under Gen. N. B. Forrest, during 
his operations in Tennessee, Kentucky and Mi.ssis- 
sippi. In 1866 he began the study of law with his 



^^r 



740 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



father, and in 1868 he was examined and admitted 
to practice iu all the courts of the State of Mis- 
souri, by the circuit coiirt of Ripley County, at 
Doniphan. In 1869 he came to Evening Shade, 
and at the first term of the circuit court of Sharp 
County, held by Judge (afterward Governor) Bax- 
ter, he was admitted to practice in the inferior 
courts of Arkansas. A few years afterward, on 
examination, he was licensed to practice in the 
supreme court of Arkansas, and his practice has 
extended through Fulton, Izard, Sharp and Inde- 
pendence Counties, and in the supreme court at 
the capital of the State. In 1870 he served as 
county attorney for Sharp County; in 1872 the 
Governor appointed him county superintendent of 
public schools. In 1872-73 he was editor and 
part owner of the Sharp County Herald, a Demo- 
cratic newspaper. He has frequently been called 
by his brethren of the bar to preside as special 
judge of the circuit court in Fulton, Izard and ad- 
joining counties. In 1874 he was defeated for 
delegate to the constitutional convention, but in 
1876, after a sharji contest, he was elected to the 
lower branch of the General Assembly, and after 
his term expired he was re-elected without opposi- 
tion, and at the organization, in 1S79, received a 
very flattering vote for speaker of the house. He 
never sought office afterward, but iu 1888, with- 
out any solicitation on his part, he was nominated 
by the Democratic party of the Second senatorial 
district as their candidate, and, after a hotly-con- 
tested campaign, defeated the Union Labor and 
political Wheel nominee for State senator, carrying 
every county in the district, his majority reaching 
nearly 2,000; and, while he did not seek the place 
in any sense, he lacked but three votes, on several 
ballots, of election as president /^''o tern of the sen- 
ate (lieutenant-governor) at the close of the legis- 
lative session of 1889. Mr. Davidson is a hold- 
over senator, and will be a member of the session 
of 1891. He has been a Mason for about eighteen 
years, holding membership in the Lodge, Chapter 
and Council, and has been Master of his Lodge and 
District Deputy Grand Master, and for more than 
ten years has served his Chapter as High Priest. 
He is also a member of the Knights of Honor, and 



has held the offices of Past Dictator, Reporter and 
Grand Representative. In the State conventions of 
his party he has served several times on the com- 
mittee to formulate a platform, and, in 1884, he 
was secretary of the convention held in Little Rock 
which nominated candidates for State offices, and 
selected delegates to the National Democratic Con- 
vention, at Chicago, that nominated Cleveland. 
Mr. Davidson was married in 1870, to Virginia, 
daughter of William and Frances French, and has 
live children. He has a pleasant and comfortable 
home at Evening Shade, a number of town lots 
there and in other villages, and about 1,000 acres 
of land in various portions of the county. He is 
devoted to his family and his friends, and an earn- 
est worker for the promotion of the material pros- 
perity of Arkansas. 

Dr. John O. Durham, a prominent physician 
and druggist at Ash Flat, was born in Shelby 
County, Tenn., in the year 1851. He is a son of 
the Rev. Dennis and Sarah (Harper) Durham, 
the former a noted and eloquent divine who was 
born in Georgia, in the year 1824, and the latter 
in North Carolina in 1832. The parents were 
married in Shelby County, where the mother is 
still living. The Rev. Durham during his life 
had been a Missionary Baptist minister for 
twenty years, and his fame as an eloquent and 
gifted speaker was widesj)read. Ho also served 
sixteen days in the Confederate army with General 
Forrest, and in the short time of his stay in the 
army he made many warm friends among the boys 
in gray. Mr. Durham died in 1873, after a long 
and useful life. His father was Grisham Durham, 
of Irish descent, who was born in South Carolina, 
and in after years moved to Lawrence County, 
Ark. , where he was appointed county survej'or 
for a number of years, and died iu 1850. The 
mother of Dr. John O. Durham was a daughter of 
James Harper, of North Carolina, a brick mason 
by trade, who was one of the first settlers of Mem- 
phis, Tenn. , and helped to build the first brick 
building in that city. The Doctor is the oldest of 
four sons and three daughters, and spent the greater 
portion of his younger days on a farm. When 
eighteen years of age he began the study of medi- 



Tl 



SHARP COUNTY. 



741 



cine with Dr. Ed. Irby, and Dr. B. A. Mathews, 
of Cuba, Tenn., and under these able instructors 
he acquired a thorough knowledge of the intricate 
study of medicine. In 1873 the Doctor com- 
menced to practice, and since that time he has 
steadily raised himself to the top of his profe.ssion. 
He was married, in 1870, to Miss Elizabeth J. 
Smith, a daughter of James and Lucy Smith, of 
Lawrence County, Ark., her father being at one 
time one of the most illustrious of Lawrence 
Coiuity's citizens. Mr. Smith served in the Con- 
federate army through the war, and was taken a 
prisoner to Little Eock, where he died, his wife 
following him to the grave in 1869. The Doctor 
and his wife have had nine children, of whom one 
son and two daughters are still living. In 1876 
he moved to Calamine, Ark., whore he practiced 
for about one year, and then came to Ash Flat, 
where he has been residing ever since. His skill 
as a physician has given him a large practice, and 
as an individual he has won a host of friends. He 
is a self-made man in the true sense of that term, 
and is in every way worthy of the success which 
has fallen to his lot. In politics the Doctor is a 
Democrat, and has also been a member of the A. 
F. & A. M., of Ash Flat, since 1880, holding the 
offices of Secretary, Junior Warden, and at the 
present time Senior Deacon. He also belongs to 
Royal Arch Chapter No. 50, Evening Shade, and 
was at one time Master of Third Vail. He is now 
a Royal Arch Captain, and a member of Eastern 
Star, Adah Chapter No. 32, of Ash Flat. He is 
also a member of the Knights and Ladies of 
Honor, and has been Protector and Treasurer. 
The Doctor and his wife are both members of the 
Missionary Baptist Chiireh, he for a period of 
twenty-two years, and Mrs. Durham for fifteen 
years. 

Wilej' Marshal Edwards, a leading farmer, 
was bom in Wilson County, Tenru, January 8, 
1836, where he was reared and received his lim- 
ited education. In 1859, while yet unmarried, he 
started West to seek his fortune, locating in Sharp 
County, Ark., where he has since resided. His 
parents were Michael and Sarah (Bennett) Ed- 
wards, who were born in Tennessee in 1812 and 



1815, respectively, his father having died in 1886 
in Tennessee, where he had always resided, with 
the exception of 1871 and 1872, when he was in 
Arkansas; the mother of Wiley died in Tennessee in 
1876. His grandfather, William Edwards, was a 
native of South Carolina, but came to Tennessee 
in an early day. In this family there were seven 
children, four of whom are living: Sarah (residing 
in Tennessee), Rebecca (residing in Tennessee), 
Robert H. (residing in Jackson County, Ark.), and 
the subject of this sketch, who was the second 
child. In June, 1861, Mr. Edwards enlisted in 
the Confederate Army, Company E, Twenty-first 
Arkansas Regiment, under Capt. Nunn, and served 
for four years, participating in the battle of Cor- 
inth, Miss. At the close of the war he returned to 
Sharp County, and married Mrs. Maria (Simson) 
Barnett, a widow, in 1874; she was born on the 
farm where our subject now resides, in 18-19, and 
died in 1879. By this marriage there were three 
children, John B., Marshall AV., William O. In 
1880 he married Anna Lock, a native of Tennessee, 
she having been born in 1858. They have six chil- 
dren : James C. . George, Etta, Orra and two not 
named. ]\Ii'. Edwards has 800 acres of land, 
about 200 cultivated, located on Strawberry River. 
This is a fine stock farm. Mr. Edwards is a mem- 
ber of Masville Masonic Lodge, and is a Democrat, 
having cast his first vote for Gen. Scott. 

Charles W. English, a fanner, of Union Town- 
ship, four miles west of Ravenden postoffice. was 
born in Sharp County, Ark., June 19, 1S50, the 
son of Edward N. and Sariih (Hudspeth) English. 
Edward N. , a farmer, of English descent, was lx)rn 
in Tennessee; he was in the service of the Confed- 
erate army, was taken prisoner, and died at Alton, 
111., in 1864. He came from Tennessee, with his 
parents, to Sharp County, in an early day. his 
father being one of the first settlers. Our subject's 
grandfathers were Samuel Hudspeth and Stephen 
English. His mother was born in 1826, and reared 
in what is now Sharp County; she is yet living, 
and the mother of six children, of whom Charles 
W. was the eldest. He was educated in the com 
mon schools of Sharp County: in 1867 married 
Miss Sarah Williford. who was bom in 1850, and 



742 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



reared in Sharp County, and died in 1S71. She 
was the mother of three children, none of whom 
are living. He married Miss Mollie Fair in 1873: 
she was born in Sharp County in 1857, and died 
in 1883. By this marriage he has four children, 
three living: Green T. E., Saphronia and Khoda 
B. In June, 1888, he married Miss Nancy S. 
Howard, who was born in Lawrence County, Ark. , 
in 1860. Mr. English has resided where he now 
lives since 1878, having 270 acres of land, about 
sixty acres on Spring River bottom, all in cultiva- 
tion. He is a Democrat, having cast his first pres- 
idential vote for Greeley, and is a good citizen, 
highly respected and well-to do. 

David R. Ford, a well known farmer, ginner 
and miller, of Sullivan Township, was born in 
Smith County, Tenn. , in 1827, and is a son of 
James G. and Martha (Rowland) Ford, of Smith 
County, born in 1803 and 1802, respectively. The 
parents lived in that cotinty until the year 1844, 
and then moved to Arkansas, and settled on White 
River, in what is now Stone County, where they 
lived among the early settlers for the rest of their 
days. The father died in 1866, and the mother in 
1868, both members of the Methodist faith. The 
elder Ford was a farmer by occupation, and a 
soldier in the Seminole War, in Florida. He was 
a son of Zachary Ford, of Virginia, one of the 
early settlers of Smith County, Tenn., where he 
farmed and held the office of justice of the peace 
for a great many years. The Ford family are of 
French descent. David Rowland, the father of 
Mrs. J. G. Ford, was born and reared in North 
Carolina, and was also one of the early settlers of 
Smith County, Tenn., where he died at an ad- 
vanced age. David R. Ford is the third child of 
three sons and five daughters, and moved to the 
State of Arkansas with his parents in 1844. In 
1855 he was married to Martha P. Headstream, 
daughter of John and Harriet Headstream. The 
father was a native of Sweden, and a sailor for a 
number of years before coming to America. He 
was married in Tennessee, his wife's native State, 
and moved to Phillips County, Ark., afterward to 
Monroe County, where he died. Twelve children 
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Ford, of whom eight 



sons and one daughter still survive. Soon after 
their marriage they settled at a point about eight 
miles above Batesville, where they resided imtil 
February, 1887, when Mr. Ford concluded to move 
to their present farm, some ten miles south of 
Evening Shade. He now has 350 acres of laud 
under cultivation, owning altogether about 7(10 
acres, besides operating a cotton-gin, corn-mill and 
thresher, and his present prosperity is due entirely 
to his own enterprise and energy. Before the war 
Mr. Ford was captain of a company of militia, and 
when the ontljreak occurred he enlisted in New- 
ton's regiment of cavalry, Arkansas' troops, and 
served about one year and a half. After the war 
he was elected justice of the peace, and held the 
office two years, and in 1874 was elected assessor 
of Independence County, a position he filled with 
distinction for the same length of time. He is a 
Democrat in politics, and a valnable man to his 
pai-ty, being a strong supporter of his principles. 
John C. Garner, one of the early settlers of 
Sharp Coimty, and postmaster of Martin's Creek 
postoffice since its establishment- in 1876, in his 
residence, was born in Williamson County, Tenn., 
December 4, 1808, son of John and Sally (Coch- 
ran) Garner. John was bom in Tennessee, and was 
drowned in Spring River, Arkansas, about 1820. 
He was one of the first settlers of Sharp County, 
having come from Illinois about 1818. The mother 
of our subject was born in Tennessee, about 1778, 
of Welsh descent, and died in Sharp County, near 
1860. She was the mother of six children, three 
of whom are now living, oiir subject being the first. 
He was of Scotch and Irish descent, raised in Sharp 
County, and never saw a schoolhoiise till twenty 
years of age, and never went to school. John C. 
has been a resident of Sharp County since about 
1818; he helped to clear the farm on which he 
resides, and endiired many hardships incident to 
pioneer life. He was a noted hunter, and shot 
many deer where Monmouth Spring Village now 
stands. In 1828 he married Miss An'ena Gray, 
born in Boone County, Mo., in May, 1811, and 
who died in 1854; she was the mother of ten chil- 
dren (five of whom are living): Milton (deceased), 
Redman (deceased), Sally (deceased), Hiram, Bet- 




sey (wife of William RatclifF ), Lewis (deceased), 
Calvin (deceased), Nancy (wife of Elijah Ratcliff). 
Helena (wife of James A. Graves) and Harden. In 
1857 John C. married Mrs. Mary (Farris) Rice, 
who was born and raised in Tennessee. She was 
born in 1805, and died in 1887. Our subject has 
resided on the place he now owns, for some forty 
years, and has sixty acres of land. He resides 
with his son, Hiram, who farms the place. It 
contains 120 acres, forty under cultivation. Hiram 
was married, in 1859, to Miss Martha Rice, who 
was born in Tennessee, in 1837, and who died in 
1881, She was the mother of six children, two of 
whom are living. Mary (deceased), Sarah (de- 
ceased), Rosetta (deceased), Permetta, Indiana 
(deceased) and Arazana. Hiram was married the 
second time in October, 1882, to Melinda (Mc- 
Canny) Brown, a widow. The subject of this 
sketch is a member of the Christian Church, as are 
Hiram and his wife. Hiram served in the Federal 
army about one year, and has held the office of 
constable two years. John C. is a Republican, 
and cast his first presidential vote for Martin Van 
Buren. Hiram cast his first presidential vote for 
Bell, of Tennessee. 

John L. Gawf is a well-to-do farmer of A^'ash- 
ington Township, and grandson of Edmond Gawf, 
of North Carolina, who died in Tennessee. John's 
father, George W. Gawf, was born in Tennessee, 
in 1818, and went when a boy with his parents to 
Tennessee, where he married. He was a farmer, 
and in 1852 he went to Carroll County, Ark., and 
to Sharp County in 1864, where he is still living. 
He is of Dutch descent. His wife was Mary A. Doss, 
born in 181',), by whom he had eight children, six 
of whom are living: William, James P., Margaret 
Stoddard, Mary Ann Montgomery, Jerusha Shaw, 
and John L. , the subject of this sketch, the eld- 
est, who was born in Henderson County, Tenn., 
December 25, 1840; he was raised until eleven 
years of age in Tennessee, w^here he received jiart 
of his schooling, and the remainder in Sharp Coun- 
ty, In 1867 he married Miss Margaret C. John- 
son, who was born in Tennessee, Knox County, in 
1847, and whose father was Jahue Johnson, a 
Baptist minister, and old citizen of Sharp County, 



where he now resides, and whose mother was Ue- 
bocca John.son. Maigaret is the mother of nine 
children, eight of whom are living: William W., 
Mary A. R., Jehu L., John H., Catherine E., 
James M., Samuel N. and Dora B, Mr. Gawf 
has a farm of 280 acres, on which he has resided 
since 1870, 150 acres of which are cultivated. He 
served in the Confederate Army, in Company (i. 
Fourteenth Arkansas Regiment, in the battles of 
Pea Ridge (Ark.), Corinth and luka (Miss.), Delhi 
(La.), and various other skirmishes, and was dis- 
charged in 1865. He is a Democrat in politics, 
and is an influential citizen and well -to do. His 
two eldest children are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

Dr. William A. Gibson,one of Mill Creek's lead- 
ing citizens and physicians, was born in Franklin 
County, Ala., in 1840. He is a son of W. N. and 
Nancy (Crocker) Gibson, both born in the year 
1815, the former in Tennt>ssee, and the latter in 
North Carolina, and were united in marriage in 
the State of Alabama, where they have resided ever 
since, with the exception of several years' sojourn 
in Texas. In religious faith both parents have 
been Primitive Baptists for a great length of time, 
and the father for a number of years was tax col- 
lector and assessor of Walker County, Ala. He 
is at present justice of the peace of his county, 
and has hold that office several years, having 
also been a member of the A. F. & A. M. for the 
past forty years. His father was Jacob Gibson, 
of Tennessee, who resided in Alal)auia some length 
of time, but died in the State of Arkansas. The 
father of Jacob Gibson was Jacob Gibson, a Revo- 
lutionary soldier of early days, who died in Walker 
County, Ala. On the mother's side, James Crock- 
er, Mrs. W. N. Gibson's father, was an Irish- 
man, who emigrated to the United States when 
a young man. His wife was also a native of Ire- 
land, but they were married in North Carolina, 
and, after a long residence in .Mabama, lioth 
died in that State. Dr. William X. (xibson is 
the second child of two sons and one daughter. 
He was educated at the common schools, and, by a 
close application to his studies hiins(<lf, and, after 
having thoroughly mastered his liooks, he taught 






744 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



school for a number of years, in the meantime 
reading physic all the while. After the war was 
over he attended the Mobile Medical College, and 
immediately set out to carve his name in the temple 
of fame. He practiced in Alabama until the year 
1874, and then moved to Sharp County, Ark., 
where he still resides. The Doctor owns 160 acres 
of land on Mill Creek, of which forty- live acres are 
iinder cultivation. When he first arrived in Sharp 
County he had very little, if anything at all, in the 
way of wealth, but, by his shrewdness in trading, 
his energy and his natural abilities, besides being 
a skillful physician, he soon placed himself in an 
independent position. In 1867 the Doctor was 
married to Mrs. Eliza M. Wilkins, a daughter of 
Thomas and Sidney Price, of North Carolina, and 
by this marriage has one son, Ellis Lee. In poli- 
tics he is Democratic, and gave his vote to Cleve- 
land in 1888. He has been a member of the A. 
F. & A. M. since his twenty-first year, and at pres- 
ent belongs to Smith ville Lodge No. 29. Mrs. 
Gibson has been a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, for twenty-four years. 

J. W. Graddy & Bro. , farmers and proprietors 
of a saw-mill, are sons of Lewis and Matilda (Ford) 
Graddy. The father, a farmer of Scotch and Irish 
descent, was born in Tennessee, and died in 1862. 
His widow was born in North Carolina, and is now 
living. They were married in Alabama, and came 
to Mississippi, where they resided till 1858, when 
they removed to Arkansas. Matilda is the mother 
of seven children (five now living): Edward F., G. 
W., Mary J. (deceased), Sarah F. (deceased), Nancy 
C, J. B. and J. W. J. B. Graddy, the oldest child 
and junior partner of this firm, was born in Octo- 
ber, 1846, in Alabama. He lived in Mississippi 
till the age of twelve years, when he came to Sharp 
County, Ark. He attended school in both States. 
In October, 1865, he married Miss Mahala E. Bell, 
who was born in Kentucky in 1845; they have had 
seven children: Lewis W. , Charles S. , Clara E., 
Margaret C, John H. , George W. and Lucy E. 
Mr. Graddy served all through the war, a part of 
the time in the Confederate army, in Capt. Nunn' s 
company, and the remainder in the Union army. 
He has eighty acres of land, twenty acres being 



under cultivation. J. W. Graddy, the second child, 
and senior partner of this firm, was born in Ala- 
bama, August 8, 1848, and received his education 
in Mississippi and Sharp County, Ark. In 1869 
he married Miss Alice Hamilton, who was born in 
Arkansas in 1849. Their family consists of six 
children: William A. (deceased), Benjamin F., 
James P., Winnie A., Martin L. and Artie M. He 
has eighty acres of land, about thirty-five being 
under cultivation. He is a member of the I. O. O. 
F. In 1887 this firm erected a saw-mill and cot- 
ton-gin at a cost of $2,000, the capacity of the mill 
being 8,000 feet per day. Both are good business 
men, and have secured a good trade. They are 
Democrats in politics, and J. W. served one term 
as justice of the peace. 

William P. Hamilton, of the firm of Hamilton 
& Tindel, proprietors and owners of the Hamilton 
flour and saw- mills and rail factory, one mile 
east of Evening Shade, was born in Independence 
County in 1850, and is a son of James A. and 
Catherine E. (Metcalf) Hamilton, natives of North 
Carolina, and born in 1822 and 1830, respectively. 
The parents were married in that State, and in 
1849 moved to Independence County, Ark. The 
following year the}' came to what is now Sharp 
County, and located near Evening Shade, and in 
1868 the family settled on the farm where William 
P. Hamilton now resides. The saw-mill was 
erected in 1865, and purchased by the elder Ham- 
ilton in 1868, who immediately established a Hour- 
mill and rail factory, which business he continued 
with great siiccess until his death, in 1884. The 
present firm, however, was established in 1872. 
The flour-mills have a capacity of 100 bushels of 
wheat and 200 bushels of corn per day; the saw- 
mill a capacity of 1,200 feet of lumber per day. 
The elder Hamilton was a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. , Evening Shade lodge, and with his wife at- 
tended the Christian Church a great number of 
years. Mrs. Hamilton, who is still living, is a 
daughter of Andrew K. Metcalf, of North Carolina; 
he was born in that State in 1808, moving to Inde- 
pendence County in 1849, where he resided six 
years, and then came to what is now Sharp County. 
His wife is still living at the age of seventj'-nine 



SHARP COUNTY. 



745 



years. William P. Hamilton was married, in 1872, 
to Ruth J., (laughter of Young and Jane Richie. 
His wife was born in Mississippi, where her mother 
(lied when thi> daughter was very young, and 
where the father still resides. She moved to 
Arkansas with au uncle, and was here married to 
Mr. Hamilton. This union has given them two 
sons and one daughter. Mr. Hamilton has lived 
on the old farm ever since 1808, and has about 
forty-tive acres of land under cultivation, owning 
altogether 160 acres. He is a Democrat in poli- 
tics, and has been a member of the I. O. O. F. 
since 1874, holding the offices of secretary and 
grand secretary during that time. He also belongs 
to the Evening Shade Masonic Lodge, and has held 
the offices of junior warden, master and several 
others. Mr. Hamilton and his wife and oldest son 
are members of the Christian Church. They are 
a well-known family in this vicinity, and are held 
in the highest esteem by their neighbors. 

E. G. Henderson, editor of the Sharp Comity 
Record, was Iioi-n in Catoosa County, Ga. , in 1850, 
and is a son of Charles and Sophia A. C. (Ussery) 
Henderson, born in Halifax County, Va., in 1803, 
and Charlotte County, Va., in 1810, respectively. 
The parents were married in North Carolina in 
1830, and shortly afterward settled in Virginia. 
They remained in that State a few years, and then 
moved to Alabama, and from there to Georgia, 
where the elder Henderson died in 1853. The 
family continued in Georgia several years after the 
father's death, and in 1856 moved to Izard County, 
Ark. From that place they changed their residence 
to Batesville. where they resided until ISfi'J, and 
then moved to Little Rock. A few years later the 
mother came to Evening Shade, where she still 
lives. She is a daughter of John Ussery, a native 
of Virginia, who enlisted in the War of 1812, but 
who never engaged in active service, as peace was 
declared shortly after his entrance into the ranks. 
E. (Jr. Henderson is the youngest of five sons and 
five daughters, of whom four are yet living. He 
was educated in Batesville, and in his eighteenth 
year went to Little Rock, where he remained one 
year, learning the printer's trade. He then moved 
to Jacksonport, and farmed in Jackson County for 

47 



two seasons, but as the sea is to the mariner, .so wa.s 
printer's ink to young Henderson, and he gave up 
his agricultural i)ursuits to enter the office of the 
Herald, in Evening Shade, as a compositor. He 
remained in that capacity until the year 1874, and 
then, in partnership with J. W. Clark, he estab 
lished the North Arkansas Democrat. In 1870 
he was made postmaster, and at the same time en- 
gaged in the grocery and stationer's business, con- 
tinuing in that until 1882, when he was elected 
treasurer of Sharp County, and held the office for 
two years. In 1884 he purchased the Sharp County 
Record, which paper he still (^dits and jiublishes, 
and has not only made it the leading exponent of 
Democratic principh's in Sharp County, but also a 
magnilicent news gatherer. Mr. Henderson was 
married in September, 1879, to Miss Minnie Tnr- 
ney, daughter of the Rev. Dani(4 M. and Isabella 
B. Turney, now residents of South Dakota. Mrs. 
Henderson was born in Mattoon, 111., and died 
June 23, 1889, at her home in Evening Shade. 
Three children were born to this marriage, of whom 
two are still living. Mr. Henderson is a member 
of Evening Shade Lodge No. 143. A. F. & A. M., 
"Rural" Royal Arch Chapter No. 50; I. O. O. F., 
and K. of H. His eldest brother served in the 
Confederate army, and fought almost through the 
entire war. He was killed in 1864, about twenty- 
five miles above Batesville, on the White River, by 
a scouting party. Another brother, Charles E., 
gave two years' service to the Confederate cause, 
and was severely wounded at the battle of Augusta. 
Ark., in 1865, but recovered, and is now a farmer 
of Sharp County. The mother of Mr. Henderson, 
although very near the advanced age of eighty 
years, is still living and is as active and capable of 
doing as much work as many other women fifteen 
or twenty years younger. Mr. Henderson, in the 
rush and huiry of his active life, still finds the 
time to devote to her, and though stern to the out- 
side world as a rule, he is one of the gentlest of 
sons. 

Thomas I. Herrn. teacher, also a farmer and 
stock dealer in Highland Township, was born in 
Independence (now Izard) County, in 1861. His 
parents were John and Malinda (Fiidey) Herrn, of 



»fV^ 



A e ^ 



746 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Tennessee and Arkansas, respectively, who were 
united in marriage in Independence County. The 
father was a farmc^r by occupation, who died in Ozark 
County, Mo., in 1863. He was a son of Thomas 
Herrn, one of the pioneers of Arkansas. His wife's 
father was Isaac Finley, who settled in Izard 
County, Ark. , at a very early day, and died there 
in the year 1865. Thomas I. Herrn received but 
little schooling until bis thirteenth year, and then at- 
tended Evening Shade high school for three years. 
He subsequently went to the State University at 
Fayetteville, and afterward taught school himself 
for four years. In 1883 he was married to Kate, a 
daughter of James P. and Julia Cochran, whose 
history appears in this volume. By this marriage 
he has had one son and two daughters, the latter 
living. After his marriage Mr. Herrn moved to 
Evening Shade, and taught school for two years, 
but gave that occupation up to commence farming 
at South Fork. He now has 600 acres of land, 
with about seventy-five acres under cultivation, 
which, on his arrival, was destitute of improve- 
ment. In politics he is a Democrat, and is zealous 
in upholding the principles of that party. Mr. 
Herrn is one of that type of men who present a 
strong example for the younger generation to fol- 
low. He was thrown on his own resources at the 
age of thn-teen, and went to work for $8 a month, 
on a farm. 

Jasper N. Higginbottom, whose success as a 
farmer and stock raiser has seldom been equaled, 
was born in Independence County, in 1846. His 
parents were James and Nancy (Ward) Higginbot- 
tom, who were born in Kentucky, in 1801, and 
South Carolina, in 1809, respectively, and were 
married in Perry County, Tenn., about the year 
1840. The parents moved to Independence Coun- 
ty, Ark., in 1846, and four or five years later 
changed their residence to Lawrence County, where 
the father died. The elder Higginbottom was a 
well-known boatman on the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, and in his later days quite an extensive 
farmer. His father was Oglesbury Higginbottom, 
a native of Ireland. The mother of Jasper died 
in 1877, in the religious faith of the Christian 
Church. Jasper was the eighth child of eight sons 



and six daughters, of whom only two sons and one 
daughter are yet living. His education was some- 
what limited on account of the facilities for attend- 
• ing school not being so good as they are at the 
present day, but his natural shrewdness and quick- 
ness of comj)rehension made up for any deficiency 
in that respect. In 1868 he was married to Miss 
Sarah Wilmuth, a daughter of Edward and Mary 
Wilmuth, of Kentucky, and by this marriage has 
had twelve children, of whom seven are still living. 
Mr. Higginbottom continued to reside in Lawi-ence 
County until 1877, when he moved to his present 
farm, in Sharp County, where he owns about tiOl) 
acres of land, and has some 120 acres under culti- 
vation. In addition to his farm, he deals in stock 
on an extensive scale, and has the reputation of 
being one of the best men in the business in that 
section. He is noted for his fair dealing in all 
business transactions, and is one of the most pop- 
ular men in Sharp County. In politics, Mr. Hig- 
ginbottom is a Democrat, and that }>arty has in 
him a representative who strongly su[)ports their 
principles and men. 

Kussel Jordan, justice of the peace, a prosper- 
ous farmer and stock raiser, is the youngest of 
three sons and six daughters. lie was born in St. 
Clair County, Ala. , December 22, 1827, and is the 
son of Stephen and Sarah (Deerman) Jordan, of 
South Carolina, where they were reared and mar- 
ried. The parents removed to St. Clair County, 
Ala. , soon after their marriage, where the father 
died when Russel was but two or three years old. 
The mother married a second time, her next 
husband being Peter Roadland. who died shortly 
before Russel left St. Clair County, and the moth- 
er's death occurring after the war. The elder 
Jordan was a farmei', and a soldier in the War of 
1812, fighting under Gen. Jackson at the battle of 
New Orleans. He was of Irish descent, as was 
also the father of Mrs. Jordan, William Deerman. 
Upon looking over the thousands of schools and 
colleges now in every part of our countiy. it is 
hard to conciMve the difficulty that early settlers 
had to contend with in oi'der to procure an educa- 
tion for their children. But the facilities then 
were not near what they are now, and where there is 






n^ 



« — »- 




^ 



no excuse for any civilized being to be uneducated 
at the present day, at that period it was (Mitirely 
different, and the children who were eager for an 
education, in the unsettled j)ortions, were unable to 
attend school. This was the case of Russel Jor- 
dan, Init, though seriously handicapped as he was, 
lie managed to obtain a few years' study at the com- 
mon schools, and when unable to attend, applied 
himself to his books and mastered what he desired 
to learn. On January 2, 1847, he was married to 
Martha, daughter of Levi and Jane Watson, of 
North Carolina, who moved to Sharp County, in 
1852, where they have since died. Mrs. Jordan 
was born in St. Clair County, Ala., where her 
parents resided some time, and died in 1861. Six 
children were born to this marriage, of whom three 
are yet living. His second marriage was in 1862 
to Nancy J. , daughter of Harvey D. and Josephine 
Worthington, of North Carolina and Kentucky, 
respectively. The parents moved to Arkansas, 
about the year 1856, and settled in Prairie Coun- 
ty, where the father died. Mrs. Worthington is 
now residing in Kentucky, her daiighter's birth- 
place. Seven sons and four daughters were born 
to Mr. Jordan's second marriage, all of them still 
living, and, remembering his early experience in 
attending school, he has spared no pains in giving 
them the best education obtainable. In 1852 he 
moved to Mississippi, and from there to what is 
now Sharp County, Ark. , the following year, 
where he settled on a farm. His land at that time 
had but seven or eight acres cleared, but now he 
has over 100 acres cleared and under cultivation, 
and owns about 210 acres altogether, all the result 
of his own industry and good management. Mr. 
Jordan is a well-known and popular man in his 
vicinity, and mingles in public life considerably, 
having for the ])ast thirty years held several public 
otfices, such as de]iuty sheriff, justice of the peace 
(his present official capacity) and others. In 
politics he is a Democrat and a stanch adherent 
to that party. He enlisted in the Confederate 
army during the war, becoming a member of Col. 
Freeman's regiment of cavalry, and performed 
some excellent work in a numlier of battles. Mr. 
Jordan is a member of the A, F. &. A. M., and has 



been master a great many years of Curia Lodge 
No. 144. He also belongs to " Rural" Royal Arch 
Chapter No. 50, at Evening Shade, and has hel.l 
several of the offices, and is a member of Eastern 
Star, having been for .some time past worthy 
patron. At one time he was commissioned to or- 

' ganize chapters of his fraternity through.Mit North 
Arkansas, and succeeded in establishing quite a 
number. 

John B. McCaleb, a prominent attorney at 
Evening Shade, was born at Evening Shade, Ark., 
October 24, 1856. He is a son of Col. James 
H. and Frances A. (Jenkins) McCaleb, of Knox 
County, Tenn., and Bowling Green, Ky., respect- 
ively. The mother was married in her fourteenth 
year to William French, and soon after moved to 
Little Rock. After a short residence in that place, 
they came to Evening Shade, at a time when there 
were but one or two families living there, and 
where Mr. French died. In 1854 Mrs. French 
was married to Col. McCaleb, who had come from 
Tennessee, and both have resided in Evenino' 
Shade up to the time of their death. The father- 
was a farmer and hotel proprietor for twenty- live 
years, and was one of the best- known hotel men in 
Northeast Arkansas. In earlier days the elder 
McCaleb held the office of justice of the peace. 
He served almost through the entire war. and per- 
formed the duties of a soldier in different capaci- 
ties in the Confederate army, and was colonel of a 
regiment of militia in the home guards stationed 
at Pocahontas. He was a member of the A. F. & 
A. M., and was master of Evening Shade Lodge 

[ for a number of years. Col. McCaleb" s father was 
James H. McCaleb. of North Carolina, who died 
in Evening Shade after a few years' residence. 
Col. McCaleb's forefathers originally came from 
North Ireland to this eountiT. and the lineHge of 
that family extends back to the earlier part of the 
eighteenth century. The father of Col. McCaleb's 
wife was William Jenkins, a Kentuckian. who 
moved to Illinois at an early period, and died 
there about the year 1873. His daughter, Mrs, 
McCaleb, had three children by each husband, of 
whom John McCaleb is the oldest of three broth 
ers — sons by the last husband. John McCnleli 



748 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



was educated at Evening Shade, and began life 
for himself when fifteen years of age. In 1878 
he commenced tlu; study of law with the Hon. 
Sam H. Davidson, teaching school in the mean- 
time. In 1881 he was admitted to the bar by 
Judce R. H. Powell, and since then has practiced 
his profession in Sharp, Izard, Fulton and Baxter 
Counties, also holding a license to practice in the 
supreme court of Arkansas and Missouri, and is 
one of the most promising attorneys in Sharp 
County. On January 10, 1883, he was married to 
Allie, daughter of Col. Joseph L. Abernethy, and' 
has had four children by this marriage, one son 
and two daughters still living. Mr. McCaleb 
owns some town property, besides aboiit 1,500 
acres of wild land in Sharp County, and his pros- 
perity is due entirely to his own enterprise and 
shrewdness. In politics he is a Democrat and is 
chairman of the county Democratic Central Com- 
mittee. He has been a member of the A. F. & A. 
M. since his majority, belonging to Evening 
Shade Lodge No. 143, and has held almost all of 
the offices, being master for two terms. He is also 
a member of Royal Arch ( Rural ) Chapter No. 50, 
and has been high priest. Also a charter member 
of Knights of Honor, and Knights & Ladies of 
Honor, and is dictator of the former. 

John C. McKinney, a leading farmer of Law- 
rence County, Smithville postoffice, was born in 
Alabama, February 20, 1839, a son of James and 
Patsey M. (Holder) McKinney. James was born 
in North Carolina, April 3, 1819, was reared and 
married in Alabama, came to Polk County, Mo. , 
about 1844, and in 1857 moved to Sharp County, 
where he resided until his death, in 1863. His 
father, Francis McKinney, of Scotch and Welsh 
descent, was born in South Carolina. He served 
throughout the Revolutionary War, and died in 
Polk County, Mo. Our subject's mother was born 
in Alabama in 1820; she died about 1867, being 
the mother of ten childi-en, five of whom are now 
living: Thomas M. , Elizabeth A., William B.. 
Samuel B. , and John C. our subject, who came to 
Polk County, Mo. , at the age of eight years, where 
he received his education. On March 4, 1860, 
he married Lucinda Daily, who was born in Polk 



County in 1839, and died in September, 1882. 
She was the mother of six children, all living: 
Sarah J., wife of William Hollen: Melvina J., wife 
of Jeff D. Estes; Mary A., Davis L., Milliam G., 
Dora J. In November, 1884, he married Hannah 
Williams, who was born in Louisiana in 1855. Mr. 
McKinney has 285 acres of land, about 100 culti- 
vated, located on Strawberry River. He enlisted 
in Company F, Shaffer's regiment. Seventh Ar- 
kansas Infantry Volunteers, and served until May, 
1865. He was a private the first year, corporal 
the second, and afterward captain of a company 
till the close, when he retui'ned home and resumed 
farming. He has been a resident of this county 
since 1875, and has held the office of justice of the 
peace two years. He is a Democrat, having east 
his first presidential vote for Breckinridge. He is 
a member of Masonic Lodge No. 29, at Smithville. 
His wife is a member of the Baptist Church. 

William C. Matheny, retired farmer and ex- 
coiinty judge, was born in Roane County, Tenn., 
September 9, 1824, his parents being Samuel and 
Sytha (Grimsley) Matheny. The former, whose 
birth occurred in Virginia, June 18, 1796, was a 
son of Elijah and Mary (Davis) Matheny, natives 
of Virginia, the Mathenys being of French descent. 
His parents moved in 1799 to East Tennessee, 
where he was raised and where Samuel died (in 
Overton county) in 1881. The latter was a farmer, 
althoiigh he served an apprenticeship at the cabi- 
net trade. His wife Sytha Matheny, was born in 
Washington County, Tenn., in 1793. and died in 
Roane County, that State, in 1838. Her jiarents 
were natives of Culpeper County, Va. , and moved 
to Tennessee in an early day. She was the mother 
of twelve children. Eleven grew to maturity and 
married, and five are now living, all in Tennessee, 
except our subject, who also has two half sisters and 
one half brother by his father's second marriage. 
His parents being poor, William C. received but a 
common school education, and that in Tennessee, 
where he was raised. December 13, 1849, he mar- 
ried Miss Louisa F. Terry, who has born in what 
is now Putnam County, T(^nn., November 9, 1831. 
She is a daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Terry, 
the father having died in Tennessee, where the moth- 







er is still living, tbougli blind. The family of our 
8ul)ject consists of seven children — Allison B., l)orn 
September 30, 1850; Sarah E., bora January 14, 
lSr)3, wife of James W. Smith, of Sharp County; 
Mary A., born November 15, 1855, wife of Milton 
T. Ofield, of Izard County; Columbus D., born 
January 14, 1858; Elijah, born July 23, 1861; 
Grimaley H. , born April 7, 1806, and Ira J., born 
August 24, 1868. In May, 1847, Mr. Matheny 
enlisted in Capt. Huddleston's Company, Four- 
teenth Regiment, United States Infantry, in Over- 
ton, Tenn. , and served in the Mexican War, being 
with Gen. Scott at the taking of the City of Mexi- 
co, {)articipating also in the battles of Contreras, 
Cherubusco, Melina Delva, Castle of Chapultepec, 
and at the gates of the city, being discharged as 
second sergeant at New Orleans July 25, 1848. 
He now tb'aws a pension of $8 a month. In 1861 
he organized a company in Sharp County, and was 
mustered into the Confederate service in September 
of the same year, and served as captain until May 
8, 1862, when he was promoted to lieutenant-col- 
onel of the Twenty-first Arkansas Regiment of In- 
fantry, which position he held until the close of 
the war. May 17, 1863, he was captured at Vicks- 
bnrg and taken prisoner to Sandusky Bay, Ohio, 
and kept there till exchanged, March 3, 1865, at 
Richmond, Va. At the battle of Corinth, Miss., 
October 3, 1862, he received a liullet wound in the 
left forearm, breaking the bone. In 1866 he was 
elected representative of Lawrence County (which 
then included Sharp), and served one term. In 1872 
he was again elected to represent Sharp County, 
serving one term. In 1880 he was elected county 
and probate judge of Sharji County, and served for 
three consecutive terms, and is one of Sharp Coun- 
ty's most influential citizens. Politically, he is a 
Democrat, and himself and wife are members of 
the Primitive Baptist Church. He has a farm of 
160 acres, about 70 of which are cultivated. 

John S. Medley, owner and proprietor of the 
extensive saw and planing-mill and shingle factory 
two miles south of Evening Shade, was born in 
Parke County, Ind., in 1848. Ho is a son of Capt. 
Philip and Rachel (Barnes) Medley, of Indiana 
and Kentucky, respectively, who were married in 



Indiana, and in 1853 removed to Fulton County, 
111., and from there to Schuyler County, 111., after 
the war, where the father died about the year 
1870, and his wife one year previous. Both were 
members of the Union Baptist faith. The elder 
Medley was a miller by occupation, and a man of 
fine business ability. In 1862 he joined the Thir- 
teenth Illinois Infantry, and commanded Company 
I, serving about six months, when he was forced 
to resign on accountjof poor health. He was a 
member of the A. F. & A. M., and a son of Rev. 
Samuel Medley, of Scotch -Irish descent, a noted 
preacher of Kentucky, who died in Illinois. The 
grandfather of John S. Medley, James Barnes, 
was a farmer, and died in the State of Indiana. 
John S. Medley is the third child of eight sons 
and three daughters, of whom eight are yet living. 
He received his education partly at the common 
schools and by self- tuition, and at the age of seven- 
teen years his ability was so well recognized that 
he was taken into partnership with an extensive 
saw mill firm, and has continued in that business 
ever since. He thoroughly understands the busi- 
ness, and has met with success in every instance. 
In 1869 Mr. Medley moved to Evening Shade, 
where he resided up to 1870, when he married 
Mrs. Nancy Sharp, a widow lady, of Indiana, who 
died six months after their wedding. In 1889 he 
was again married, his second wife being Miss 
Lily Green, of Illinois. Mrs. Medley's mother is 
still living, but the father died when she was a 
young girl. Mr. Medley owns about 1,200 acre.s 
of land in the vicinity of Evening Shade, and has 
about 125 acres under cultivation, with several 
good buildings and barns. His mills have the 
reputation of turning out some of the best work in 
Sharp County, and. as a citizen and business man, 
he enjoys a popularity that must be gratifying 
even to the most egotistical, although Mr. Medley 
is as modest as he is popular. His mills have a 
capacity of about 8,000 feet of lumber, and about 
20,000 shingles per day, and has also a planing at- 
tachment. In politics he is a Democrat, and has 
been a member of the I. O. O. F. since his matur- 
ity, holding all of the otfices during that period. 
William G. Meeks, a pioneer farmer of Sullii 



750 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



vau Township, was born in Breckinridge County, 
Ky., in 1819. He is a son of the Rev. William 
and Nancy (Goatley) Meeks, of North Carolina and 
Maryland, respectively, who moved to Kentucky, 
and were married there at a very early day, and 
when young William was sixteen years old, settled 
in Spencer County, Ind., where the father died 
about 1846, and the mother some time afterward, 
in Illinois. The elder Meeks was a Baptist min- 
ister, and well known for his eloquence in the pul- 
pit. He is a son of Priddy Meeks, of North Car- 
olina, who was one of the first settlers of Kentucky, 
and an associate of the famous Daniel Boone. 
William G. Meeks' grandfather, John Goatley, was 
a native of Scotland, who came to America with 
his parents when four years old. He served through 
the Revolutionary War, with the exception of one 
year, in which he was badly disabled, and died in 
Kentucky, with honors showered upon him for his 
record through that period. William G. Meeks is 
the seventh child of eight sons and four daughters, 
and in his youth received a very limited education, 
as the facilities for attending school were quite 
scarce in those days. He commenced in life for 
himself at the age of twenty, and, in 1843, was 
married to Millie, daughter of Pleasant and Re- 
becca Galloway. Mrs. Meeks' mother is still liv- 
ing at the age of ninety-six years, but the father 
died in the State of Indiana, where Mrs. Meeks 
was born. In 1840 Mr. Meeks came to what is 
now Sharp County, but did not move on his pres- 
ent place until 1849, which was then but very little 
improved. He now owns about 280 acres of land, 
with some 120 acres under cultivation, all the re- 
sult of his own energy, and is one of the most en- 
terprising farmers of Sharp County. Mr. Meeks 
enlisted in the Confederate army during the war, 
and was enrolled in Company D, Fourteenth Ar- 
kansas Infantry, holding the rank of lieutenant. 
He afterward became a member of Freeman' s regi- 
ment of cavalry, and later took part in Price's 
raids through Missouri and Kansas. Mr. Meeks 
performed some creditable work during the war, 
and won a reputation as being a gallant and effi- 
cient soldier. He surrendered at Jacksonport in 
Juno, 1865. and returned to his home. When Mi'. 



Meeks first settled in this vicinity the country was 
nothing but a wilderness, and had no inhabitants 
but a few venturesome spirits like himself, who 
were seeking a home in the West, unless, indeed, 
the wild animals that infested the country at that 
time could be called its inhabitants. His nearest 
postoffice and trading post was at Batesville, some 
twenty miles distant; but since that period he has 
lived to see this portion of Arkansas grow up into 
a populous and thriving country, and can now tell 
the younger generation how the streets and by-ways 
of the present civilization were once the path of 
the fleet-footed deer and the prowling wolf. The 
names of Mr. Meeks' children are : Nancy, wife of 
Francis Kent; Sarah, wife of A. J. Green; Benja- 
min F., Thomas J., Eliza, wife of J. E. G. Ball, 
and Willie Ann, wife of J. D. Cargle. 

Isaac N. Jlorgan, a substantial farmer of Mor- 
gan Township, is a native of Tennessee, having 
been born in Franklin County in 1837. His 
father was Harris Morgan, who was born in Ten- 
nessee, in June, 1810, and who is now living in 
Sharp County. Ark., where he came in 1840, Mor- 
gan Township being named in his honor before the 
war. He was a blacksmith by trade, but carried 
on farming in connection therewith. His wife was 
born in North Carolina in 1816, but died in Sharp 
County in November, 1881. She was the mother 
of ten children, three of whom are now living. 
Elizabeth, Sarah and Isaac, all of whom reside in 
Sharp County. Isaac N. acquired most of his 
education after reaching manhood, but received 
what little schooling he had in Sharp County. In 
October, 1865, he married Miss Salina Carver, 
who was born in Mississippi in 1843. Her par- 
ents were J. D. and Frances Carver, natives of 
Mississippi, who came to Ai'kansas in 1851. The 
father is dead, but the mother still lives in Sharp 
County. The family consists of three daughters 
and three sons: Tennessee B. , Amanda L., Mary. 
William T., Joseph and Isaac B. Our subject 
entered the Confederate service in 1861. in the 
Seventh Arkansas Volunteers, under Col. Robert 
Shaver, participating in the battles of Shiloh, 
Corinth and Bowling Green, and at the close of 
the war returned to Sharp County and resumed 



SHARP COUNTY. 



751 



farming. He has a good farm of 347 acres, about 
100 of which are under cultivation. He is a Dem- 
ocrat, and both he and hi.s wife are members of | 
the Baptist Church. 

Judge Addison H. Nunu, one of the pioneers 
of Sullivan Township, was born in Williamson 
County. Tenn., in 1814. He is a son of William 
R. and Rebecca W. (Stone) Nunn, the former born 
in Pendleton District, S. C. , about 1783, and the 
latter in Mecklenburg, Va. The parents were 
married in Williamson County, Tenn., and resided 
there until the year 1855, when they moved to 
Texas, where the father died in 1862. The elder 
Nunn was an extensive merchant and real estate 
dealer, and a very successful business man, finan- 
cially. He first started in life without a dollar, , 
but by his natural abilities, shrewdness in busi- ! 
ness transactions and enterprise, he left a fortune 
at his death. He held the office of justice of the 
peace for three years, and was a member of the 
I. O. O. Y. His father, Francis Nunn, was a 
Noi-th Carolinian, and when William R. was about 
thrfee years old removed first to Georgia and then 
to the State of Tennessee in 1806, where he died 
at the age of sixty years, his wife, Marcy (Rice) 
Nunn, dying in Tennessee, at the age of eighty- 
tive years. The Nunn family are of French origin, 
but on the mother's side the family are English. 
Judge Nunn's grandfather, William Stone, came 
from England with his parents, and settled in Vir- 
ginia, and were afterward among the first settlers 
of Maury County, Tenn. Judge Nunn was the 
eldest of thirteen children, who received their edu- 
cation in the early days at a log cabin school. In 
1837 he w'as married to Amanda, daughter of Jere- 
miah and Catherine Baxter, born in North Caro- 
lina and Tennessee, respectively. Eleven children 
were given to this marriage, of whom four sons and 
three daughters are yet living. His second mar- 
riage was in 1863, to Mrs. Mary Bowman, a widow 
lady, and a daughter of Men-iman Arnn, of Vir- 
ginia, where his daughter was also born, in Pitt- 
sylvania County. Ten children were born to Mr. 
and Mrs. Nunn, of whom three sons and five daugh 
ters are still living. In 1843 Judge Nunn moved 
to Arkansas, and pitched his tent upon the same 



spot where he now resides. This section of Arkan- 
sas was then a wilderness, whose only inhabitants 
were wild animals, the nearest postoftice and trad- 
ing point being the town of Batesville, which was 
then a very small place. He has made this his 
home ever since, and at one time owned over 2,0(tO 
acres of land. He now owns about l,IMtO acres, 
and has 100 acres under cultivation, owning one 
of the finest farms in Sharp County. In 1861 he 
organized Company I, and joined MeCarver's reg- 
iment of Arkansas infantry, and for the first four 
months was stationed at Pocahontas, then at Fort 
Pillow, and lastly at Corinth, where he was dis- 
charged after six months' service. After the war 
he returned home, and for several years was justice 
of the peace, an office he also held in Tennessee. 
In 1845 he was elected county and probate judge 
of Lawrence County, and at the expiration of bis 
term, on two different occasions, was re-elected. 
In 1 874 he was elected supervisor of Sharp County, 
and in 1878 county and probate judge for two years. 
Before the war. Judge Nunn established the Sidney 
postoffice, and was postmaster for three years; and 
after peace had been declared he had the office re- 
stored, and was appointed jwstmaster again. In 
politics, he has been a Democrat ever since the war, 
and was a Whig before that event. He became a 
member of the I. O. O. F. in 1845, and a Mason 
several years later, and is a member of the Royal 
Arch Chapter. Judge Nunn is well known and 
luiiversally respected throughout Northeast Arkan 
sas. He is one of its oldest inhabitants, and has 
lived to see that portion of the State grow u]) from 
its infancy, to be dotted with productive farms, 
thriving towns and enterprising citizens. He has 
been a member of the Presbyterian Church since 
his fourteenth year, as also were both wives, and 
was an elder for over forty years. 

Abner J. Porter, judge of the county and pro 
bate court of Sharp County, and a leading attorney 
of that place, was born in \\ illiamson County, 
Tenn., in the year 1831. He is the son of Will 
iam C. and Judith R. (Owen) Porter, the former 
born in Rockingham County, N. C. in 1803, and 
the latter in Davidson County. Teim., in 1804. 
The parents were married in Williamson County, 



■»Pv 



2iJ 



752 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Tenn.. in 1824. and resided there until the year 
1830, when they moved to Weakle_y Coiinty, Tenn., 
and from there to Springfield, Mo., in 1856. In 
1860 they settled in Sharp County, Ark., where 
the father died in 1878, and the mother in 1881. 
The elder Porter was a prominent farmer and a 
leading citizen of Sharp County during his life, 
and was held in the highest esteem by his fellow- 
citizens. He was a son of Dudley Porter, of 
North CaroHna, who removed to Tennessee in 1811, 
and died three months after his arrival. His 
father was John Porter, who lost another son at 
the battle of Charleston, during the Revolution. 
Judge Porter's parents had eleven sons, of whom 
seven are living: Their names are Robert G. , a 
resident of Sharp County;. William G. , a tobac- 
conist of Springfield, Mo.; Judge Abner J. Porter; 
Rev. Peter O. , of Sharp County; Jesse W., re- 
siding in the same county; Henry W. , of Ran- 
dolph County, and Felix R., a prominent lawyer of 
Springfield, Mo. Five of them gave their services 
to the Confederate cause — Abner J., John W., 
Jesse W., Benjamin F. (who was captured and 
died in prison at Chicago), and Felix R. In his 
youth Judge Porter received a common school edu- 
cation, and also applied himself to the higher 
branches of education, which he mastered without 
the aid of a teacher. He had commenced the 
study of law at Springfield, Mo., when the war 
called him from his books, and he joined Capt. 
Thomason's company of the Fifty- second Volunteer 
Tennessee Infantry. In the spring of 1862 he was 
sent home on furlough, on account of disability, but 
after recovering from hi.s afflictions he re-joined 
the army under Gen. Forrest's command, becom- 
ing a member of Col. Wilson's Tennessee regi- 
ment. He held the rank of orderly sergeant in 
Capt. Dudley's company, and served about one 
year longer, taking part in a number of engage- 
ments during that time. Judge Porter was mar- 
ried in Weakley County, Tenn., in 1866, to Miss 
Mary J. Carter, a daughter of Jerome and 
Mary (Matthews) Carter, of North Carolina 
and Tennessee, respectively, and they are the 
parents of five sons and three daughters: Ada J., 
William C. , Thomas J., James O. , Ida R. , Mary 



E., John W. and Granville D. In 1867 the 
Judge arrived in Sharp County, and located at 
Evening Shade, where he entered the grocery busi- 
ness, and practiced law until 1875. He then set- 
tled on his present place of residence, and com- 
menced farming, and now has about 100 acres un- 
der cultivation, owning 320 acres altogether in two 
farms. He is considered to be one of the best 
farmers in Sharp County, and has also continued 
the practice of law, with gratifying success, both 
in the justice and circuit courts. In 1878 he was 
elected judge of the county and probate courts for 
two years, and filled the office with distinction. 
The soundness of his judgment and the coiTect- 
ness of his views made him the most available 
man for that position, and he was again elected in 
1888. In politics he is a Democrat, and has been 
one all his life. He is strong in upholding the 
principles and men of his party, and is one of 
its stanchest adherents. The Judge has been a 
member of Evening Shade Lodge No. 141, A. F. 
& A. M., since 1867, and is also a member of 
Royal Arch Chapter No. 52, at Evening Shade. 
He belongs to the Baptist Church, while his wife 
is a Presbyterian. 

Elijah Ratliff is a farmer of Union Township, 
near Martin's Creek postoffice. His grandfather 
was one of the first settlers of Pike County, Ky. , 
where he died. Robert R. , the father of our sub- 
ject, was born in Kentucky, about 1816; was mar- 
ried there to Polly Edwards, and in 1854 emi- 
grated to Texas County, Mo. , being one of the 
early settlers of that county. In 1862 he moved 
to Arkansas. He was a soldier in the late war, was 
captured and taken prisoner to Alton, 111., where 
he died in 1866. His wife, who died about 1865, 
was the mother of nine children, our subject being 
the sixth. He was raised and received most of his 
schooling in Texas County, Mo. In 1871 Elijah 
married Miss Nancy Garner, who was born in 
Sharp County, Ark., in 1849, the daughter of John 
and Rena Garner. They have six children living: 
John R., William H., Martha E., Mary J., George 
W. (deceased), Albert and James. Mr. Ratliff 
has resided in Sharp County since 1870, and has 
about 400 acres of land, about ninetv of which are 



^ 



SHARP COUNTY. 



under cultivation, 200 acres in Fulton County, 
Ark., and '200 on Martin's Creek. In politics he is 
a Democrat. Laving cast his first presidential vote 
for Cleveland. Our subject and his wife are both 
members of the Christian Church. 

Michael Van Buren Shaver, farmer and mer- 
chant, was born in Sullivan County, East Tenn., 
April 7, 1832. His parents were David and Har- 
riet (May) Shaver. David, Jr., was born in Sulli- 
van County, Tenn., in 1799, where he always re- 
sided, and died in 1843. He was a son of David 
Shaver, Sr. , merchant and slave owner, who was 
born in Buncombe County, N. C, and whose father 
(Michael's great grandfather), was killed in the 
Revolutionary War. The Shavers are of French, . 
German and English descent. Michael's mother 
was bom in Tennessee, in 1800, and died in Sharp 
County, Ark., in 1881; her parents were Samuel 
and Catherine May. Mr. May was born in Lon- 
don, England, and was a physician by profession, 
and a wealthy citizen. His wife was a Shelby, of 
one of the old families of the United States. Isaac 
Shelby, an uncle of Catherine, was governor of 
Kentucky, and a noted man. Ferdinand M. and 
our subject are the only children living of a family 
of eight. M. Van was raised in Tennessee, where 
he received a common school education. At the 
age of nineteen years he came to Independence 
County, Ark. The next year he located in Fulton 
County, cleared a farm in the woods, and in May, 
1866, married Mary Livingston. They have had 
five children (four of whom are now living) : Shelby 
L. , Hattie M., Jimmie (deceased), Emma and Mat- 
tie. In 1861 he raised a company of infantry in 
Fulton County, Seventh Arkansas, of Col. Robert 
Shaver's regiment, under Gen. Hardee; was cap- 
tain of his company one year, when he came home, 
formed a battalion, was elected major, and served 
in that capacity during the war. At Augusta, 
Ark., he was wounded in the left leg, where the 
bullet still remains. He was also with Gen. Price 
on his raid through Missouri. After the war he 
returned to Fulton County, of which he was ap- 
pointed sheriff l)y Gov. Murphy, and served two 
years, when ho removed to where he now resides. 
He has a natural stock farm of 350 acres, 125 of 



which are under cultivation, the same being finely 
watered by Reed's Creek. In 1880 he erected a 
grist mill at a cost of $4,000, and in May, 1882, it 
was totally destroyed by high water; having no 
insurance, it was a total loss. In 1866 he opened 
a general store where he now resides, but retired 
in 1880 on account of health, and in 1887 resumed 
business in partnership with his son. He is a 
Democrat, having cast his first presidential vote 
for Buchanan. Mr. Shaver was engaged in a hard 
fight on Martin's Creek, and selected the battle 
ground for the first fight in Fulton County. 

Ferdinand May Shaver, farmer and merchant, 
two and a half miles west of Grange postolfice, is 
a brother of M. Van Shaver, and was born in 
Sullivan County, Tenn., July 14, 1836, where he 
resided till the age of fourteen years, and received 
his schooling, which is very limited, and came to 
Arkansas with his parents in 1850, where he has 
since resided. In 1870 he married Miss Mary J. 
Gardner, who was bom in Lawrence County, Ark., 
in 1847. She is the daughter of John H. R. 
and Susana Gardner, her father a Baptist minister, 
who came to Independence County in the early 
days. Mr. Shaver's family consists of six chil- 
dren, Julia M. , Edwin V., David L., James F., 
Lulu B. and an infant. The subject of this sketch 
served in the Confederate army as a cavalryman, 
fi'om 1862 till the close of the war, taking part in 
the Augusta fight. He was engaged in business 
in Fulton County previous to the war, and in 1867 
opened a general store in Sharp County, where he 
has since been in business, carrying a valual)le 
stock of goods. He has about 700 hundred acres 
of land in Sharp County, 200 acres under cultiva- 
tion; 300 acres in Independence County, and eighty 
acres in Lawrence County. Politically, he is a 
Democrat, having cast his first presidential vote 
for Breckinridge. 

Tliomas C. Sims, a prominent farmer and sttx-k 
raiser of Sullivan Township, was horn in Ruther- 
ford County, Tenn.. in 1832. His parents were 
the Hon. Leonard H. and Louisa (Beatty) Sims, 
born in North Carolina in 1807, and Virginia in 
1808, respectively, and were united in marriage in 
Rutherford County. Tenn. In 1839 the parents 



>» 
y 



754 



HISTOKY OF AEKANSAS. 



removed to a point near Springfield, Mo., but in 
1847 returned to Tennessee, and in 1859 they came 
to Independence County, Ark., where the father 
died in 188(3, and the mother in Tennessee the fol- 
lowing year. The elder Sims was at one time one 
of the most brilliant politicians in Tennessee. He 
twice represented Rutherford County in the legis- 
lature, and from 1842 to 1845 or 1846, represented 
Greene County, Mo., in the State legislature. 
During the Polk administration be was a member 
of the National Congress from Missouri (at large), 
and in 1860 was elected to represent Independence 
and Stone Counties in the State senate. He was 
again elected in 1874 for the long term of four 
years, and his oratory while a member of that body 
was noted for its eloquence. He was a man of su- 
perior abilities, a close observer of men and events, 
and a shrewd politician, and never suffered defeat 
in a political contest. When a member of the 
senate he served on the committee on Federal 
returns, and was one of the ablest men of that 
body, and was also an ardent advocate for the pay- 
ment in full of the State debt. During his first 
term in the Arkansas State senate he delivered the 
memorial address on the late Senator Lusburrow, 
who was the senator from Pulaski County during 
that session, but had recently committed suicide 
while the senate was in session. This was one of 
the most eloquent and able addresses ever heard in 
the senate chamber, and Mr. Sims was the recip- 
ient of many flattering compliments and consider- 
able praise on this occasion. He was also a promi- 
nent member of the A. F. & A. M. , Curia Lodge, and 
of the Royal Arch Chapter. In politics he had been a 
Democrat all his life, and was a strong supporter of 
that party. Thomas C. Sims was the fourth child 
of seven sons and five daughters, and received a 
good common school and academic education. In 
1854 he was married to Sarah J., daughter of 
Judge A. H. Nunn, and by this marriage has had 
ten children, of whom four sons and three daugh- 
ters are still living. In 1855 he moved to what is 
now Sharp County, and settled on a farm with but 
very little improvement, but since that time he has 
placed 145 acres under cultivation, owning alto- 
gether some 346 acres, besides a number of town 



lots in Hardy, and all the result of his own industry, 
business tact, and good management in farming 
and trading. He taught school for several years 
before and since the war, and, on the outbreak of 
hostilities between the North and South, he en- 
listed in Company G, of Col. Shaler's regiment, 
and served almost three years in the Confederate 
army, holding the rank of first lieutenant for two 
years. He fought in a number of battles in Mis- 
souri, Kansas, and portions of the Indian Territory, 
and was with Price on his raids through Missouri 
and Kansas. He was present during the snin>n- 
der at Jacksonport, in 1865, and returned home 
after the war was over. In politics, Mr. Sims has 
always been a Democrat, and was appointed post- 
master of Sullivan Springs for several years. He 
is a member of Evening Shade Lodge No. 143, 
A. F. & A. M., and, with his wife, has been a 
member of the Presbyterian Church for over thirty 
years. His grandfather, Swepson Sims, of North 
Carolina, resided in Rutherford County, Tenu., for 
about forty-five years, where he was a noted physi- 
cian in his day. His father was Leonard Sims, a 
Scotchman, who settled in North Carolina at a very 
early period. William Beatty, the grandfather of 
Thomas C. Sims, was a native of Virginia, and 
died in Rutherford County, Tenn. , where he had 
resided a great many years. Joseph Sims, the 
great- uncle of Thomas C. Sims, first settled at 
Welchmere, now known as Lebanon, Tenn. , and 
was the first man to cut down a tree in that place. 
Leonard H., the father of Thomas C. Sims, was a 
great hunter in his yoimger days, and a celelirated 
shot. His early experience with the Indians had 
given him a skill with the rifle that was marvelous, 
and to the present day many a tale may be heard 
of the great work done by him in the far West. 

James G. Sims, an enterprising and popular 
farmer, of Sharp County, was born in Greenes 
Covmty, Mo. , in 1841. He is a son of Hon. Leonard 
H. and Louisa (Beatty) Sims, of whom an extended 
sketch is given in the biography of T. C. Sims. 
When, in his seventh year, Mr. Sims removed with 
his 2>arents to Tennessee, where the}- resided until 
the year 1859, and then came to Independence 
County. He was reared on a farm, and received a 



~^; 




^ 



good common scbool oducatiou in his youth, and ' 
in early youth displayed the disposition and charac- 
ter of a man whose future life woiild V)e success- 
ful. He was imbued with the same traits of 
energy and force which characterized his illustrious 
father, and though not following directly in the 
footsteps of the elder Sims, he has made a path 
for himself that may serve as an example for many 
others. In ISfil, he joined Company K, of th(> 
First Ai'kansas Infantry, and served one year 
through Missouri, Ai'kansas, Kansas and the In- 
dian Nation, taking part in the battles at Wilson's 
Creek, Pea Ridge and others. The same comj)any 
soon after re-organized, with Mr. Sims a mem- 
ber of it, and took a leading part in the memorable 
l)attle of Shiloh. His next campaign extended 
through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee 
and Kentucky, and he took part in the liattle at 
Richmond ; on Kirby Smith's raid through Ken- 
tucky: afterwards at the battles of Chickamauga 
and Atlanta, and then returned with Hood to Ten- 
nessee, where he fought in the battles at Franklin 
and Nashville. Shortly after this campaign, he re- 
turned home and resiimed his farm work, and, in 
18()7, was married 1^ Miranda, daughter of Perry 
and Margaret West, of Arkansas. Mrs. West died 
when her daughter was a child, and the father 
died in 187-4, in Sharp County. Mrs. Sims was 
born in Texas, and with her marriage to Mr. Sims, 
has had nine sons and one daughter. In 1808 
they settled on their present farm, about four .miles 
northeast of Evening shade, where Mr. Sims 
owns 700 acres of land, and has about 200 acres 
imder cultivation. He is one of the leading farm- 
ers and citizens of Sharp County, and is held in 
high esteem by the entire community. In politics 
he is a Democrat, and was a member of the board 
of equalization of Sharp County. He was also a 
member of the Agricultural Wheel, and in 1888 
was vice-president of the Sharp County Wheel. 
He also belongs to Evening Shade Lodge No. 143, 
A. F. & A. M. , and has been a member since 1874. 
John T. Sparks, a farmer of Strawberry Town- 
ship, Smitbville postoffice, Lawrence County, was 
born in Alabama, February 8. 1843. His father, 
John Sparks, was born in Alabama about ISI 1, and 



died there in 1847, and Sarah (Bowlou) Sparks, his 
mother, was bom in Georgia in 1815, dying in 
Lawrence County in 1.S87. The family consisted 
of eight children, three of whom are living: John, 
James L. and Isaac, all residing in Sharp County, 
our subject being the eldest. John T. was raised 
in Alabama till the age of eleven years, when he 
went to Tennessee with his parents, remaining 
there till he was eighteen years of age, when his 
mother and family removed to Lawrence County, 
Ark., living there a short time, and finally moving 
to where our subject now lives. He received his 
education in Arkansas, and, in 181)0, married Miss 
Susan Webb, who was born in Polk County, Mo. . 
in 1845, and died in 1871: she was the mother of 
two children, both living; Mary J. (wife of James 
Wheeler) and William N. In 1872 Mr. Sparks 
married Miss .\lvira Hill, who was born in Law- 
rence County, Ark., in 1850, the daughter of Daniel 
and Delia Hill, Mr. Hill being a native of "Virginia, 
and one of the early settlers of Lawrence County, 
where his wife was born. By this marriage there 
was a family of five children, three living: Ellen 
O., Causette and Edward B. In April, 1862. our 
subject enlisted in the Confederate army, serving 
under Capt. Huddleson until 1805: he was in aU 
the battles west of the IMississippi River, in the 
cavalry. At the close of the war he resumed farm- 
ing, and has also held the offices of constable of his 
township and justice of the peace four years. He 
is a Democrat, and he and his wife are memliers of 
the Missionary Baptist Church. 

Ashley Taylor, a prominent farmer of Rich- 
woods Township, is a son of J. Millidge and Hes- 
ter A. (Cravens) Taylor, of Missouri and Arkansas, 
respectively. J. Millidge Taylor moved to the 
State of Arkansas, with his parents, in 18Ut, and 
met the lady who became his wife in Lawrence 
County, where Ashley was born in 184(5. The 
elder Taylor was a son of J. \V. Taylor, one of the 
earliest settlers of Lawrence County, and died in 
1852. his wife surviving him a good many years. 
They were the parents of ten chiliiicn, «f whom 
Ashley was the seventh, and four of them are still 
living: William W. and Millidge. residents of 
Texas; Mary, wife of John Saffell. and Ashley. 



3 . 

V 



756 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Ashley Taylor remained on the home place until 
the year 1863, when he joined the Confederate 
army, becoming a member of one of the Arkansas 
regiments, in which he did gallant service. On 
September 12, 1864, he was captured at Thomas- 
ville, Mo., and taken to the prison at St. Louis. 
From there he was changed to a prison at Alton, 
111., but again returned to St. Louis, where, with 
five others, he was sentenced to be shot. The six 
men awaited their doom with the greatest fortitude, 
realizing that what was to be was according to the 
fortunes of war, but shortly before the hour set 
for the execution a kind Providence saved them 
from the fate they expected, and others were 
chosen instead to face the executioners. He was 
then returned to Alton, 111., and afterward to Rock 
Island, where he was held until June 22, 1865, 
and then released. On his return to Arkansas Mr. 
Taylor ran a carding machine at Evening Shade 
for several years, and finally commenced farming 
again, his occupation previous to the war. He was 
married in 1875. to Miss America E. Barnett, a 
daughter of James and Jane Barnett, of Sharp 
County, and by this marriage has had one son and 
four daughters. Mr. Taylor lost his wife on Sep- 
tember 21, 1887. He resided in Lawrence County 
until 1885, and then moved to Sharp County, but 
did not settle on his present place until 1887. The 
land comprises 200 acres, of which 1 20 acres are 
under cultivation, all of it being accumulated by 
Mr. Taylor himself. He is a Democrat in politics 
and a strong supporter of his party. Mr. Taylor 
is a member of Ash Flat Lodge No. 159, F. & A. 
M., and of Royal Arch Chapter No. 50. at Even- 
ing Shade. He is also a member of the Famous 
Life Association of Little Rock, his wife, during 
her life, being a member of the same association. 
S. Price Turner, one of the leading merchants 
of Ash Flat, was born in Dent County, Mo., in 
1862. His parents were George \V. and Leon E. 
(Dougherty) Turner, both natives of Tennessee, 
who resided in Dent County, Mo. , bef,ore the war. 
The family moved to Baxter County, Ark. , in 
1864, and from there to Izard County, and, in 
1866, settled in Sharp County, coming to Ash 
Flat one year later. The father entered into com- 



mercial life on his arrival, and was a successful 
business man up to the time of his death, in Janu- 
ary, 1885, being one of the most prominent mer- 
chants and leaders in mercantile affairs in that 
place. He was an officer in the Confederate army, 
and served through the war with great distinction, 
and was also a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and 
Knights and Ladies of Honor. His start in Ash 
Flat was, similar to that of other self-made men, 
on almost nothing, but, being a man of energetic 
and determined spirit, he made a success where 
many others would have made a failure, and, at 
the time of his death, left a considerable fortune. 
Mr. Turner and his wife were both members of the 
Christian Church, and Mrs. Turner still survives 
her husband, at the age of fifty- four years. She 
is a daughter of Sakiah Dougherty, a brave officer, 
who met death at the battle of Wilson's Creek, in 
1861. S. Price Turner has resided in Ash Flat 
ever since five years old, with the exception of one 
year at Fayetteville. He attended the State Uni- 
versity in his youth, and at the age of eighteen 
was taken into partnership with his father, and re- 
mained with him until the elder Turner's death, 
when he succeeded to the business. He has car- 
ried on the business in the same enterprising man- 
ner that characterized the father, and has upheld 
the reputation made by the elder Turner. Mr. 
Turner, in connection with other members of his 
family, owns over 1,200 acres of land in Sharp 
County, besides considerable real estate in Ash 
Flat, and in the State of California. He was mar- 
ried, February 19, 1885, to Miss Fannie David- 
son, a daughter of Dr. Benjamin H. and Atella J. 
Davidson, both deceased, the former being one of 
! the leading physicians of this county during his 
life. Mr. Turner and his wife are the parents of 
one son and two daughters, and they comprise one 
of the most interesting and happie.st families in 
Ash Flat. In politics he is a Democrat, and in 
I 1884 cast his vote for Cleveland. He is also a mem- 
ber of Ash Flat Lodge No. 159, A. F. & A. M., 
and was senior warden for two terms. Royal Arch 
j Chaj)ter, Evening Shade, claims him as a mem- 
ber, as do the Knights and Ladies of Honor. 
1 Anderson Huston Vance, farmer and justice of 







V 




B .F. Jones 
Frenchmans Bayou. 
Mississippi County, Arkansas. 



9 W 




the peace, of Washington Township, was liorn in 
AlHl)ania, November 15, 1837. His parents were 
William and Sarah (Hudson) Vance. William was 
born in North Carolina about 1776, and died in 
March, 1866, in Sharp County, Ark., when about 
eighty-six years of age. Ho emigrated from North 
Carolina to Tennessee in an early day, with his 
parents (who were born in Ireland), and from Ten- 
nessee to Arkansas, in 184S, and located live miles 
south of where the county seat now is. He was a 
farmer. His wife died in October, 1858. in Sharp 
County. She was the mother of fourteen children, 
all of whom grew to maturity, only four of whom 
are now living: Nancy Clark, Claring Norman, 
Anderson H. and Mai'y A. Shirley. All but Mary 
reside in Sharp County, and she in Independence 
County. The subject of this sketch, the eleventh 
child, was raised in Sharp County, where he re- 
ceived his limited education. In 1859 he married 
Miss Margaret C. Johnson, who was born in East 
Tennessee, September '2, 1840, and died June 26, 
1878. She was the mother of three children, one 
of whom is living, William Huston. December 3, 
1888, he married Sarah J. (Hardester) Douglas, a 
widow, who was born in Independence County, in 
1851. Mr. Vance was in Evening Shade before 
the town was thought of. In June, 1862, he en- 
listed in the Confederate army. Company F, under 
Col. Bob Shaver, serving four years, and partici- 
pating in the battles of Pleasant Hill (La.) and 
Jenkins' Ferry (Ark. ). He is, and has been since 
1867, a member of the Masonic order, and once 
represented his lodge in th(^ grand lodge. In 
1874 he was elected justice of the peace of Wash- 
ington Township, and s(>rved eight successive years, 
and was again elected to the same oflBce in 1888, 
and is now serving his fifth term. He is a Demo- 
crat in jiolitics. He has 174 acres of land, and 
cultivates seventy-five acres of it. He and his first 
wife were members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, his present wife being a memlier of the 
Melhodist Ejjiseopal Church, South. 

Samuel J. Walker, general merchant and stock 
dealer, was born in Stewart County, Tenn., in 
1821). His parents were John and Susan (Thomas) 
Walker, the former born in Virginia in 1804, and 



the latter in Tennessee in 1806. The parents were 
married in Stewart County, where they resided 
until the year 1852, and then moved to what is now 
Sharp County, and lived there until the time of 
their death. John Walker's father was Samuel 
Walker, who was born in Ireland and fought in 
some of the early wars of this country. He was a 
blacksmith and woodworker by trade, and moved to 
Tennessee when John was a boy, where the latter 
grew to manhood and was married. Samuel J. is 
the fourth child of a family of eight sons and four 
daughters. He moved to Shaqi County, Ark., 
with his parents, and was married in that place to 
Miss Elizalieth Baker, a daughter of Newton and 
HaiTiet Baker, of Sharp County. Mr. Walker lost 
his wife in 1874, after a happy married life, and 
also a son. His second wife was Mrs. Mary Dun- 
can, a widow lady, and a daughter of Ephraim and 
Olive Perkins, of Missouri, and by this maiTiage 
he has three children: Minnie J., Maudee and Sam- 
uel. With the exception of one year's residence in 
Randolph County, Mr. Walker has lived on his 
present place ever since his arrival in .\rkansas. 
He then liad only two acres of land under cultiva- 
tion, which he had fenced in a very primitive man- 
ner, but has increased the number U) 300 acres 
under cultiv.ation, and owns about 1,5(10 acres alto- 
gether. He is also an extensive dealer in stock, 
merchandise and general trading, and is one of the 
most successful and energetic men in Sharp (bounty. 
Mr. Walker has secured all of his prosperity by 
his own efforts since the war. Before that event 
he had considerable real estate and farms, but lost 
everything, and after peace had been declared he 
started in life without a dollar. He served three 
years in the Confederate army, and was a nien]bt>r 
of AVood's battalion, on Gen. Price's staff. After 
two years' service he was discharged ou account of 
disalnlity, and sis months later re enlisted in Col. 
Love's regiment as a private, where he remained 
until the close of the war. Few men served their 
country better than Mr. \\'alker diil, whilf lighting 
for the Confederacy. He took part in a great 
many engagements, and was with Price on his iiiein- 
orable raids through Missouri. At home he was 
captured by the enemy and taken prisoner in the 



(T 



^ 



a k^ 



758 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fall of 1863, and was held about two months at Pilot 
Knob, afterward taking the oath of allegiance. 
Later ou he was forced into the service again, and 
surrendered at Jacksonport. In politics, Mr. Wal- 
ker was a Whig, and cast bis first vote for Scott, 
in 1852, but since the war he has become a true 
Democrat. He has been a meiujaer of the A. F. & 
A. M. (now belonging to Wilson Lodge No. 132, at 
Hardy), for twenty years, and has in that time 
helped to organize two lodges, also holding all of 
the principal offices. He is also a member of the 
Knights & Ladies of Honor, and the Famous Life 
Association at Little Rock, having belonged to the 
latter for five years. Mrs. Walker is also a mem- 
ber of the same association. Mr. Walker is a gen- 
tleman of great popularity in this locality, and is 
also counted as one of its wealthiest men. He is 
full of energy and life in all enterprises, and Sharp 
County has in him a citizen of whom she may feel 
proud. 

David D. Walker, a retired farmer, residing in 
Hardy Village, was born in Stewart County, Tenn. , 
November 16, 184:4, but came to Sharp County 
with his parents, who were among the early set- 
tlers, iu tlie winter of 1852. His father, John 
Walker, died in Sharp County, and his mother, 
Susan (Thomas) Walker, died in the same county 
in 1874. Of a family of twelve children our sub- 
ject and ii brother are the only living members, 
David being the eleventh. He was raised in Sharp 
County, but his education was very limited, he 
having had no opportunity of going to school. In 
1866 David married Miss Permelia Webb, who 
was born in Tennessee, in 1844, the daughter 
of Thomas J. and Batharba Webb. Mr. Webb 
was born in Arkansas and his wife in Tennessee, 
both having died iu Arkansas. Mr. Walker's fam- 
ily has consisted of eight children (two of whom 
are living): Sarah H. (deceased), Susan M. (de- 
ceased), Mary E. (deceased), Samuel J. (deceased), 
Lucy Ann, John W. (deceased), Margie E. (de- 
ceased) and Newton R. Mr. Walker has about 
300 acres of land in Hardy Township, some 200 
being under cultivation. In 1864 he enlisted in 
Capt. Adams' company, in the Confederate army, 
and served till the close of the war, participating in 



the battles of Martin' s Creek and Dardanelle. He 
is a member of Wilson Lodge No. 132, A. F. & 
A. M., at Hardy, and is a Democrat in politics, 
having cast his first presidential vote for Seymour 
and Blair. He and his wife are both members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

Joshua Wann, county and circuit court clerk of 
Sharp County, was born in Jackson County, Ala. , 
in 1836. His parents were the Hon. Joshua and 
Lydia (Collins) Wann, born in North Carolina iu 
1796, and Virginia in 1800, respectively, who emi- 
grated to Kentucky with their parents, and were 
there married. They afterward moved to Tennes- 
see, and from there to Alabama, where young 
Joshua was born, and then came to what is now 
Sharp County, Ark., where the father died shortly 
after their arrival. The mother was a Missionary 
Baptist, and died in that faith in the year 1879. 
She was a daughter of Thomas Collins, a native of 
Virginia and of English descent. The elder Wann 
commanded a company of soldiers during the re- 
moval of the Indian tribes from Alabama and 
Georgia in the earlier days, and later in life whs a 
representative from Jackson County, Ala., wheu 
the capital was situated at Tuscaloosa. He held 
the office of assessor and collector of that county 
for several years, and was a member of the A. F. & 
A. M. in good standing. He was in the battle of 
New Orleans, in the War of 1812, and died in 
Jackson County, Ala., before young Jo.shua was 
born. Joshua Wann is the seventh child of four 
sons and six daughters. One of his uncles, Will- 
iam Wann, was at one time a member of the Ten- 
nessee legislature, and died in Lawrence County, 
Mo. His brother, Landen A. , fought in the Mex- 
ican War, and died at Tampico during the cam 
paign. Joshua Wann received his education at 
the common schools, and early in life, the fathei- 
being deceased as well as the elder brothers, the 
support of the family devolved upon him. In 
1860 he was married to Miss Zilpha J. , daughter 
of Dr. Burwell and Edith Dawson, of North Caro- 
lina. Dr. Dawson located in Independence County, 
Ark., about the year 1857, and wrote for his family 
to join him there, but upon their arrival they found 
that death had been before them, and the husband 



5) 



'k 



SHARP COUNTY. 



750 



and father had passed away. Mrs. Dawson sur- 
vived her husband until after the war, and died in 
Sharp County. Mr. and Mrs. Wann have one 
daughter, Laura A., wife*of (i. S. Jernigan. The 
family resided on a farm in Scott Township until 
18S6, when Mr. Wann was elected to his present 
office, and then removed to Evening Shade. He 
was re elected in 1888, and has filled the office in 
a highly creditable manner. He gave three years' 
service to the Confederate cause, and held the rank 
of captain of Company B, Thirty-lifth Arkansas 
Infantry, for three years, performing heroic work 
in Texas, Louisiana and Missouri. He was at the 
battles of Prairie Grove, Little Rock, Saline River, 
Jenkins' Ferry, and many others, and later on 
joined Gen. Price's army, and commanded a com- 
pany of cavalry in Col. M. D. Baber's regiment. 
He was present in all the raids through Missouri and 
Kansas, and was actively engaged until the sur- 
render at Jacksonport, in 1805. In politics, Mr. 
Wann has been a Democrat all his life; in 1874-75 
he represented Sharp County in the legislature, 
and was present during the first session after the 
adoption of the new constitution. He is a charter 
member of Reed's Creek Lodge, A. F. & A. M,, 
and has been master, warden and secretary. He 
also belongs to the Knights and Ladies of Honor 
and Eastern Star at Evening Shade. Mrs. Wann 
has been a member of the Mission.irv Baptist 
Church since her youth, and is a devout Christian. 
Mr. W'ann's success has been due entirely to his 
own shrewdness and ability, and he is one of the 
most popular and influential citizens of Sharp 
Coimty. He has an interest in a small farm in 
Scott Township, and is an enterprising and pro- 
gressive man. 

Capt. John M. Wasson, a prominent citizen of 
Sharp County, Ark. , is the oldest of a family of six 
children, and was born in Lawrence County, Tenu., 
in 1835. He is a son of William Lee and Jane 
(Matthews) Wasson, born in 1810 and 1813, re- 
spectively, in the State of Tennessee, where they 
resided until 1841 and then moved to Searcy 
County, Ark. , but soon afterward came to Lawrence 
County, Ark. The elder Wasson was one of the 
pioneers of that section, and settled on a large 



farm, which he made one of the most successful in 
Lawrence County, and in connection with which 
he ran a blacksmith shop until his death, in LSf57. 
His father, John Wasson, of Scotch Irish descent, 
died in Lawrence County, Tenn. Capt. Wasson's 
grandfather, Thomas Matthews, was a successful 
farmer during his life, and is also buried in Law- 
rence County, Tenn. The Captain received a 
"log cabin" education in his youth, and studied 
one term in Smithville. Upon reaching his ma- 
turity he was offered a position in one of the firms 
at Smithville, and remained with them for several 
years, afterward going into partnership in the 
grocery business at Evening Shade with L. S. 
Bobo, under the firm name of Wasson & Bobo. In 
the fall of 1861 he enlisted in Company B, of the 
Twenty-first Arkansas Infantry, and commanded 
that company as captain until the fall of Vicksburg, 
where he was captured and paroled and then 
came home. He was again captured at home in 
1863 and imprisoned for a short time at St. Louis, 
and from there taken to Camp Chase, Ohio, and 
then again transferred to Johnson's Island. Ohio, 
where he was held until May, ISf)."), and then pa- 
roled and returned to his home. Altogether he was 
kept a prisoner for one year and a half, and soon 
after his release he surrendered in June. 18(»5, at 
Jacksonport. Capt. Wasson fought well for the 
cause he undertook, and received many words of 
praise for his gallant actions during tue war. His 
operations extended through Arkansas, Alabama 
and Mississippi, and he took part in the battles at 
Corinth, Baker's Creek, Black River, siege of Vicks- 
burg and many others. While at the lirstuamed 
battle he received a gunshot wound in the right leg 
and left arm, and in his career through the war had 
many thrilling escapes from death. In ISfid he 
was married to Amanda, a dauglifei' of Williniu 
and Frances French, liorn in Bowling (J reen, K\.. 
in 1820 and 1824, respectively, who immediately 
after their marriage moved to Arkansas and settled 
in Lawrence County, where the father died wiien 
Mrs. Wasson was a little girl. The mother was 
afterward married to Col. James H. McCaleb, who 
died in May, 1885. Mrs. Wasson wa.s born in 
that portion of Lawrence County which is now 






760 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Sharp County, and is the mother of nine children, 
of whom seven are living. After the war Capt. 
Wasson entered into commeroial life at Evening 
Shade, but finding that farm life was more eon- 
genial, he carried on that buKiness, and at 
present has a fine farm, consisting of seventy- 
tive acres under cultivation, about eight miles north- 
west of Evening Shade. In 1876 he was elected 
clerk of Sharp County and served two years, and 
was again elected in 1880, filling the office with 
credit. He has been a Democrat in politics all his 
life, and is a member of the Masonic order at 
Evening Shade, also belonging to the Knights of 
Honor at the same place. Mr. and Mrs. Wasson, 
both, have been members of the Christian Church 
in good standing for several years. 

Allen Weaver, one of the first settlers of North 
Township, resides at what is known as Indian 
Camp Spring, located near Martin's Creek. His 
great-grandfather, William Weaver's father, was a 
soldier in the Revolutionary War, and fought by 
the side of Gen. Washington. The grandfather 
was also William Weaver. His wife was Kesiah 
W^eaver, who died in Tennessee at an advanced 
old age. The father of our siibject, James Weaver, 
was born in 1812, in North Carolina, but came to 
Tennessee with his parents when two years old. 
He was there married to Jane Whitted, in 1836. 
She was a native of North Carolina, and died Jan- 
uary 29, 1875, in Sharp County. In 1851 James 
Weaver came to Polk County, Mo. : in 1852 went 
to Crawford County; the next year to Oregon, and 
in 1857 to where our subject now lives, where he 
died June 18, 1889. On coming to this place he 
piirchased from the government 240 acres of land, 
at 12 J cents per acre; there are now eighty acres 
under fence. The subject of this sketch is the 
onlv child of James and Jane Weaver, with whom 
he resided until their deaths. His education was 
limited, and mostly received at home. September 
7, 1865, he married Miss Josephine Hollinay, of 
Knox County, Tenn., born in 1840, a daughter of 
Zachariah and Eliza Hollinay, her father born in 
North Carolina, and her mother in Tennessee. Mr. 
Allan Weaver's family consists of six living chil- 
dren, two having died: Eliza J. (deceased), born 



September 15, 1866; William A., born September 
7, 1867; Margaret E., born October 3. 1862 (de 
ceased); Joseph L., born .4.ugust 15. 1870; Delila 
D., born March 21, 1873; Joseph N. , born April 
14, 1876; John W., bom December 12, 1877, and 
Orlean S. , born November 26. 1881. died Novem- 
ber 28, 1883. Mr. Weaver enlisted, on the 12th 
of September, 1863, on the Federal side, in Com- 
I^any D, Tennessee Regiment of Light Artilleiy, 
and was discharged July 20, 1865, at Nashville. 
He was in the battle of Nashville, and numerous 
skirmishes. September 2, 1878, he was elected 
justice of the peace for North Township, and re- 
elected in 1880 for another term, having been an 
able and efficient officer. In politics he is a Re- 
publican, but was formerly a Democrat. He owns 
200 acres of land, having given forty to his sou, 
William, who was recently married. Winsted post- 
olfice was established at Mr. Weaver's house July 
1, 1888, he being appointed postmaster. When 
he first located here the nearest postoffice was ten 
miles on Martin's Creek, called Red Bank, and his 
nearest neighbor two miles away. He and his 
wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 
On this farm are traces of an ancient silver mine, 
supposed to have been worked by the Spaniards. 

J. M. Williams, proprietor and owner of Even- 
ing Shade carding factory and saw and corn-mills, 
was born in Sharp County, in 1858. His parents 
were John W. and Margaret (^\■orley) Williams, 
of North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, 
who were married in Tennessee, and came to what 
is now Sharj) County, about the year 1854. where 
they resided until the demise of the father, in 
1871, and his wife, in 1888. Both were members 
of the Baptist faith for many years. The elder 
Williams fought in the Confederate army almost 
from the beginning to the end of the war, and had 
many a nari'ow escape from both death and the 
enemy, although on one occasion he was severely 
wounded, and at another time was captured. He 
was a son of Joseph Williams, of North Carolina; 
he was a member of the A. F. & A. M. , Evening 
Shade Lodge. Michael Worley Deitch, the grand- 
father of J. M. Williams, died in Tennessee, and 
was a well known resident of that State. J. M. 



^' 




Williams is the fourth son of three sons and five 
(lauf^hters. and did not receive much cdncation, 
owing to limited school facilities. He began 
farming for himself at the age of twenty years, 
and continued in that occupation for three vears. 
He then turned his attention to milling, a business 
for which he seems to be especially adapted, and 
has remained at it ever since. In August, 1879, 
he was married to Sarah, daughter of Lewis 
Graddy, but lost his wife in 18S4, and by this 
marriage had two childi-en, one of them, a daugh- 
ter, still living. In 1886 he was married to Mat- 
tie, daughter of John W. and Emma Bristow, 
natives of Boone County, Ark., who moved to 
Sharp County after the war, where Mrs. Bristow 
died. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Williams, of whom one daughter is still living. 
Mr. Williams is a member of the A. F. & A. M. 
(Evening Shade Lodge), and has been junior deacon 
for two years, and is also a member of the Order 
of Eastern Star. He is one of the most enterpris- 
ing and popular citizens of Sharp County, and a 
man who takes every opportunitj- to make that 
county one of the most progressive in Arkansas. 

Samuel Yates, farmer, of Union Township, six 
miles north of Martin's Creek postoffice, was born 
in East Tennessee, July 24, 1830; son of Nathaniel 
and Margaret (Davie) Yates, both natives of Ten- 
nessee, born in 1803 and 1805, respectively, where 
they each died. Nathaniel Yates was a soldier in 
the Revolutionary AVai\ Our subject was the 
fourth of a family of seven children, live of whom 
are now living. He was raised in Tennessee, 
receiving his education in the common schools. In 
1853 he married Miss Jane Davis, born in Ten- 
nessee in 1829, the daughter of Benjamin and 
Eleanor Davis, who both died in Tennessee. Mrs. 
Davis is the mother of eight children, all liv- 
ing: Eleandora (wife of C. C. Heaves), Mary M. 
(wife of Robert Wood), Nancy C. (wife of Broad- 
foot Wells), John, William (in Texas), Thomas 
A., Benjamin N. and John S. In 1871 Samuel 
Yates came to Independence County, Ark., re- 
sided there till 1881, when he removed to Sharp 
Coiinty, where he now lives. He has 160 acres of 
land, about fifty of which arc under cultivation. 



He is now serving his third term as justice of the 
peace of riiioii Township, and gives good satis 
faction. He is a Democrat in politics. 'S\v» 
Yates is a member of the Baptist Church. 

Lemuel A. Yeagor, a well known and j)ri)iiiiiient 
farmer of Piuey Fork Township, was born in 
White County, Tenn., in 1.S27. He is a son of 
Solomon and Nancy (Dearing) Yeager, born in 
East Tennessee and South Carolina, respectively, 
and married in White County, Tenn., where they 
resided until the year 1850, and then moved to 
what is now Sharp County. Ark., the father dying 
there in December, 188(5, and the mother several 
years previous, both of them being members of the 
Baptist faith. The elder Yeager was a farmer, 
and for twelve years justice of the peace in \\'hite 
County, Tenn. He was afterward elected county 
and probate judge of Lawrence County, for two 
years, and for six years in the same capacity at 
Sharp County. He was a son of Solomon Yeager. 
of Virginia, who fought in the Revolution, and 
whose parents came originally from Germany to 
this country. Lemuel A. Yeager' s grandfather, 
John W. Dearing, was a South Carolinian, who 
lived many years in White Coimty, Tenn., and 
died in the northern part of Missouri. Lemuel 
was the second child of two sons and one daughter, 
and received a good common school edtication in 
his youth. He was married, in 1840, to Louisa, 
daughter of John and Elizabeth Hobinsou. of 
Virginia and North Carolina, respectively, who 
resided in White County, Tenn., when Mrs. Y^eager 
was born. Nine children were the results of this 
marriage, of whom eight are still living. In 1850 
Mr. Yeager and his family moved to what is now 
Sharp County, Ark., and, in 18(')1, settled on the 
farm where he now resides. The land was but 
very little improved at that period, and covered 
with timber, but since then he has cleared sixty 
acres, and put them under cultivation, and owns 
altogether about 240 acres. In ISOS he was 
elected sheriff of La\NTence County for four years, 
but when Sharp County was brought in he refused 
to move to Lawrence County, and resigned his 
office after one year's service. In politics, he was 
formerly a Whig, but is now a Republican. 



762 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Iflff'lSt XXI¥. 



-^+-5- 



Lawkence County— Period of Settlement— The Mound Builders— Boundary of the County- 
Topography— Rivers OR Creeks— Timber, .Soil and Products— Minerals and Other 
Uesources— Live Stock— Taxables— Population— Railroads— Legal Matters- 
The Civil War— School Affairs— Church Strength— The County 
Created — Its Officers, Buildings and Seat of Justice — 
Political Statistics — 'J'owns and Villages — 
Personal Notices. 




On the overwork'd soil 
Of this planet enjoyment is sharpen'd by toil; 
And one seems, by the pain of ascending the height. 
To have conquered a claim of that wonderful sight. — Meredith. 



^I^AWRENCE COUNTY had 
,/^v its pioneer settlements along 
^i'' the water courses, and the 
first location that can posi- 
tfe 'j ti vely be mentioned was that 
of 1812, though undoubt- 
edly previous ones were 
made. Prominent among the first 
settlers were the McKnights, Taylors, 
Finleys, Hillhouses, Richardsons, Ja- 
cob Fortenberry, John Spotts, Sam- 
uel Raney and the parents of Will- 
iam J. Hudson,* who settled on Straw- 
berry River; Col. William Stuart, 
John Richie, James Kuykendall, Hi- 
ram Darter, Isaac Morris and the 
Way lands, on Flat Creek; Ferguson 
Sloan, Booker Bennett, the Imbodens. Wyatts,the 
Wellses, John Hardin, James Couch, William B. 
Marshall, and a Mr. Berry, on Spring River. The 
latter was shot and killed at his plow by an unknown 
person soon after coming, and was among the first 
» The Hudsons settled in 1813. 



men murdered in the country. William B. Marshall 
was an early politician, and served twenty years in 
the legislature. Other early pioneers were the 
Thornburgs, near Smithville, G. W. Jackson, near 
Running Water, Col. John Miller, and Robert 
Smith, who sold goods at Davidsonville, when that 
was the countj' seat. 

There was a French settlement on the east side 
of Black River, at what is now Clover Bend, headed 
by Peter Lamew, a Frenchman, and the tract 
known as the Spanish Grant, on the same river, at 
Lauratown. was settled by Charles Logan and 
William Russell, assignees of John Baptiste Janis. 
to whom the grant was confirmed. Henson Ken- 
yon settled near this grant. 

John S. Fickliu, the original owner of the site 
at Powhatan, and also the Houghtons, Watsons, 
Capts. T. J. Warner, and John A. Lindsey were 
early residents near Black River. The eastern 
part of the county was settled later than the west- 
ern. All but one or two of those mentioned have 
passed away. The names of many others are well 
remembered. At first some suffering resulted from 



-7i: 



' >r 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



763 



the want of bread, a few not bi'inn; able to obtain 
grain, while those wiio had it were obliged to 
pound it into meal with the pestle and mortar. 
As soon as grain could be had and mills were con- 
structed a new era of prosperity set in, for game 
and wild honey were abundant and easily obtained, 
and vegetables were grown without trouble. 

An anecdote is told concerning the appearance 
of the first steamboat that ascended Black River. 
Having received notice of its arrival, the early set- 
tlers — men, women and children — for miles around 
assembled on Sunday at the site of Powhatan, 
where it stopped at the landing. It was a great 
curiosity, for onlj- a few of the pioneers had ever 
seen such an invention. After viewing it for a 
time from the banks, many of them boarded it. 
Presently the engineer let off some steam, which 
so frightened the "natives'" that all ran, a few 
jumping into the water and making for the shore, 
while others, upon reaching land, hid in the brush. 
The boats now pass daily, but excite no wonder 
or astonishment. Before the present transporta- 
tion facilities peltry was shipped to Arkansas Post, 
on "flats.'' 

Ancient mounds have been discovered on the 
bottom lands on the Spanish Grant, at Lauratown, 
on the east side of Black River, and on adjacent 
lands, and also in the same locality on the west 
side of the river. Other smaller mounds have been 
fotmd on the bottom lands of Cooper's Creek, near 
Smithville. A few of the former have been opened, 
revealing the presence of pottery, lead, copper 
images, Indian arrow-heads, etc. The paint on a 
portion of the pottery is well preserved. 

Lawrence County, situated in Northeast Arkan- 
sas, is bounded north by Sharp, Randolph and 
Greene Counties, east by Greene and Craighead, 
south Ijy Craighead, Jackson and Independence, 
and west by Sharp County, and contains an area of 
some 582 square miles, of which only al)Out one- 
sixth is improved. 

Its boundary lines are as follows: Beginning at 
the northwest corner of Township 18 north. Range 
3 west; thence east to the northeast corner; thence 
south to the middle of Spring River: thence down 
the middle of Spring River with its meanders to 



Black River; thence up the middle of Black River 
to its first crossing, from the north, of the line di- 
viding Townships 17 and 18; thence east on the 
township line to the middle of Cache River, in 
Range 3 east; thence down t\w middle of Cache 
River to the lines dividing Townships 14 and 15 
north; thence west on the township line to the line 
dividing Ranges 3 and 4 west; thence north on the 
range line to the place of beginning. The fifth 
principal meridian of the public land surveys 
passes through the county a little east of the center. 

Cache River crosses the line between Townships 
17 and 18 north, on the northern boundary of Sec- 
tion 3, Township 17, Range 3 east, and flows thence 
in a southwesterly direction on the county's eastern 
boundary to its southeast corner, at or near the 
southeast corner of Section 33, Township 15 north, 
Range 2 east. Village Creek enters from the north 
in Range 2 east, and flows in a southwesterly di- 
rection, passing out in Range 1 west. Running 
Water Creek enters the county from the north in 
Range 1 east, and flows in a southwesterly course 
through Range 2 west. Black River, a large and 
beautiful stream — navigable for boats at all sea- 
sons of the year — miikes its appearance fi-om the 
north in the eastern [)art of Range 1 west, and pro- 
ceeds in the same general direction as the streams 
above named, flowing out in the western part of 
Range 2 west. Spring River enters from the north, 
about two miles east of the north we.st corner of tile 
county, and flows in an eastern and southeastern 
direction to its confluence with Black River at the 
center of Section 15, Township 17 north. Range 1 
west. So far as it flows through Ranges 1 and 2 
west, it forms the boundary between Lawrence and 
Randol[)h Counties. Strawberry River enters near 
the middle of the western boundary line, and flows 
southeasterly and empties into Black River a short 
distance below the southern boundary of the county. 
These streams and their tributaries famish ex- 
cellent drainage. 

The valley or bottom lands of Black River, ex 
tending through the county a little west of the 
center, vary in width from three to seven miles. 
These lauds are [)artially subject to overflow early 
in the spring, about once in three years, but the 



t' 



J^l 



764 



HISTOET OF ARKANSAS. 



water always subsides in time for the raising of 
crops. East of this valley the land is compara- 
tively low and level, with alternate ridges or 
slight elevations between the streams. Buncom 
Ridge lies between Black River Valley and Run- 
ning Water Creek, and extends from the north- 
ern boundary of the county south to the line be- 
tween Townships 15 and 16 north. Bramlett's 
Ridge extends between Running Water and Vil- 
lage Creeks. The western line of Black River 
Valley is bordered with a bluil, averaging about 
fifty feet high. This bluff extends from near the 
northern boundary close to Spring and Black Riv- 
ers down to Powhatan, then bears to the west- 
ward and widens out the valley. The rock forma- 
tion crops out along it from its northern extent to 
a point several miles below Powhatan. West of 
this bhifP are the table lands, becoming higher as 
they increase in distance from the river. These 
are traversed with the valleys of the smaller 
streams. Iron, lead and zinc abound in this sec- 
tion, and have been mined to a limited extent, but 
no mining is now being done. Numerous springs 
abound in that portion of country lying west of 
Black River Valley, and on the table-lands well 
water can be obtained at a depth of from forty to 
eighty feet. East of Black River Valley water is 
found at a depth of from fifteen to twenty-live 
feet, and in all parts of the county good cisterns 
can be constructed with but little expense. 

The timber of the territory east of the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad con- 
sists principally of post, white and willow oak, 
with red oak interspersed. On Bramlett's Ridge 
white and red oak, walnut, and sweet gum are the 
most numerous. On Buncom Ridge white oak 
and sweet gum prevail, with some black oak and 
walnut interspersed. On Black River Valley the 
principal growth is black and red oak, sweet gum, 
elm, sycamore, cypress and tupelo. In the west- 
ern part, on the table-lands, several varieties of 
oak and black hickory are found, but of much 
lighter growth than elsewhere in the county. 
Many kinds of lesser value grow in all parts. Ex- 
cellent saw and rail timber abounds in abundance. 
A great variety of soils is peculiar to the coun- 



ty, and nearly all is of good quality. None can 
be found that does not produce well, with proper 
cultivation. The soil of the valleys is mostly al- 
luvial, and on the uplands is composed of vegeta- 
ble mold, clay and sand, well adapted to the 
growing of Indian corn, oats, wheat, cotton, the 
tame grasses, clover, and all kinds of vegetables. 
Fruits common in this latitude, especially peaches, 
do well here. But little attention has as yet been 
devoted to horticulture. A few individuals have 
turned their attention to growing peaches for the 
market, with excellent success. 

Lumbering and farming constitute the principal 
resources of the county at present. The former is 
a great industry, and the supply of timber is suffi- 
ciently abundant to last for many years. There 
are twenty-three saw-mills, about twenty shingle- 
mills, two spoke factories and three stave factories 
in full operation, giving evidence of progress and 
growth and advancing prosperity. Many hands 
are employed in these mills, and the lumbering 
business has become extensive. 

In 1880, according to the census, there were 
1,250 farms within the county, with 46,808 acres 
of improved lands, fiom which the vegetable pro- 
ductions for the year 1879 aggregated: Indian 
corn, 522,720 bushels; oats, 40,851 bushels; 
wheat, 18,662 bushels; hay, 414 tons; cotton, 
j 6,480 bales; Irish potatoes, 3,809 bushels; sweet 
potatoes, 3,145 bushels; tobacco, 4,600 pounds. 
These figures show that corn and cotton were then, 
as now, the staple products. There are about 
twenty five cotton-gins, but only a few gi-ist mills 
here. Watermelons are extensively raised and 
shipped to Northern markets. 

The census of 1880 also shows the presence of 
2,574 horses; 1,008 mules and asses; 9,670 head 
of neat cattle; 4,336 sheep, and 30,515 hogs. 
By the assessment rolls of 1888 there were then 
within the county 2,860 horses; 1,395 mules and 
I asses; 14,113 head of neat cattle; 4,396 sheep, and 

18,131 hogs. 
I The real estate asssessment in 1880 was $631, 
i 079, and of personal property $442,577, making 
I $1,073,650, as the total assessed value of taxable 
I property, on which total taxes charged amounted 



^; 



to |2(», 141.00. lu 1888 the roiil estate, iacluding 
the railroads, was assessed at $1,671,839, and the 
personal property at $948,628, a total of $2,620, - 
467, and the total amount of taxes charged was 
$41,478.62. These figures show that since 1880, 
the taxable property has considerably more than 
doubled, while the taxes have but little more than 
doubled. The county has good public buildings, 
is entirely out of debt, and its scrip is worth a 
hundred cents on the dollar. The railroads, which 
now constitute a considerable portion of its taxa- 
ble wealth, were assessed in 1888 as follows: 
St. Loais, Iron Mountain & Southern. .1278.140.00 
Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis 252,763.00 



Total 530,903.00 

The county's rapid growth as shown by these 
statistics, its vast resources, the great facilities for 
the development of agriculture, horticulture, and 
especially stock raising, where stock lives through 
the year on the grasses and mast of the forest 
without shelter; and where the climate is mild and 
not subject to the extremes of heat and cold; where 
churches and schools abound; and the shipping 
facilities, both by rail and water, are excellent, and 
the people are kind, moral and sociable, ought to 
be sufficient inducements to turn the tide of emi- 
gration to this country, instead of toward the cold 
region of the West and Northwest — to Oklahoma 
or elsewhere. Here the industrious cannot fail to 
prosper. 

The population of Lawrence County iu 1870, 
after it was reduced to its present limits, was 5, 735 
white and 246 colored, a total of 7,981. In 1880 
it was 8,815 white and 467 colored, a total of 
8,782. There is no manner of truly ascertaining 
the exact present population, but the census takers 
of 1890 will certainly find a wonderful increase 
over that of 1880. 

The St. Louis. Iron Mountain & Southern Rail- 
road enters the county from the north, in the east- 
ern part of Range 2 east, and runs in a south- 
westerly direction, by way of Walnut Ridge, Hoxie 
and Minturn, passing out near the middle of Range 
1 west. Its length, within 'these boundaries, is 
twenty three miles. The Kansas City, Fort Scott 
& Memphis Railroad enters about four miles east 



of the northwest corner, and runs in a southeast- 
erly direction, by way of Ravenden, Imboden, 
Black Rock, Portia, Hoxie and Sedgwick. Its 
length, within the county, is thirty-one miles, mak 
ing a total of fifty-four miles of railroad through 
this immediate section. 

The first term of the circuit court was held, as 
provided in the act creating the county, at the 
bouse of Solomon Hewit, on Spring River, and the 
next session convened " at the new house of Rich- 
ard Murphy, Esq., in Spring River Township." 
After that it was held at Davidsonville, the place 
selected for the seat of justice. This court, aside 
from the juri.sdiction usually held by circuit courts, 
exercised jurisdiction over all county and probate 
business until 1829, when the county court was 
organized. The terms of the circuit court now 
convene at Powhatan in March and August, and 
at W^alnut Ridge in March and September of each 
year. 

The county court was created tmder the Terri- 
torial laws, in 1829, its first session having been 
held in April, 1830. It then consisted of a judge 
and .several justices of the peace as associates, and 
remained thus composed until after 1836, when 
the State was admitted into the Union. It then 
comprised a judge and two associates, until 1873, 
when a board of commissioners constituted the 
court. During all of this period, after 1836, the 
county court judge, presiding alone, held the pro- 
bate court. Since the adoption of the constitution 
of 1874, the county court has consisted of a single 
judge, and he, by virtue of his office, is judge of 
the probate court. The terms of the former are 
held at Powhatan for the entire county, beginning 
on the first Monday of January, April, July and 
October, of each year, and of the probate court for 
the Western district at Powhatan on the second 
Mondays of the same months, and for the Easti-rn 
district, at Walnut Ridge, on the third Moudiiys 
of the same months. 

The resident attorneys constituting the legal 
bar of Lawrence County, are M. D. Ruber, R. P 
Mack, Charles C. Rogers, John K. Gibson. Z. M. 
Cypert and Charles Coffin. The latter two live at 
Walnut Ridge, and the others at Powhatan. 



766 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



There have been a few legal and some illegal 
executions of criminals within the territory. Dur- 
ing the early days of its existence, as originally 
constituted, when courts and officers were few, the 
old settlers often took the administration of justice 
into their own hands, and for murder, raj^e, arson 
and horse stealing, usually selected certain ones to 
run down the perpetrators, who, when caught, 
were brought back and hung without the use of a 
court or jury. For lesser crimes offenders were 
tied, stripped and flogged. Hanging and flogging 
thus constituted the only modes of punishment in- 
flicted by Judge Lynch and his associates. This 
manner of acknowledging crime ceased generally 
when the Territory was divided into several counties, 
and courts and oflScers became more numerous. 
However, only a few years ago, a mob composed 
of iudividuals outside of the county, forcibly took 
from the jail at Powhatan, a negro, incarcerated 
therein on a charge of committing rape, and hanged 
him. For capital crimes men have been legally 
tried and sent to the penitentiary for long terms, 
and a few, some half dozen, have been executed. 
Two of the latter, however, were tried in this 
county, on change of venue, from other counties. 
Society is now well regulated, and property and 
persons are preserved in safety. 

The people of Lawrence County were originally 
opposed to a separation of the States of the Fed- 
eral Union, but when actual war came they were 
found to be, with very few exceptions, in full sym- 
pathy with the Southern cause. A few of the ' ' old- 
line Whigs"' adhered to their Union sentiments 
throughout the struggle, and were saved by the 
efforts of their Southern, sympathizing neighbors 
from punishment at the hands of Confederate sol- 
diers. On the other hand, many adherents of the 
South were saved by Union citizens from punish- 
ment by Federal soldiers. Though opposed in sen- 
timent there was no quarrel or fighting among 
themselves. In 1860 this county, including all of 
what is now Sharp, and about tweuty-tive square 
miles afterward set off to Randolph, had a pop- 
ulation of 10,000. Out of this number of peo- 
ple not less than seventeen companies of soldiers 
were recruited and organized for and served in 



the Confederate army. After the Federal army 
obtained possession of the country, and toward the 
close of the war, a few individuals left here and 
joined it. The tir.st company organized in the 
county was that of Capt. Z. P. McAlexander, re- 
cruited in the spring of 1861. Among the captains 
and first commanders of other companies were the 
following named: Robert Jones, T. J. Warner, 
Dr. Andrew Balfour, William C. Sloan, W. G. 
Matheny, James H. Herndon, Dr. John R. Wells, 
Wiley Jones, James C. Holmes, Mr. Wann, James 
M. Phelps, Charles A. Stewart and John A. Lind- 
say, besides others. 

While the Federal army under Gen. Curtis had 
possession of this part of Arkansas, in the summer 
of 1862, a post was maintained about three months 
at Smithville. Meanwhile Confederate forces 
scoured the country, keejiing watch and reporting 
the movements of their enemies. Two slight skir- 
mishes, in which a few were killed and wounded, 
took place between the opposing forces within the 
county, one about four miles west of Smithville, 
and the other a mile and a half north of Powhat- 
an. No property was burned by either army, but 
both passed and re-passed, and camped here so 
constantly during the war period, that provisions 
were all consumed, and citizens left in a destitute 
and suffering condition. 

As was the case with nearly if not all the coun- 
ties mentioned in this work, the educational facilities 
of Lawrence County were very meager prior to the 
inauguration of the free school system. Statistics 
at hand show that, in 1881, the scholastic popula- 
tion consisted of 2.935 white, and 168 colored 
children, and that of these only 1,450, less than 
one-half, were taught in the public schools. There 
were then twenty- one male and five female teachers 
employed, and the amount expended for the sup- 
jiort of the schools for the year ending June 30, 
1881, was $5,573.90. The report of the State 
siiperintendent of public instruction for the year 
ending June 30, 1888, shows that the scholastic 
population consisted of 3,950 white, and 303 col- 
ored children, and that of these 2,353 white, and 
198 colored, much more than one-half, were taught 
in the public schools; that there were forty-four 



^7 



-^p 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



7(57 



male and eight female teachers employed, and that 
the amount expended for the support of the schools 
during the year was 115,319. Sfi. The same report 
shows that the average monthlj' salaries which were 
paid teachers were as follows : First grade — males, 
$42.20; females, $35.50. Second grade— males, 
$33.83; females, $30.18. Third grade-males, 
$32.54; females, none. A much better class of 
teachers than formerly are now being employed. 
The free school system has to a great extent out- 
grown the prejudice formerly existing against it, 
and it is now becoming popular, and is better and 
better sustained as the years go by. At this writ- 
ing there are fifty-two school districts, and fifty- 
five white and three colored schools within the 
county. 

The Methodists and Baptists organized the pio- 
neer Christian societies of the county, followed at 
a later date by other denominations. 

The Methodist E])iscopal Church, South, is now 
the strongest here, and its various organizations be- 
long to the Newport district of White River confer- 
ence, of which Rev. F. E. Taylor is presiding elder. 
Powhatan and Walnut Ridge constitute a station, 
with a membership of about 100, and of which 
Rev. G. W. Smith is the present pastor. Portia 
circuit has about eight appointments or preaching 
places, and a membership of nearly 135, with Rev. 
•J. H. Anderson as pastor, ^^'aluut Ridge circuit 
has several appointments in the eastern part of the 
county, and a membership of about 300. Smith - 
ville circuit has six appointments, and a member- 
ship of 496, with Rev. W. T. Ready as pa.stor. 
Hoxie mission includes Hoxie, Black Rock and 
other points, with a large, scattering membership, 
and with Rev, S. D. Evans as pastor. 

Of the Missionary Baptist Church there are the 
following church organizations: Pleasant Hill, on 
Strawberry River; Bethany, on Ridge Creek; New 
Hope, seven miles west of Powhatan; Clear Spring, 
on Stinnett's Creek; Pleasant Grove, in the Flat 
Woods near Spring River; Cross Roads, near Por- 
tia: Stranger's Home and two or three others. 
Some of them have a small and others a very large 
membershi]). 

Of the Free Will Baptist Church, three organ- 



izations are within the county — Mt. Zion ami Har 
mony, on Caney Creek, and Jerusalem, on Ridge 
Creek, with an average membership of alwut fifty 
each. Elders G. W. Hassell and C. L. Sneed are 
pastors. 

Lebanon Church, seven miles southwest of 
Powhatan, the oldest society of the Presbyterian 
Church here, was organized in 1852, by Rev. Sam- 
uel J. Baird. It has a very small membership. 
Powhatan was first organized in the year 1807. and 
in 1875 it was re-organized by Rev. Thomas U. 
Welch, of Little Rock. It has a membership of 
fourteen. Walnut Ridge Presbyterian Church was 
organized in 1870 or 1877, also by Rev. Welch. 
The present pastor is Rev. Isaac J. Long, of Bates- 
ville, president of Arkansas College, who preaches 
there twice a month. Black Rock Presltyterian 
Church was organized in December, 1888, by Rev. 
R. B. Willis, evangelist of Arkansas Presbytery, 
with seventeen original members. Rev. W. S. 
Baker, a licentiate, during his vacation from the 
'< Theological Seminary, is preaching at Powhatan, 
Black Rock and Lel)anon. 

Of the Christian denomination three organiza- 
tions are worthy of mention: New Prospect, on 
Steep Bank Creek, one at Opposition, and one 
at Portia. Nearly all the church organizations 
throughout this vicinity maintain Sunday-schools, 
having also regular preaching, and do good work 
in the moral vineyard. The settled portions of 
the county are well supplied with churches and 
schools. 

The county of Lawrence was organized in ac 
cordauce with an act of the legislature of the Ter- 
ritory of Missouri, approved January 15. 1815, by 
Gov. William Clark. It was named in honor of 
Capt. Lawrence, who distinguished him.self in the 
United States navy during the War of 1812-15. 
[ At this time the whole of what is now .Vrkansas was 
I a part of the Missouri Territory, and this county 
was carved out of the original subdivision known 
as New Madrid, and was de.soribed as follows: 
" Beginning at the mouth of Little Red River, on 
the line dividing said county [New Madrid] from 
the County of .Vrkansas; thence with said line to 
the River St. Francis; thence up the River St. 



A J 



768 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Francis to the division liue between the counties of 
Cape Girardeau and New Madrid; thence with 
said last-mentioned line to the western boundary 
line of the Osage purchase; thence with the last- 
mentioned line to the northern boundary of the 
county of Arkansas; thence with the last-mentioned 
line to the place of beginning," By a careful 
study of the above it will be seen that Lawrence 
county originally comprised a large portion of 
Southeast Missouri and of Northeast Arkansas — 
enough territory to make a State. Since then, 
from time to time, other counties have been formed 
out of this, until it has been cut down to its pres- 
ent limits. By an act of the legislature, approved 
March 26, 1887, two judicial districts were formed, 
— the Eastern and the Western — with Black River 
as the dividing line between them; and Walnut 
Ridge was made the seat of justice for the Eastern 
district. 

The act creating the county provided that the 
first county court and circuit court to be holden for 
said county should be held at the house of Solo- 
mon Hewit, on Spring River. Later, at the Oc- 
tober term, 1815, Louis De Munn, William Robin- 
son, William Hix, Sr., Morris Moore, Solomon 
Hewit, Andrew Criswell and Isaac Kelley, commis- 
sioners appointed to select the permanent seat of 
justice for the county, or a majority of them, re- 
ported to the county court that they had fixed the 
permanent seat of justice on Big Black River, near 
the mouth of Spring River, and purchased the 
town site fi'om their several owners, for the sum of 
$255. Soon after a town was laid out on the site 
selected, and named Davidsonville. At this place 
the county seat remained until 1829, when it was 
removed to Jackson in what is now Randolph 
County. No vestige of Davidsonville at this 
time can be found. May 22, 1837, David Orr, 
Alexander Smith and William Thompson, commis- 
sioners previously appointed to select a new site 
for the seat of justice, reported that they had lo- 
cated the county seat on fifty acres of land in Sec- 
tion 33, Township 17 north, Range 8 west, donated, 
by James H. Benson tor the purpose. To this 
place, where a town was laid out and named Smith- 
ville, the county seat was immediately removed. 



and remained there until 1868, when, in accord- 
ance with the act of the legislature creating Sharp 
County, it was removed to Clover Bend, on Black 
River, six miles south of Powhatan. Afterward 
the question of removing the seat of justice to the 
town of Powhatan, was submitted to the voters of 
the county, at an election held November 15, 1869, 
on which occasion 207 votes were cast in favor of 
the removal, and only six against it. In accord- 
ance with this decision of the people, the records 
were taken to Powhatan, which became the final 
and permanent seat of justice. 

At all the former county seats, excepting Clover 
Bend, but ordinary public buildings were used. 
In 1873 the first court-house at Powhatan, a large 
two-story brick structure, with offices below and 
court-room above, was completed by Thornton & 
Jones, of Little Rock, at a cost of between $16,- 
000 and $17,000. It was destroyed by fire in the 
month of March, 1885, supposed to have been the 
work of an incendiary. The records, however, 
which were in a vault that had been attached to 
the building after its original construction, were 
saved in good condition. The present court-house 
was constructed in 1888, by the contractors. Boon 
& McGinnis, at a cost, including the pay of the 
commissioner, J. P. Coffin, and the removal of the 
debris of the old building, of about $12,000. It 
stands on the site of the former building, and is a 
handsome modern two-story brick structure, on a 
! rock foundation, with fine offices and fire-proof 
vaults below and the court and other rooms above. 
The jail, near the court-house, is a substantial stone 
house, containing iron cells. When the county 
was divided into judicial districts, a two-story 
frame court-house, with the clerk's office and two 
jury rooms on the first floor and the court-room on 
the second, was erected at Walnut Ridge, at the 
expense of the citizens of that district. The coun- 
ty offices authorized to be held there are managed 
by deputies. 

The following is a list of the county officers of 
Lawrence County as compiled from the report of 
the secretary of State, showing also the time served 
by each. 

Judges: James Campbell, 1829-32; T. S. 



Drew, 1832-33; Joha Hardin, 1833-40; J. G. 
Floyd, 1840-44; J. Ficklin, 1844-46; A. H. 
Nunn, 1846-50; Johu Milligiin, 1850-52; G. Mc- 
Gehey, 1852-56; W. G. Smith, 1856-58; George 
McGehey, 1858-60; G. S. Wainright, 1860-62; G. 
McGehey, 1862-64; Solomou Yeager, 1864-66; G. 
McGehey, 1866-68; Josiah Dent, 1868-72; com- 
missioners, 1872-74; J. N. Hillhouse, 1874-76; ■ 
David Wagster, 1876-78; Alex. Jackson, 1878-84; 
W. A. Townsend, 1884-86; David G. Smith, 
1886-88; W. A. Towusend, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Glerks: Lewis DeMunn, 1815-19; R. Searcy, 
1819-21; H. Sanford, 1821-25; R. Richardson, 
1825-27; H. R. Hynson, 1827-29; D. W. Lowe, 
1829-38; J. S. Brown, 1838-42; J. B. Wilmeth, 
1842-46; A. Hammond, 1846-48; L. B. Toney, 
1848-50; N. G. Steadman, 1850-53; J. N. Hill- 
house, 1853-58; Z. P. McAlexander, 1858-60; 

A. Lowe, 1860-64; H. W. Harlow, 1864-66; A. j 
Lowe, 1866-68; J. H. Snj^der, 1868-72; William 
McBride, 1872-73; J. P. Goffin, 1873-88; Glay 
Sloan, present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Sheriffs: Joseph Hardin, 1819-25; J. M. Kuy- 
keudall, 1825-36. T. McGarroU, 1836-44; L. 
Toney, 1844-40; L. B. Poer, 1846-50; G. C. , 
Straughan, 1850-54: W. J. Hudson, 1854-56; T. 
G. Steadman, 1856-60; J. D. Wyatt, 1860-62; 

B. F. Matthews, 1862-66: J. H. W. Gampbell, 
1866-68; J. B. Judkins, 1868-72; AV. G. Was- 
son, 1872-78; W. A. Townsend, 1878-80; John 
Darter, 1880-86; C. A. Stuart, present incumbent, i 
first elected in 1886. 

Treasurers: G. T. Stewart, 1836-40; J. B, 
Wilmeth, 1840-42; Henry King, 1842-44; F. B 
Wilmeth, 1844-46; G. G. Straughan, 1846-50 
Edward Holt, 1850-56; James McGarroll, 1850-62 
L. W. Robertson, 1862-64; E. Taylor, 1864-66 
Edward Holt, 1866-68; Samuel Sharp, 1868-72 
J. N. Gampbell, 1872-78; W. Ghilders, 1878-82 
M. D. Hudson, 1882-88; J. N. Gampbell, present 
incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Surveyors: John Rodney, 1827-30; J. M. 
Cooper, 1830-35; N. W. Grawford, 1835-36; T. 
Johnson, 1836-38; John Kidd, 1838-40; L. B. 
Lang. 1840-42; G. Durham, 1842-46; T. John- 



son. 1846-52; J. T. Perkins. 1852-54; T. John 
son, 1854-56; Alfred Gay, 1856-60; J. Pattun, 
1860-62; T. Johnson, 1802-64; Alfred Gay, 
1864-66; T. B. Goforth, 1866-68; H. L. Roberts, 
1868-71; J. P. Goffin, 1871-72; G. Matthews, 
1872-74; I. T. Morris, 1874-76; Johu Darter, 
1876-80; W. Brannon, 1880-86; M. H. Ageo, 
1886-88; William Matthews, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Assessors: G. W. Wright. 1862-64; B. F. 
Matthews, 1864-66; Alfred Gay, 1866-68; J. W. 
Houghton, 1868-70; S. G. Sharp, 1870-72; J. 
B. Judkins, 1872-74; G. G. Dent, 1874, to Feb- 
ruary, 1876; M. D. Hudson, from February, 1876; 
W. A. Townsend, 1876-78; E. A. Vinson, 1878- 
80; T. J. Moore, 1880-82; James H. Doyle, 
1886-88. J. H. Moseley, 1882-84; Samuel A. 
Harris, 1884-86; J. N. Ghilders, present incum- 
bent, elected in 1888. 

Representatives in constitutional conventions: 
1836, Robert Smith, Thomas S. Drew. David W. 
Lowe and Henry Slavens; 1861, M. D. Baber and 
S. Robinson; 1864, none; 1868. Bouldin Duvall; 
1874, Philip K. Lester. 

The political aspect of the county can be 
readily be ascertained by reference to the number 
of votes cast at the November election in 1888, for 
the candidates for the presidency and for congress- 
men. For president: Cleveland (Dem.), 1,416; Har- 
rison (Rep. ), 427; Streoter (U. L. ). 1 54 ; Fisk (Pro. ). 
10. For Congress: W. H. Gate {Dem.), 1,292; L. 
P. Featherstone (combined opposition), 690. At 
the State election held in Se]>teml)er, 1888, James 
P. Eagle, Democratic candidate for governor, re- 
ceived 1,503 votes, andC. M. Norwood, opposition 
candidate for the same office, received 762 vdtes. 

Alicia, a town on the Iron Mountain Railroad, 
near the southern boundary of the county, con- 
tains three general stores, a sawmill, cotton-gin, 
church, school house and a number of dwclliiii.' 
houses. 

Black Rook, on the western side of liluck 
River, where the Kansas City. Fort Scott A; Mem- 
phis Railroad crosses the same, comi)rises five gen- 
eral, eight grocery, two drug, one liardware nud 
one millinery stores: live hutels. .several lioardiiig 



770 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



houses, two meat markets, one wholesale flour store, 
a bakery and restaurant, ten saw-mills (seven of 
which have shingle mills attached), one separate 
shingle mill, one planing mill, one lumber drying 
kiln, one heating factory, one lath mill, a wagon 
felloe factory, one undertaker's store, several 
mechanics' shops, a stone quarry, a weekly news- 
paper, a school -house, two churches (Methodist and 
Presbyterian), and a population of about 1,000. 
It is also the headquarters for three steamboats, the 
"George W. Decker," the "Hope" and the "St. 
Augustine." The latter makes daily round trips 
between Black Rock and Pocahontas. The Bowlder 
Publishing Company, of Black Rock, publish a 
stanch Republican paper of seven columns, issued 
weekly, which was first organized August 24, 1888, 
and edited by J. G. Cash, as a Democratic paper. 
It was purchased by the above company February 
2, 1889, and is the only paper published in Black 
Rock. It is a fearless critic on every course of 
human events, and each issue is replete with in- 
teresting matter. George Dent is editor. 

Black River and its tributaries above Black 
Rock, aggregate a thousand miles of waterways, 
through a well timbered country, uncrossed by a 
railroad. The outlet for the timber of this vast 
section is through Black Rock, by way of Black 
River and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis 
Railroad. The town was incorporated October 7, 
1884. It has all been built since the completion 
of this railroad. 

Clover Bend, a 2,000-acre plantation on Black 
River, eight miles below Black Rock, with 1,300 
acres in cotton at this writing, has a supply store, 
saw and grist-mill, cotton-gin, church, school- 
house and a few dwellings. 

Dosy is a postoffice four miles southeast of 
Clover Bend. 

Egypt, a postoffice, is six miles southeast of 
Minturn. 

Hoxie, at the crossing of the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern, with the Kansas City, Fort 
Scott & Memphis Railroads, contains a general 
store, several groceries and restaurants, four hotels, 
a church and a school house and some dwellings. 

Imboden. on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & 



Memphis Railroads, eight miles northwest of Black 
Rock, includes three general stores, two groceries, 
two saloons, a hotel, livery stable, school-house, 
church, and dwellings. 

Lindsay is a postoffice on the railroad, four miles 
southwest of Hoxie. 

Minturn is also on the railroad, six miles south- 
west of Hoxie; two general stores, a hotel, cotton- 
gin, church, school-house, etc., are here. 

Opposition is a postoffice in the northwest part 
of the county. 

Parsonville, five miles east of Minturn, is but a 
postoffice. 

Portia, a railroad village, two miles southeast 
of Black Rock, supports three general stores, two 
groceries, a drug store, two saw-mills, a church, 
school-house and dwellings. 

Powhatan, the county seat, on the western 
bank of Black River, two miles below Black Rock, 
proves a profitable center for four general stores, 
one grocery, one drug store, a spoke factory, 
blacksmith and wagon shop, two hotels, two 
churches — Methodist and Presbyterian — a school - 
house, livery stable, the county buildings, a ferry 
across the river, and about 250 inhabitants. It is 
a very old town, the site of which was settled by 
John Ficklin, and its location is a most pleasant 
one. 

Ravenden, on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & 
Memphis Railroad, five miles northwest of Imbo- 
den, contains three general stores, a hotel, church, 
school -house, etc. 

Sedgwick, on the same railroad, at the eastern 
boundary of the county, consists of a saw mill, 
store, grocery, school-house and a few dwellings. 

Smithville, for many years the county seat, sit- 
uated ten miles west of Powhatan, has four gen- 
eral stores, a drug store, hotel, livery stable, and 
about 350 inhabitants. 

Stranger's Home, a store and postoffice, is seven 
miles southeast of Clover Bend. 

Strawberry is a village of log houses on Straw- 
berry River, containing two general stores, a school- 
house, church, etc. 
! Taylor includes only a store and postoffice on 
Strawberry River. 



7^ 



LAWKENCE COUNTY. 



'1^ , 



Walnut Ridge, ou the Iron Mouutaiu Eaih-oad, 
one and a half miles north of Hoxie, the seat of 
justice for the Eastern district, contains seven gen- 
eral stores, four groceries, a bakery, meat market, 
three hotels, two livery stables, a cotton-gin and 
grist-mill, two churches, a school- house, the court- 
house, a weekly newspaper, and its complement of 
dwelling houses. In size it is the second town in 
the county. The Telephone, now nearing the 
completion of its third volume, is a neat and well- 
edited Democratic newspaper, published there by 
its proprietor, George Thornburg. It ably sup- 
ports the interests of the community. 

All of these places are supplied with a post- 
office, and those located on the railroads have 
depots. A proportionate number of physicians 
are found, besides notaries public, insurance and 
other agents, 

Bonita Springs is a noted summer resort, one 
mile west of Black Rock, where there are mineral 
springs and a hotel. Lodges of Masons, Odd 
Fellows, Knights of Labor, Wheelers and other 
orders, exists at various places throughout the 
coimtv. 



Jacob S. Allison, a farmer and stock raiser 
whom Lawrence County can feel proud to claim as 
a citizen, was born in Burke County, N.C., Novem- 
ber 12, 1837. He is a son of Bird and Elizabeth 
(Davis) Allison, of the same State. The elder 
Allison was a farmer in North Carolina, until the 
year 1 859, when he moved to Cocke County, Tenn. , 
and from there to Alabama, where he now resides 
with his wife, very near the age of one hundred 
years. Jacob remained with his parents in North 
Carolina, until he gi'ew to manhood, and then started 
in life on his own account. In 1861 he enlisted in 
the Twenty second North Carolina Infantry, and 
served in that company until the close of the war. 
He took i)art in the liattles around Richmond, at 
Manassas, Chancellorsville, the seven days' l)attle, 
in the Wilderness, the fights and siege at Peters- 
burg, Cedar Creek, and others, besides twenty or 
more skirmishes. He was wounded twice, through 
the .shoulder, at Shepherdstown, by v^'" l"i11«. and 



had one finger shot off. His service for the cause 
was brilliant, and there are few that are superior. 
After receiving his discliarge he returned to the 
State of Tennessee, where he remained up to 1871, 
when he moved to Arkansas and located at Clover 
Bend. He first bought some land near Stranger' s 
Home, and has since then added to it on different 
occasions, until now he owns about 1,400 acres of 
rich bottom land, with about 200 acres under cul- 
tivation. He has ten houses altogether on his 
land, eight of them being on the home farm. 
When Mr. Allison first came to Lawrence County, 
all he possessed was $90 cash, and two beds, and 
was in debt to the extent of SI 00, which he has 
since paid. He now owns a fine farm, and is con- 
sidered to be one of the most substantial men in 
Lawrence County. He was married, in 1809,' to 
Miss Sallie Store}', of Tennessee, a daughter of 
William Storey, and has had seven children by his 
marriage: William, Clara, Rose, Pearl, Lizzie, 
Robert Lee and Zola. Mr. Allison is a Master 
Mason, and he and Mrs. Allison are both members 
of the Eastern Star Chapter. 

Sidney W. Andrews, of Sexton & Andrews, 
druggists, was born in Jefferson County, 111., Jan- 
uary 12, 1855, and is a son of Seymour Andrews 
and Martha C. (Hendricksou) Andrews, now resid- 
ing in Centralia, 111. The parents had ten chil- 
dren born to them, five of whom are still living. 
S. \V. Andrews being the only one in Arkansa.s, 
however. Mr. Andrews was reared in Centralia, 
and received a common school education. In the 
year 1871 he learned telegraphy, in Centralia. 111., 
and accepted a situation as telegraph operator at 
Georgetown, 111. Soon thereafter he emigrated to 
Arkansas, and in 1S74 entered the emi>l(>y of the 
St. Louis, Iron Mountain &; Southern Railway 
Company as agent and operator at Bradford, re 
maining in their service at Bradford and Walnut 
Ridge until January, INH7, when Le formed a 
partnership with Joseph K. Sexton in the drug 
traile, and has had fair success. He is a Mason, 
and a member of the Knights and Ladies of Honor, 
also of the Methodist Epi.scopal Church, South, 
and is treasurer of the town. He was united in 
we.llock to Mrs. Belle E. (Haney) Matthews. May 



A 



772 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



3, 1883, and has had two children: Sidney Mills, 
born March 7, 1884, died with whoojjing cough 
August 16, 1884; Alonzo Bertrand, born October 
29, 1885, died with membraneous croup August '24, 
1889. His wife is also a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. 

Joseph Bagley (deceased) was born in Bed- 
ford, Penn. , February 2'S, 1802, and is the son of 
Samuel Bagley, a native of Scotland (who came to 
the State of Pennsylvania at a very early day), and 
Martha (Bentle) Bagley. He was reared in the 
neighborhood of Bedford, or Bedford Springs, 
Penn., and in his younger days drove a hack, and 
did considerable freighting between Philadelphia 
and the above named places. When between the 
age of twenty one and twenty-two he enlisted in 
the United States regular army for five years, and, 
on one occasion, was sent with his company up the 
Missouri River, as far as the mouth of the Yellow- 
stone. After his five years' service was up he 
was discharged from the army, at Jefferson Bar- 
racks, and came to Illinois, where he resided one 
year. From there he traveled down the Missis- 
sippi to Jacksonport, Ark. , about the year 1829 or 
1830, and was there married to Miss Annie Gibson, 
of Lawrence County, daughter of Jacob Gibson. 
Within a short time after his marriage he moved 
to this section, and commenced farming, until his 
death, April 0, 1872, at the age of seventy years. 
His grave is on Col. Ponder" s farm, at Old Walnut 
Ridge. He was among the early settlers of this 
section, and lived, until his death, about live miles 
northwest of Walnut Ridge. He and wife were 
the parents of nine children, only two of whom are 
yet living, Lavira, the wife of Thomas C. Hennes- 
see, and Isam J., both residents of Campbell 
Township. Isam J. was reared on the homestead 
farm, and was born December 18, 1847. He led 
a placid life on the farm, with nothing eventful oc- 
cuj'ring to disturb the serenity of his existence un- 
til March, 1864, when he enlisted in Company F, 
Thirteenth Missouri Cavalry, and was a gallant 
soldier through the remainder of the war. He was 
married to Miss Elizabeth Sailing, of Crawford 
County, Ark., and out of nine children has five 
still living: Estella, Charles, John, Alfred and 



Edward. Mr. Bagley fir.st rented his land for 
three or four years, near Walnut Ridge, and then 
bought 120 acres north of tliat town. Since then 
he has added to it, and now owns 460 acres. He 
also operates a cotton-gin upon the farm, and deals 
very largely in stock. He is a member of the Ma- 
sonic fi'aternity, and in politics a Democrat, hold- 
ing the office of justice of the peace for one term. 
William W. Baley, farmer and cotton ginner, 
was born in McNairy County, Tenn., in the year 
1835. His parents were Benjamin and Nancy 
(Holman) Baley, of North Carolina, who had set- 
tled in Tennessee with their parents when children. 
Later in life they married and moved to Hender- 
son County, remaining there until the war eom- 
! menced, when they transferred their home to Bal- 
I lard County, Ky., where the father died in 1867, at 
the age of seventy-four years. After his death the 
mother came to Arkansas with one of her sons and 
a daughter, and settled in Searcy County, where 
she died in 1870, aged sixty-eight years. She was a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church, in which 
: she had been an earnest worker all her life. Mr. Ba- 
( ley is the oldest of five childi'en yet living. Seven 
were born to his parents, but two of them have died. 
He was reared in Tennessee, and commenced farm- 
ing for himself in Henderson County in the year 
1855, where he remained until 1862, when the call 
to arms was issued, and on June 17 of that year 
he enlisted in Company K, of the Seventh Kansas 
Cavalry, and served three years and two months. 
He was in the foremost ranks of every battle in 
[ which the Seventh Kansas was engaged, and can 
recount some of the narrowest escapes a soldier 
ever had in time of war. Twenty-eight different 
times he was shot through the clothes he wore, the 
bullets not even scratching his skin, and on four 
occasions had the horse he rode shot from under 
him. His service through the war was honorable 
and brave, and the lustre of his valor can never be 
tarnished by time. He received his discharge from 
the army in November, 1864, at St. Louis, Mo. , and 
joined his family in Kentucky. Five years later 
he moved to Thomasville, Mo., and from thence to 
Arkansas, coming here in 1870, and locating on Big 
Creek, in this county. He came to his present 




home iu 1872, which, at that time, was but veiy lit- 
tle improved. Since then a great change has taken 
place in the condition of the land. He owns 100 
acres, 125 acres of which are under cultivation. 
He also has a cotton-gin set up on his place and in 
1888 ginned 312 bales of cotton. Mr. Baley's wife 
was formerly Miss Jane C. Wadey, of Tennessee, 
born in 1829. They have a family of four chil- | 
dren living: Richard M., Mary E., John G., Rob- 
ert L. Mary E. is the wife of William B. Doyle, 
and the others are all married except the youngest. 
They have lost two children — Sarah Ann and 
Jeanette E. Mr. Baley and wife are members of 
the Christian Church, and the former of Dry Creek 
Masonic Lodge No. 453. In politics he is a Re- 
publican. 

"William J. Ball, retired merchant and farmer, 
was born near Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, 
Tenn., September 13, 1825. He is a son of W. 
T. Ball, an Englishman, and a native of Worcester- 
shire, whose histories and adventures would till a 
volume. The elder Ball was a soldier in the Eng- 
lish army, and fought under the famous Welling- 
ton. He took jjart in seven battles against the 
great Napoleon, and fought under Blucher on the 
memorable field of Waterloo. He was a member 
of the British army at the battle of New Orleans, 
but the principles of liberty were so strongly in- 
stilled in his mind that he found it impossible to 
fight against them, and deserted the ranks to join 
the younger nation in its struggle against the mother 
country. After the war had ended, he came to the 
State of Tennessee and settled in Rutherford Coun 
ty, where he was married to Miss Jane Jordan, a 
native of that State, whose father was one of its 
pioneers. He resided in Rutherford County, one 
mile from Murfreesboro, up to the year 1835, when 
he moved to Bradley's Creek, of the same county, 
and lived there till 1851, then selling out and mov- 
ing to (Jibson County, where he lived until 1867. 
He then moved back to Rutherford County, where 
he died in 1873. W. J. Ball remained with his 
father in Rutherford County until his eighteenth 
year, and then received the contract for carrying 
the mails by stage coach through that section until 
the fall of 1858. He then moved to Lawrence 



County, Ark., and l)i>nght a farm in Spring River 
Township for farming purposes, but shortly after- 
ward entered into l>usiiiess at I'owhataii. and was 
a dealer in general merchandise up to the time of 
war, and during that period had charge of a dis- 
tillery, on Martin's Creek, for the government. In 
January. 1860, he moved to Gibson County, 
Tenn., more for the purpose of giving his children 
the advantages of a good schooling than anytliing 
else, but while there, engaged in the general nier 
chandise business. At the expiration of a year hi- 
returned to Lawrence County, and settled upon 
the place he now occupies, and liegan selling goods. 
He had been an active business man up to the year 
1886, when he turned the business over to his son. 
who continues at it with the same enterprise that 
characterized his father. In 1868 Mr. Ball was 
appointed postmaster at Opposition, and still has 
charge of the office. He owns 320 acres of land 
on his home place, with about 180 acres cleared, 
and has eighty acres in clover and meadow, and 
about 10(1 acres iinder cultivation. .Mr. Ball was 
married on September 13, 1846. to Miss Mary 
Crouse, of Rutherford County. Tenn., a daughter 
of Harmon G. Crouse. There are five children 
living by this marriage: George W.; Samuel H. . 
Joseph, now carrying on the business here; Eliza- 
beth, wife of Joseph Hallowell; Hattie, wife of F. 
M. Graves, and William T. and John, who are 
deceased, the former in 1882 and the latter in 18SSt. 
Mr. Ball and his family are all members of the 
Christian Church, of which he is clerk, and he is 
also a Royal Arch Mason. 

Sam. H. Ball, a prominent merchant of Rav 
enden, Lawrence County, was born in Rutherford 
County, Tenn., in November, 1850. and is a son 
of William J. Ball, whose adventurous career has 
been jiortrayed in the sketch preceding this. 
Mr. Ball remained with his father in his store 
luitil he reached his twenty eighth year. He then 
established a store for himself in 1S7U, at Ojipo.si 
tion, Ark., and carried on a profitable business up 
to the year 1882. In 1883 he moved to Raven- 
den, built a magnificent residence and a large, 
commodious store, and put iu a large st<K'k of 
merchandise, where he has lieen liolding forth 



Aj! 



774 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ever since. His store is two stories in height, 
the upper story being devoted to furniture, under- 
takers' goods, clothing, etc. ; the lower, dry goods, 
boots and shoes, groceries and general planta- 
tion supplies. He handles both cotton and stock 
to a great extent, and altogether does a business 
of $35,000 to $40,000 annually. He is also inter- 
ested in a large cotton-gin, and besides owns two 
large farms, situated on Spring River, one in 
Lawrence and the other in Randolph County, 
being a farmer as well as a successful merchant. 
The third business house opened in Ravenden, 
after the location of the Kansas City, Springfield 
& Memphis Railroad, was by Mr. Ball, and he is 
the leading man of the place. In November, 1878, 
he was married to Mrs. Margaret Williford, of Ran- 
dolph County, a charming widow. Since then 
five children have been added to the family: Cleo, 
Luther, Marvin, Ernest and Lillian. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Ball are consistent members of the Chris- 
tian Church. The former is a Democrat politi- 
cally, a Mason and a member of Ravenden Lodge 
No. 451, of which he is Junior Warden. 

Joseph M. Barlow, farmer and stock raiser, 
came from Illinois to the State of Arkansas in the 
fall of 1879. His occupation on his arrival was 
simply farming until the year 1888, when he 
moved to his present place, known as the Cross 
Roads farm, which consists of 342 acres of land, 
with about 140 acres under cultivation, and now 
has a good frame residence, a cotton-gin, grist- 
mill and blacksmith-shop, besides his interests in 
stock raising. Mr. Barlow also owns a farm near 
by, which he rents out. This place consists of 1 20 
acres, of which forty acres are under cultivation, and 
contains a fine orchard of about 100 peach and 
apple trees, besides a great number of small fruits. 
There are also a good frame and a log house on the 
land, which is situated one mile southeast of Portia. 
Mr. Barlow is a son of John and Sinah (Finley) 
Barlow, of Illinois, and was born in Montgomery 
County, 111., July 14, 1841. His father died while 
still a young man, in 1854, and he remained with 
his mother until his nineteenth year, when he mar- 
ried and commenced farming on his own account. 
In the spring of 1861 he enlisted in the army and 



served until expiration of enlistment, and in July, 
1862, he once more enlisted, in the Third Illinois 
Cavalry, and was discharged shortly afterward on 
account of general disability contracted in service. 
In June, 1864, he entered the army again for the 
third time, and served until he was mustered out, 
October 19, 1865. Mr. Barlow first entered the 
ranks as a private, but soon afterward was promoted 
to be a sergeant, and his record through the war 
is one that can be placed among the best of that 
period. He took part in the battles at Haines' 
Bluff, Arkansas Post, and a hot scrimmage at 
Memphis, in 1865. He was also in the campaign 
against Hood at Nashville and in the fight at that 
place. Mr. Barlow was married, November 17, 
1859, to Miss Catherine Chapman, of Montgomery 
County, 111. , who died in that locality in 1868. The 
children by this wife are Dora A. , wife of John 
Davenport, and a son, who lived until his seven- 
teenth year. He was again married on February 
18, 1869, to Mrs. Nancy L. Klutts, a widow lady, 
of Montgomery County, and this union has given 
them two children: ^inah J. and Clara E. Mr. 
and Mrs. Barlow are both members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, in which the former is 
district steward, and Mr. Barlow is a member of 
G. A. R., Lawrence Post No. 8, and is adjutant of 
that post. He is also a ]\Iaster Mason and senior 
deacon of his lodge, and belongs to the Knights 
of Honor. In politics he is a Republican, and was 
elected justice of the peace for his township, and 
at the expiration of his term was elected county 
coroner. At the end of that term he was nomi- 
nated for county and probate judge by the Wheel, 
and endorsed by the Republicans, as the latter 
made no nominations. Mr. Barlow has adopted 
Arkansas as his future residence, and expects to 
live and die in Lawrence County. 

Clark S. Beach, an extensive stock raiser, 
farmer and fruit grower, of Lawrence County, was 
born in Wayne County, Mich., on March 27, 1843. 
His parents were Arctus and Esther (Gibbs) Beach, 
of New York State, who moved to Michigan about 
the year 1840, and settled at Detroit, where the 
elder Beach's occupation was farming and dealing 
in stock. He remained at that place for twelve 



years, and then moved to St. Clair County, where 
he continued his previous occupation and also kept 
a hotel. His death occurred at the latter place in 
1886, leaving a name that was widely known and 
highly respected. C. S. Beach grew to manhood 
in Wayne and St. Clair Counties, and remained 
with his father until he had reached his twenty- 
first year. April 8, 1805, he enlisted in the 
Eighth Michigan Cavalry, and served until the 
close of the war, taking a brave part in many en- 
gagements and small skirmishes. He was mus- 
tered out September 22, 1865, after the South had 
been conquered and returned home and rented his 
father's farm for eight years in St. Clair County. 
He then bought a farm in that county, and went 
to work upon it, and, after several years' labor, with 
fair success, he sold out and moved to Arkansas, 
locating in Lawrence County. He bought the land 
upon which he now resides, in 1880, which con- 
sisted of 200 acres, unimproved, and at the pres- 
ent time has seventy-five acres cleared and under 
cultivation. The land has a comfortal)le house 
upon it, with out-buildings and all conveniences, 
and a line orchard of about 600 trees of different 
varieties. Mr. Beach was married in St. Clair 
County, Mich., April 4, 1871, to Miss Hannah 
M. Shears, a Canadian lady, and they now have 
sis children : Sarah Esther, Mark A. , Henry H. , 
Emma L. , Mary A. and Eva E. Mrs. Beach is a 
member of the Seven-Day Adventist Church, and 
Mr. Beach belongs to Aurora Lodge No. 423, A. 
F. & A. M. , at Walnut Ridge, being a Master 
MasoD. 

George B. Borah is a minister of the Gospel, 
who has followed in the footsteps of his father 
Chesterfield G. Borah, a physician of note and a 
minister. Mr. Borah's father was born in Cald- 
well County, Ky., in 1814, and by his earnest en- 
deavors in that direction was made a professor of 
religion when quite a young man. He found a 
faithful partner in the per.son of Miss Samarimus 
Perkins, also a native of his State, a young lady 
well fitted to assist him in his chosen field of labor. 
In 1845 Mr. Borah and his wife, seeking new 
pastures for their work, came to Arkansas and 
settled on Reed's Creek, in Lawrence County. He 



preached the Gospel and practiced medicine until 
death ended his labors in March, 1868. He was a 
prominent man in his time and one who took an 
active part in the affairs of his county. His wifo 
still survives him and makes her home with Inn- 
son, George B. Borah, the eldest of six children, 
of whom two only lived to the age of maturity, 
the other being Samarimus A., now the wife of N. 

E. Judkins. When George B. Borah arrived at 
the age of manhood he enrolled himself in the 
ranks of the Confederate army under Gen. Price, 
and took part in the raids through Mis.souri and 
Kansas. During a lull in the war he was given a 
sixty days' fm-lough to go home, and afterward 
went to Jacksonport, where he surrendi-red June 
5, 1865. He adopted the |)rofession of religion in 
1874, and was ordained to preach in 1876. Since 
then he has had charge of four churches, besides 
assisting at others whenever his services were 
called upon, and has been an indefatigable worker. 
His efforts have been appreciated, and he is now 
recognized as one of the ablest ministers in that 
county, and is beloved by all with whom he comes 
in contact. He was married in 1866 to Miss 
Melissa Wayland, a daughter of Sisco Wayland, 
one of the pioneers of Arkansas, and nine children 
have blessed their union. Six of them are living: 
Willie L., John N., Joseph H., Richard P., Flor- 
ence and Mary Ethel. Those deceased are Samar- 
imus M. , Josaphineaud Milton A. Mrs. Borah is a 
valuable assistant to her husband in church work, 
and a lady whose Christian influence is manife.sted 
in many ways. Mr. Borah is a member of the A. 

F. & A. M. He is the owner of eighty-five acres 
of land under cultivation, besides considerable un- 
improved lands in other sections. 

George W. Brady, merchant and postmaster, 
of Smithville, is a son of Jeremiah Brady, of North 
Carolina, who came to Arkansas in his childhood, 
with his father, James W. Brady, one of the pio- 
neers of Lawrence County. Jeremiah Brady was 
reared and grew to manhood in this county, where 
he was also married to Miss Nancy MeCarrell, a 
native of the same place, and where their sun. 
George W., was born, October 8, 1858. Mr. 
Brad)', the father, was a farmer and blacksmith. 



-^ — \^ 



Ti% 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and resided here until the war, when, tired with a 
desire to battle for the cause of the Confederacy, 
he left the peace and quiet of his family for the 
turmoil and dangers of war. He died at Mul- 
berry, Ark. . and previous to his death his faithful 
wife had passed away, thus leaving George bereft 
of both parents in quick succession. George W. 
Brady received a good common school education in 
his youth, and, after his school days were over, 
entered into commercial life at Smithville, for two 
years. He next made a trip to Texas, in 1876, and 
remained about eighteen months in the Lone Star 
State. On his return to Smithville he again occu- 
pied a position in one of the business houses, and 
in 1878. after obtaining a thorough knowledge of 
commercial affairs, he established a business of his 
own, which, by his enterprise and fair dealings, 
has won for him a large patronage. Previous to 
1885 Mr. Brady had been appointed deputy post- 
master, but in that year he received his appoint- 
ment as postmaster, and has held the office since 
then. He was married September 7, 1871), to Miss 
Lee L. Raney, a daughter of Morgan Raney, of 
Lawrence County, and by this marriage has had 
two children: J. Clarence and Claud Carter. 

George W. Bridges is a son of John and Jane 
T. Bridges, the former of whom was a native 
of Missouri, and his mother a Virginian. He was 
born in that portion of Lawrence County, now 
known as Randolph, in 1856. His parents settled 
in Arkansas when they were children, about the 
year 1829, and were married when they reached 
the age of maturity. They have always made 
Lawrence County their home, where the father 
died in 1858, at the age of thirty-eight years, with 
the proud consciousness of having performed his 
duty to his country, having been a survivor of the 
Mexican War, through which he served with the 
eulogium of his commanding officers upon his 
bravery. The mother contracted a second mar- 
riage with William Ferguson (now deceased), and 
had one child by her second husband, who was a 
captain in the Confederate army. Mr. Ferguson 
died in June, 1865, shortly after he returned home 
from the war. Mr. Bridges is the third child of 
his parents, and was reared in Randolph and Sharp 



Counties, returning to the former in 186it, where 
he remained until February 28, 1888, and then 
moved to his present place of abode. He has up- 
ward of 100 acres of land under cultivation, and 
has also turned his attention to cotton planting. 
He was married to Miss Bettie A. Glenn, in 187'J, 
a young lady of Ballard County, Ky. They have 
had six children, one of them deceased. Those 
living are: Charlie Emma, Mamie Ana, SallieH. , 
Andrew O. and George William. Mr. Bridges is a 
member of the A. F. & A. M., of Ravenden, and is 
a popular resident of Lawrence County. His wife 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. 

Thomas F. Buchanan, an enterprising farmer 
and stock raiser, of Spring River Township, was 
born in Lawrence County, Ark., November 14, 
1854. He is the son of Thomas, and Eliza (Wei- 
thy) Buchanan, of Missouri, who moved to Arkan- 
sas after their marriage and settled in Lawrence 
County, where the older Buchanan died in 1854, in 
the prime and vigor of his manhood. Thomas F. 
remained with his mother until he had attained his 
maturity, and then commenced to take his own 
part in the world. He has been farming the 
greater portion of his life, and the experience 
gained during that time has made him one of the 
best farmers in his county. When still a young 
man, he visited the city of Memphis, Tenn., with 
a view of making it his future home, but after a 
residence of fourteen months, he decided to come 
back ty Lawrence Country, and has remained here 
ever since. On August 20, 1876, he was married 
to Miss Sarah Huffman, daughter of John Huff- 
man, and two years after his marriage he bought 
the tract of land upon which he now resides, and 
commenced cultivating the soil. He now owns 
120 acres, with about thirty-live acres cleared, and 
has built a large double house upon it, besides 
giving his attention to a small but well selected 
orchard of two acres, with several different varie- 
ties of fruit. Mr. Buchanan and his wife have 
four daughters: Effie. Ruby, Ella and Orlana, and 
all four of the girls are members of the Missionary 
Baptist Church. He takes great interest in edu- 
I cation and is a member of the school board. 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



[ 



Benjamin R. Bush, fanner and stock raiser, of 
Lawrence County, was ))orn in Wilson County. 
Tenn., February IIJ, 1838. His parents were S. 
L. and Elizabeth (Tate) Bush, of the same State, 
who iiuuiigrated to Arkansas in 1840, and settled 
in Lawrence County, where the father practiced 
medicine up to the time of his death, about the 
year 18r)'2. He reared a family of three sons and 
one daughter, all of whom lived until their matur- 
ity. Benjamin R. remained with his mother until 
his twentieth year, when he niarriod and purchased 
a farm of his own. His bride was Miss Mary Orr, 
a young lady who was reared in this county, who 
proved a \isefnl helpmate and faithful wife. Mr. 
Bush farmed on his land for several years, and 
then bought more and added to it from time to 
time, until he now owns about 400 acres of the best 
laud in Arkansas, with 1 50 acres cleared, and all of 
it situated four miles west of Minturn. There is a 
good residence, two barns, two cribs, and all other 
necessaries upon the land, besides a lino orchard of 
three acres, with peach and apple trees. He had 
almost nothing he could call his own when he first 
started in life, and has accumulated his fine prop- 
erty by shrewdness, good judgment and industry, 
and has set a worthy example for others to follow. 
In 1802 he enlisted in Col. Lindsay's company 
(afterward C'ol. Baber's), and served one year. 
He then joined Col. Reeves' regiment, and re- 
mained with it until the close of the war, when he 
surrendered, and was paroled June 5, 1865, at 
Jacksonport. He took pait in the engagements at 
Cane Hill, Ark., and Price's raids through Mis- 
souri, also the fight at Pilot Knob, besides numer- 
ous other sharp encounters, liearing himself in a 
soldierly manner through the entire campaign. 
Mr. Bush lost his first wife in 1880. and afterward 
married Jfiss Ellen (iuthry. Five children were 
bom to him by his first wife: Joseph W., George 
R.. Sauford, Charles, and Mary Elizabeth, wife of 
William McC'lure; also two children by his second 
wife, who.se names are Clarence and Katie. Both 
parents are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Chiirch. and Mr. Bush is a member of the K. of H. 
and the Agricultural Wheel. 

M. V. Camp, physician and surgeon of Walnut 



Ridge, has been a resident of Northeast Arkansas 
for the past twenty-one years. He was born in 
Bibb County, Ala., June 11, 1830, and is the son 
of James Camp, of South Carolina, who was one 
of the first to manufacture the ore into wire in the 
iron furnaces of Birmingham. Ala. He was mar 
ried to Miss Mary Luoney. of South Carolina, wlio 
died in Mississippi about the year 1870, aged 
eighty years. Eight girls and four l)(jys were born 
to them, four of them still living. Martin Van 
Buren Camp was the youngest of this large family, 
and was reared on a farm. He had bren given a 
liberal education at the city of Birmingham, prin 
cij)ally at "Old Elyton," and was the leader in 
Greek and Latin in his class. After his college 
days were over he embarked in the newspaper busi- 
ness at Butler, Choctaw County, Ala., and bought 
the plant of the Southern Democrat. This paper 
he edited from 1837 to 1800. and hisal)ility pnshe.l 
it to the fir.st place among the newspapers of Ala 
bama. It was the second paper in that State to 
advocate secession, and the Doctor still has cc)|)ies 
of his first literary effort in his library at home. 
In 1861 he enlisted in Capt. Maner's regiment, 
and was created a sergeant (Mississippi troops) and 
then under Col. (afterwards Maj.-Gen. ) Lowrv. 
with whom he served three months. He afterward 
organized a company of volunteers, with Dr. R. B. 
Stephens, of Tupelo, Miss., of which he wits cap- 
tain, while Dr. Stephens was made surgeon. The 
com])any formed part of Col. W. M. luges' Twelfth 
Regiment Mississi])pi Cavalry, in Gen. S. W. Fer- 
guson's brigade, and did excellent service all 
through the war. Dr. Camp came to Jonesboro. 
Ark., after they had disbanded, and was engaged 
in teaching school in Craighead County. He then 
attended a course of lectures at the University of 
Louisville, and when through moved to Gainesville, 
where he practiced fur fourteen years. In I8.S5 he 
located in Walnut Ritlge, where he has .succeeiled 
in i)uilding up a fair practice. He has no desire 
to accumulate a large amount of pro(>erty, but be- 
lieves in giving his children a good education under 
his own supervision, so that his money will be ju- 
diciously expended. The Doctor is a member of 
the Masonic and Odd Fellows' fraternities, and of 






<& k_ 



U 9 



778 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the Cross Roads Baptist Church, near Portia. He 
is a Democrat in politics, but has never held any 
public office excepting that of county examiner of 
public instruction, in Greene County. He was 
married May 2, 1860, in Sumter County, Ala., to 
Miss Sarah C. Sheid, of that State, a daughter of 
Jesse G. Sheid. Her parents had three girls and 
two boys born to them, one of them deceased. 
Those living are Lizzie I. , the wife of Rev. James 
F. Jernigan, a minister of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South, and residing in Walnut Ridge; 
James Sheid, now studying medicine with his 
father; Mary Ann, who graduated in June, 1889, 
from the Bellevue Collegiate Institute, of Cale- 
donia, Mo., and Alice E., at home. Mrs. Camp's 
mother died July 17, 1888, aged fifty-one years. 
She was a member of the Cumberland Presbyte- 
rian Church, and came from what is known through- 
out South Carolina as the " Old Horseshoe Robin- 
son Stock." 

John N. Campbell, treasurer of Lawrence Coun- 
ty, Ark. , is a native of Cumberland County, N. C. , 
where he was born April 3, 1820. His father was 
Miirdock Campbell, of Scotland, born of Scotch 
and Irish parentage, who was raised and married 
in North Carolina. After his marriage the elder 
Campbell moved to Lawrence County, Tenn. , and 
settled on a farm, where he began the cultivation of 
the soil and rearing his children. From there he 
moved to the State of Arkansas in 1843, settling in 
what is now Lawrence (bounty, where he resided 
up to the time of his death, about the year 1852. 
John N. Cambell reached his maturity in the State 
of Tennessee, and came to Arkansas in 1843, where 
he settled, in Lawrence County, on a farm, and 
tilled the soil for a number of years. In 1872 he 
was elected county treasurer and at the expiration 
of his term was re elected, serving from 1872 to 
1878. In 1888 his party, seeing the fitness of the 
man for the position and recognizing his abilities, 
once more elected him to office. He previously 
discharged the duties of justice of the peace for 
twelve years, and also served as deputy sheriff and 
constable. Mr. Campbell was married, in 1846, 
to Miss Mary J. Childers, of Virginia, and they are 
now the parents of three sons and one daughter. 



all of them having attained maturity and mar- 
ried. Their names are: William M., John D., 
Alex C, and Sarah A., wife of John C. Overstreet, 
the entire family residing in Lawi-ence County. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Campbell are mt^mbers of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and stand 
high in the regard of those surrounding them. 

John Casper, farmer and blacksmith, whose 
work at the forge and anvil has placed him as an 
expert in his trade, was born in Rowan County, 
N. C, May 5, 1827. He is a son of George and 
Nancy (Leonard) Casper, both of the same county 
and State, who died in their native place. Mi-. 
Casper is one of a family of four sons and four 
daughters, of whom five are still living, three 
brothers and two sisters, the latter residing in 
North Carolina, and the former, David, Jacob 
Alexander and John, living in Lawrence County. 
John Gasper is the oldest of the three brothers 
living, and was reared in Rowan County, N. C, 
where he remained with his father until his twenty- 
sixth year. He moved west in 1853 and settled 
in Lawrence County, Ark., where he bought a 
small section of land and commenced clearing and 
improving it. On March 8, 1854, he was married 
to Mrs. Sarah M. Blackwell, a widow lady, of 
North Carolina, who also possessed a small im- 
provement on government land. Mr. Cas[)er im- 
mediately set to work clearing his land, and they 
now have about seventy-five acres under cultiva- 
tion. The home place comprises about 380 acres 
altogether, with a good log house and other build- 
ings built upon it, and an orchard. He also owns 
240 acres in other sections, and fiom the fact that 
he commenced on almost nothing at all, has done 
remarkably well. He owes it all to his own thrift 
and business tact, and is now considered as one of 
the sul)stantial farmers of Lawreuce County. Mr. 
Casper enlisted in the Confederate army in 1863, 
and was a member of the Seventh Missouri Cav- 
alry, and afterward transferred to the Seventh 
Arkansas Infantry. He took part in many a hard 
fought battle — at Little Rock, Pilot Knob and in 
Gen. Price's I'aids through Missouri, besides sev- 
eral battles of lesser importance. He was paroled 
at Shreveport, La., at the close of the war, and 



^-* 



e k. 



At 



LA WHENCE COUNTY. 



77» 



rotnrned homo to resume his labor upon the farm. 
In 1877 Mr. Casper lost his faithful wife, who 
(lied October 4, leaving him one child, George W. 
He again married, his second wife being Mrs. Har- 
riet E. Harris, a widow, of North Carolina, and 
has one child by this marriage- Etter E. Mr. 
Casper is a member of the Old School Presbyterian 
Church, in which he is an elder, and is also a mem- 
ber of the Agricultural Wheel, being vice-presi- 
dent of the local Wheel. He has been unfortunate 
in the loss of his second wife, who died February 
13, 1884, leaving behind her a record of useful- 
ness and many virtues. 

John A. Cathey, one of the oldest merchants in 
Lawrence County, was born in Shelley (Jounty, 
Tenn., in the year 1840. He is the son of John 
A. Cathey, of Maiiry County, Tenn., who was 
reared on a farm, and finally adopted the tailoring 
trade, which he followed until his death occurred, 
in 1SS31, at Jacksonport, Ark, in which place he 
had settled in 1848, for the purpose of working. 
He was married to Miss Narcissa Turnage, of Ten- 
nessee, who died shortly after the decease of her 
husl)and at Jacksonport. Five sons were born to 
them, two of them yet living: James H. and John 
A., both living in Arkansas. The children who 
have died are William T. , David L. and an infant. 
David was killed by accidentally shooting himself 
during the war. John A. Cathey, for whom this 
sketch is intended, is the youngest member of the 
family living. He came to Arkansas with his par- 
ents, and remained with them, until he grew to 
manhood, in Jackson County. He enlisted in the 
Confederate army in 1861, and was enrolled in 
Company G, First Arkansas, and served until the 
close of the war,, when he surrendered at Jackson- 
port. He participated in the battle of BuU Eun, 
at Shiloh, and was so severely wounded in that en- 
gagement that he lay disabled for some two 
months. He also took part in the battles of Perry- 
ville (Ky.), Murfreesboro (Tenn.), Chickamauga, 
Chattanooga, and then a three months' campaign 
from Dalton to Atlanta. He was at Franklin, 
Tenn., during the terrible slaughter (Hood's) at 
that place, and afterward in another hot campaign 
at Nashville. He has been wounded at different 



times, and bears a war record thai few men can 
equal at the present day. When the war was over, 
it would naturally seem that after witne.s.sing and 
taking part in the terrible carnage of his numerous 
battles, he would prefer a peaceful life, l)ut, strange 
to say, his occupation was Initchering while in 
Jacksonport, as though he had not yet been satiated 
by the sight and smell of blood. From Jackson 
port he moved to Newport, and lived there for 
eight years, then settled down in Lawrence County, 
where he is now considered the oldest establisln'd 
merchant in that section. He carries a large stock 
of general merchandise, and is noted for his square 
dealing throughout the county. In fact, lie is the 
founder of the town that bears his name. He was 
appointed postmaster from 1881 to 1885, and lias 
held several local offices. His wife was Miss Sarali 
W. Roberts, of Alabama, who died in 1809. Mr. 
Cathey afterward married a sister of his first wife. 
Miss Eliza Roberts, and they have had two chil- 
dren by this union, I'jliza I. and Bertha Lee. They 
are members of the Methodist ]<j|)iscopal Church, 
and Mr. Cathey is a member of Dry Creek Lodge 
No. 458, F. & A. M. 

Burrel M. Childers, a well-known and popular 
farmer and stock raiser, was born in Madison 
County, Ala., October 9, 1821. His father, John 
Childers, was a native of Georgia, who moved to 
the State of Alabama when a young man, and wa.s 
there married to Miss Rutlia Cown. The parents 
remained in Alabama until the year 1824, and 
then settled in Tennessee, where they resided up 
to 1838, when they selected Arkansas as their 
future home, and located in Lawrence County. 
The elder Childers had an eventful history in his 
younger days, and was a soldier in the Black Hawk 
War. He reared a family of eleven children, five 
sons and six danghtera, of whom Burrel M. Chil- 
ders is the only survivor. Burrel remained with 
his father until he was of mature age, and then 
enlisted in the Mexican War of 1840. After the 
war was over and the treaty had been made, he re- 
ceived his discharge, and returned to Lawrence 
County. He settled on his present place in 1849, 
when this ])ortion of .\rkansas was nothing more 
tjian a wilderness, ami has lived to see it trrow up 



A 



<» w. 



780 



mSTOEY OF AEKANSAS. 



into a populous and thriving community. Mr. 
Childers bas since then cleared up about seventy- 
five acres, and put them under cultivation, besides 
owning 160 acres adjoining. He did, at one time, 
own over 1,000 acres, but has divided up with his 
children. When war was announced between the 
North and South he gave his services to the Con- 
federacy, and joined Col. Shaver's regiment. He 
was elected lieutenant, and held that rank until 
the close of hostilities. During that time he took 
part in the fights at Pilot Knob, Independence, 
Kansas City, Big Blue and Miner's Creek, where 
Gen. Marmaduke was taken prisoner. After the 
war he returned to Lawrence County, and has 
since then been occupied in farming. His first 
marriage was to Miss Narcissa Beavers, of Illinois, 
who died in 1856. This wife left, two children, 
who grew to maturity, were married, and left 
childi-en of their own. Mr. Childers next married, 
in this county, Mrs. Hopkins, a widow lady, of 
Indiana, who died in 1883. There are three chil- 
dren living by this wife, whose tmmes are: C. F., 
wife of Joseph Lollar; Julia, wMow of A. B. 
Hogard, and Hezekiah. His present wife was 
united to him in 1884, her former name being 
Aveline Grider, a daughter of Martin Grider, one 
of the j)ioneers of Randolph County. There are 
three children by this marriage: Maxie, Stonewall 
Jackson and Cbaldon. Mr. Childers is a member 
of the Masonic order, and is a Royal Arch Mason, 
belonging to the Eastern Star. He attends the 
Christian Cliurch, while his wife is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and also of the 
Eastern Star. In the early days of his settlement 
in Arkansas, Mr. Childers was a hunter of no 
mean pretences. He made a regular business of 
hunting for ten years, and together with his brother, 
killed tliirty-six bears, six panthers and a great 
number of wild cats, in one spring, besides a 
quantity of deer. He has a record of killing eleven 
deer in one day, while a companion of his, Ji 
Frenchman, killed eleven deer and two bears the 
same day. Mr. Childers is a genial and active 
gentleman, though well advanced in life, and is 
very much thought of by his neighbors. He is 
full of anecdote, and it is a pleasure to listen to 



the reminiscences of his early days, which none 
can tell so well as an old settler. 

William Childers. a well-known boniface and 
liveryman of Imboden, was born in this county in 
the year 1844. His parents came to Arkansas in 
childhood, and were located in the soiithwostern 
part of Lawrence County. He is descended fi'om 
an old family of Virginians; his grandfather, Isam 
Childers, moving from that State to Arkansas, with 
his family, in 18'J4, where he reared his family of 
four boys and two girls, Alexander C. Childers, his 
third son, being the father of William Childers. 
Isam Childers was a veteran of the War of 1812, 
and died in 1858 at an advanced age. Alexander 
C. Childers was born in Virginia, in 1815, and 
moved to the State of Arkansas, with his father, 
when in his childhood. When war was declared 
between this country and Mexico, he was one of 
the first to follow the lead of Gens. Scott and Tay- 
lor in the land of cactus, and distinguished himself 
on many a battlefield. He died in 1860 while in 
the very prime of life, and left a shining example 
behind him for his sons to follow. James Childers, 
one of his brothers, represented this county in the 
legislature for several terms, and was one of the 
prominent men of Arkansas. The mother of Mr. 
William Childers was a daughter of Jacob Forten- 
bery ; her name was Matilda, and she was born in 
Virginia in 1810, and died in 1844, when he was 
an infant. She left four children: Elisabeth, the 
wife of D. Christian ; Nancy, the wife of Lee Holt, 
now residing in Texas; Absalom F., a Baptist 
minister in Alabama, and William Childers, of 
Lawrence County. Mr. Childers commenced to 
make a career of his own at the age of sixteen 
years, and entered the army during the war. He 
was a member of Company E, First Arkansas, 
and gallautly upheld the reputation of his fore- 
fathers as model soldiers. On August 10, 1861, 
he was dangerously wounded and forced to desist 
from fighting. He lay idle for three months, but 
the old fighting instinct compelled him to enter the 
ranks again, and he joined McCorvess' regiment. 
Fourteenth Arkansas, in which he fought until his 
capture at Port Gibson. He regained his lil)erty 
three months later, and after the fall of Vicksburg 



:^; 






sr* 




Indepenoemce County, ARKAHSfts. 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



781 



T 



re-joined the army at Washington, Ark. He was 
again made prisoner and taken to Little Rock, Ark. , 
and transferred from there to Rock Island, 111., 
where he was kept until Leo's surrender. After 
bis release he went to Leavenworth, Kas. , and 
made a trip across the plains to Denver City, Col., 
remaining in that place six mouths befoi'e his re- 
tiu-n home. He has, since that time, resided in 
Lawrence County, where he is entraeed in farmins', 
stock raising, and as a hotel keeper and liveryman 
he enjoys a well -deserved reputation. He is one 
of the most extensive stock dealers in the county, 
an occupation to which he has given much atten- 
tion since the war, and his was the first ship- 
ment made over the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & 
Southern Railroad. He has devoted himself 
largely to trading in horses, mules, cattle, hogs 
and sheep. Mr. Childers is prominent in all 
political matters, and was twice elected treas- 
urer of Lawrence County by the Democrats. He 
was also nominated for sheriff, but was beaten by 
his opponent. His first business ventui-e in this 
county was with W. Childers & Co., at Smithville, 
Ark., and the second with a firm composed of W. 
C. Sloan, Q. C. Jones and himself, dealers in mer 
chandise, of which Mr. Childers was the manager. 
He sold his interest to W. C. Sloan two years later, 
and since that time has had charge of the widely- 
known Delmonico Hotel and a well-ecjuipped livery 
stable attached. He was married, January 15, 
1865, to Miss Clara A. Wells, a lady of Lawrence 
County, Ark., and daughter of John Wells, of 
Virginia, who was one of the principal stock dealers 
in Arkansas, before his death in 1858. ' Mrs. 
Childers' mother was Eliza A. Grayson, of Louisi- 
ana, before her mamage. She died in Imi)oden 
in the year 1886, aged sixty years. Nine children 
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Wells, all of them de- 
ceased excepting the wife of William Childers. 
Mr. Childers and his wife have had eight children, 
three of whom are dead, namely: Robert E. L. , 
Nancy S. and Doney Belle. Those living are: 
Chiirles O. , Mollie May, William Sloan, John 
Crockett and Grover Cleveland. Mrs. Childers is 
a charming lady and universally beloved for her 
kindness of heart and gentle disposition. Her 



husband is a Master Mason and a leader in the 
affairs of his county. They are generous and lib- 
eral in all their undertakings, and respected b\ 
everyone. 

Hon. Charles Coffin is one of the principal 
Democrats of Northeast Arkansas, and a man well 
known over the entire State. He has all the ante- 
cedents which combine to produce a man stanch 
and true to the real Democracy, and for several 
years past has been an earnest advocate of Demo- 
cratic principles in this State. He was born at 
Rogersville, Hawkins County, Tenn., on the 28d 
of April, 184'2, and, with his parents, removed to 
Knoxville, Tenn. , when but five years of age. He 
there remained until December, 1865, when he re- 
moved with his mother and brothers to Memphis, 
and resided there until July, 1809, when the family 
came to Lawrence County, his present home. The 
ancestry of Mr. Coffin goes back over 200 years 
to Tristam Coffin, an English yeoman, who came 
to Newberryport, Mass., in 1642, but being driven 
from there on account of his religious belief - a sym- 
pathy for persecuted Quakers — went and settled 
the Island of Nantucket. He is the ancestor of 
all of that name in America. The family celebrated 
the two-hundredth anniversary of his death in 1881. 
Mr. Coffin, with a brother and two cousins from Ten- 
nessee, were the only representatives present from 
the Southern branches of the family, and there 
were nearly 600 present. Mr. Coffin's grandfather, 
the Rev. Charles Coffin, D. D. , a Presbyterian 
minister, and a graduate of Harvard, emigrated 
from Newberryport, in 1804, to Greeueville, Tenn., 
where he founded and was president of Greeueville 
College until 1827. He held the same position 
in the East Tennessee University, at Knoxvill(>. 
from 1827 until 1S36, and died at Greeueville, in 
1852. He was the educator of many of the most 
prominent, influential and distinguishe<l men of 
the South, of the last generation, one of whom was 
the late Gen. Grandison D. Royston, of this State. 
His portrait is frescoed in the ceiling of tiie library 
room in the capitol at Na.shville, as one of the 
pioneer Utterati of Tennessee. Mr. Coffin's father, 
Charles Hector Coffin, was born on the 24th of 
April, 1804, at Newberryport, Mass., and was a 



782 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



merchant of Kuoxvilk', an active railroad man, 
and imder Gov. Campbell's administration was 
president of the hrancb Bank of Tennessee, at 
Eogersville. He died at Columbia, Tenn. , on the 
19th of June, 1854. He had married Miss Eliza 
Park, a native of Knoxville, Tenn., born on the 
22d day of September, 1811, and the daughter 
of James Park, who was of Irish birth, and a 
merchant by trade. Mr. Park died in 1853, at the 
age of eighty- four years. His wife, who was 
formerly Sophia Moody, of Wilmington, Del., 
died in 1862, when over eighty years of age. She 
■was the mother of twelve children, of whom Rev. 
James Park, D. D., a distinguished Presbyterian 
minister at Knoxville, is one. Mrs. Coffin (mother 
of the subject of this sketch) died in this county, 
in 1874, and lies buried at Knoxville, Tenn. 
Charles Coffin has been not so much a student of 
books as an independent thinker. He went through 
the freshman and sophmore years in the Tennessee 
University, at Knoxville, and the junior year at 
Princeton, N. J., but the war closed his school 
life. He was a Southerner by birth, his home 
was there, all his interests and his heart were with 
"his people." He believed neither in secession 
nor coercion, but seeing his people in trouble and 
danger, his warm heart went out in sympathy for 
them, and he loft the college, gave up all that 
promised to be a brilliant literary career, for he 
had all the requisities which only needed to be 
molded, cultured and trained, and resolutely set his 
face homeward, where he was eagerly welcomed. He 
enlisted as a private on the 10th of August, 1861, 
when but nineteen years of age, in Capt. Ben M. 
Branner's cavalry company (at Cumberland Gap), 
afterwards Company I, Second Tennessee Cavalry, 
under Col. Henry M. Ashby. Mr. Coffin was in 
Gen. Zollicoffer's command, and participated in 
all his engagements until the hitter's death at Mill 
Springs, Ky., on the I'Jth of Jamtary, 1862. Mr. 
Coffin was afterwards in the campaigns in Ken- 
tucky, under Gen. Kirl)y Smith, participating in 
the battle of Murfreesboro, December 31, 1862, 
and North Carolina, January 1, 1863, and on the 
19th, 20th and 2 1st of March, 1865, he wasatBen- 
tonville, N. C, where Gens. Joseph E. Johnston 



and Sherman fought their last great battle. He was 
in the fight between Wheeler and Kilpatrick, Feb- 
ruary 11, 1865, at Aikin, S. C, and with Johnston 
in Wheeler's cavalry corps during the campaigns 
of the Carolinas in the last mentioned year. He 
was captured at Somerset, Ky. , under Brig. -Gen. 
John Pegraui, March 31, 1863, and exchanged at 
City Point, Va. , on the 22d of April; was captured 
again at Lancaster, Ky., on the 31st of August, 
1863, while under Col. John S. Scott, of Lou- 
isiana, and was a prisoner at Camp Chase, Ohio, 
for seven months, and the eight montlis following 
at Fort Delaware. He was exchanged at Savannah, 
Ga., on the 12th day of November, 1864. He was 
sergeant major of his regiment, but surrendered 
and was paroled at Charlotte, N. C, under the 
cartel between Johnston and Sherman, May 11, 
1865, as adjutant, in which position he was then 
acting. Mr. Coffin was a grocery merchant at 
Memphis, Tenn., from March, 1867, to July, 
1869, and was engaged in mercantile pursuits at 
Clover Bend, in this county, from July, 1869, to 
March, 1871. In 1873 he edited the Observer, 
at Pocahontas, Ark., until August, 1874, and also 
taught school in that time. In September, 1874, 
he was licensed to practice law and located at Wal- 
nut Ridge, where he has since resided. In 1876 
he was co-editor of the Little Rock Gazette, but 
one year later he resumed the practice of his pro- 
fession, at Walnut Ridge. Mr. Coffin is a Dem- 
ocrat, of Whig antecedents, having been reared 
by Whig parents. He became a Democrat after 
the war, and in 1873 was elected from Randolph 
County, as a Democrat, to the extraordinary ses- 
sion of the legislature, and served eighteen days 
during the Brooks-Baxter war, at the call of Gov- 
ernor Baxter. In 1878 he was elected prosecut- 
ing attorney, and re-elected in 1880 for the Third 
judicial district. In the summer of 1888 he was 
a candidate for the Democratic nomination to Con- 
gress for the First Arkansas district, against Hon. 
W. H. Cate, of Jonesboro, and gave the latter a 
close and exciting race. He was afterwards given 
an unsolicited and unanimous nomination as rep- 
resentative to the State legislature (being not even 
a candidate) by the Democratic convention of his 



^^ 



county, iuid won the light by a good majority. He 
made the cauvass as a "straight Democrat,'' 
against the combined Republican, Union Labor 
and Wheeler opposition, and wears the laurels of 
a hard earned victory. In the legislative session 
following (1888-89) ho was a strong advocate and 
leader of the effort to organize the Democratic 
members of the legislature for Democratic pur- 
poses. His heart was in the work and he labored 
indefatigably and gallantly for the sake of .all the 
principles he holds most dear. He was chairujan 
of the house committee on penitentiary, also a 
member of the house committee on railroads, 
ways and means and education. Mr. Coffin intro- 
duced several important bills, among them the fol- 
lowing: To regulate the practice of pharmacy; to 
inspect cattle for butchering purposes in cities of 
first and second class; to repeal features of the 
labor contract law (Mansfield's Digest, Section 
4441), which makes valid contracts for labor made 
beyond the limits of State. He also had the honor 
of framing the State Democratic platform of 1888, 
in which the State canvass and victory were won 
from the Union Labor and Republican parties com- 
bined. Mr. Coffin owns a farm of eighty acres 
near Walnut Ridge, and is a strong advocate of 
grass farming, being one of the first to introduce 
clover into this section of the State. He was bap- 
tized in infancy, but is not a member of the 
Church, though a Presbyterian in his views, and 
assists in maintaining ministers and church enter- 
jirises. Mr. Coffin is a member of that large class 
of mankind who have never seen tit, from various 
causes, to enter the "conjugal state of felicity," 
although a previous biographer has dryly remarked 
that "he is young enough to reform. ' ' He has 
l)(>en known to say, in reference to his loneliness 
and alisence of a life companion, that "a Coffin 
is the last thing on earth a woman wants.'' Mr. 
Coffin has for his motto: " Never do anrthing to 
be ashamed of." His style of oratory is earnest, 
fluent and pointed, speaks impromptu and gets at 
the "meat" of the question. He is an honor- 
able, upiright citizen in all that the terms imply. 

Joseph W. Coffman, a prominent farmer of 
Duty Township, was born in McLean County, 



Ky., in 1838. His parents, Benjamin and Eliza 
Ijeth (Gossett) Coffman, are natives of Virginia, 
and of German descent. Homo of the family were 
extensive farmers in Virginia, while others had 
various occupations. The father was l)orn in the 
year 1802, and came to Kentucky with his parents 
in 1804, where he grew to maturity, and was mar- 
ri<'d. He died in ISufj, from a very painful 
accident, having his head mashed while moving a 
hogshead of tobacco. He was a firm adherent of 
the Universalist Church, and a member of the A. 
F. & A. M., while his death was a source of sin- 
cere regret among a large circle of friends. The 
mother, who was some ten years j'ounger than her 
husband, died in 1844. Benjamin Coffman and 
Elizabeth (Gossett) Coffman were the parents of 
eight children: William A., Nancy, Ephraim 
A., Benjamin ¥., Daniel M., Eli.sha, Elizabeth, 
and Joseph W., of whom William A. and Elisha 
are deceased. Joseph W. Coffman was the third 
child, and remained on the farm in Kentucky with 
his parents until his twenty-first year, when he 
accepted a lucrative position with a large tobacco 
firm, and commenced his own career. On October 
19, 1856, he was married, and moved to the State 
of Arkansas, wher(> he settled in Hempstead 
County, on a farm which he rented the first year, 
but at the expiration of that time was able to 
purchase a farm of his own. A few years later, 
that announcement of war, which broke up so 
many happy homes, also filled him with the desire 
to aid the Confederacy, and he enlisted in W. H. 
Prescott's company, and served for three years. 
He took part in a gi-eat number of engagements, 
and carried himself through that bloody e|)och in 
history in a manner that won the admiration and 
respects of his comrades. After the war had 
ended, he returned to Lawrence County, in l8l<<5, 
and settled at a point within one mile and a half 
of where he now resides, and, in 1878, moved to 
the present place, where he has been employed in 
agricultural pursuits ever since. Jlr. Coffman 
was married to Miss Rebecca Bowen, a daughter 
of John W. and Ann (Kenerly) Bowen, natives of 
South Carolina and Virginia, res])ectively. who 
were prominent farmers and large slave-owners 



4, 



784 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



before the war. The father was born in 1805, of 
English descent, and died in the year 1869, while 
the mother, who was of Dutch origin, was born 
in 1804, and died in 1864. Thoy were the parents 
of five sons and three daughters, three of them yet 
living, and Mrs. Coffman is the sixth child of that 
number. Ten children were born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Coffman, of whom seven are still living. Their 
names are: F. AVarren, Mary C, wife of B. A. 
Welbon, living in the State of Washington; John 
B. , Elizabeth, who died in her thirteenth year; 
Benjamin A., at home; William M., who died at 
thirteen years of age; Jennie, algo dead; Flora, 
Lena and Josie at home. Mr. and Mrs. Coffman 
are both members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, in which they are active workers, 
while Mr. Coft'man is a trustee, steward, and also 
superintendent of the Sunday-school, and has 
represented the church in several conferences. He 
is a prominent man, and a leader in all enterprises 
concerning the welfare of his county, and one 
whose advice and judgment are sought for on 
many occasions. He is a member of Lodge No. 
ITjO, and has belonged to that organization forever 
tln'rty years. Mr. Coffman' s father contracted a 
second marriage after the death of his first wife, 
and by this wife had nine children: John T., 
Jacob B., Samuel R., Solomon E., George P. 
(who met his death at the hands of an assassin), 
Frank P. , Susan F. , James Lewis, Ezekiel. Ezekiel, 
George, Frank, James and Samuel are deceased. 
James W. Coffman, M. D., a gentleman well 
known throughout Northeastern Arkansas as one 
of its leading physicians, and a fruit grower of 
well-deserved reputation, was born in 1847 on a 
farm in what is now known as McLean County, 
Ky. He is the son of Jacob N. and Nancy (Gish) 
Cott'man, both natives of Pennsylvania, who re- 
moved to the State of Kentucky in 1808, when 
they were children. In 1857 Mr. Coffman and his 
family removed to Arkansas, and settled in Law- 
rence County, where ho entered into the cultivation 
of cotton on an extensive scale. His death occurred 
in 1879, at the age of sixty -seven years, fourteen 
years after the demise of his wife. Ten children 
were born to them, of whom two only are living, 



one of them being a daiighter, Mrs. Mary S. Benne- 
lield, and James W. Coffman. Mr. Coffman re- 
sided in Lawrence County until the age of sixteen 
years, when he enlisted in the Confederate army 
under Gen. Price during the declining years of the 
late war, participating in some of the daring raids 
through Missouri and Kansas. At the close of 
that eontiict he returned home, and engaged in the 
more peaceful avocation of cotton planting. In 
1868 he commenced the study of uiedicine, with his 
brother (now deceased), who was a graduate of the 
University of Louisville, Ky. , as his preceptor. 
He entered the same university in the fall of 18(59, 
fi'om which he graduated in 1871, and later on en- 
tered the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadel- 
phia, graduating in 1883. He commenced the 
practice of medicine at Powhatan in 1871, and re.- 
moved to Black Rock in 1883, where his personal 
popidarit}' and large practice attest to his efficiency 
as a skillful physician. His wife, a pleasant and 
attractive lady, was formerly Miss Mollie F. Warner. 
The Doctor embarked in general merchandising in 
1883-84 at Black Rock, and has been deservedly 
fortunate, being the owner of considerable prop- 
erty in that town and the outlying district. He 
has one of the finest fruit orchards in the north- 
eastern portion of this State, comprising twenty- 
five acres of young trees just producing fruit, 
which he planted in the fall of 1S85 as an ex- 
periment, and which have proven a .success be- 
yond his most sanguine expectations. They will 
yield on an average one and one-half bushels to the 
tree this year. Besides this, he has planted out 
small fruits in proportion, and has been equally 
successful with them. He is a strong Democrat; 
one of the most industrious and energetic citizens 
of Black Rock, and takes a active part in all public 
and private enterprises that tend toward the ad- 
vancement of his county. 

J. Bowen Coffman. deputy clerk of Lawrence 
County, for the Eastern District, was born in Hemp- 
stead County, Ark., November 17, ISCA. He is a 
son of Joseph W. Coffman, of McLean County, 
Ky. , who came to Arkansas in 1 856, and located 
in Hempstead County, where he resided until the 
war was ended, and then settled in Lawrence 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



785 



Comity, his present rewitlonoi*. Tlic clclcr (joffmiin 
WAS jiiarricd to Miss Kobecca Bowen, of Alabama, 
and tliis nnion gavo them ten cliildrcn. SovBn of 
ihi'Ui arti now living, six of them in this county. 
J. JJowcn (V)ITnian was five years old when ho came 
to Lawrence County. He received a good district 
school education, and also attended scliool at Pow- 
hatan. He then taught school in Lawrence Coun- 
ty for three terms, and in Fulton County for the 
same length of time. He was appointed deputv 
clerk under Clay Sloan, February 14, 1887, and 
when the district was divided he came over to Wal- 
nut Kitlge, in April, 1887, to take charge of the 
Eastern District. He fills the position in a highly 
creditable maimer, and enjoys the confidence of 
his fellow citizens. He is a meml)er oi the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and also of the Walnut 
Ridge Silver ('Ornet Band. Mr. Cofi'man has hosts 
of friends, and well merits the resjx'ct and esteem 
accorded him. 

Rufus M. Dail, farmer and stock raiser, is a 
son of WillL;un and Nancy (Overttm) Dail, natives 
of North Carolina and Virginia, resjjectively. 
William Dail moved to the State of Tennessee, and 
was there married when a young man. He settled 
on a farm in Anderson County, where Rufiis was 
born, July 11, 1828, and remained there until his 
death, in 1877, at the age of eighty- four years. 
He served in the War of 1812, and drew a pension 
for his heroic performances during that event. 
Eufus M. Dail gnnv to manhood on the farm, and 
remained with his father until that time. He was 
married in June, 1858, to !Miss Christina Skaggs, 
of Knox County, Tenn. , and settled on a farm with 
his wife, up to the year I87i), when he moved to 
Arkansas, and located in Randolph County. He 
remained at that place for six years, and had 
brought his farm up to the highest grade of per- 
fection, when he sold out and came to Lawrence 
County, arriving here in 1881). He has resided 
here ever since, and cultivates the soil, farming, 
on an average, seventy acres annually. Mr. Dail 
was elected and served as justice of the peace in 
Anderson County, Tenn., for eight consecutive 
years, and was also elected deputy sheriff, in which 
capacity he served four years. He was an old 



time \\ liig originally, and since tlii^ war has be 
come identified with the Democratic party. His 
family is com])os<>d of six children: Nancy J., wif(( 
of James Hill, of Lindseyville; Sarali Ann, single; 
Martha I., wife of Charles Basket; Naomi, wife of 
Tiiomas Howard, and Kden S. He has l(jst three 
other children: Leroy, who died at the age of 
twenty-five years; William K. , who died in his 
twenty fourth year, and James M., at tlie age of 
fourteen. Mr. an<l Mis. Dail are lioth meniliers 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and 
Ml-. Dail was formerly a iueml).er of the Masonic 
fraternity. He is highly res|>ected, and his valu 
al)le advice and aid in all enterprises regarding 
the advancement of iiis community are very much 
appreciated. 

(ireene 1'. Dean, an enterprising and prosper- 
ous farmer of Dent Townshij), was born in Law- 
rence Cimnty, in the year 1S48. He is the son of 
William and Hettie (Roney) Dean, nativesof Ten- 
nessee and Arkansas, resp(>ctively. His father set- 
tled in the latter Statci at the age of eighteen 
years, having started in life for himself at an early 
age, and established a good blacksmith trade, which 
ho followed until the time of iiis death, in ISIil. 
He was an active politician and a noted temper- 
ance worker in his day, and was a member of the 
society known as Sons of Temperance. He was one 
of the main pillars of the Methodist Episcopal 
(/hurch, South, and also tilled the office of justice 
of the peace for a numlier of years. The mother 
died in IS")-!. She was a descendant of one of the 
oldest families in Arkansas, and a lady universally 
loved for her many excellent (jualities. This cou]ile 
had nine children, seven of them living to maturity, 
since which time two have died. 5Ir. (ireene P. 
Dean was the fourth child, and has grown right uji 
with the county be resides in. He started in to 
learn his father's trade at the ago of fifteen, and 
after his death he worked with ^ladison Smith, of 
this county, for three and one half years. He is a 
self-made man, and even during the bnsie.st por- 
tion of his younger days f(junil time to apply him 
self to his books. He hired himself out on a farm 
aftin- leaving the blacksmith trade, and att<>nded 
school for several years, and, in tlie fall of 1S07, 



786 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



turned tutor himself, and opened a private school. 
He met with splendid success, and continued his 
teaching until 1S71. Ho also had charge of a 
school in Duty Township, this county, in 1877. 
Mr. Dean was married in December, 1870, to 
Miss Elizabi'th T. Phillips, of Arkansas, whose 
]iarents came to that State from Tennessee, in 
IS4U, and settled in Lawrence County. Mrs. 
Dean's grandparents were at one time the most ex- 
tensive iron dealers in Tennessee, controlling sev- 
eral of the largest foundries in that State. Ten 
children were born to this couple: William A., 
Thomas Oscar, Nettie Oberia, Eugene D., Asa 
Belle, Francis Marion, Mary Edna, John Foster, 
Homer Lee and Ernest D. Mr. and Mrs. Dean 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and Mr. Dean of the Farmers' Alliance. He 
takes a deep interest in politics, and is a Democrat. 
The office of justice of the peace has been filled by 
him in Duty Township, and ho has also occupied 
several local positions, besides being a director in 
the schools. Mr. Dean is one of Lawrence County' s 
most influential and prosperous men. He has 300 
acres under cultivation, and owns considerable 
other land in different sections. 

William Deeter is a farmer of Lawrence County, 
and was born in Miami County, Ohio, in 1831. 
His parents, Jacob and Elisabeth (Williams) 
Deeter, came from Ohio in 1839, and settled in 
Clay County, lud., where his father cultivated the 
land, and also followed his occupation as a stone- 
mason. They resided here until the father's 
death, in 1885, at the age of seventy-three years. 
Both parents were members of the Christian 
Church, in which faith the mother died in 1876 in 
her sixty-sixth year. Mr. Deeter is the second of 
seven children, and grew to manhood in the State 
of Indiana, with the exception of a short time 
served in apprenticeship at the carriage and wagon- 
making trade, in Ohio, when in his eighteenth year. 
On his return to Indiana he followed that trade 
until the war commenced, but for the greater part 
as a journeyman worktn'. He enlisted in the army 
July 15, 1862, and was a member of Company I, 
Eighty- fifth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, serving 
until 1865, when he received his discharge at 



Washington, D. C. Mr. Deeter did considerable 
guard duty in the army, and, after the battle of 
Chickaniauga, was detailed for repair duty. He 
returned to Clay County, Ind., after the war hatl 
ended, and purchased a small farm, on which he 
lived until the fall of 1878. He then came to Ar- 
kansas and settled on the place he is now occupy 
ing, having cleared about 100 acres of the land with 
his own hands, and getting it under cultivation. 
Mr. Deeter' 8 first marriage occurred in 1852 to 
Miss Mary E. Congleton, a young lady of Clay 
County, Ind., who died, a member of the Christian 
Church, on the 14th of March, 1803. By this mar 
riage he was presented with three children, two of 
whom died in infancy. The one living is Martha 
I. , now the wife of C. R. Moon, a resident of 
Wilton Springs, Mo. His second marriage took 
place in September, 1865, to Miss Catherine Now- 
port, an Ohio lady, who is now the happy mother of 
nine children, namely: Elisabeth, wife of J. H. 
Still; Mathias, Henry, Clara, wife of Isaac Wells; 
Laura, Isaac, David J., Barton W.,. George W. 
Mr. Deeter and his wife are members of the Christ 
ian Church, of which he is the organizer. He is 
also an elder of that church, and a director of the 
schools, being a strong advocate of the latter. He 
is a man well appreciated for his good qualities, 
and is beloved by his flocks to whom he pi'eaches 
regularly. 

Swan C. Do well, dealer in drugs, books and 
stationery. Walnut Ridge, Ark. It is to the skill 
and science of the druggist that suffering hu- 
manity look for alleviation from pain. The phy- 
sician may successfully diagnose, but it is the 
chemist who prepares the remedy. Mr. Dowell 
has been engaged in the above business since 1880, 
and in that time a trade has been built up second to 
no other drug house in the city. His birth occurred 
in Breckinridge County, Ky., on October 20, 
1856, and he is the son of Christopher M. Dowell, 
also a native of the Blue Grass State, who came 
to Arkansas in February, 1867, and who located 
near Clover Bend, in Lawrence County, where ho 
remained for tour or five years. He first rented land, 
but afterwards bought 160 acres, and sul)sequently 
(in 1876) went to Minturn to live near his two 



sons, J. T. aud Swan, who were there, in business, 
and there ]ie passed the remainder of bis days. 
Ho was a pioneer settler and a iii(>mber of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity. He was marriod to Miss Eliza- 
beth Ann Brandenburg, a native of Brandenburg, 
Ky., and the daughter of Solomon Brand<>nburg, 
who Weis a native of Hampshire County, ^\'est Va. 
To them were born five children, two now living — 
John Thomas, proprietor of an hotel in Minturn, 
on the Iron Mountain Railroad, aud Swan C. (the 
subject of this sketch). The latter became famil- 
iar with the duties on the farm in early life, and 
received his education in the common schools. 
\\'hen fifteen years of age, he went to Clover Bend 
;ind engaged as a clerk for his cousin, J. H. Dow- 
ell, by whom, subsequently, he was promoted to 
l)0okkeei)er. Five years later he went to Minturn, 
and with his brother formed a partnership in a 
general store under the firm name of J. T. Dowell 
& Bro. In 1880 they dissolved i)artnorship, and 
Swan C. came to Walnut Ridge, where he engaged 
in tlie drug business. He has i)een fairly success 
ful in his calling, and for the last three years has 
bi'en engaged in the real estate business with J. P. 
CoUin, of Powhatan, under the firm name of Coffin 
& Dowell, and they control about 2,500 acres of 
land for sale. Mr. Dowell individually owns 5,000 
acres. He is a Democrat in politics, aud at jires- 
ent is mayor of the city. His marriage was con- 
summated in 1878 to Miss Alice Wall, a native of 
St. Louis, Mo., and the daughter of William \\'all 
(deceased). The fruits of this union were five 
children — Walter, Mamie, Agnes, Oliver and jVly- 
sius. Mrs. Dowell is a memlier of the Catholic 
Church. 

Andrew C. Estes, deputy sheriff for the Eastern 
District of Lawrence Count v, was l)orn in O'Brien 
County, Ala., October 10, 1859. He is a son of 
Thomas and Elisabeth (Belcher) Estes, of Ala- 
bama, who settled in Arkansas, when their son 
Andrew C was very young. They located in 
Carroll County, where they resided until the war, 
when the elder Estes enlisted in the Confederate 
army, and was killed near Smithville, Ark., dur- 
ing the latter part of that period. Four children 
were born to the ]iarents. two of tliem .still living. 



After the father's death, his wife removed to 
Lawrence County, and settled on a farm three 
miles west of Walnut Ridge, and lived there until 
the month of October, 1.S88, when she moved to 
Scott County, Mo. , where she is at present resid- 
ing. Mr. Andrew C. Estes was reared on a farm 
and received only an ordinary education in his 
boyhood. His avocation was farming until the 
year 1882, when ho was elected constable of 
Campbell Township. He served four years in this 
position, and was then appointed deputy sheiifl' 
for the Eastern District, in Novoniljer, 1888, by 
C. A. Stewart, sheriff. That entire portion of 
Lawrence County, is now under his jurisdiction, 
and he fills the bill to perfection in every way. On 
November 20, ISOI, Mr. Estes was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Amanda McGuinnis, of Illinois, and 
four children have been th(! r((sult of this union: 
Elizabeth, Eliza Ann, Tliomas Edward Jefferson 
and Maudie May. They are both members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, at Old Walnut 
Ridge, and in politics Mr. Estes is a Democrat. 

John T. Evans, farmer and stock raiser, of 
Black River Township, wasliorn in Tippah County, 
Miss., Jime 23, 1837. He is a son of Thomas 
Jefferson and Miriam (Rainey) Evans, who, after 
their marriage, first moved to Fayette County. 
Tenn., and then to Tipton County, and on March 
1, 1851, arrived at Batesville, Ark., where they 
settled on a farm. The elder Evans was a Union 
soldier during the war, and died at Batesville, Ark., 
while in the service, his two sons, John T. and 
David F., also belonging to the same regiment, al- 
though John first enlisted in the Confederate army. 
After joining the Union forces, John remained 
with them until his comjiany disbanded, and then 
went to Illinois, where he resided until the war was 
over. When peace had once more been assured 
he returned to Arkansas and located in this (Law- 
rence) county. He first settled on a portion of 
land belonging to the railroad, but afterwards 
bought the tract of land upon which he now re- 
sides, and shortly after its purchase added forty 
acres more, having now about seventy acres under 
cultivation, with several substantial dwellings on 
the land. ^^r. Evans has also given a great deal 



A 



3 kw 



788 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of his atteutiou to fruit growing, and can now lioast 
of a splendid pnach and apple orchard. After his 
marriage he started in life with very little, so far 
as worldly wealth was concerned, Imt being the 
possessor of a stout heart and a determined spirit, 
hesocn lifted himself above want and now owns a 
fine farm, a comfortable home, and is looked ui^on 
as one of the best farmers in Lawrence County. 
He was married in Lawrence County, on May 3, 
1S6S, to Mrs. Mary E. Craig, an amialile and 
pleasant widow, of Union County, N. C. , who came 
to Arkansas with her father, Jason Hargett, in 1851, 
when a young girl of eighteen. Mrs. Evans has 
one daughter l)y her first marriage, Fannie C. Har- 
gett, who is now the wife of William H. Leonard; 
and two children by her second husliand, Miriam 
Emmeline and John A\'illiam. Miriam Einmeline 
is now the wife of Lewis H. Richey, who is a renter 
on Mr. Evans' ])lac('. They are the parents of one 
child, Fannie Ella. Mr. and Mrs. Evans are both 
members of the Christian Church. 

Hartwell B. Farmer is a son of Capt. John 
Farmer, of North Carolina, and Nancy Farmer, 
of the same State, who moved to Tennessee in the 
year 182i), and settled on a farm in Williamson 
County, where Hartwell was born on December 
20, 1830. The father was a carpenter and wheel- 
wright, but also cultivated the soil. In the latter 
years of his life he moved to the State of Ken- 
tucky, and located in Graves County, where he 
died aboiit 18fi2. He was a captain of militia, and 
a survivor of some of this country's earlier wars 
before his death. Hartwell B. remained with his 
father until his eighteenth year, but being fired 
with the ambition to make his own way in life, he 
started out with that worthy object in view, and 
located at Haywood County, in the western portion 
of Tennessee, where he learned the blacksmithing 
trade. By close application to his duty he soon be- 
came an expert, and thereafter followed that occu- 
pation for several years. In 18'J0 he moved to 
Lawrence County, Ark., and bought a tract of 
land, the same upon which he now resides. It 
comprises 120 acres of rich bottom land, and is 
situated two miles fi'om Portia. He has cleared 
about sixty acres upon which stands a good double 



log-house, also an orchard of 200 peach, apple, 
plum and pear trees, besides smaller fruits. Mr. 
Farmer enlist(^d in the Confederate Army in 1 S()2, 
becoming a member of Col. Shaver's regiment of 
infantry, and served until his ca}>ture,ou December 
25, 1863, when he was taken prisoner to Rock 
Island, and held until near the close of the war. 
He was paroled June 5, 18(')5, at Jacksonport, 
Ark. Mr. Farmer was first married, in 1852, to 
Miss Martha King, and has one daughter by this 
wife, Margaret Ann, wife of Hiram Corkins. He 
was married again, in Tennessee, to Miss Sallie 
Cook, and has two children by this marriage. 
Their names are Napoleon P. and Lee Thomas. 
Afterward he was married a third time to Miss 
Martha Ogden, a native of Lawrence County, and 
has had six children by this wife: Delilah P., 
Jennie B., Blunt H., Sarah E. L., Milton H. and 
Simon Cleveland. Mr. Farmer and his wife are 
both members of the Missionary Baptist Church, of 
which the former is a deacon, and also a membei- of 
the Masonic order since 1852. He is a Master 
Mason, and together with his wife is a member of 
the Eastern Star, a degree in Masonry. Mr. 
Farmer also served his county as justice of the 
peace for ten years, filling that ofiice with a dig- 
nity that won for him the highest respect. 

Joseph Finley (deceased) was one of the oldest 
settlers in Lawrence County. He had recorded in 
the county clerk's bfifice the first deed for land 
east of Black River, in this section of country. 
His native State was Kentucky, where he was born 
January 18, 1814. He came to Arkansas at a very 
early day, and located west of the river, on Straw- 
berry Creek, and, in 1846, came over on the east 
side of the Black River. Mr. Finley was consid- 
ered to be one of the best farmers in that portion 
of Arkansas, and when his death occurred had 
two splendid farms of 160 acres each. He was 
noted far and wide for his generosity and good- 
heartedness, and, at the time of his death, was 
mourned by not a few. Stock raising was also 
part of his business, and his knowledge as a 
breeder of cattle enabled him to make considei'able 
money in that line. Mr. Finley' s grave is on the 
home farm, three miles west of Walnut Ridge, a 



3^ 



LAWKENCE COUNTY. 



78ft 



place selected by himself for the i-epose of his 
ashes. In politics he was a Democrat, and a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mrs. 
Nancy (Childers) Stuart became his wife. H(>r 
parents were also among the earliest settlors of 
Arkansas, and had nine children besides herself, 
four of whom are living: Elizabeth (wife of Will 
iam Shelton), living in Southern Texas; Amanda 
(wife of Rev. B. A. Morris, a minister of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church), residing three miles west 
of Walnut Ridge; Joseph B. , in Walnut Ridge, 
and L. D. , residing near Portia. The mother died 
about the year 1854, and is buried near what is 
now " Ponder' s Chapel," three miles west of Wal- 
nut Ridge. Elizabeth, the wife of William Shel- 
ton, a resident of Southern Texas, is the youngest 
of the four children living. Joseph B. Finley was 
born in this county December 13, 184S. He has 
received but very little schooling, and has been 
farming all of his life, excepting at odd times when 
he clerked during the dull agricultural season. 
On January 12, 1871, he was unit<'d in marriage 
to Miss Emma Montgomery, of Tennessee, and 
this couple have been the parents of five children, 
of whom three are living: Ida, George and Orto. 
The wife and daughter are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South. In spite of the 
disadvantages he labored under, Joseph B. is now 
the owner of a farm four miles from Walnut Ridge. 
He is a stanch Democrat in politics, forty years 
of age, and hopes to live to see another Democratic 
president in power. 

Dr. S. L. Fisher was born ill Lawrence County, 
Middle Tenn., IFay ;5(), bS;'>G, and is the son of 
Fredrick Fisher, a native of North Carolina, whose 
wife was Elizabeth ^[(tWhirter before her marriage. 
She was a native of South Carolina. They were 
among the first settlers of MidtUe Tennessee, and 
the father was in the mercantile ))usiness for a 
number of years in that State, on Duck River. 
The establishment is still conducted under the 
name of the Fisher stand. After raising their 
family, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher moved to Hardeman 
County, West Tenn., where the mother died at the 
age of about fifty years; after this the family came 
to Arkansas. There were seven children in the 



family— John P., William G , H. P., C. J., A. M., 
M. E., and S. L. John P. died in Randolph 
County. Ark., AV. G. died at Metropolis City, 111.; 
A. M. died in Kentucky; C. J. died at La Crosse, 
Izard County, Ark., and H. P. died at Smithville, 
Lawrence County, Ark. ; all between the ages of 
fifty and sixty, exce|)t A. M., at the age of sixtet-n. 
Only two are living, S. L. and Mary E., widow of 
(Jreen Ruliy. After coming to Arkansas. S. 1;. 
commenced the study of medicine under tlie guiil 
ance of his brother, John P., and entered upon the 
practice of his profession in lSr)7, l)eing located 
the first two years in the wild mountains of Izard 
County, Ark., where panthers, hears, au<l other 
wild animals were numerous. Later, he mov(>d to 
liandol|)li County and )iracticed his j)rofession un 
til tlie war commenced, when he enlisted in Jmn', 
1801, and served in Col. Lowe's regiment, Prici-'s 
brigade, as assistant surgeon. He was wonmled 
twice during the war, the last time being iicl<lliil 
with a bom)> shell at Kansas City, on Price's raid. 
This ended his services in the war, and he returned 
home, and after recovering, came to Smithville, 
Lawrence County, where he resumed his practice, 
March, 1885. Here lie has since remained. He 
was married .Noveml)er 15, 1S80, to Miss Mary 
Ann McKnight, whowasl)orn in Lawrence County. 
Ark., in 1840, and died August '_'(), 1.S72. They 
Were blessed with three children, all living; the 
eldest, Martha L. , is the wife of J. N. Barnett • 
(and they have two chihlren); and ('harlie F. and 
Gertrude are now grown. After the death of his 
first wife. Dr. Fisher lived single three years and 
three months, and was married to Miss Mary E. 
Barnett, October 10. 1875. They have two chil 
dren — Ada L. , twelve years old, and Myrtle .\., 
two years old. The Doctor has Ix'en a member of 
I the Masonic fraternity thirty-three years, having 
gone as high as the Royal Arch degree. Both 
wives were members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and devoted Christians. 

Jesse P. (Tibl)ens, farmer and stock raiser, of 
Spring River Township, was born in Rowan Conn 
ty, N. C, January 1 1, I.S31. He is a son of J.Jm 
and Pat.sy (Winder.s) (til)bens, of the same .State, 
wlio moved to the State of Tennessee, altont the 



r to 



Ai 



790 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



year 1836, and settled in Shelby County, on a 
farm where they resided until 1846, and then 
changed their home for one in Lawrence County, 
Ark. Jesse P. Gibbens remained with his father, 
until he reached his majority, in this county, which 
was also about the time of the elder Gibbens' death, 
and then went back to Tennessee. After an ab- 
sence of three years he returned, and was married 
in Lawrence County, in 1861, to Miss Mary J. 
Hamrich, of Tennessee, a daughter of John Ham- 
rich. Mr (Jibbens had cleared up and im- 
proved his farm before his marriage, and he now 
owns 140 acres of valuable land, with over 100 
acres ready for cultivation, besides having a small 
but select orchard and a comfortable house. In 
1862 he enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
joined Col. Baber'a regiment, serving until the 
linal surrender. He took part in a number of 
sharp skirmishes at close quarters, and was always 
to the front in battle. He was paroled at Jack- 
sonport. June 5, 1865, and retui-ned home to his 
farm work and a more peaceful life. Mr. and Mrs. 
Gibbens have one daughter, the wife of F. Lee, a 
resident of Lawrence County. They are lovers 
of children, and have reared eight orphans to ma- 
turity, and started them in life with the exception 
of one. Both Mr. Gibbens and his wife are mem- 
bers of the Missionary Baptist Church, and the 
former a member of Rock Cave Lodge No. 347, A. 
F. & A. M. They are well known for their benev- 
olence and generosity, and are highly esteemed by 
their neighbors. 

Hon. John K. Gibson, attorney, and real estate 
dealer, Powhatan. This man. whose name is 
synonymous of success in his profession, was born 
in Richmond County, N. C, August 15, 1845. 
His parents were John K. and Elizabeth (Wat- 
son) Gibson, natives of the same State. Early 
in life Mr. Gibson began to show traces of what 
his future course would be through the world, and 
the occupation he would follow. He obtained a 
knowledge of men and things beyond his years, 
and even when a boy at school, often surprised his 
elders at the correctness of his ideas regarding 
different events and his knowledge of human nature. 
This talent he has fostered up to the present time. 



and it has stood him well in many a hard- fought 
battle before the bar. Mr. GiVison attained his 
maturity in North Carolina, and attended the com- 
mon schools of his county. Subsequently, he went 
to the higher schools and academies of North and 
South Carolina, and for a period of three years 
later taught school himself. In 1867 he became a 
freshman in the University of North Carolina, at 
Chapel Hill, and in the fall of 1868 commenced 
reading law at that place under a well-known and 
prominent juri.st of that State. He was admitted 
to the bar in 1869, and shortly afterward departed 
for Arkansas, where he first located at Jaeksonport, 
unknown and unheralded. On the 15th of Decem- 
ber, 1869, he left Jaeksonport, and came to Pow- 
hatan, where he soon won the confidence of his 
fellow citizens, and built up a fair practice. He has 
brought several cases to a successful issue in the 
Superior Court, and always given his jier.sonal at 
tention to his clients' grievances, not trusting them 
in the hands of subordinates. In connection with 
his law practice he is engaged in the real estate 
business, and has been highly successful in the 
latter, owning about 4,000 acres of land, besides 
holding the agency for an immense amount. Mr. 
Gibson has been elected to several local positions, 
and for a number of years was county superin- 
tendent of schools. He also held the office of 
county examiner for several years, and it is not 
only said, but is an established fact, that he has 
done more toward advancing the public school in- 
terests, and aiding the caiise of education, than any 
other man in the county. In 1876 he was a can- 
didate for and elected representative of his county, 
and served with distinction for two years. In 1873 
Mr. Gibson was married to Miss Fannie Peebles, 
and after a short period of happy wedded life his 
wife died. He was again married in 1881, his 
second wife being Miss Lizzie M. Moore, a relative 
of J. M. Moore, the prominent Little Rock jittor- 
ney. This union has given them three bright chil- 
dren: George M., Maggie M. and John K. Gibson, 
Jr. , besides an infant, which the parents had the 
misfortune to lose. Mr. Gibson and his wife are 
members of the Old School Presbyterian Church, 
in which the former is a deacon. In summing up 



>? (3 




Mr. Gibson's career, it would not ho inappropriate 
to touch upon the causes of his success in life. As 
shown in this sketch, he began life with compara- 
tively nothing, but has, by untiring energy and 
the strict application of business principles, coupled 
with the brilliancy of his mind, won for himself 
the eminent success he has achieved. 

John S. Gibson, attorney at law, one of the 
brightest of the legal talent in Lawrence County, 
was born in Fayetteville, N. C, October 12, 1857. 
He is a son of Green S. and Sarah (Evans) Gibson. 
Mr. Gibson received a common school education in 
his youth, and was a close student of every sub- 
ject that came under his notice. He studied law 
with Chief Justice Pearson, of Richmond Hill, and 
was granted a license by the Supreme Court of 
North Carolina in 1879. He came to Arkansas 
immediately following, and was granted a license 
in that State in March, 1879, locating at Walnut 
Kidge. He has had very fair success as a lawyer, 
and can proudly point to the fact that he has won 
every suit lirought to the court by him. "When 
Mrs. Mary A. Boas came to Hoxio, he took charge 
of her business as manager, and March 9, 18S7, 
he was united in marriage to Miss Annie Boas. 
He is a Democrat in politics, and was a delegate 
to the State convention that nominated Gov. 
Hughes. He resided in Colorado for eighteen 
months, and in the fall of 1888 delivered several 
speeches in behalf of the Democratic party in that 
State. Mr. Gil)son was the lirst man to predict 
the election of Wade Hampton, if nominated, for 
governor of South Carolina. Mrs. Mary A. Boas 
at one time owned the land on which Hoxio now 
stands. The Iron Mountain Railroad was already 
here at that time, and she gave twenty acres to the 
company on which to build their side-tracks, de- 
pots, etc. The road runs about as near through 
the center of her 400- acre farm as it is possible to 
locate without measurement. Mrs. Boas has since 
then laid out the town site, and is selling the lots. 
This lady is a native of Alabama, whoso parents 
were Henry and Sarah M. Stephens, the former 
from Georgia, and the latter a South Carolinian. 
She was reared in the city of New Orleans, and 
was there united to Henry Boas, December 27, 



1804, a gentleman who Inid lieen engaged in rail- 
roading almost all of his lifo until he came to 
Moark, Ark., and oi>ened up the railroad eating 
house at that place. Two years later he cauje to 
Walnut Ridge, and established a very fine eating- 
house, which was burned down in ^lay, 1877, In 
the interval between the lOth of .May (date of tire) 
and September t>, he had ))uilt ami moved into the 
present eating-house, which ho conducted for three 
years and a half, and then retireil from active lifo 
for about four years. September 20, 1883, he 
came to Hoxio, and erected the present hotel, whicii 
ho operated until March, 1887. At this period 
the health of their youngest child, Harry, began to 
fail, and Mrs. Boas and her family made a visit to 
Colorado, where they remained eighteen months. 
Her oldest son, William Edgar, graduated from 
the Brothers' College, St. Louis, Mo., but died 
xVngust 21, 1885, and she lost her husband in 
Panama, in September, 1886, where he had con 
tracted malarial fever. Those of her children wlio 
are now living are: Anna E., wife of John .S. Gib- 
son, and Harry. There are two churches and a 
public school building in course of construction at 
Hoxio, the site of those improvements having Ijeen 
donated by Mrs. Boas, and the newly projected 
Walnut Ridge & Hoxio Street Railway Company 
is through her farm, as also the right of way for 
the Pocahontas & Hoxie Railroad. Mrs. Boas is 
widely known for her liberality and kindliness, atid 
is hold ill high regard by all acquaintancos. 

George W. Goodwin is the oldest of four chil- 
dren, and has resided in Lawrence County since 
his twelfth year. He is a native of Alabama and 
was born in 1839. His parents left Alabama in 
1849 and came to Arkansas, where they settled in 
Independence County and cultivated the land for 
two years. In the fall of 1851 they removed to 
Lawrence County, and settled in the neighliorliood 
of whore Mr. Goodwin is now living. Here the 
father purchased nn unimproved farm and com- 
menced to model it into better shajie, when death 
interrupted his labors in 1852, while yet in the 
meridian of life. The mother is still living at the 
age of seventy years and has never ceased to mourn 
the loss of her husband. Eight children were 



r 



born to them, of whom four are deceased, and the 
four remaiuing are George W. , Mark, Peter. Emily, 
wife of D. A. Price. Those deceased are: Francis, 
Samuel, Pleasaut, Mary E. Mr. Goodwin re- 
mained at liome until the year 186'i, and in March 
of that year entered the army under Capt. Sloan, 
of the Twenty-tifth Arkansas. He fought in all 
the battles in which the company participated 
when able to do duty, and was commended by his 
superiors for the bravery he displayed on several 
occasions. He was taken prisoner at Baldwin, 
Miss., in 1862, but was only held a short time 
and then released. He surrendered at Greens- 
boro, N. C, in April, 1805, and when paroled, re- 
turned home and resumed his work on the farm. 
In 1870 he was married to Miss Leah Williams, of 
Arkansas, who was l)orn and reared in this county, 
and who died March 1, 1878, at the age of thirty- 
two years and eleven months. Their union was 
blessed with four children, one of them now de- 
ceased. Their names are James, Charles J.. Absa- 
lom (deceased), and John L. Mr. Goodwin again 
contracted a marriage with Miss Martha B. Daw- 
son, born in Independence County, and a daugh- 
ter of 1. F. Dawson, one of the representative 
farmers of this county. Three children were born 
to Mr. Goodwin and his second wife, namely: 
George F. , Osa May and Lena. Mr. Goodwin is 
a member and the clerk of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and has taken an active pai't in school 
work, having held several offices on the school 
board. He has taken one degree in Masonry, and 
is a leading spirit in the community, being held in 
high esteem by his fellow-townsmen and neighbors. 
He has upward of ninety acres of land under 
cultivation. 

Mark Goodwin, a well-known farmer of Law- 
rence Countv, was born in Jefferson County, Ala., 
in 1843, and came to Arkansas with his parents, 
Wyche and Maria (Sharp) Goodwin, when very 
youn". Mr. Goodwin has resided in Arkansas 
ever since, and on reaching his twenty second year 
he married and settled on the farui where he is at 
present living. He is a practical farmer, and 
thoroughly versed in the details of cotton ginning, 
which l)usiness h(* operates in conjunction with his 



brother, George Goodwin. They purchased a gin 
in 1887, and in the following year ginned KiO Ijales 
of cotton, with marked success. Mr. Goodwin at 
one time devoted his attention to cabinet-making, 
but finding that his farm would claim all of his 
energies, he turned in that direction and has since 
followed the occupation of farmer. His first mar- 
riage was with Miss Frances Koney, of Arkansas, 
who died, leaving two children — Samuel and 
Laura, the latter now dead. His second wife was 
Mi.ss Sarah SafFell, also a native of Arkansas, who 
shortly followed in the footsteps of his first wife, 
leaving one child, an infant, that did not survive 
her long. Mr. Goodwin was married in 18(57 or 
1868 to bis present wife. Miss Margaret Williams, 
a daughter of Samuel Williams, a farmer and ex- 
tensive stock dealer, of Lawrence County. The 
fruits of this union were eight children, six girls 
and two boys, whose names are: Ida, Joseph, 
Milton, Ella, Lena, Addie, Mandie, Nora all of 
them living. Mr. Goodwin is a member of A. F. 
& A. M. Lodge No. 458, and also of the Mission- 
ary Baptist Church. He has creditably filled sev- 
eral offices on the school l)oard and local positions, 
and is a man of great popularity in his vicinity. 

(ieorge Graff & Sons, wagon manufactur- 
ers, blacksmiths and repairers. Walnut Ridge. 
George Graff, who established the l)usiness in 
1877, was born at Frankfort on-the-Main, Ger- 
many, October 18, 1825. He learned the wagon 
trade in his native country and came to America 
in 1854. locating at St. Louis, where he established 
himself in business at the corner of Clayton and 
Manchester roads, remaining there twenty-si.\ 
j'ears. Having been compelled to pa}' a big secur- 
ity debt, and being a heavy sufferer from fire, he 
was induced to settle in Arkansas, in the year 
1877, when he bought 200 acres of land at Lind- 
say, five miles south of ^\'alnut Ridge. Shortly 
aftm'ward he came to the latter place and opene<l 
u]) his present business, while fortune seemed to 
smile on him once more. In 1879 he had seven 
men in his employ, and manufactured all kinds of 
wagons, and in I8S() lie Ijrought his oldest son, 
Benjamin F. , into partnership, changing the tirm 
name to George Graff' & Son, which continued un- 



":?i; 



LA^\ HENCE COT'NTY. 



7»3 



der this hp;ul until the time of his death, January 
7, 1888, when the other son, Fritz F. , became a 
partner. The father, George Graff, was a mem- 
ber of the Roman Catholic Church, and was buried 
in the Catholic cemetery at Little Rock, the ser- 
vices being conducted by Rev. Father Fitzgerald. 
His two sons have since carried on the Imsiness of 
wagon manufacturing, and have added an under- 
taking establishment to it. The father was mar- 
ried to Miss Anna Mary Graeber, also a native of 
Germany, ten children having been born to them. 
Six of them are still living, four boys and two 
girls: Josie M. , wife of John .J. Pace, of Las 
Vegas, N. M. ; Fritz F., Jacob T., of Las Vegas; 
Benjamin F., Julius and Mary. The mother is 
now deceased. Benjamin F. Graff was married 
August 5, 188-4, to Miss Ida F. Israel, of Walnut 
Ridge, and the couple have had two children: 
Ruby Archias and Bennie. Fritz F. was married 
October 19, 1884, to Miss Susie Kirsch, at Raven- 
den Springs, Ark. They have twin girls: Josie 
Ruby and Jessie Lee. 

William C. Harris, of Hazel Grove, comes orig- 
inally from North Carolina. His parents ar(> both 
North Carolinians, but were married in South Car- 
olina, from which place they moved, in 1835, and 
settled in Walker County, Ga. His father, William 
6. Harris, was a tanner by trade, and had followed 
it for a number of years, but later in life embarked 
in agricultural pursuits. He was one of the num- 
ber who assisted in transferring the Cherokee Na- 
tion into the Indian Territory. After locating in 
Georgia he turned his attention to farming, and 
also devoted part of his time to a lanyard, until the 
Union WHS divided, when he moved to Catoosa 
Connty, wliere he died in 1X54, a member of the 
.Methodist E])iseoiial (Uuircli. His wife moved to 
Missouri, after his death, and settled in Maries 
('ounty, where she lived until the time of h<'r de- 
cease, in 180'.^. Twelve children were born to them, 
seven living to maturity, and two dying since then. 
The names of those living are Mary Ann, Sarah 
N., Martha, Cicero F. and William C. Those 
dead who lived to maturity were James F. and 
Fletcher; the others died in infancy. William C. 
was the third child and the eldest son. His young 

50 



er days were passed ujwn a farm in Georgia, and 
at the age of twenty-ono years ho commenced life 
for himself. His first venture was on a farm in 
Georgia, and, in 1857, he came to Arkansas, and 
settled in Jefferson County, where ho dealt in 
stocks. In the year 18()() he moved to his present 
home, where he has lived ever since, except in thi- 
interval when he enlisted in Dobbins' regiment, 
during the war. He was pre.sent at the surrender, 
on June"), 1805, at Jacksonport, Ark. On his re 
turn home ho resumed his work on the farm, and 
was shortly afterward married to Miss Mary Sini 
ord, of Walker County, Ga , a daughti-r of .lames 
Sinierd, an old resident of Georgia. Mrs. Harris 
came to Arkansas with her parents, in 18r>7, an«l 
settled in this county, wiiere the father died in 
1801, at the age of tiftytwo, and thr> mother in 
1874, aged sixty two. Botli of them were mem- 
bers of the Missionary Baptist Church. Two chil- 
dren were born to them: Joseph G. , who died in 
1859, and Mary, now the wife of Mr. Willianj C. 
Harris. Mr. Harris and his wife liave three chil- 
dren living: Martha E. , the wife of William Allen; 
Thomas M., and Amanda G., the wife of Bishop 
Morris, justice of the peace of this township. 
When Mr. Harris first settled in this jjlaco there 
were only five acres of land cleared; but he now 
lias upwards of 1(10 acres under cultivation, most 
of it being done by his own labor. 

Thomas C Hennessee is a son of G. C. and 
Sallio (Smith) Hennessee, of Warren County. Teun., 
who emigrated to Wright County, Mo., in 1842, 
where Thomas was born March 20, 1844. In 
ISOM the family moved to Arkansas and located in 
Lawrence County, where the father died in ISSO. 
He served in the Confederate army through the 
war, and was one of the raitlers luider Price during 
that general's daring exploits. The family con- 
sisted of four sons and three daughters, who grew 
to mature years, of whom two brothers and three 
sisters are yet living. Thomas ('. Hennessee re- 
mained with his father on the farm until the latter 
joined the Confederate array, in IStU. In 1802 ho 
enlisted in the Second Missouri Battalion of Cav 
airy, and served in that company until the clo.se of 
the war. He was paroled and discharged at 



d 



s w_ 



794 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Shrevepoit, La., on May 10, 1865, and returned 
to his home in Lawrence County. During his 
career in the army Mr. Henne.ssee has, no doubt, 
seen about as much lighting, and also done fully as 
much as any soldier at that jjeriod. He took part 
in the tights at Poison Springs, Marks' Mill, Jen- 
kins' Ferry, and a great many skirmishes and tights 
of lesser note, but equally as hot as their prede- 
cessors. When he tirst joined the army, the bat- 
talion of which he was a member was composed of 
476 men, and out of that number only seventy-four 
lived through the hon'ors of war to be paroled at 
its close. Mr. Hennessee received a gun- shot 
wound in one of his limbs, which disabled him for 
a time; and, on another occasion, was wounded by 
one of the guards, after being taken a prisoner, 
while walking over a log to cross a creek. Ou De- 
cember 21, 1865, he was married to Miss Levira 
Bagley, of Arkansas, and then settled to a farm 
life with his bride. He came on his present place 
in December, 1870, and has cleared up about 160 
acres, and built a fair house, out- buildings and all 
necessary adjuncts, besides a small orchard of well- 
selected fruits. He also owns another farm of 187 
acres, with about sixty acres cleared up and a com- 
fortable house -built upon it, owning altogether 
some 400 acres of rich Ijottom land, situated abou* 
five miles northwest of Walnut Ridge. Mr. Hen- 
nessee was elected justice of Cache Township in 
1874, and held the oifice continuously for twelve 
years. He is a Democrat in politics, and a strong 
adherent to the principles and doctrines of his 
party. Both he and his wife are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Mr. Hen- 
nessee is also a member of the Knights and Ladies 
of Honor. They have had five children born to 
them, all living. Their names are Martha, wife 
of J. S. Childers; Laura, wife of W. G. Duty; 
Joseph G. , John H. and Sallie Anna. Mr. Hen- 
nessee .started in life, after the war, without a dol- 
lar, and has accumulated his fine property by in- 
dustry, economy and good management, and is 
now one of Lawrence County's solid men and en- 
terprising citizens. 

Samuel Henry, farmer and stock raiser, is a son 
of Reuben and Elizalieth (Yates) Henry, of Polk 



County, Tenn. , where Samuel was born on the 10th 
of August, 1837. His father bore arms for this 
country in the War of 1812, and also fought under 
Gen. Jackson, at the battles of New Orleans and 
Horseshoe Bend. After the death of the elder 
Henry, which occurred while in his prime, the 
government granted a land warrant to the family, 
in recognition of his services. Samuel remained 
with his mother until he grew to manhood, and 
then commenced farming for himself. When war 
was announced between the North and South, he 
enlisted in the Confederate army, and became a 
member of the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry, first as a 
private, but later on i^romoted to the rank of 
orderly sergeant. He was present at the battle of 
Shiloh for three days, and at the tirst siege and 
bombardment of Vicksburg for thirty days; then 
at the battle of Baton Rouge, La., and at Corinth, 
Miss. , where he was captured and taken prisoner. 
Ten days after his capture he was paroled, and in 
nine months' time fi'om that date re-joined his regi- 
ment in time to take part in the battle at Jackson, 
Tenn. His last fight of importance was at the 
battle of Chickamanga, but he afterward fought in 
a great many skirmishes and smaller battles. In 
the fall of 1864 he was taken prisoner at Charles- 
ton, Tenn., and held at Paducah, Ky. , until the 
close of the war, when he was paroled at Union 
City, Tenn. , in June, 1865. x He then returned to 
his home in that State, and farmed for several 
years, and in the fall of 1872 moved to ISIissoim, 
where he remained for two years. Ho again 
changed his habitation in 1874, coming to Lawrence 
County, Ark., and settling on a farm. In 1882 he 
moved to Texas, and was gone one year, when he re- 
turned to Lawrence County, and bought a small 
tract of land, iipon which he commenced farming. 
Shortly afterward he went to Randolph Coirnty, 
Ark. , bought land, and later on retui'ned to Law- 
rence County, and settled upon his present place of 
residence, where he has almost 200 acres of land, 
and about fifty acres cleared and under cultivation, 
all of it being on bottom land, and composed of 
very rich soil. In politics Mr. Henry is a Demo- 
crat, and, before he went to Texas, had been elected 
justice of the peace and served one term. In the 



_ 



fall of 1888 he was again elected justice of the 
peace, and is still holding that office. He was mar- 
ried on July 22, 1860, in Bradley County, Tenn., 
to Miss Adalino Clark, a daughter of Ht^nry Clark, 
of Georgia, and has three children: Miranda, 
Elizabeth and Margaret, all single. Mr. and Mrs. 
Henry have lost a son, Reuben Napoleon, who died 
in July, 1884, at the age of seventeen. Mrs. 
Henry is a member of the Methodist E])iscopal 
Church, and is well-known for hi'rcliarital)le nature 
and interest in church work. 

J. F. Hildebrandt, farmer, has been a resident 
of Campbell Township for thirty-one years, and 
was boru in Dallas County, Mo., in 1857. His 
parents were Thomas and Mary (Potter) Hilde- 
brandt, who died while he was very young. They 
moved to Arkansas in the year 1858, and settled 
in Randolj)h County, where the father followed his 
occupation of farming Tintil 1861, when he enlisted 
in the Federal army, and was taken sick and died. 
The mother survived him eight years, leaving 
three boys at hm' death, of whom only one is liv 
ing at present, J. F. Hildebrandt. Mr. Hilde- 
brandt was reared on a farm, and after his mother's 
death went to live with his uncle, M'illiam I'otter, 
until the time of his decease, when he transferred 
his home to that of Uncle Claiborne Piiuiell, an 
old settler of Lawrence County. December 5, 
1876, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Hennes- 
see, a daughter of Gideon Hennessee, one of the 
old residents of Campbell Township, who presented 
his daughter with forty acres of land, as a mar- 
riage gift, and upon which Mr. Hildebrandt and 
his wife are at present living. He is an energetic 
and successful young farmer, and will soon add to 
his prosperity, from present indications. They are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and Mr. Hildebrandt is also connected with 
the Knights and Ladies of Honor, at Walnut 
Ridge. They have had live children, two of them 
deceased. Those living are Nancy Artabell, Mary 
Vlvira and William Thomas. 

P. B. Hill, a well-known farmer of Campbell 
Township, was born in Iredell County, N. C, 
July 8, 1852. His father, who was Robert H. 
Hill, was a native of North Carolina, of Scotch and 



Irish ancestry, who married Miss Sarah Adeline 
Hall. The father of Mr. Hill died in North Caro- 
lina, and the mother in Fayette County, Tenn. 
P. B. Hill received a liberal education at home, 
his parents taking pains to provide him with every 
facility for learning, and was subsequently at Mm' 
University of Mississippi, where he completed thi- 
junior and sophomore courses. He then studied 
law at SomervilJe, Tenn., with H. C. Moorman, 
and attended a course of law lectures at the Van- 
derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. He was a<l 
mitted to the bar in Tennessee, and later on in the 
State of Arkansas. He came to the latter State in 
1886, and settled in Lawrence County, and has 
been a resident of Campbell Township for about 
three years. He was marrieil in June, 1886, to 
Miss Victoria Lester, a daughter of P. K. Lester, 
and has one child, Annie P. Hill. 

Dr. A. B. Hogard, a prominent citizen and a 
farmer and stock raiser of Marion township, was 
born in Louisa County, Va., on the 27th of August, 
1827. He is a son of Austin and Sarah (H.'imil- 
ton) Hogard, of that State, the father being of 
Scotch descent, and the mother a daughter of 
Capt. Hamilton, of Virginia. The elder Hogard 
was a physician and also a preacher, and was noted 
for his great oratorical powers and strong delivery 
at that period. He moved to Missouri in 183:1 
and settled in Perry County, where he practiced 
medicine, and was also occupied in farming and 
milling. His death occurred in 1.S62. During his 
life he fought in the War of 1N12, and took part 
in the battle at Norfolk, Va. Dr. A. B. Hogard 
remained with his father in Perry County. Mo. . 
until he grew to manhood, and received a good 
common school education. He also attended the 
Washington Seminary at Cape Girardeau, and 
afterwards studied medicine with Dr. Glenn, of 
Perry County, a widely known pliysician of that 
period. In 1858-5'J he took his lirst course at tlie 
St. Louis Medical College, and afterwards took a 
graduating course at the Kentucky School of Med- 
icine at Louisville, in 1860-61, graduating in the 
spring of 1861. He then returned to Perry County, 
and |)racticed until 1864. when he eidisted in the 
Federal army, and served until the end of the war. 



- > A J' 



796 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



He first entered as a lieutenant, but was afterwards 
transferred to the regiment hospital of which he 
had full charge, and was promoted to surgeon- 
general. The Doctor then located at Pinckney- 
ville. 111., in 1860-67, and was appointed pension 
examiner by Gen. Grant. He held the office for two 
years, and then resigned, but continued his prac- 
tice at that place up to the year 1875. In 1878 he 
moved to Arkansas, and located at the place upon 
which he now resides, and practiced for a number 
of years. He finally gave up his profession, and 
bought a section of land, with some slight improve- 
ments on it and commenced farming, and he now 
owns about 450 acres of land, with about 240 acres 
cleared. The Doctor also built a cotton-gin in 
1883, which was at first worked by horse-power, 
but is now run by steam, and gins a large portion 
of the cotton in that vicinity. In 1850 he was 
married to Miss Ellen Burgee, in Perry County, 
a daughter of Judge Burgee, of that place, but lost 
his wife in 1S06. He has one daughter by this 
wife, and two sons and one daughter by his second 
wife, who was Mrs. Mary Steel, a widow lady of 
Illinois. Their names are Martha, wife of John 
Mosley; John, Ellen, wife of H. R. Childers, and 
Thomas. The Doctor and his wife are members of 
the Baptist Church, and he himself is a Master 
Mason. In the fall of 1884 he was elected justice 
of Marion Township, and at the expiration of his 
term was re-elected in 1888, and is at present fill- 
ing that office with dignity and wisdom. 

John Holmes (deceased), one of the former citi- 
zens of Walnut Ridge, was born in Coshocton, 
Ohio, April 18, 1858. His 2)arents were A. Jack- 
sou and Mary (McDanifl) Holmes, of the same 
State, who died when their son was very young. 
Mr. Holmes was reared on a farm in Coshocton, 
Ohio, by his uncle, Felix Butler, and on reaching his 
twentieth year, he left him and settled at a point 
near St. Mary's, Kas., where he learned the car 
penter's trade. He followed this for two years, 
and then worked on a farm for one year. In the 
spring of 1884 he came to Walnut Ridge, and 
worked at his trade until his death occurred, in 
1888, aged thirty years. Mr. Holmes was not a 
member of any society. He was a Republican in 



politics, and served one term as marshal of Wal- 
nut Ridge, gaining the reputation of being an effi- 
cient officer. He was married January 1, 1881, 
to Miss Maggie Van Syckle of New Jersey, whose 
parents, A. Jackson and Catherine (Hibler) Van 
Syckle, were natives of the same State. Four chil- 
dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, three of 
them living: Ada, Bertha and Otto. Mrs. Holmes 
was appointed postmistress of Walnut Ridge, on 
May 16, 1889, succeeding Capt. James C. Can- 
non, on June 9, 1889, and fulfills the duties of 
her office to the satisfaction of Lawrence County's 
citizens. 

Henry T. Holt, one of Lawrence County's lead- 
ing farmers, and a blacksmith whose repiitation 
extends to all parts of that county, was born in 
1844, in the State of Arkansas. His parents were 
Heni-y and Patsy (Logan) Holt, of Kentucky, who 
came to this State and settled near the Missouri 
line, in 1830. The following year they moved to 
Carroll County, Ark., where the father is still liv- 
ing, in his seventieth year. Mr. Holt's parents 
had eight children, and seven of them are yet liv- 
ing, Henry T. being the fourth child born. He 
was reared in Carroll County, and lived thereuntil 
better opportunities seemed to present themselves 
in Lawrence County, to which locality he moved. 
In 1863 he enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
was one of Gen. Price's raiders through Missouri. 
He was also a member of the Sixth Cavalry, and 
while with that company was engaged in several 
sharp skirmishes. Before raiding through Mis- 
souri he took part in an engagement in this county, 
and played an active part. His surrender was 
made at Buffalo, in Newton County, in 1865. He 
returned home in 1866, and came to this county, 
where he located on Coopers Creek. He lived 
there five years, and then purchased his present 
home, near Smithville, and has been there ever 
since. He was married to Mrs. C. Campbell, nee 
Sloan, of Tennessee, and the coujile are happy in 
the possession of three bright children: Lura, 
Amelia, and Clo. Thomas. Mr. Holt learned the 
trade of blacksmith from his father, when a boy, 
and has followed it up to within the last few 
years. He is the largest stock dealer in Smith- 



villi" Township, and also has 100 acres of land 
under cultivation, besides some good farms. In 
politics, he is a Democrat, and one of Lavprence 
County's leading citizens. 

Dr. "William H. James, of the firm of James & 
Wayland, merchants and lumber dealers, was born 
in Gibson County, Tenn., in 1844. He is the son 
of John W. James, of Virginia, who y/na born in 
181U, and came to the State of Tennessee in his 
young days, where he was graduated from the 
Nashville Medical College, being in his after career 
a successful physician. He was also a minister of 
the Baptist Church, of which denomination he died 
a member in 1863. The mother, Lucinda D. (Mc- 
Whirter) James, was born January 4, 1817, in the 
State of North Carolina, and died in 1860. They 
were the parents of five children, three of whom 
lived to maturity, but only one. Dr. William H. 
James, is living at present. Dr. James came to Ar- 
kansas with his parents in 185S, where he remained 
until the war commenced. He enlisted in the Con- 
federate army in 1861, and served until the close 
of hostilities, when he surrendered at Jackson, 
Miss. He was severely wounded at the battle of 
Bentonville, N. C, while making a charge upon 
the enemy, aud slightly wounded at Murfreesboro, 
Tenn. AVhen the war was over he returned home, 
and was engaged to oversee a plantation near Mem- 
phis, and afterward accepted a position in a mill 
near that place. He commenced the practice of 
medicine under Dr. Boardman, of the Missouri 
Medical College, St. Louis, and entered that col- 
lege in IBBC). He returned to Arkansas, and com- 
menced practicing at Smithville, and from then" 
came to Powhatan in 186U. He now resides on 
Flat Creek, between Smithville and Powhatan, and 
enjoys a large practice. The Doctor was first mar 
ried, in 1869, to Miss Temperance A. Wesson, of 
Virginia, who died August 1, 1884, leaving five 
children to survive her— Ada L., Ella L. , Ida L., 
Ora L. , and Ula L. , of whom the first letter in 
each name makes the five vowels. His second wife 
was Miss Virginia Brady, of this county, who is 
still living, and by whom he has had three chil- 
dren —Willie V. (a girl), Yancey V. (a boy), and 
Edward, all of them living. The Doctor and his 



wife are memliers of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and the Doctor himself of the A. F. & A. M,, in 
which he is a Chapter member. He entered into 
mercantile life in 18711, and one year later formed 
a partnership with F. M. Waylaad, now the man- 
ager of the firm. Dr. James is one of the most 
successful men in Lawrence County. He owns a 
large farm, well under cnltivution, besides several 
large tracts of timber land, and is engaged in saw- 
milling lo some extent. He is very popular, both 
on account of his business and personal qualifica- 
tions, and is a man of fine physique. • 

\\'iley C. Jones is a native of Alabama, and 
was born in Jackson County, in 1824. His parents 
both came originally from Georgia, and settled in 
Alabama, where they were married, and in 1829 
or 1830 moved to the State of Tennessee. In 1834 
they settled in Illinois, locating in the southern 
portion of that State, and remaining six years, and 
in 1840, the prospects of a brighter future present- 
ing itself in the State of Arkansas, they turned 
their attention in that direction and settled on Big 
Creek, now situated in Sharp County. Farming 
and milling were their occupations until 1856, when 
the father died at the age of fifty-two years, after 
a busy and useful life. Four children were born 
to the parents, Mr. Jones being the second child. 
He grew to manhood in this county, and com 
menced in business for himself in Sharp County, 
in 1S47, and afterward in Lawrence County. He 
followed the business of his father until the first 
iilarm of war penetrated into his home, and. leaving 
the old mill and its boyhood memories behind, 
rushed to the front like a gallant soldier to fight 
for his country. He was enrolled in Coleman's 
regiment, and after two months' hot work, was 
captured in Sharp County, and conveyed to St. 
Louis, Mo., where he was forced to lay si.v weeks in 
captivity. From St. Louis he was taken to Alton, 
where he was held a jmsoner for three months, 
and thence to Memphis, Tenn., from which place 
he daringly made his escape by swimming the 
river, with the bullets of his cnptoi-s singing about 
his ears. He returned to his regiment, then at 
Pocahontas, Randolph County, and obtained his 
release. He remained at home for a short time, 



798 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



bnt inactivity was the bane of his existence, and, 
in the fall of 1802, he joined Capt. Dye's regi- 
ment, which had been re-organized, and was then 
called Newton's regiment. One year later he was 
sent home on a recruiting expedition, and suc- 
ceeded in organizing what was known as Baber's 
regiment, in honor of Col. Baber, and remained 
with them until the surrender at Jacksonjwrt, 
June 22, 1865. At the close of the war he re- 
turned home and resumed his business of farming 
and milling, and has devoted a portion of his time 
to cotton-ginning. He has various interests in 
Lawrence County, and is one of the influential 
men of his section. He was married, in 1848, to 
Miss Rebecca Lingo, one of the former belles of 
Arkansas, and their marriage has been blessed 
with two children, who brightened their home un- 
til death claimed them. After the death of his 
first wife Mr. Jones met Miss Sarah Endsley, an 
attractive lady of Tennessee, and after a brief 
struggle love was once more the victor over grief, 
and they were united in 1853. They have had 
seven children, of whom four are deceased. Mr. 
Jones was fated to lose his second wife, and re- 
mained a widower until January 11, 1884, when he 
succumbed to the charms of Miss Sarah Snider, his 
present wife. He is a member of A. F. & A. M. , 
and was appointed postmaster at Canton in this 
county before the war, and has also held several 
local ofSces. 

William Jones, justice of the peace, and a well- 
known farmer and merchant, was born in William- 
son County, 111., November 29, 1849. He is a son 
of L. A. Jones, of Indiana, who moved to Illinois 
in 1841, and was married in that State to Miss 
Ridley J. Moore, of Tennessee. After their mar- 
riage the couple made W'illiamson County, 111., 
their home, where the elder Jones still resides at 
a very advanced age. His mother, Mrs. Ridley 
J. Junes died in March, 1862. W'illiam Jones re- 
mained with his parents until his sixteenth year, 
and with a strong reliance on his own abilities he 
commenced in life for himself. He came to the 
State of Arkansas in 1807, and located at Clover 
Bend, in Lawrence County, where he farmed for a 
number of years, and then moved to his present 



residence. When he first purchased the land it 
was all new and unimproved, but since then he has 
cleared about fifty acres, biiilt some very fair 
houses upon it, and cultivated a small but well-se- 
lected orchard. He also built a store in 1888, and 
put in a good stock of general merchandise, and l)y 
his upright and honest methods of doing business 
has established a tine trade. He was married in 
the spring of 1868 to Miss Mary Stephens, of 
Tennessee, and has three children living by this 
marriage, Nettie Jane, Charley A. and Arthur W. 
Allie D. and Willie A. died in early childhood. 
Mr. Jones was elected justice of the peace in the 
fall of 1884, and is now serving his third term. 
He is a member of the Agricultural Wheel, and 
one of the most substantial citizens of Lawrence 
County. 

Hon. Joseph B. Judkins, a name well known 
and respected throughout Lawrence County, was 
born in what is now De Kalb County, on March 1, 
1837. He is a son of Hon. William H. and Sarah 
(Roberts) Judkins, natives of Virginia, where the 
elder Judkins was a farmer of considerable magni- 
tude. The father first moved to North Carolina, 
and from there to the State of Tennessee, and 
about the year 1850 he settled in Lawrence 
County, Ark., where his son, Joseph B., now re- 
sides. He was elected to the State senate of Ar- 
kansas, and was a member of that body at the 
time of his death, in 1854, and previous to that 
event had held the office of justice of the jieace for 
twelve years. Joseph B. Judkins came to Ar- 
kansas with his father when fourteen years of age, 
and remained with him up to the time of his death. 
He then lived with his mother until he had attained 
his manhood, and bought the land upon which he 
now resides. When he first came n|)on it the land 
was entirely new, and he immediately sot to work 
clearing and building upon it, so that now he has 
some 150 acres cleared and under cultivation, own- 
ing altogether about 520 acres. Mr. Judkins also 
owns two fine orchards of apples and peaches, upon 
which he has spent a large amount of time and care 
to tiring to a state of perfection, and thus far his 
labor has been rewarded. In 1862 he enlisted in 
the Confederate service, becoming a memlier of 



^' 



LAAVEENCE COUNTY. 



I'M 



the Twenty fifth Arkansas Infantry, and gave val- 
uahle and efficient aid to the canse until the close 
of the war. He was at the battles of llichmoiid, 
Ky. , Stone River and Ghickainauga, and was also 
present at the siege and surrender of Atlanta. Al- 
together he was engaged in ahout twenty five hat- 
ties, besides several minor skirmishes. On his first 
entrance into the army he held the rank of orderly 
sergeant, but by his bravery ho soon won the raidcs 
of lieutenant and captain, respectively. He com- 
manded the regiment as senior captain in thirteen 
(Migagoments, and was twice wounded, each time 
while gallantly leading his men before a suijerior 
force. After the war was over, and his surrender 
at Jacksonport, he returned to his home and farm, 
and on July 8, 1856, was married to Miss Susan 
A. Phillips, a daughter of Alfred and Ann Phillips; 
she had captured the gallant soldier's heart, and 
found for him a haven of peace after his stormy 
career through the war. Seven children were born 
to this happy union: Alfred L., William H., 
Josie \\'. (wife of George A. Dungan), all of them 
married, and Charles F., Augustus H. G., Horace 
H. and David W., single. Mr. Judkins is an Odd 
Fellow, and in politics is a .strong believer of 
Democratic principles, supporting his party on 
every occasion where his valuable aid was needed. 
He was elected sheriff of his county in 186'J, and 
on the expiration of his term was re-elected 
and served four consecutive years. Two years 
succeeding he was elected and served as assessor, 
and then represented his county in the legislature. 
In 1870 he was elected to the State senate, and 
after serving in that body four years, was re-elected 
as a member of the Arkansas legislature, and for 
ten years comprised one of that body. He retired 
from political life in 1880, but still takes an active 
part in the aflfairs of his county. His record in 
the political field is one of lirilliancy and honor, 
and few men have ever served the interests of their 
l)arty to a bettter advantage than did Mi-. Judkins. 
John W. Kelley is the son of Marvel and Sally 
Kelley, of Georgia, in which State he was born in 
the year of 1830. He is the youngest of eight 
children, and lost his father when only two years 
old. His mother was afterward married to Ed. 



Kitchens, and removed to Arkansas in 1857, local 
ing in Newton County. They remained there 
several years and then settled in Te.xas, where 
they liv(Hl until the time of their decease. 5Ir. 
Kelley reached his mauhood in the State of Ala 
bama, having gone there when quite young. At 
twenty tliree years of ago he went to Dent County, 
Mo., and finding the locality satisfactory, remained 
there until 1854, when he returned to Alabama, 
and lived there three years. He then moved back 
to Dent County, Mo. , and in 1863, when the first 
alarm of war was sounded, he joined Col. Mitchell's 
regiment in the Confederate army, and served un- 
til the fall of 1804. They were disbanded when 
near the Indian Nation on account of the ravages 
of small pox in that territory. He fell a victim to 
this dread disease, and remained in Ozark County, 
Ark., until his recovery. In the spring of 1805, 
he came to Lawrence County, Ark., and settled at 
a point near Powhatan, where he remained six 
years. From thi>re he moved to his present home 
and commenced farming and improving the land. 
Mr. Kelley was first married to a young lady of 
Alabama, Miss Nancy Lawson, who died in 1800. 
By this marriage he had seven children (four of 
them dying since): Rebecca J., the wife of Thomas 
Hederick; Marvel Jackson, and JlaryAnn, the wife 
of James C. Smith — living; and those who have 
died are: Sarah, who was the wife of William 
McLaughlin, leaving three children, and Nancy, 
William and Cassandra, the latter dying in child- 
hood from the small-pox. Mr. Kelley was married 
the second time to Mrs. Mary Woodson, nee Law- 
son, a sister of his first wife. They had one child 
by this union, Andrew, who died August 22, 1887. 
This lady died in 1882, and Mr. Kelley' s third 
wife was Mrs. Cynthia Cravens, nee Johnson. He 
has had one child by this wife. Mr. and Mrs. 
Kelley are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. They have throe children by her 
first husband, whose names are Maggie Cravens, 
Thomas G. and Martha E. Their father died in 
March, 1882. Mr. Kelley' s son. Marvel Jack.son, 
is married and teaching school near the home of 
his father. 

Jarrett W. Kendall, a widely-known farmer of 



800 



HISTORY OF AKKANSAS. 



Strawberry Township, was Ijorii in Henry County, 
Tenu., in 1834. He is a son of Jophtha A. and 
Elizabeth J. (Harvey) Kendall, of Tennessee, 
whose parents settled in Tennessee in the year 
1800. Mr. Kendall's grandfather fought in the 
War of 1812, and was also a soldier in the old Rev- 
ohitionar}' War. He lived to a very advanced age, 
as did also his wife, Rachel, who was one hundred 
and twelve years old at the time of her death. 
They were the parents of a very large family, the 
father of J. W. Kendall being their youngest child, 
who was l)()rn in Tennessee, in 1806, where he 
grew to maturity and married. His wife, the 
mother of J. \V. Kendall, was born in Tennessee, 
in the year 1812, and both parents were of English 
descent. They remained in Tennessee until the 
death of the father, in 1838, when the mother came 
west and located in Independence County, Ark., 
where they lived until 18(55, when they removed 
to a point in Jackson County, near Jacksonport. 
In 1861) they came to this county, where Mr. J. W. 
Kendall has since lived. He enlisted in Capt. 
Gibb's company. First Arkansas Regiment, and 
served four years. During that time he fought at 
Wilson's Creek, andElkhorn, Mo., also at the bat- 
tle of Corinth, Miss. He took part in several small 
engagements, but the next battles of note in which 
he was present were at Murfreesboro (Tenn. ) and 
Chickamauga (Ga. ), and was with Sherman on his 
famous march to the sea. Some of his hottest 
fighting was at Franklin, Tenn. , and at Nashville, 
where he was disabled by a ball through the left 
hip, and was also shot through the bowels and kid- 
neys. He was taken to the hospital at Franklin, 
where he was captured, and taken to Nashville. 
He was held in the hospital for tliirty days, and 
taken to Columbus, Ohio, where he was kept a 
prisoner until his exchange, just before the war 
was ended. He then went to Rook Hill, N. C. , 
where he was taken care of by a citizen of the 
town until the surrender, when he returned home 
and resumed his farm work. Mr. Kendall must 
certainly have received as many wounds as any 
survivor of the war. For two years afterward he 
could pick small pieces of bone out of his body, 
especially in his ])ack, where he was struck by a 



bursting shell at Murfreesboro; and at Dock Hill. 
Mo., his legs were riddled with small shot. His 
war record is an honorable one, and the country 
he served certainly had no braver man. One of 
the saddest episodes of his career was during the 
battle at Franklin, Tenn. He saw his brother 
John shot down l)efore his eyes, but was unable to 
reach him unlil the smoke and thunder of that 
terrible slaughter had cleared away, and left the 
battlefield to the dead. He returned at the earli- 
est opportunity, and found him lying among the 
slain, and, far away from home and kindred, he 
buried him in a secluded spot near where he fell, 
with the vast tield of battle as a monument to bis 
bravery. At the close of the war Mr. Kendall 
was left without a cent in the world, Ijut by exert- 
ing himself he i-eceived 130 from the A. F. & A. 
M. , with which to make a new start in life. He 
now owns 4-16 acres of land, and has l^O under 
cultivation, with a substantial building ujion it. 
He was first married, in 1866, to Miss Mary G. 
Box, of Tennessee, who died in 1880, leaving two 
children: Felix Susan and George A., the latter 
dying in December, 1888. His second wife was 
Miss Harriet I. Reed, of Arkansas, who has borne 
him two children; John W. and William S. Mr. 
and Mrs. Kendall are members of the Missionary 
Baptist Church; the former also of the A. F. & A. 
M. , in which he is Past Master. He takes an active 
interest in politics, and is a Democrat, having held 
the office of justice of the peace. 

Daniel Ketuer, farmer and stock-raiser, is a son 
of David Ketner, of North Carolina, whose father 
was one of the soldiers of the Revolution. David 
Ketner married Miss Mary Izehom, their son, Dan- 
iel, being born November 25, 1825. The latter 
remained with his father until he reached the age 
of twenty-four years, and in the .spring of 1849 
moved west, and settled in the State of Illinois. 
He labored on a farm in Union County for eight- 
een months, and then, thinking the prospects 
brighter for him in Tennessee, he moved to that 
State, where he was shortly afterward married to 
Miss Catherine Bour, of North Carolina. After 
his marriage, he settled on a farm in Weakley 
County, Tenn. , where he remained three years. 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



.S(l| 






and id tlie expiiiitioii of tluit time, moved to Union 
County, 111., residing there until the fall of 1858. 
He then came to Arkansas and l)ou<^lit eighty acres 
of now laud, which he cleared and put under cul- 
tivation, and, meeting with success in his new 
home, he l)onght more land on different occasions, 
until, at the present time, he owns considerable. 
His home place consists of 100 acres, with about 
eighty acres cleared and a comfortable house upon 
it; an adjoining farm of eighty acres, with fifty- 
live acres cleared ; one of 160 acres, with about thir 
ty five acres cleared, and another of s(^venty-three 
acres, with thirty-five acres ready for cultivation. 
Mr. Ketner can feel proud of his possessions, as 
he has made it all liy his own exertions and good 
management since, the war. He is one of Law- 
rence County's representative farmers, and a man 
much thought of and respected in his community, 
lu 1863 he enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
served until the final surrender, when he was pa- 
roled at Shreveport, La., in June, 1865. His 
record through the war is one of the best, and he 
was always in the thick of battle at Pilot Knob. 
Pine Bluff, Little llock. Independence and Price's 
raids through Missouri. Mr. Ketner returned to 
his home after the war had ended, and was there 
married to his present wife, a widow lady, of 
Tennessee, formerly Mrs. Mary Lawson. He is 
the father of seven children by his first marriage: 
George H., J. Daniel, Mahala, wife of Clay Hol- 
den; Jesse A., Jane, wife of George Caspar; Mar- 
garet, wife of James Nunley; Amanda, wife of 
Elihu Davis; and there is also one child by the last 
marriage, Nettie, a miss of five years. Mr. Ket- 
ner is a membov of the Old School Presbyterian 
Church, and also of the Agricultural Wheel, while 
Mrs. Ketner attends the Baptist Church. 
/ Henry L. Lady, farmer and stock raiser, is a 
son of Henry and Irene (Fried) Lady, of Tennes- 
see and Germany, respectively. After their mar 
riage the parents moved to Lyon County, Ky., 
where their son, Henry L., was born, Doceml)er 
26, 1S48. The elder Lady has resided in that 
county over since, with his wife, both having 
reached an advanced age, and is one of the most 
prominent men in that section. He held the office 



of ct)r()uer for sixteen consecutive years, and at Uie 
present time he is still a vigorous, active old gen 
tleman. Henry L. Lady remained with his jiar 
ents until he had reached his twenty fourlli year, 
having, in the nu^antime, all the advantages of a 
good common school education, and also attending 
the Eddyville Academy. He left his native place 
ill 1871, and (rame to Arkansas, where he remained 
the first year with an uncle, and then located on 
the place upon which he now resides. On March 
2',), 1S76, he was married in Lawrence County to 
Miss Alice A. Cunningham, of South Carolina, and 
.settled on a farm with his bride, who died on No- 
vember 28, LST'.t. He was married a second time, 
his nest wife being Miss Emeline Kenion, of Law- 
rence County, who owned the place upon which 
Mr. Lady resided on his arrival witli the first wife. 
j They have 100 acres of fine land under cultivation, 
and since his arrival, Mr. Lady has greatly im- 
))roved and l)uilt up the place. He also has 200 
acres of other land under cultivation and six tene- 
ment houses, besides his own residence. Mr. and 
Mrs. Laily hav(> no children of their own, but havi- 
adopted two orphans, one of them thirteen years 
of age and th(i other three years, and are giving 
them a comfortable home and idl the advantages 
that can be had. They are generous, kind-hearted 
people, and much respectcnl by their neighbors. 
Mr. Lady is a member of the Knights of Honor, 
and also an active man in all enterprises working 
for the welfare of his community. 

Isaac Loss, of Walnut Ridge, farmer and real 
e.state dealer, was born in Germany in the year 
1840. He was thoroughly instructed in mercan- 
tile branches in early life, and when in his .seven- 
teenth year, he left his native country for America, 
where he entered into partnership with Marcus 
Berger (now of Jonesboro), at Greenville, III. In 
1875 he came to Walnut Ridge with Mr. Berger. 
and established a general store under the firm 
name of Berger & Less, at a time when that town 
had a population of about 200. They continued 
under that name until ISSO, when the stock and 
trade were purchased by Mr. Less, who remained 
in the business for eight years, when fire burninl 
him out; fortunately, however. It wie- c.iv.Ti'd l>y a 



T 



802 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



fair amount of insurance. He owns between 9,000 
and 10,000 acres of land, and is quite an exton.'iive 
dealer in that commoditj', and out of this amount 
has about 1,200 acres under cultivation. Mr. 
Less was married, in lS8t*, to Miss Augusta Isaacs, 
of St. Louis, Mo., and four children have been 
born to them. For natural ability, fair dealing in 
all commercial transactions and activity in business 
life, Mr. Less takes rank with the foremost. He 
is one of the largest landholders in the eastern part 
of the county, and has acquired it all by his own 
labor. The names of his children are Mary, Alex- 
ander, Morris and Jacob. 

Philip K. Lester (deceased) was a resident of 
Greene and Lawrence Counties for a period of 
fifty years or more. He was a native of Middle 
Tennessee, born in the year 1819. His parents 
were John and Nancy (King) Lester, the former a 
Virginian and a farmer by occupation, who came 
to the State of Arkansas in 1831 or thereabouts. 
The elder Lester was one of a party who camped 
on Manmelle Prairie, Mo., the night of a great 
celestial phenomenon, when multitudes of stars 
were seen to fall from the heavens; a sight so grand 
and inspiring that he had occasion to remember it 
for a lifetime. He settled on Crowley's Ridge 
(now the site of Lorano, in Greene County), where 
P. K. Lester was reared. When the latter reached 
his eighteenth year he attended school, and em- 
ployed the greater part of his nights in studying. 
He was an apt pujiil and a diligent student, and 
mastered his task with such success that eventually 
he taught school himself. While still a young 
man, he went into the real estate business and fol- 
lowed that until the war broke out. He enlisted, 
but served only six weeks, and in the winter of 1861 , 
he came to Lawrence County, where he resided 
until his death occurred. He bought and sold 
stock quite extensively after the war was over, and 
was very successful in business, owning at the time 
of his death about 7,000 acres of land. He was a 
hearty, active man, but was stricken down with 
pneumonia and died January 28, 1877, at the age 
of iifty-eight years. His grave is on the old home- 
stead farm, where it was his desire to be buried. 
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 



Church, and also of the Powhatan Lodge of Masons. 
In 1 855 he was married to Miss Mary Ann Rogers, 
of Shelby County, Tenn. , whose parents were 
ISlagilbra and Nancy (Staton) Rogers, of Nortli 
Carolina, who had, besides this daughter, six other 
children, three of them still living: JohnM. , Nancy 
v., the wife of P. B. Hill, and Robert L., of Little 
Rock, Ark. Mrs. Lester resides with one of her 
daughters, and is a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

Col. John A. Lindsay, farmer and stock raiser 
is a native of Kentucky, and was born in what is 
now Carroll County, on the 7th of July, IS'JO. 
His parents were Gen. Jesse Lindsay and Priscilla 
(Ficklin) Lindsay, of Kentucky, who lived in tliat 
State, and were married there in its earlier days. 
They settled in Carroll County as soon as the In- 
dians were moved from that section, and com- 
menced farming and stock raising. The elder 
Lindsay served through the War of 1812, and was 
afterward militia general for a large district in 
Kentucky. He also filled the office of sheriff of 
both (xallatin and Carroll Counties, and at one 
time was elected magistrate; and by virtue of be- 
ing the oldest magistrate in the county, held the 
first term as sheriff, in accordance with the laws 
of the State. Gen. Lindsay, in his day, was one 
of the best- known men in that locality, and as an 
official was fearless in the discharge of his duty. 
As sheriff, he was held in the highest respect by 
the entire district he covered, and his name was a 
check of the strongest kind on the law breakers of 
that community; as a magistrate, his fame was 
widesj)rpad. He died March 6, 1875, greatly 
mourned by all who knew him. Col. John A. 
Lindsay remained in Carroll County until he had 
attained his eighteenth year, and then moved to 
the State of Arkansas, in 1838, locating in Law- 
rence County. As Washington was called the 
father of his country, so might Col. Lindsay be 
called the father of Powhatan, as he laid out that 
town, and established the ferry across Black River. 
Upon his arrival in Lawrence County he cleared 
the land, and commenced farming where Powhatan 
now stands, and at one time owned some 10,000 
acres of land in this county. He now possesses 



■" — "t^ 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



80:! 



n 



alH)iit. 2,000 acres, aud six valuable farms, and is 
(Mie of the wealthy men of Ashland Township. In 
18()1 the Colonel received the cajitain's commission 
of an independent company, who were armed, 
nionnted and equipped at their own expense, and 
re(|U('sted to report to the nearest command for 
home protection on special duty. This company 
afterward entered the Confederate army, and per- 
formed good service for the Southern cause, their 
captain being promoted to colonel. In 1864 he 
joined Gen. Price, but more in the capacity of 
guide than for actual battle, as he was thoroughly 
acquainted with the country in which they were 
traveling. The war was an occasion of heavy 
losses to Mr. Lindsay, on account of his having 
credited an immense amount of goods previous to 
its advent, and then not being able to collect. He 
was married at Powhatan, in 1840, to Miss Martha 
A. Ficklin, of Missouri, a daiighter of Asa P. 
Ficklin, who died in 1878, after a faithful and 
happy married life of almost forty years. One 
son was born to them, who lived until his thirty- 
seventh year, and died in 1879, Asa T. Lindsay. 
The Colonel is a member of the Masonic order, 
being a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Tem^jlar, 
belonging to Powhatan Lodge No. 72, besides being 
a member of Hugh DePayne Comraandery, at Little 
Kock. 

James M. McCall, farmer and stpck raiser, and 
a popular resident of Duty Township, was born in 
Weakley County, Tenn., March, 29, 1889. He is 
a son of Robert J. and Eliza McCall, who were 
the i)arents of five children, four boys and one girl. 
One of the brothers was killed in the last war, and 
another met his death in a runaway team, while 
the remaining three are still living: James M., 
John M., and Elizabeth, wife of F. Gillespie. The 
family moved to the State of Arkansas in 1850, and 
settled at a point in Lawrence County, near Wal- 
nut Ridge. They remained here one year, and 
then located on a farm near Portia, where the 
father died, in 18')1 or 1802, and the mother sev- 
eral years later. The elder McCall, up to the time 
of his death, had been a veteran of the Mexican 
War. and had done good service for his country 
during the campaign in Mexico. He was married 



a second time, and James M. is the ol.lcst .'.(.n liv- 
ing by that marriage. James M. McCall came to 
Arkansas with his parents when in his twelfth 
year, and remained with thcun until ho came of 
age. He enlisted in the Confederate army at the 
commencement of the war, and was a member of 
Col. Baber's regiment, in which ho was one of its 
most gallant fighters in the numerous battles par- 
ticii)ated in by that regiment. On December 25, 
1863, he was captured in Ripley County, Mo., atid 
taken a prisoner to Rock Island, 111., where he was 
held until the close of the war. After being liber- 
ated he returned to his home, and resumed his work 
upon the farm, this having been his occupation 
ever since, and he now owns one tract of 120 acres, 
some three miles from Portia, of which twenty- 
five acres are cleared and under cultivation. He 
has a good frame residence and stables on his 
home place, and also an orchard, from which he 
expects good results.' Mi-. JlcCall was married in 
Lawrence County, March 14, 1861, to Miss Mar 
tha C. Jeffrey, a native of this county, and a daugh- 
ter of Jesse Jeffrey. Five children were horn to 
this union, who are still living: James E. , F. O. 
McCall, wife of John Freer; Martha Selnia, wife 
of D. Finly; Robert J. and Laura Jessie, and two 
who died in childhood. Mr. and Mr.s. McCall are 
both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and Mr. McCall is one of Lawrence Coun- 
ty's brightest men. He is active in promoting the 
interests of the county, and is held in high esteem. 
John R. McCarrell, an extensive stock rai.ser 
and farmer of Black River Township, was l)orn in 
Lawrence County, Ark., December 24, 1S34. His 
father, James McCarrell, was a native Kentuckian. 
who came to Arkansas with his parents when eight 
years of age, being among the lirst settlers of 
Lawrence County. They settled at a point near 
Smithville, in the year 180S, where James McCar- 
rell grew up and lived the greater portion of his 
life. His occupation was farming, and at one 
time ho owned two of the finest farms in that sec- 
tion of Arkansas. He also served a.s county treas- 
urer of Lawrence County, for a number of years, 
tilling the oflice with honor and credit. His death 
occurred iu 1872, after a long and n-'fn) i-Mr....!- 



S()4 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



John R. McCarrell remained with his father until 
December 22, 1852, whcni he was married to Miss 
Elizabeth Davis, of Tennessee. This wife died 
January 24, 1884, after a faithful and happy mar- 
ried life of over thirty -three 3'ears. They were the 
parents of sixteen children, ten of them yet living. 
After his marriage Mr. McCarrell commenced farm- 
ing near Smithville, and in 1876 he moved to the 
present place, which he has greatlj' improved since 
his arrival, having about 1 50 acres under cultiva- 
tion, on the Flat Greek Bottoms. In the fall of 
1861 he enlisted in the Confederate Army, and 
served until the close of the war, performing in 
that time many a deed of valor. He was present 
at the battle of Pilot Knob and several others, and 
a great part of the time was on detached duty. He 
surrendered at Jacksonport, Ark., June o, 1865, 
and shortly afterward returned home to attend to 
the cultivation of his farms. On March 10, 1886, 
he was married to Mrs. Emma Rutledge, a widow, 
of Lawrence County, who formerly resided in Ten- 
nessee. They have two children by this marriage: 
James P. and Sarah E.,the latter the wife of Frank 
Hastin; and those by Mr. McCarrell' s first wife 
are John H. , Susan (wife of Robert Eddy), George 
W., William T., Martha (wife of Mr. Harroll), 
Fannie (wife of W. Taylor) and Cora Belle. 

Rol)ort McKamoy is a son of Robert and Jemima 
(Parks) McKamey, of Tennessee, where young 
Robert was born, on the 29th of November, 1845. 
The elder McKamey held several local offices, and 
was quite a prominent man in Tennessee, and was 
also one of the survivors of the Mexican War. He 
moved with his family to Arkansas in the fall of 
185S, and purchased a farm in Lawrence County, 
where he resided until his death, on the 12th of 
October, 1870, six days after the demise of his 
wife. Robert McKamey, Jr. , came to Arkansas 
when in his thirteenth year, and remained with his 
parents until the last year of the war, when he 
entered the Federal army, and was attached to the 
Sixth Missouri Volunteer Cavalry. He enlisted 
fir-st as a ])rivate, but was made sergeant, in which 
capacity he remained until the war had ended. 
After he was given his discharge, in September, 
1865, he returned to his home, and on the 6th of 



•January, 1867, was married, in Randolph County, 
to Miss Barbara Wells. He remained in that county 
four years, farming upon a piece of land he had 
purchased, and then sold out and bought the place 
upon which he now resides. At the time of its 
purchase, there were about 100 acres cleared, and 
the buildings on it were unfinished, but since then 
he has cleared some seventy -five additional acres, 
fenced it in, and greatly improved the place. He 
owns altogether about 500 acres of land, situated 
two miles from Imboden, and one third rich bot 
torn and second bottom land. This is one of the 
best farms and most desirable pieces of [U'operty in 
Lawrence County, and Mr. McKamej' has shown 
thrift and energy in securing it, from the fact that 
he started on comparatively nothing after the war. 
He also has a tine orchard of seven acres, consist- 
ingof different varieties of fruit. Mr. McKamey's 
first wife died in Lawrence County, leaving two 
children to her husband's care. His present wife 
was Miss Susan Ann Bragg, of Independence 
County, liy whom he has had seven children. Their 
names are James L., John, Leona, Robert, Naida, 
Abbie and Anna, the last two being twins; and 
those by his first wife are Margaretta, wife of Will- 
iam York, and Emily, who died in her seventeenth 
year. Mr. McKamey has also lost three children, 
who died in childhood. Mrs. McKamey is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Ei)iscoiial Church, and Mr. 
McKamey an Ancient Odd Fellow. He is a Repul) 
lican in politics, and upholds the principles of his 
party. His wealth, while not of mammoth pro- 
portions, has grown to ample size, and he is one of 
the most substantial men of his county. 

Simon McLeod was born in Harnett County, 
N. C, March 3, 1843, and is the son of Murdoch 
and Barbara (Matthews) McLeod, who came to 
Arkansas in 1858, settling on a farm in Law- 
rence County. His grandparents, on his father's 
side, emigrated from Scotland to this country 
during the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
On his mother's side, he, is a descendant from a 
local family of merchants and farmers. The elder 
McLeod died in 1862, and his wife followed, De- 
cember 20, 1888. Eleven children were born to 
them, and the family came to Arkansas unbroken, 




(deceased) 
Mississippi Cdunty.Arkanbas. 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



Mir) 



but death has cropped them out one by one until 
but live remain. Their names are James, John 
A., Simon, "William and Hector all farmers and 
mechanics. Simon McLeod, the seventh child, 
came west vyith his parents, with whom he remained 
until 1861, then leaving a comfortabh* home to 
fight for a cause he thought was right. He en- 
listed in the First Arkansas Battalion, and served 
to good advantage for the princ^iples which he had 
undertaken lo defend. He was present at the bat- 
tle of Corinth, and at the siege of Port Hudson 
was among the most valiant in action. He did the 
duty of a ])rivat(' soldier until the end of the war, 
and surrendered at Shreveport, La., in ISC),"). He 
then returned to his home, and was married, in 
1867, to Miss Sally C Judkins, a Tennessee lady. 
In 1868 he and his companion moved on to tiie 
farm where they still live, with a happy and pros- 
perous family. Mrs. McLeod is the descendant of 
a wealthy and influential Virginia family. She 
also is of Scotch descent. She is the daughter of 
William H. and Sarah D. (Roberts) Judkins. Mr. 
Judkins was elected to the State Senate of Arkan- 
sas, in 18r)4, and died at Little Rock, Ark., in 
December of the same year. Mi's. McLeod is a 
sister of Hon. Joseph B. Judkins, who was presi- 
dent of the Twenty- fourth Arkansas senate. Mr. 
McLeod and wife have been blessed with nine 
chililren. all living with the exception of two. 
Their names are: Walter E. , Maggie D., Lettie 
M., Bes.sie C, Joseph H., Luther H., Eva A., 
(and one not named, deceased), and Laurence S. 
Mr. McLeod and his wife and his three oldest 
children are members of the Misssionary Baptist 
Church, and are peo|)le that command the respect 
of tlie entire community. He is a Democrat, and 
takes a deep interest in politics, though he has 
never aspired to any public position, prefeiTing 
rather the pleasures of rural life. 

John D. McMillen, a widely -known farmer and 
stock raiser of Duty Township, was born in Tip- 
pah County, Miss., October 21, 1850. He is a 
sou of \V. W. McMillen, a native of Alabama, who 
moved to Tennessee when a boy of seven years, and 
was reared in that State. \V. W. McMillen was 
married in Mississippi, to Miss Mary A. (iuniiell, i>f 



Jefferson County, Ala. (who moved to Mississippi 
when thirteen years old), and after his marriage 
settled on a farm in Tippah County, where Jolin 
D. was born. He moved to Arkansas County, Ark. , 
in 1855, and, after residing there for nine years, 
came to Tjawrence (county, where lie remained nn 
til his death, in 187'J. He fought for eight montbs 
in th<> lat<> war, and bore a splendid record for his 
bravery. John D. IMcMiiien came to llie State of 
Arkansas witli his parents when thirteen years of 
age, and remained with tiieni until his maturity. 
He was married, on Deceml)er 2'2, 1878, to Miss 
Laura K. Mitchell, who was Ijorn and reared at 
Clover Bend, Lawrence County, and brought liis 
l)ride to the present residence. Tlie land was l)nt 
slightly improved wlien he came upon it, but 
about forty-three acres are now cleared and under 
cultivation, and. ])erhaps. forty acres more, wliicb 
are still unimproved, i)ut valuable ]an<l. He lias 
a comfortable house, barns and all conveniences 
upon his ])lace, and a good orchard, two acres in 
extent, of peacb, a])ple, apricot, plum and pear 
trees. Mr. McJIillen is a member of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, taking an activt^ inter 
est in all its affairs. He and his wife are well 
known for their generosity and sympathy toward 
all ent(^rprises for the advancement of educational 
and kindred interests. They are among the most 
popular residents of Lawrence County, and people 
who are held in the highest esteem. 

Hon. Robert P. Mack, one of the leading at 
torneys of Powhatan, is a native of Tennessee, and 
was born at Waynesboro. August '11. 18 IS. His 
father is Judge L. L. Mack, whose history appears 
in another portion of this I>ook. Mr. Mack cnme 
to Arkansas with liis parents in lsr>I{, when lie was 
a lad of live years, where they located at Marion. 
Crittenden County. They afterward moved to Bol 
ivar, and then to Gainesville. Greene t'ounty. 
where he grew to manhood. He receive<l a very 
fair education at the common and high schools, 
besides applying himself studiously to all subjects 
which he thought would be of advantage to him in 
after life, and for one year was a-ssistant teacher 
at one of the schools. In I86H he comineiicetl the 
study of law, uiiiler the guidance of his father. 



806 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Judge L. L. Mack, and, in 1868, was admitted to 
the bar, before he had reached his twenty-first 
year. He was licensed to practice by Jiidge Wil- 
liam Story, and shortly afterward moved to Pow- 
hatan to enter into his profession. In 1869 he 
was associated with his father, under the firm name 
of Judge L. L. Mack & Son, and his natural tal- 
ent, combined with the experience of his father, 
made it one of the mo.st successful firms in that 
section. His present location is the one selected 
by him in 1870, which he has kept continuously 
since that time. In 1873 the elder Mack with- 
drew from the firm, and, up to the spring of 1887, 
Mr. R. P. Mack had been associated with various 
practitioners, when the present firm was organ- 
ized. He was married, August 29, 1878, to Miss 
Mollie E. Lyons, of East Tennessee, a very attract- 
ive lady, and by this happy union with the lady 
of his choice, was born three children : Anna M. , 
Vera C. and Lucy. Mrs. Mack is a member of 
the Old School Presbyterian Church, and a lady 
whose kindly influence and gentle disposition are 
made manifest at home and in society. 

John H. Martin, merchant and postmaster of 
Powhatan, is a native of Eldorado County, Cal., 
born June 17, 1854. He is a son of Josiah Mar- 
tin, one of the veterans of the gold excitement 
during the early days of California. The elder 
Martin was born and reared in the State of Mis- 
souri, and left his home for California two years 
after the great gold fever of 1849 had spread its con- 
tagion all over the civilized globe. While there he 
met and married Miss Mary Mincer, of Pennsyl- 
vania, and after sixteen years of mining returned 
with his wife to the State of Missouri. The fol 
lowing year after his arrival he moved to Arkansas 
and located at Powhatan, where he is now in 
partnership with his son in the general merchan- 
dise business. John H. Martin resided in Cali- 
fornia until he reached his fourteenth year, when 
he returned to Missouri with his father. He re- 
ceived a good education, both in California and 
Missouri, and after completing his studies, in 1868, 
he moved to Arkansas and settled in Lawrence 
County. From 1870 to 1875 he was occupying a 
clerkship in one of the principal drug houses in 



Lawrence County, and afterward engaged in the 
same ))nsiness himself. In September, 1880, he 
opened up a general stock of merchandise in [)art- 
nership with his father, under the firm name of 
Martin & Son, but still continued in the drug 
business on his own account. The firm of ^lartin 
& Son do a business of about §;^0,()(KI auiuially, 
and enjoy an enviable reputation for fair dealing 
and honest goods. Mr. Martin was appointed 
assi.stant postmaster several years ago, and on the 

I retirement of his superior, in 1875, was given the 
office, and has been postmaster ever since. In 
December, 1878, he was married to Miss Lula 
McLeod, of Georgia, but in June, 1880, he was 
deprived of the companionship of his wife by 
death. Charles H., ten years old, is the only child. 

j James A. Martin, of the firm of J. A. Martin & 
Bros., manufacturers, comes from a faiuih' of Mis 
souri pioneers. He was born in Pike County, Mo. , 
December 3, 1854, and is a son of F. G. Martin, 
of Lincoln County, Mo. The family is one of the 
oldest in Eastern Missouri, their ancestors settling 
in that State in its earliest days. The elder Mar- 
tin was married in Pike County, Mo., to Miss Susan 
E. Doyle, a native of that place, and after his mar- 
riage resided there for a number of years. In 
1867 he came to the State of Arkansas and located 
at Powhatan, where he carried on the manufacture 
of wagons up to the year 1 880, when he returned 
to Missouri, and in the spring of 1889 moved to 
Texas, where he at present resides. James A. 
Martin came to Arkansas with his parents when 
fourteen years of age. In his youth he was given 
a good school and commercial education, and in 
order to be more thoroughly acquainted with Ins 
father's business, he spent some time in black- 

■ smithing and wagon-making. His knowledge of the 
business, being gained from practical experience, 
enabled him to build up a large and protitalile 
trade. The firm manufacture spring wagons, bug 
gies, etc., and turn out about 60,000 spokes 
monthly, besides felloes, plow beams and im- 
plements of a like nature. Their trade is one of 
the most extensive in Northeast Arkansas in their 
line, and their goods have obtained a well-merited 
renown. March 12, 1877, Mr. Martin was mamed 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



WI7 



to Miss Ida Fortenberry, of Mississippi, a daughter 
of Absalom Foitciiberry, of that State, and this 
happiest of unions has boeu blessed with three 
ehiklreu: Guy K., Carrie and Nina. Mr. Rogers 
and his wife are members of the Methodist Epis- 
co])al Chureh, South, and th(> former is a Mason. 
He is a very popuhir man. l)otli in business and 
society, and is also one of the most progressive 
men of his county. 

Samuel A. Massey was born in Knox County, 
Teun., in 183S. He is the son of Jacob L. and 
Ann J. (Gray) Massey, the first named being a na 
tivo of Tennessee, and the mother coming fi-om 
Ireland to America with her parents in 1820, and 
settling in Knoxvillo, Tenn. His parents were 
married in Tennessee, in the year 1837, and moved 
to Arkansas in 1850, where they s(>ttled on Straw 
berry Kiver, and commenced farming until the 
death of his father, in 1883. His mother died in 
1878. Nine children were born to the parents, 
and two of them have been called away by death. 
Of the seven yet living, Mr. Massey is the oldest, 
and came to Arkansas when in his thirteenth year. 
He passed the younger portion of his days on the 
farm, and, on attaining his majority, commenced 
his race with the world with such a degree of suc- 
cess that to-day he is worthy of emulation by the 
young men of his county. He has 140 acres of 
land under cultivation, besides other lands in vari- 
ous sections, amounting to some 240 acres in all, 
which is the result of his own labor. In 1861, 
when he found that his country needed his services, 
ho eidisted in the army, becoming a member of 
Company B, Twenty -first Arkansas, and held the 
rank of second lieutenant. He was captured liy 
the enemy in 1-8(34, in this countv, and taken 
prisoner to Johnson's Island, Ohio, where he was 
kept until January, 180,"). When no longer a 
prisoner of war he returned to his command and 
did good service, returning to his home shortly be- 
fore the surrender, and has continued farming ever 
since. He was married in 1858 to Miss Elvira 
Milligan, a young lady born and reared in Arkan 
sas, and a daughter of John ]\Iilligan, one of the 
pioneers of that State. AJFrs. Massey died Septem- 
ber 1, 1866, leaving four children as the result of 



their happy married life. Their names are Edia 
J., Samuel J., Jacob L., and Elvira E. Mr. Mas- 
sey lives with his son Jacol) on the home place, 
and though ofltimes beset by the snares of his wid- 
ower's state, has always remained true to the 
memory of his beloved wife. He is a memiier of 
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, to which his 
wife also belonged, and is also a member of Lodge 
No. 144, A. F. &A. M., of Reed's Creek, Sharp 
County. 

Benjamin F. Matthews, a popular citizen of 
Powhatan, is a native of Georgia, and was born 
in Madison County, August 12. 1823. His parents 
were the Hon. Allen and Margaret (Elton) Mat- 
thews, who were manied and resided for awhile 
in Jackson County, Ga., and then moved to Madi 
son County. After a short residence in the latter 
locality they moved back to Jackson County, where 
the elder Mr. Matthews practic<>d law during the 
greater ])ortion of his life, and attained an emi- 
nent place in his profession. He represented the 
county several terms in the legislature, and died in 
Gainesville, Ga., in 1843, after a successful ca- 
reer. His son, B. F. Matthews, grew to manhood 
in the State of Georgia, and during the earlier 
portion of his life had but a limited amount of 
education. This, though an ob.stacle in his path, 
was easily overcome by his perseverance and 
natural ability. He first came to Arkansas in 
1854, and located at Powhatan, which place has 
been his residence ever since. In 187(5 he com- 
menced his commercial career, and up to the year 
1886 was actively engaged in mercantile life, con 
trolling a business of from ?30,(I00 to $40,000 a 
year. In 1863 he was elected sheritT of Lawrence 
County, and served until 1867, and for four years 
acted as collector and as.sessor. Previous to that, 
in 1860. he was deputized census enumerator, and 
took the census of Lawrence and Sharp Counties. 
On October 24, 1844, he was married to Miss 
Catherine ilcElroy of Cherokee County, Ga., and 
this union has given them nine children, of whom 
only three are living at the present time: William, 
Catherine, wife of Clay Thorn, and Ella. Those 
deceased are Josephine. Bettie. Phineas, Alice, 
Thomas and Henry. Mr. .\[attbews lost bis 



r 




first wife October 80, 1871, and after her death 
was determined to spend the remainder of his days 
single, but after meeting Miss Mary C. Clisby, of 
Massachusetts, he succumbed to that lady's charms, 
and was again married. They are both members 
of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Matthews 
has been a Mason for forty years. 

Willis B. Matthews, of the firm of Weir & Mat- 
thews, is another representative of that class of 
men, who, by their energy and pluck, have won 
the esteem of their fellow-citizens. He was born 
in Lawrence County, Ark., on the 1st day of No- 
vember, 1857, and is a son of William J. Mat- 
thews, a native of Tennessee, whose father, John 
L. Matthews, was one of the pioneers of Arkansas. 
His father, W. J. Matthews, married Miss Eliza 
J . McGhehey, of Lawrence County, a daughter of 
George McGhehey, one of the early settlers of this 
State, and his interest in the State of Arkan.sas is, 
thus doubly strengthened by the fact of both par- 
ents being born on the same soil. His father 
turned his attention to faiTaing until 1885, and 
then moved to Black Rock, to engage in mercan- 
tile pursuits. Mr. Matthews remained with him 
until he attained his majority, educating himself 
in the meantime, and then taught school for a 
period of twelve months. He gave up this occu- 
pation to accept a position at Powhatan, where he 
became thoroughly versed in mercantile afPairs, and 
received excellent business training. He then re- 
turned to farming again, and continued in that 
business until October, 1888, when he re-entered 
into mercantile life at Black Rock. He established 
himself in the grocery and dinig business at that 
point, and,- in 1885, his father was brought into 
partnership, and remained with him until the time 
of his death, in 1887. In the spring of 1889, the 
present firm of Weir & Matthews was established. 
They carry a large stock of general merchandise, 
dry goods, groceries, clothing, drugs, hardware, 
etc., and by their fair dealing and integrity, have 
earned a reputation second to none in the county. 
Mr. Matthews has served on the town board, and 
is a Master Mason. He is treasurer of Black Rock 
Lodge. 

James Cabell Minor, physician and surgeon, 



Walnut Ridge, Ark. In a comprehensive work of 
this kind, dealing with industrial pursuits, sciences, 
arts and professions, it is only fair and right that 
that profession — the medical profession — on which 
in some period or other of our lives, we are all 
more or less dependent, should be noticed. It is 
the prerogative of the physician to relieve or alle- 
viate the ailments to which suffering humanity is 
j)rone; and as such he deserves the most grateful 
consideration of all. A prominent physician and 
surgeon, who by his own ability has attained dis- 
tinction in his profession, is Dr. Minor. He was 
born in Albemarle Coimty, Va. , on the l()th of 
October, 1858, and is the son of Dr. Charles 
Minor, and nephew of Prof. John B. Minor, pres- 
ent professor of Common and Statute Law in the 
University of Virginia, and the author of ' ' Minor' s 
InstitTites." Dr. Charles Minor was a physician, 
and in the early part of his life practiced his pro- 
fession, but in later life was principal of a high 
school at Brook Hill, six miles north of the Univer- 
sity of Virginia. He died in 1861, at the age of 
fifty-eight years. He married Miss Lucy Walker 
Minor, a native of Virginia, who died in that State, • 
at Bellevue, in 1881, at the age of fifty-two years. 
They were the parents of a large family of chil- 
dren, thirteen in all, eight now living, two in this 
state — Lancelot, attorney at law, Newport, Ark., 
and James Cabell. One brother, Charles (now 
deceased), was an attorney at law at Jacksonport, 
and at one time represented Jackson County in the 
State legislature. James Cabell Minor was reared 
in Virginia, and first took an academic course, 
but subsequently entered as a student the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, from which institution he gradu 
ated in the class of 1882, in the study of medicine. 
Going to Louisville, Ky., he there took a clinical 
course at the Hospital College of Medicine. He 
then came to Newport, Ark., in 18S3, ])racticed 
there three years, and, in 1886, located at Walnut 
Ridge, where he has since resided. His marriage 
to Miss Emma Smith occurred on the 6th of Feb- 
ruary, 1885, at Newport, Ark. She was born at 
Brownsville, Teun., and by her marriage became 
the mother of one child — Lancelot Minor, Jr. Dr. 
Minor and wife are members of the Episcopal 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



800 



Gliurch, parish of Newport. He is a Democrat in 
politics, and has for the past six years been local 
surgeon for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. 
William Park Mitchell, farmer and stock raiser, 
is a sou of William and Sallie (Ross) Mitchell, 
of North Carolina, in which State William Park 
Mitchell was born on December '25, 1830. The 
family resided in North Carolina until 1847, when 
they moved to Benton County, Teun., and settled 
on a farm. Here they resided, a hajipy family, 
until the father's death, in 1872, and then the 
mother following him in 1875. William P. re- 
mained with his father until his majority, and 
then entered into the grocery busines at Dresden, 
where he remained for fourteen months. He next 
commenced farming in Tennessee, uj:) to th(> year 
1870, and, thinking that Arkansas offered a better 
field for that business, he moved to the latter State, 
and settled in Lawrence County. On his arrival 
he bought 120 acres of timbered land and an ad- 
ditional 150 acres, with slight improvements upon 
it. He at once began to improve and cultivate 
his farms, and at the present time has about eighty 
acres under cultivation, with two fair residences 
and two tenant houses, besides a substantial donblo 
log house, in which he resides. He also owns a 
tine bearing orchard of peaches and apples. Mr. 
Mitchell was married in Benton County, Tonn., 
on July 27, 1862, to Miss Sarah F. Summers, a 
native of that State, and a daughter of Zachariah 
Summers, of Virginia. This union has given them 
six children, all of whom are living and in the best 
of hejilth. Their names are Willis L., Zula, wife 
of H. D. Lawson; Emma, wife of Elijah Roberts; 
Anna and Maggie, both young ladies, and Katie. 
They have also lost three children : George, who 
died in his sixth year; Laura, (lying at three years 
of age, and John, who died in his second year. 
Mr. Mitchell is a Democrat in politics, and is 
always loyal in his support of the principles and 
men of that party. He was appointed deputy 
sheriff and served in that capacity for a number of 
years, and is held in the higiuvst esteem by the 
entire community. He has a splendid farm, a com- 
fortat)le home, and is considerinl to be one of the 
most successful farmers in Lawrence County, all 



of which he has accumulated by his own good 
judgment and industry. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell 
are both members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and Mr. Mitchell also of the Agricultural 
Wheel, being president of the local \Vli(>el. 

J. E. Moore is a firm believer in the soil upon 
which he was born, having remained in this county 
since his birth. His occupation is that of farming, 
but he is also an exponent of the advantages of a 
good education, and finds time for instilling knowl 
edge in the minds of Lawrence County's future 
men and women. He is the son of William Moore, 
one of Arkansas' pioneers, who is now residing 
near Powhatan, and his mother was Miss Martha 
A. Judkins. of Tennessee, who met. and was 
united to her husbaii<l, in Arkansas. Ton children 
were born to them, five boys and five girls, and 
three have since (Ywd. Tho.se living are Henry A. , 
Joseph E., Nathaniel A., Robert C, Margan^t I., 
Leonard H. and Laiua C. Lizzie, Susan A. ami 
Clara S. are deceased. Mr. Moore ri'ceived the 
first rudiments of his edncation iu the common 
schools of this county, and studied the higher 
branches at Irwin's Institute. After being thor 
oughly eijuipped for the duties of a school teacher, 
he went to Big Lick, in 1882, and opened u|) his 
first school. He has since then followed that pro 
fession, with stea<lily increasing success, holding 
two terms each ycvir. He was married, in 1887, 
to Miss Josephine Childress, a daughter of ('ol. R. 
A. Childress, one of the old settlers of Independ- 
ence County, and a hearty old gentleman, in his 
seventy eighth year. Mr. Moore is a ineml)(>r of 
th(^ Ba[)tist Church, and his wife of the Pn-sby 
terian. He is an active politician. 

John H. Morgan is a (Jeorgian, and was l)orii in 
Walker C!ounty, that State (now Catoosa ("ounty), 
in the year 1838. He is a prosperous farmer of 
Morgan Township, and is a son of Henry Morgan, 
of Georgia, who was killed in a distressing man 
ner, in 18(54, by being thrown from an unruly mule. 
The elder Morgan came to Missouri with his 
family, in the year 1850, and .settled at a point 
in Wayne County, about ten miles from flreenville. 
the county seat, where he farmed and cultivated 
the land, until the time of his death. His wife, 



^r 



■^J 



810 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



Polly (Blackwell) Morgan, of Georgia, died in 
about 1877. John H. Morgan is the fourth of 
ten children, and was in his sixteenth year when 
his parents came to Missouri. He attained his 
manhood in Wayne County, and in 1858 returned 
to Georgia, where he established himself in the 
grocery business. In 1862 he answered the call 
for men, and enlisted in Company A, of a Tennes- 
see regiment, and fought under Captain White, 
iintil the close of the war. He afterwards went 
back to Missouri, and wa.s there married to Miss 
Surilda Smith, of Wayne County, but a native of 
Hamilton County, Tenn. The couple have eight 
children living: Henry H. D., Joseph L., George 
W., Savanah J., William Jackson, Tennie C, 
Martha S., Laura Alice. They have lost three 
children, namely: John Morgan, born September 
28, 1869. died September 7, 1886; General Robert 
Lee, born November 28, 1885, died March 15, 
1889; and an infant daughter, who died, when 
eight days old, March 4, 1872. Mr. Morgan and 
his family came to Arkansas in 1869, and settled 
in Independence County, at a place some ten 
miles south of his present residence, where they 
lived until the year 1881, when he moved to where 
he now is. He and his wife are members of the 
Free Will Baptist Church, and are earnest workers 
in the religious field. 

Capt. J. M. Phelps, senior member of the firm 
of Phelps Bros. , general merchandise, was born in 
McNairy County, Tenn., July 17, 1841. His father 
came lo Arkansas when twelve years of age, and 
located at a point near Dardanelle, in Yell County. 
Four years later he went to Northwest Missouri, 
where he remained a year, and then came back to 
Randolph and Greene Counties. Ho entered into 
mercantile life at Gainesville; thence to Southern 
Missouri, and from there to Lawrence County, 
Ark., in the latter part of 1860. His son, Capt. 
James M. , received only a common school educa- 
tion in Tennessee and Arkansas, but his natiu-al 
aptitude made up for any loss in that direction. 
When war was announced he was a resident of this 
county, and first joined the Seventh Arkansas In- 
fantry, Company F, in April, 1861, Joseph Mar- 
tin, captain. He was discharged in February, 1862, 



and returned home, where he remained until Hind- 
man's call for volunteers, and, in April, 1862, he 
was captured, after having raised a cavalry com- 
pany in response. That entire summer was spent 
by him in prison at St. Louis, Chicago and John- 
son's Island. In 1862 he was exchanged, and 
joined Tim Reeves' company of Missoiu'i cavalry, 
and served with them until the spring of 1864, 
when he raised a cavalry company, which he com- 
manded until he surrendered, June 6, 1865, Com- 
pany F, Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry. At the 
close of the war he returned to Lawrence County, 
which has been his home ever since, and embarked 
in farming and merchandising. Later on he spent 
three or four years traveling through Texas and 
Mexico, and in the spring of 1876 came to Walnut 
Ridge and established the business of Z. Phelps & 
Sons (J. M. & A. C. ). The firm continued under that 
head until the year 1880, when it was merged into Z. 
Phelps & Son (J. M.). The present firm of Phelps 
Bros., was started up in 1884, with J. M., A. C. 
and Z. C. Phelps as partners. They do a heavy 
business in general supplies, their transactions in 
1888 amounting to $125,000, and are one of the 
largest firms in their line in the county. J. M. , 
the eldest, has practically retired from active busi- 
ness. Capt. Phelps owns probably 1,500 acres 
of land, divided into several tine farms, and, in 
conjunction with his father and brother, has a 
gi'eat amount of other lands in Lawrence and ad 
joining counties. He is a member of the Knights 
of Honor, and the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Com- 
mandory of the Masonic order, lielonging to Hugh 
DoPayne Commandery at Little Rock; is a mem 
ber also of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. This year (1889) he was a delegate to the 
district conference at Corning. He is a Democrat 
in politics, and was mayor of Walnut Ridge for 
several years. In 1864 (February ISth) he was 
married to Miss Victoria Kinian, of La\vi'ence 
County, Ark., whose father, Hensen Kinian, was 
a pioneer settler of Lawrence County. They have 
had one child, Virgil D., a little boy, who died in 
November, 1876, aged about nine years; and, hav- 
ing no other ehildi'en of their own, the Captain 
and his wife are rearing a neiee, Jessie Vinson. 



-^; 



»t^ 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



811 



Abram C. Pliolps, of tho firm of Phelps Bros., 
Walnut Ridge, general merchandise and supply 
house, was born inMcNairy County, Tonn. , January 
4, 1848. A\hen six years of age he came to North- 
eastern Arkansas, and has been reared principally in 
Lawrence County. He received a somewhat limited 
education in his youth — a disadvantage which the 
majority of our substantial men at the present day 
seem to overcome — and worked on his farm until 
the year 1S()8. On March 7 of that year he was 
married to Miss Sarah Fallin, who breathed her 
last ten months afterward. Mr. Phelps, shortly 
after the death of his wife, traveled with his 
brother, J. M., through Texas, Mexico and the 
greater part of the western country. When his 
trip had been finished he returned to Lawrence 
County, and in February, 1874, was united in wed- 
lock to Miss Mattie Ammons. During that period 
he went into business with his father, establi.shing 
the firm known as Z. & A. C. Phelps, which he con- 
ducted for two years. The firm was then changed 
to Z. Phelps & Sons, and has since continued un- 
der that name. In 1884 he sold out his interest 
in the business, and went to Fort Smith, where he 
started a grocery, but one year later he returned 
to Walnut Ridge, and entered actively into mer- 
cantile life at that jioint again, and now has ex- 
clusive control of the firm's business. Besides his 
interests in the firm, he owns 660 acres of land, 
500 acres of which are under cultivation. Mr. 
Phelps is a member of the Knights of Honor, and 
151ne Lodge, Chapter and Council of Masonic fi'a- 
ternity, and also of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
at Walnut Ridge, of which his wife is a regular 
attendant. They have three children: Flora, Wal- 
ter and Claude. 

Zaccheus C. Phelps, a partner in the house of 
Phelps Bros., well-known merchants of Walnut 
Ridge, was Ijorn in Greene County, Ark., Novem- 
ber 21, 1858. His early life was spent on a farm, 
and, at the age of seventeen years, he entered the 
employ of his father and brother, where he re- 
iiiainod three years, obtaining a thorough knowl 
edge of mercantile affairs. Later on he formed a 
partnership with N. M. McCarroll. under the firm 
name of McCarroll <& Phelps, which was continued 



for two years, when he bought out his pailiiers in 
terest, and combined it with A. C. Phelps & liros. 
Mr. Phelps owns 240 acres of good land, and has 
i;iO acres of it under cultivation. He is a Royal 
Arch Mason, also a member of the Council, and of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. His wife was 
Miss Mattie Brinkerhoff, of Warreiisbnrg, Mo., 
whom he married on September 15, ISSU, and one 
child has been born to them, Otis B. Mrs. Phelps' 
father is a minister of the Baptist denomination. 

Claiborne Sullivan Pinnell, familiarly known 
as Uncle " Claib" Pinnell, has been a resident of 
Northeast Arkansas for about fifty-one years, or 
over half a century. He was born in what was 
then called the " New Purchase " of Kentucky, 
October 27, 1817. His father was Peter Pinnell. 
who removed to Franklin County, Mo., when the 
son was an infant, and afterward settled in Greene 
County, Ark., at Crowley's Ridge, where he re- 
mained until his death, in 1842, or therealrouts. 
His wife was Miss Annie Sullivan, of Kentucky, 
whose parents, Claiborne Sullivan and wife, nee 
Harvey, were South Carolinians. This couple were 
the parents of nine children, C. S. Pinnell being 
the only one living, so far as known, although his 
oldest brother, Louis, was living in the Choctaw 
Nation, I. T. , two or three years ago, at the a"e 
of eighty -two years. The mother died in Law- 
rence Coimty, on the Cache River, after the close 
of the war. Claiborne S. Pinnell was reared on a 
farm, and as his father always lived in a very new 
country, where schools were not to bo found for 
love nor money, and teachers were few and far 
between, his education, as a consequence, was very 
limited. When nine years of age he met with a 
painful accid(>nt, which has rendered him a cripph- 
all his life; a colt ran away with him one day, 
and, stepping into a hole, threw him off, breaking 
his, right arm and shoulder, which has |)revenled 
him from doing any hard labor ever since. Not- 
withstanding this fact, he has been an active man 
all his life: following the plow, farming and rais- 
ing stock. He came to Lawrence County alx>ut 
thirty years ago, and bought 160 acres on Village 
Creek, one and one-half miles north of Walnut 
Ridge, and has made this his home ever sinci". be 



812 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



HidpH owninf» another farm in this county, tho two 
ag{^i'og!itinf5 '-'10 iicn'H. Ho has hnnte<l " bar" all 
over the State, and about twelve or fourteen years 
iifijo lie killed the hirj^est ]>anther that had ever 
been H(H'n in that iiei^'hliorhood, measuring eleven 
feet from l)oth tips. Mr. Pinnell has made a 
lengthy trip to Oregon, and another to Texas, but 
looks upon Lawrence (Jounty as the dearest spot 
on (mrth. He was married to Miss Minerva G. 
Rhea, a sister of M. 15. Rhea, and has luul nine 
childi'ou. Four of them grew to maturity, but all are 
now deceased, including tho mother. His second 
wife was Mrs. Amanda K (drayles) Moore, and has 
had no children by this lady, although his wife 
has a daughter by her former husband. Mr. Pin- 
nell is a nieml)er of th(< Ravenden Springs Methodist 
Episcopal Church, as are his wife and step-daugh- 
ter, Mettie Isabello. Grandfather Claiborne Sulli- 
van married liis scwond wife in liis ninety eighth 
year, living two or three years afterward, showing 
the remarkable vitality existing in the family. He 
was a noted Haptist preacher in his time. Mr. 
Pinnell was an ardent huntor in his younger days, 
and has made considerable rnoney in killing wild 
game and selling the liidos and furs. He tanned 
the hide of the " [jainter " ho killed some years ago, 
and made a pair of shoes out of it, which were 
(juite a curiosity, on ac(^)nnt of the associations 
connected with them. 

Col. W. M. Ponder, farmer and piopiietor of 
sawmill, was born in Hickman County, Tenn., 
O(!tobor 12. 1S2;5. His father was Amos Ponder, 
of Georgia, one of the early settlers of Tennessee, 
moving to that State in the year 1800, and snl)se- 
cpiently to Southeast Missouri, where ho died, in 
1808, in his seventy fourth year. Col. Ponder' s 
mother was Miss Nancy Dudley, of Tennessee, in 
which State she mot and was married to his father. 
They were tho parents of nine children, four of 
whom are still living. Mrs. Ponder died in tho 
year 187i), aged about seventy two years. The 
Colonel was reared on a farm in Tennessee, and 
received a somewhat limited eilucation in his boy- 
hood days, on account of tho scarcity of schools in 
that section of the State. He applied himself to 
farm woik until he reached his twenty-fourth year, 



when his father then moved to Missouri. Here he 
commencetl farming and merchandising, and also 
dealing in produce and stock, shipping the latter 
to the N(nv Orleans marltet in flatl)oats. He con 
tinned in this ))usiness some four or five years, 
and was then elected clerk of the circuit, county 
an<l probate courts, of Rijiley County, Mo., which 
offi(^e he tilled creditably for six years. He was 
formerly assessor for one or two terms in that 
county. After his term was tlnished in the court, 
ho began farming and milling on quite an extensive 
scale, and was rapidly approaching the highest 
pinnacle of success in his business, when the dread- 
ful news of war came to his ears. Ho loft his in- 
terests and enlisted in the Ninth Regiment, Mis- 
souri State (iuards, under Col. Lowe, of Gen. JefF 
Thompson's brigade. His first battle was at 
Fredericktown, Mo., where he lost several relatives 
and fri(>nds in the tight. Subsecpuintly ho entered 
tho Confi^dorate army, where his bravery and 
knowledge of tho tactics of war pushed him rap- 
idly to tho front, being promoted from sergeant 
through the different grades to colonel. He hold 
that rank and commanded the Seventh Missouri 
Infantry in the (!oiif(Hlorate army and served until 
the surrender at Shrevoport, La., about tho 25th 
of June, 1865. After peace had been declared 
he came to Arkansas and bought 200 acres of 
land, a couple of miles from tho present town of 
Walnut Kidgo. Hi^ then went to work with a 
vim an<l energy that wore tridy heroi(% consid- 
ering tho fact that he was bare-footed at tho time, 
and did not even have so much as a bed or a chair 
for his habitation. Two yctars later his perse 
veranco began to tell, and success was slowly but 
surely coming over the horizon of his adversity. 
He commenced merchandising and farming, an<l 
in connection with these operated saw-mills and a 
cotton-gin, and in 1878 he came to AValnut Ridge, 
and bought some of the land on whi(^h the present 
town site is situated. Ho also laid off the town of 
Doni])han, Mo., and was the first man to build a 
cabin, and sold the lirst yard of calico in that place. 
He remained in Walnut Ridge for ten years, and 
also laid olT the town site of that i)lace on his 
arrival in 1S78. Ho built the lirst residence in 



« i^ 



'H^ 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



.Si:i 



Walnut Kicli'n, and was inHtriimmitul iu Hiicuiiuf 
the location for the Eastern district court- house, 
anil also lari^cly assisted in the (M'wition of the 
Prc^shytcrian and Methodist Episcopal Churches. 
He is a member of the Masonic order and is a 
Kojal Arch IMason, and also tlie ruliii<^ older of 
th(^ Pn^sliyterian Church. The Colonel was first 
married, in 1846, to Miss Mary Kittrell, of South- 
east Missouri, and has had two children, one sur- 
viving;, Nancy S., widow of Thomas Miuton, of 
Walnut llidge. Mrs. Ponder died in April, 1850, 
and h<> afteiward married, in A[)ril, IS")?, Miss 
Susan Hudspeth, of Mis.souri. Two children were 
born to them, both of them dyinj; since. His 
wife died in .lanuary. ISfi'i, and he was again mar- 
ried, this time to Miss Mary Montgomery, of Vir 
ginia. Six children were the result of this mar- 
riage, of whom five are living: Andrew, Harry 
Lee, George W., Edgar F. and Susan. Col. 
Ponder increased his farm of 200 acres to 2,600, 
and is also president of the Walnut Uidge & Hoxie 
Street Car Company. He is one of the bust known 
and most highly respected citizens of Lawrence 
County; is a Democrat in politics, and in 1882-83 
represented his county in the State legislature, and 
was county judge in 1878-74. 

Wilson Price, postmaster and a well known 
farmer and stock raiser of Taylor, was born in 
Union County, N. C, July 27, 1836. His parents 
are Valentine and Caroline (Hargett) Price, of the 
same State, who, a few years after their marriage, 
first moved to Smith County, Tean., where they 
remained for throe years, and in the fall of 1841) 
settled in Lawrence County, Ark., at a point near 
Smith ville, where they resided until the father's 
death, in 18<')1. Wilson Pric(( was reared and 
has lived in this county since his thirteenth year. 
He remained with his parents until lie attained his 
maturity, and then commenced in life for himself. 
He was married in his twenty-second year, and 
located on a farm near Smitliville, where he culti- 
vated the soil until ho came to his present resi- 
dence, in 1876. Mr. Price has always been a man 
of industrious and progressive hal)its, and it did 
not take him long to obtain a fair competence. He 
bought laud and added to his possessious when- 



ever he saw a good chance t^) invest, ami now 
owns over 1,000 acres of the l)e.st laiul in Arkan- 
sas, with some 300 acres of it cleaicl. The entire 
amount is comprised in four tracts, and is all sit 
uated in Lawrence County. Mr. Price was mar- 
ried in this county on January 7, 1858, to Miss 
Susan Ann Davis, a daughter of Ross Davis, of 
Tennessee, but on Octolter 11, I87i), this lady 
died, leaving eight children to survive her: Sarah 
Ann, wif»» of John Bilberry; Nile A., (Jeorgi- L., 
David P., B'illmore, Charles D., Philip V., and Lutz, 
a young lady. Nile A. and George L. are both 
married. Mr. Price has also lost five children, who 
died in early childhood. His second wife was a 
widow lady, Mrs. Mary Steadman, whom ho mar- 
ried in 1881, this lady dying in 188"), and leaving 
one daughter, Hattie U. He married his ]jresent 
wife, who was formerly Miss Nancy llidor, of In 
dependence County, on July 3, 1887. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Price are members of the Baptist Church, 
in which the former is a deacon, and they are 
deeply interested in all matters concerning its wel- 
fare. In 1885 ho established a general merchan- 
dise store, and by his methods of doing business, 
soon built up a good patronage. A postoflice was 
opened \ip in his place of business in Ai>ril, 1886, 
and he was appointed postmaster, having Ijud 
charge of the office since then. 

Greene E. llaney, a prosperous and well known 
farmc^r of Smith ville. Ark., was born in Lawrence 
County, near that town, September 20, 1850. He 
is a son of Morgan Uaney, also a native of ArkansaH, 
born March 18, 1818, and died in 1877. Samuel 
Raney, the gi-andfather of Greene E. , was a Vir 
ginian by birth, who married and settled in Mis 
souri, where he reared part of his family. His son, 
Morgan llaney, was the youngest of eight chil 
dren, and was born in Arkansas, iu which State he 
lived all his life, never having evinced any desire to 
go out of it. Morgan Raney was one of the most in 
dustrious and able men of his day, and at the time 
of his death owned about l.NSO acres of line land, 
with a good portion of it under cidtivatioii. At 
the time of his decease lie j>resented each of his 
children with $2.(inn cash, and a tine farm, since 
which time the land has doubled in vnbi.' He was 



su 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



married to Miss Nancy Taylor, of Lawrence Coun- 
ty, Ark. , who was born in 1S27, and died in the 
year 1867. meetin<f her death through a very pain- 
ful accident while coming from church. They 
■were the parents of seven children, all of them 
now dead, with the exception of Leah, wife of G. 
W. Brady, postmaster of Smithville, and Greene 
E. Raney. His second marriage was with Miss 
Elvira Janes, by whom he had two children, Loey 
G. and an infant, both deceased. Greene E. Ra- 
ney was reared in this (Lawrence) County, and, 
like his father, prefers to remain on the soil of Ar- 
kansas all his life. He began farming for himself 
after his father's death, and the same energy that 
characterized the latter was part of his own spirit, 
as he has demonstrated by his present prosperity. 
His brother, John W., enlisted in the army, and 
was killed during the war, while he remained at 
home to assist his father, who needed his help. 
After the death of the elder Raney, he took charge 
of the entire estate, and has brought it up to its 
present proportions. He was married October 22, 
1873, to Miss Sarah Jackson, of Sharp County, 
Ark. , a daughter of Marcus Jackson, of Tennessee. 
Six children were born to them by this union: 
Lotta, Ernest and Joseph M. , all of whom are liv 
ing, and three others who died very young. Mr. 
and Mrs. Raney are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, and Mr. Raney is a Dem- 
ocrat in politics. He is a prominent man in all 
enterprises for the advancement and improvement 
of his county, and is one of the most liberal, open- 
hearted men in that section. 

Moses Boiling Rhea is one of the oldest set- 
tlers of Lawrence County, and has been here over 
fifty- four years. There is only one citizen in the 
above county, C. S. Pinnell, who has been in this 
section longer than Mr. Rhea. He was born in 
Warren County, Tenn. , June 6, 1822, and is the 
son of Obadiah Rhea, of East Tennessee, who set- 
tled in Arkansas about the year 1835, and located 
within fifteen miles of the present town of Walnut 
Ridge, where he lived until his death, in 1855. 
The wife of Obadiah Rhea was Miss Elizabeth Lit- 
tlepage, of Tennessee. They were the parents of 
ten children, six of whom are still living. Their 



names are: Moses B. , Thomas, a farmer of Greene 
County; Elizabeth, widow of James G. Ruther- 
ford, residing near the old homestead ; Nancy, wife 
of James Edward, of Greensl)oro, Ark. ; Mary, the 
wife of C. C. Grayson, of Greene County; Emily, 
the wife of Allan Pierce, a resident of Cache Town- 
ship. This is indeed a remarkable showing for 
one family. Six of the ten children are living, the 
oldest being sixty-eight years old and the youngest 
fifty four years. They have outlived every family 
who settled in Lawrence County, at about the same 
time, and have more living members as a proof of 
their longevity than any other of the early settlers. 
The mother of these children died at the age of 
seventy-two years, in 1871 or 1872. Moses B. was 
thirteen years of age when he fir.'^t came to Law- 
rence County, but resided in Greene County, until 
his twenty-third year, before he settled on his pres- 
ent farm, seven miles east of Walnut Ridge. He 
has been a farmer all his life, and a very success- 
ful one, owning some 1,200 acres of land, of which 
550 acres are under cultivation, and besides his 
lands, he owns considerable stock. His children 
have cause to remember him with gratitude, as he 
has presented each of them with a good farm. He 
first started in life for himself when twenty two 
years of age, with nothing but a mare and colt. The 
meagerness of bis worldly possessions, however, 
did not disturb him in the least, and it was not 
long before his industry secured for him almost all 
of the freighting between Cape Girardeau. Mem- 
phis, Powhatan, Jacksonport, Forest City and 
other points, and no doubt he has hauled more 
freight than any other man in Lawrence County. 
He fought under Price during the war, and was in 
that general's raids through Missouri and Kansas. 
Hard work never affects him ajiparently, and he 
keeps it up steadily on the farm. His principles 
were toward the Union at first, but lie afterward 
changed to be a strong Southern man. In his 
early days he was a Whig, and mingled in politics 
considerably, but under no circumstances would he 
ever accejit an office, although often urged to do 
so. He was married February 8, 1844, to Miss 
Sarah C. Lamb, of Alabama, whose parents, Will- 
iam and Mary (See) Lamb, were among the ear- 



^^ 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



sir> 



licr s(!t,tlfis of this coimty. She died in 1807, uiul 
Mr. llhea was again married in 1808 to Clementine 
S(H'<^o. This wife died in ISOO, and in 1870 he 
was married to Miss Mary Slavin, whose death oc- 
curred in 1S71. His fourth wife was Miss Sarah 
Daily, who died in 1870, and his present wife is 
Miss Uuth Kiuyon, who has lived in this county 
about thirty-eight years. Mr. Rhea is the father 
of sixteen children, only five of whom are living: 
Murcinda, wife of William Hennessee; John A., of 
Walnut Ridge; Flavins, married; Laura Daily, 
who lives near the homestead; James and A\"illiaiii, 
who live at home. 

John A. Rhea, proprietor of Walnut Ridge liv- 
(<ry staliles, was born in Grreene County, Ark., 
Sei)tember 30, 1854, and came to Lawrence County, 
when twelve years of age. He received but a lim- 
ited anioiint of schooling in his yonng days, and 
was reared on his father's farm. On July 3, 1870, 
he was married to Miss Lizzie Cooper, a daughter 
of Thomas and Ibbie (Willis) Cooper, early settlers 
of this county. After his marriage he commenced 
farming for himself, but shortly afterward gave up 
that occupation, and came to Lawrence County in 
the year 1877, where he opened a hotel. Five 
years later he went into the business of buying 
and selling horses, and then started a livery, which 
he has fostered into a complete success. It is the 
only livery stable in the Eastern district of Law- 
rence County, and commands rjuite a large trade. 
He also buys and sells horses, and is the owner of 
a farm of 148 acres, of which 133 acres are under 
cultivation. The 'bus line running between Wal- 
nut Ridge and Hoxie is controlled by him, and he 
has the mail contract between those points. In 
politics Mr. Rhea is a Democrat, and was the first 
town marshal of Walnut Ridge. He has two 
cliiklren, Harry and Annie L. 

Dr. J. V. Richardson, whose nam<' is well 
known throughout Northeast Arkansas, was born 
in Spencer County, Ind., on the 8th of April, 
183S. His ])arents were J. V. and Elizabeth (Ev- 
erton) Richardson, of Kentucky and Indiana, 
respectively, who moved to Arkansas in 1844, and 
settled in Sharp CJounty, where they lived until the 
year 1801. They tiien removed to Texas, but 



came back to Arkansas in bSfiO, and located in Ful 
ton County, where the older Richardson still resides 
at the age of eighty-six years, his wife dying al)out 
the year 1870. Dr. Richardson came to this State 
with his father when a boy of eight years, and re- 
mained with him until he had reached liis matur 
ity. Hi! then commenced the study of medicine in 
Jackson and Lawrence Counties, under the guid- 
ance of the then celebrated Dr. Hatfield, iind in 
1800 first began practicing in Jackson County. 
In 1802 he enlisted in the Confederate army as n 
private, l)ut was shortly afterward promoted, and 
sent out on detached duty. He visited his home 
again in 1803, and in the spring of the following 
year rejoined his company, and served until his 
surrender at Jacksonport, in June, 180"). The 
Doctor fought in the battles at Little Rock, Inde- 
pendence (Mo.), Kansas City, Big Blue, Boons- 
boro (Ark.), and in Price's raids through Missouri. 
After the war was over he returned to Jackson 
County, and resumed his practice and farming 
until 1873, when he moved to Lawrence County, 
and located in the neighborhood of where he now 
resides. He continued in his profession up to 
1879, when he built a store-room, and in 1880 be- 
gan dealing in general merchandise. He has been 
very active in commercial life and farming since 
then, giving up his jn-actice entirely, and has now 
built up a successful business, and is one of the 
leading merchants of that section. The Doctor 
was first married Juno 11, 180."), in Jackson Coun- 
ty, to Miss Sarah A. Johnson, who died June 4, 
1870. There were two children by this marriage: 
William D., who died in liis twelfth year, and >[a- 
hala E., wife of William Beavers, of this county. 
He married his present wife in Jackson County, in 
1875. The lady's name was formerly Miss Eliza- 
beth Brackenridge, a daughter of James Bracken - 
ridge, one of the pioneers of Jackson County. 
There are four children by this marriage: Ada, 
Gilbert, Aggie and May. Dr. Richard.son is n 
meml)er of Thornburg Lodge No. 371, A. F. & A. 
M. , and is Master of his lodge. Ho is also a Royal 
Arch Ma.sou, and a member of Walnut Ridge Chap 
ter, and has represented his lodge in the Grand 
Lodc^e on several occasions. He has served as Wor- 



-^ 



816 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



sbipful Master for six or seven years, and has a 
lodge-room over bis store-room. 

Hamilton W. Richey is a sou of John Richey, 
of Virginia, vpho moved to Indiana in his younger 
days, and married Miss Polly Woods, of that 
State, locating in Gibson County, where Ham- 
ilton vyas bom December 29, 1829. John Richey 
followed his occupation of farming in Indiana un- 
til the year 1844, when he removed to Arkansas, 
and settled in Lawrence County. He resided in 
that place, and reared his family, until the time of 
bis death, in the fall of 1861, when he passed 
away, regretted l)y all who knew him. Up to the 
time of his decease Mr. Richey had been a sur- 
vivor of the War of 1812, and was at Mobile, 
Ala., when the battle of New Orleans was fought. 
He was also a captain of militia during his resi- 
dence in Indiana. Hamilton W. Richey came to 
Arkansas when in his fourteenth year, and is the 
oldest of three surviving sons, out of a family of 
eight who grew to maturity and had families of 
their own. He remained with his father until his 
twenty third year, and was then united in marriage 
to Mrs. Sarah Ann Richey, December 12, 1852, 
the lady being a widow, and a native of Lawrence 
County. After their marriage they settled on a 
small farm in Flat Creek, and, in the spring of 
1867, moved to their present home. Mr. Richev 
commenced clearing his land at once, and at the 
present time has almost 225 acres under cultiva- 
tion. He owns altogether about 700 acres of land, 
on different tracts, a portion of it l>eing cleared, 
and owes his present prosperity to liis own enter- 
prise, having but very little property when he first 
started in life. Mr. Richey is one of the substan- 
tial and progressive men to whom Lawrence 
County can point with pride, and by his industry 
and economy has placed himself upon a basis 
where others must look at him with admiration. 
In March, 1862, he enlisted in the Confederate 
army, becoming a member of the First Arkansas 
Battalion, and served until taken prisoner, at Port 
Hudson, July 8, 1863. The command was again 
reorganized the following fall, and then Mr. 
Richey held the rank of first lieutenant, and con- 
tinued in that capacity until his surrender, at Jack- 



sonport, Ark., where he was paroled in June, 1865. 
He had two children by his first wife, both of them 
deceased, and fcis wife also dying in 1857. He 
contracted a second marriage, his wife being Miss 
Mary Way land, of Arkansas, who died in 1876, 
leaving six children: David H. , John H. and Jo- 
seph W. , while three others lived to maturity, and 
two married before their deaths occuircd. Their 
names are Hamilton W., Sarah Ann M. and 
Amanda J. Mr. Richey was again married, his 
third wife being Miss Mattie E. Walker, of Gib- 
son County, Tenn. , and has had two children by 
this marriage, Nora May and Mattie Aoma. He 
was elected justice of the peace of his township, 
and, at the expiration of his first term, was re- 
elected to a second term. Mr. Richey and his wife 
are both members of the Christian Church, and he 
is also a member of the Agricultural Wheel. 

James P. Rogers, a well-known farmer of 
Cache Township, was born in Middle Tennessee, 
March 10, 1847. He is the son of John B. Rog- 
ers, a native of North Carolina, who settled in 
Tennessee about the year 1846, and from there 
came to Arkansas and located on Black River, 
eight miles or more east of Pocahontas, where he 
resided until his death, two years later. His wife 
was Miss Ann S. Collier, of North Carolina, a 
daughter of Henry Collier, wlio settled in Arkan- 
sas about the year 1850 and located on Black 
River, in Randolph County, in which place he pur- 
chased half a section of land. He was one of the 
first settlers in that region and lived there until 
his death, in 1855, or thereabouts. Mrs. Rogers 
is still living and resides in Red River County, 
Tex., at the age of seventy years. She is the 
mother of twelve children, seven of them living, 
whose names are: James P. Rogers, Martha L., 
widow of William Sutton, a resident of Red River 
County, Tex.; John C. and Henry C. twins, the 
former a resident of Fort Worth, Tex., and the 
latter near Arkadelphia, Ark.; Mary E., the wife 
of John W. Scoggin, of Red River County, Tex. ; 
Senora, wife of Samuel Daniels, and Robert Lee, 
also of Red River County, Tex. James P. Rogers 
spent the earlier part of his life on a farm in Ten- 
nessee, and in his twenty-second year went to 



"TP 




Sherman, Tex., where he worked as a carpenter. 
He then traveled through the Indian Territory for 
a short time, after which he nndertook the busi- 
ness of freighting between Paul's Valley and Fort 
Sill. His next trip was back to Texas, along the 
Red River, and after finding a suitable location he 
commenced farming. He continued at various oc- 
cupations until the year 1871, when he came to 
Randolpli County, Ark., and l)ought 120 acres of 
land, and on Decemlier 'I'S, 1872, was married to 
Miss Ellen E. Brooks, a daughter of Albert W. W. 
Brooks, who has the reputation of l)eing the 
wealthiest man in Randolph County, Ark. Mr. 
and Mrs Rogers then came to Cache Township, in 
Lawrence County, and settled on a farm of 240 
acres, of which 115 acres are in a good state? of 
cultivation. He owns 440 acres more in two tracts 
of land in Randolph County. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers 
are the parents of seven children, five of them 
living, whose names are recorded as follows: John 
A., William H. , Julia A., Magnolia, Mary Susan. 
He is a member of the Knights and Ladies of 
Honor, and a man held in high esteem. 

Charles C. Rogers, attorney and county ex- 
aminer, was born in Madison County, Tenn., April 
1, 1852. He is a son of Hon. D. S. and Nancy G. 
(Taylor) Rogers, of North Carolina and Virginia, 
respectively. After his marriage, the elder Rog 
era resided in Tennessee for a number of years, 
where he farmed to a consideralile ext(>nt, and for 
twenty five years was chairman of the county court 
of Madison County. In his sixty- fifth year Mr. 
Rogers was admitted to the bar, but as he had al- 
ways declined to practice, his membership was con- 
ferred more as an honor. Previous to the war he 
had l)een elected a member of tin? legislature, and 
for almost twenty-five years, continuously, he held 
the office of justice of the peace. His death oc- 
curred in the spring of 188B, leaving behind him a 
name respected and honorinl wherever mentioned. 
Charles C. Rogers grew to manhood on the farm 
in Tennessee. His facilities for attending school 
in his youth were very meager, but, knowing the 
advantages of a good education in order to make a 
success in life, hi- applied himself studiously to his 
books at every opportunity, and now not only is 



ho posted in the common and higher EDglish 
branches, Imt is also well versed in Greek and 
Latin. After niastcriug liis studies, Mr. Rogers 
taught .school himself in Teiuiessee for five terms, 
and for one term iti Arkansas. In 1875 he com- 
menced the study of law at the ('uiiil)cr]atid fjaw 
School, Lebanon, Tenu., and completed his full 
course. He then located at Jackson, Tenn., and 
in 1881 was offered th(> editorial chair of u news- 
paper in that city, which he occupic'd for eight 
months, his work during that time attracting wide- 
spr(>ad att(!ntion. In 1882 he moved to I'nwliatan, 
where he has resided ever since, and commenced 
the practice of law. He has been successful from 
the very Ix'ginuing, and now ranks as one of the 
best lawyers in Northeast Arkansas. Mr. Rogers 
was married to Mrs. Ella Croom, a charming 
widow, of Tennessee, who had been the companion 
of his youth. Mrs. Rogers has one daughter by 
her former marriage, and her union with Mr. 
Rogers has given them a son Willie P. Rogers. 
They are l)oth members of the Methodist P^pisco 
pal Church, South, of which Mr. Rogers is stewar<l, 
and the latter also holds the office of county ex- 
aminer, to which lie was appointed in 1888. 

Dr. D. B. Rudy, physician and surg(K)n, is a 
man of whom it can l)e truly said that lie has 
reached the top round in his profession. He was 
born in Henderson County, Ky., December 24, 
1851, and is a son of William R. and Jane P. 
(Smith) Rudy, both of the same county and State, 
the father being an extensive stock raiser and 
farmer. The Doctor grew to manhood in Hender- 
son County, and in his youth received the liest ed- 
ucation to be had. He attended the high schools 
and also the Cairo Academy, of Cairo, that county, 
and in 1871 cimmenci-d tlie study of mi-dicine 
under Dr. Samuel Furman, of Cairo, a noted 
physician of that perioil. He obtained his lirst 
course of medical lectures at the I'niversity of 
Louisville, and graduated in 1875. His lirst lo- 
cation was in McLean Cnnnty, Ky. . where he 
practiced until the fall of 1871), and then move«l 
to Sharp County, Ark. In 1878 he left Sharp 
County and retiuned to the University to jiursue 
his studies still further, and graduated on March 







1, 1879. He thou came to Lawrence Couuty, Ark., 
in May, 1879, and commenced practicing, and is 
now looked upon as one of the leaders in the med- 
ical profession. The Doctor was married at Smith - 
ville. Ark. , to Miss Belle Henderson in 1880, who 
died seven years later, leaving three children. His 
second marriage was to MissParalee Fortenberry, 
of Lawrence County, in 1888, and the result of 
this happ_v union has been one child. The names 
of those children by his first wife are Maud, Anna 
Belle and William B. , and the child of his last i 
wife is James Frederick. The Doctor has built 
up a splendid practice, and owns considerable prop- 
erty in Lawrence County. He is a very popular 
man, owing it to both his skill as a physician and 
his personal magnetism. He also devotes a por- 
tion of his attention to stock raising and farming, 
and has been very successftil in both, and is also a 
member of the Lawrence County Medical Society. 
Silas RufFner, of Walnut Ridge, is one of the 
oldest citizens of Lawrence County. He was born 
in New Madrid County, Mo., in 1836, and is the 
same age as that of his adopted State — Arkansas. 
His father was Elias Ruffner, of what is now 
Kanawha County, W. Va., who was a farmer by 
occupation. The elder Ruffner moved from Vir- 
ginia to Indiana, and afterward to Illinois, Wiscon- 
sin, Arkansas and Texas. He came to Arkansas in 
1814, and located at Crowley's Ridge, in Poinsett 
County, and in 1857 removed to Texas, where he 
contracted pneumonia, and died the same year, 
aged sixty years. He was married to Miss Nancy 
Phillips, of Virginia, and had live children, four 
of them living in Lawrence County and one in 
Prairie County. The mother is still living in the 
former county, at the age of seventy -eight years, 
and has full possession of all her faculties. Silas 
RufFner was reared as a farmer, and had been in 
that business until within the past three years. 
He has had but a limited education, but is a man 
of strong will and a determination that overcomes 
all obstacles. Ho has resided the greater portion 
of his life in Lawrence County, having come here 
in the year 1850, and can recount a score of rem- 
iniscences of the early days of this State. He first 
lived in Poinsett and Jackson Counties, and re- 



members when Jacksonport, in the latter county, 
was merely a canebrake. He can also remember 
when the Jacksonport and Pocahontas country road 
was opened, which covered a distance of sixty-two 
miles, and had but one house upon it, which was 
called the "Stranger's Homo," as that was the 
only place of accomodation on the entire road. In 
1886 Mr. Ruffner established himself in the mer- 
chandising Viusiness at Walnut Ridge, and has had 
very fair success. He is a member of Walnut 
Ridge Lodge No. 19731, Knights of Honor, and 
also a member of the town council. In 1802 he en- 
listed in Capt. Henry's company, and served three 
and one-half years through the war. He was dis- 
charged June 5, 1805, and held the rank of second 
lieutenant at the time of his release. He has been 
married four times, two of his wives having been 
sisters, and all four of them cousins. He has had 
eleven children altogether, and seven of them are 
still living: Savannah (the wife of John E. John- 
son, of Walnut Ridge), Joseph and Nancy Owen 
(who reside in this county), Williger (the wife of 
Edgar O'Neal, of the "Stranger's Home"), Julia 
(the wife of Davis Ruffner, of this county), Henry, 
George and John. He has married for the fifth 
time, his present wife having been Rachel Up- 
church. Mr. Ruffner is in splendid health, and 
has never taken a cupful of medicine in the whole 
course of his existence, nor touched a drink of 
whisky. In politics, he is a Democrat. 

T. A. J. Runyan, M. D., one of Lawrence 
County's popular citizens, and a physician of 
excellent reputation, was born in Vermillion 
County, Ind. , in the year 1829. He is a son of 
William and Melinda (Murey) Runyan, of Tennes- 
see and Kentucky, respectively, who were married 
in Tennessee, and moved to the State of Illinois, 
shortly after. Dr. Runyan received his education 
from the district schools in his earlier days, and 
later on at the Academy of Georgetown, Tenn. 
He commenced the study of medicine in 1855, 
under the guidance of Dr. John L. Yarnell, a 
celebrated physician in those day, and is now one 
of the leading men in his profession. He also 
practiced five years under the care of an elder 
brother, Dr.M. D. L. Runyan. While at Nashville 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



SI '.I 



taking a course of lectnros, the Doctor had tho 
misfortune to lose oue of bis eyes by erysipelas, 
which caused bim to give up his studies for a time. 
This, however, did not deter hitn from mastering 
tho intricacies of his chosen profession, and in 
ISIU he resumed the study of medicine. He came 
to Arkansas in 181)3, and located in what is now 
Sharp County, and commenced building up his 
practice within four miles of whore he now resides. 
He is the oldest physician residing in this part of 
the county, and, besides bis profession, is the owner 
of a large and very productive farm. He has 
upward of 200 acres under cultivation, besides 
other lands in various sections, all of which he has 
accumulated by bis own industry. The Doctor was 
practically penniless at the close of the war, and 
his present prosperity is a good evidence of bis 
indomitable pluck and energy. He was married 
to Miss Mary A. Campbell, of Tennessee, and 
eight children have been given them to brighten 
the home, four of whom have died. The names 
of those living are: Ester Jane, wife of Henry 
Doyle; Martha M. , wife of James M. Turner; 
William, and Josephine, wife of J. W. McLaugh- 
lin. The dead are: Marcus, an infant not named, 
Eliza Ann and Melinda. The Doctor is a member 
of Lodge No. 126 of the A. F. & A. M. 

John J. Sharp, one of the principal farmers 
and stock raisers in La-wrence County, was born 
in this county, on the 0th of Juno, 1846. He is 
a son of John Sharp, who was born in the same 
county and State, in 1818, and a grandson of Sol 
omon Sharp, one of the first settlers to till the soil 
of Arkansas. His grandfather began farming and 
stock raising on his arrival in this section, and that 
particular business has been followed by father and 
son for three generations. Their first location was 
on the place now owned by Capt. Stewart, near 
Powhatan. John Sharp was a soldier in the Mex- 
ican War, and was the second child of a family of 
nine. His intrepidity led him to the front ranks 
of battle, where he sickened and died, without the 
privilege of bidding his family good bye. He mar- 
ried Miss Luriza Turman, a Kentucky lady, in 
1S16. who died in 188S. There were three chil- 
dren born to them: ^Mrs. Jane Smith, Mrs. ^Mary 



Williams, a widow lady, and John J. Sharp, (jf 
whom we write. Mr. Sharp remained in this 
county until August, 1862, when he enlisted in tiie 
Confederate army, and was one of tho raiders 
through Missouri, under Gen. Price. He returned 
home the same year, and iu 1865 went to Jackson 
port, where he was paroled. When twenty yours 
of age he went on his uncle's farm, at Black Rock, 
and remained two years. After leaving him ho 
moved to his present place of rosidoiice, which he 
bought from his uncle in 1870. It is one of the 
oldest places of K(>ttlement in tho county, and has 
100 acres of land under cultivation. Mr. Sharp 
was married, September 20, 1868, to Miss Lucinda 
C. McGhehey, a daughter of Judge McGhehoy, 
who has filled that ol!i(!e for fourteen years. They 
have five children: William Henry, Alice, Albert 
Redmond, Ernest ^\'. and Lacie B. , and are mem- 
bers of the Christian Chiu-ch. Mr. Sharp has 
been a member of the school board for n nural)er 
of years, and has always used his influence to the 
fullest extent, in the cause of education. He is a 
firm believer in the maxim that " knowledge is 
power," and is always one of the first to advance 
a cause for the enlightenment and instruction of 
childhood. He is the owner of a large sorghum - 
mill and a splendid farm. His mill has a capacity 
of forty five gallons per day. 

T. J. Sharum, general merchant of Walnut 
llidge, was born in Daviess County, Lid., February 
4, 1840. His father, H. Y. Sharum, is a native of 
Kentucky, and an early settler of Daviess County, 
lud. , where he still resides on a farm, at tho ago of 
eighty years. The elder Sharum was married to 
Miss Rosa Ann Cisell, of Kentucky, and eight 
children were the result of this union. One of the 
sons, James A., was a member of Company I, 
Twenty-fourth Infantry, Indiana Volunteers, and 
was killed in the battle of Shiloh. Two of the .sons 
reside in Arkansas — T. J. Sharum and J. C. Shnr 
um. the latter a resident of Portia. Mr. T. J. 
Sharum was reared on a farm in Indiana, and re- 
ceived a fair education in his youth. He learne<l 
tho carpenter's trade early in life, and worked at 
it in the town of Manitowoc, Wis., until tho fall 
of 1S60. In 18<)1 (Julv 3) he enlisted in Omi- 






820 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



pany I, Twenty-foiirtb Infantry, Indiana Volun- 
teers, which was organized at Camp Knox, and iu 
the latter part of that summer went to MissoiU'i, 
under Gen. Fremont. He took part iu the }>attle 
of Sliiloh, where he was wounded in the left- 
shoulder l>y a rifle ball. He was granted a fur- 
lough of several months after this occurrence, and 
later on rejoined his regiment at Helena, Ark., 
and with the exception of skirmishing, was not 
engaged in actual battle until the siege of Vicks- 
burg. On June 2;3, he was taken prisoner, and 
finally landed in the famous Libby Prison. Later 
on he was exchanged, and rejoined his regiment 
at New Iberia, La. At Clinton, La. , he did some 
skirmish duty, and iu the year of 1864, he was 
mustered out at Baton Rouge. Mr. Sharum's next 
occupation was that of traveling salesman for a 
jewelry house, and then a stock trader. He jour- 
neyed through the Choctaw Nation and the State 
of Arkansas for two years, trading in stock and 
hides. He then established himself in business in 
Indiana for seven years, and afterward was a 
wholesale mannfacturer of boots and shoes in St. 
Louis. Mo., for eight years, in connection with a 
brother. In November, 1888, ho came to Walnut 
Ridge, his present home, and purchased the busi 
ness of J. M. Phelps & Sons. His undertakings 
have all been successful, and he is now the owner of 
some 8,000 acres of land, besides thatjsart of Wal- 
nut Ridge where the court-house and Methodist 
Episcopal Church stand. He is commander of 
Lawrence Post No. 72, G. A. R., and is a member 
of the I. O. O. F., Good Templars and Knights 
and Ladies of Honor. He was married April 24, 
1806, to Miss Lydia A. Loutz, of Indiana, and has 
bad three children, one of them dying since (Ed- 
ward). The two still living are Monte and Myrtle. 
Arthur W. Shirey, a prominent merchant of 
Ashland Township, comes from an old South Car- 
olinian family, but is of German descent. He was 
born in Lexington County, S. C, on the 13th of 
May, 1835, and is a son of Enoch and Martha 
(Sandford) Shirey, who, a few years after their 
marriage, moved to the State of Georgia, and from 
there to Alabama, where they settled on a farm, 
and proceeded to make their future home. The 



father died September 6, 1866, while visiting his 
son, A. W. Shirey, in Texas, giving the family a 
blow from which they did not recover for some 
years. A. M'. Shirey remained with his father un- 
til he had attained his manhood, and then moved to 
Texas, where he located in Smith County, and af 
terward in Angelina County. In 1862 he enlisted 
in the Thirteenth Texas Cavalry, as a private, but 
his valiant services for the cause of the Confeder- 
acy soon won for him the rank of orderly sergeant, 
in which capacity he remained until the company 
disbanded at Hempstead, Texas. He fought at 
the battles of Mansfield (La.), Pleasant Hill (La.), 
and -Jenkins' Ferry (Ark.), besides a great number 
of others e<jua]ly as noted. After the war he re- 
turned to his Texas home, where he was occupied 
in farming for one year, and in 1867 moved to 
Arkansas, and located at Jonesboro. In the latter 
place he was engaged in business for eighteen 
months, and in th(? fall of 1868 scuttled on Black 
River, iu Lawrence County, where he transacted 
business for a jieriod of four and one half years. 
His next venture was at Minturn, but he sold out 
his interest at that place, and began farming near 
by. This he continued four years, then returning 
to Minturn, and forming a partnership, under the 
name of Shirey & Henry, for the sale of general 
merchandise. After a period of one year and a 
half Mr. Henry withdrew from the business, which 
Mr. Shirey continued on his own account, and he 
now does a business of about $30,000 annually, 
besides handling cotton to a considerable extent. 
He carries a large and fine stock of dry goods, 
groceries, queensware and general supplies, and 
has built up a prosperous trade. He is deemed to 
be one of the shrewdest business men in that sec- 
tion, and no man in business in Lawrence County 
has a better reputation for fair dealing and honest 
goods. Mr. Shirey first commenced on almost 
nothing, but, by his own good management and 
legitimate methods of doing business, has accumu- 
lated a comfortable fortune. He owns some 4,000 
acres of land in this county, on ten ditferent tracts, 
of which 1,300 acres are cleared and under culti- 
vation. Once before he had been on the road to 
prosperity, but lost all he possessed while coming 



k. 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



821 



from Jonesboro to Lawrence County, on the Black 
River, in 1868. The boat upon which all of his 
savings and goods had been freighted sunk at 
Bird's Point, and he was again forcod to start in 
life without a dollar. His wonderful energy and 
tact have once more placed him upon a solid Viasis, 
and now, besides his 4,000 acres of latul and large 
business, he owns considerable other personal 
property, and is considered to bo one of the bul- 
warks of commercial life in Lawrenc(( County. 
Mr. Shirey has been a Spiritualist in religious faith 
for the past fifteen years, and for some three years 
he has been a magnetic healer. He delights in 
treating patients after medicine has failed to cure, 
and many have been restored to health and strength 
through his aid. People who are poor and des- 
titute receive the benefits of his healing powers 
gratis. 

Capt. William C. Sloan, of Smithville, Ark., 
was born in Lawrence County, August 14, 1888. 
His father was Fergus Sloan, of Lincoln County, 
N. C, who was born in December, 1787, and died 
in November, 1849. The elder Sloan remained in 
North Carolina until he reached his twenty-fifth 
year, and then moved to Missouri, and settled, in 
Washington County, near Caledonia. He resided 
th(>re until his marriage to Miss Rosanna Ruggles, 
of Otsego, N. C, who was born in 1797, and came 
to Missouri in 1818. They moved to Arkansas in 
1S'20, and located in the Spring River district, 
where they opened up a largo farm (for that time) of 
150 acres. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sloan were mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the 
elder Sloan's house in (larly days was often a 
meeting place for the missionaries of that time. 
He dieil, while on a visit to his former home in 
Missouri, on November 18, 184Vt, anil ins wife, the 
mother of Capt. Sloan, died on the old homo- 
stead, August 10, 18f)0. Nine children were born 
to the parents, all of them living to bo marrie<l. 
William C. Sloan was the seventh child, and the 
youngest of four boys, and besides himself, has 
three sisters still living. He grew to maturity in 
this county, and on arriving at the age of twenty- 
one yi'ars, conimenciMl doing business for himself. 
During the war, he was captain of Company A, 



Twenty-fifth Arkansas, and was mustered in willi 
his company, March 1, 1802, serving about six 
nKJiiths in that commauil. He next joined Col. 
Baber's cavalry regiment, the Forty -fifth Ar 
kansas, and was a meml)er of the raiding i^xjicdi 
tion, under General Price, through Missouri. 
After the war was over, he returned home and 
entered actively into mercantile life, and has re- 
sided in Smithville ever since. H(Msalsoa i)artner 
in the firm of Sloan & Co., at ImlKxleu, Ark., and 
besides, deals in stock very extensively. Capt. 
Sloan is a Democrat in [tolitics, and represented 
his county in the rebel legislatur(» of 18(5(5 67, 
when they first convened after the war, and was 
known throughout the county, as a fair-minded 
and conscientious man in the discharge of his 
duties. He was first married to Mrs. Susan Sloan, 
the widow of his l)rotlier, who was born in Law 
rence County, in 1881, and died in October, I.Sf)."). 
This union gave them two children, William V. , 
and Leona, wife of L. T. Andrews. His second 
wife was Miss Elizabeth J. Cravi'us, whom he mar- 
ried in 1871, a native of the same county, luit ed- 
ucated at Shelbyville, Ky., and by whom he had 
three children: Homer ¥., Eula L. , and Fannie, 
all of them living. The mother died September 
'29, 1887. Capt. Sloan is a member of Lodge No. 
29, A. F. & A. ]\[., of Smithville, and is widely 
known for his generosity and good fellowshi]>. 

Clay Sloan, circuit court clerk, Powhatan, was 
born in Lawrence County, Ark., August 20, I Sill. 
He comes of a family who have made Arkansas 
their home for a great many years, his father, James 
F. Sloan, having been reared in the same county 
and State, as also his mother, Margaret J. (Uauey ) 
Sloan. The older Sloan was, for the greater |«>r 
tion of his life, a prominent merchant of I'owha 
tan, and was one of the most progi'essivo men in 
commercial circles in that city up to the time of 
his death, in 1878. His wife still survives him, 
and is now married to M. D. Baber, an attorney 
of Powhatan. Mr. Clay Sloan attained his ma 
turity in Lawrence County, and in his youth re 
ceived a thorough education at Arkansas College, 
Batesville, Ark. He ci>mi>lete<l his fidl course at 
college in 1881, and was tiien engaged in teaching 



Jl: 



822 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



at Powhatan until the year 1886. His abilities 
having been tested and recognized by this time, 
he was elected to the position which he now occu 
pies, and in 1888 was re-elected to the same office. 
Ml". Sloan also filled the office of county examiner 
fi-om 1884 to 1886. a position in which his actions 
were reflected with credit. He is a Democrat in 
polities and is strong in his support of the princi- 
ples of that party. In the month of October, 1888, 
Mr. Sloan was captivated by and married to Miss 
Katie Matthews, a daughter of B. F. Matthews, 
and they are as happy as two people can be who 
have made a wise selection in the lottery of life. 
They are both members of the Old School Presby- 
terian Church, and are held in high esteem by 
their neighbors. 

Thompson F. Smith, justice of the peace, was 
born in Washington County, Mo., on the 7th of 
February, 1828. He is the son of William C. and 
Jemima (Warner) Smith. His father moved from 
his native place, Fayette County, Ky., in his nine- 
teenth year, and settled in A\'ashington County, 
Mo. , where he met and married his wife. They 
remained in this State tintil the year of 1841, when 
they were induced to remove farther west, and 
located in Arkansas, near Smithville. In 1846 a 
permanent home was established at what is now 
Black Rock, but what was then almost a barren 
prairie. Mr. William C. Smith was first jus- 
tice of the peace in that county, and was after- 
ward elected to the county judgeship, in 1854, by 
the Democratic party. He was a soldier in the 
War of 1812, and was a member of Johnson's 
regiment. His contributions toward the church 
were liberal, ho besides being a strong advocate in 
the erection and maintenance of schools. Mr. 
Smith's mother died July 31, 1886, in the New 
Hope Baptist Church, one of the oldest churches 
in the county, of which she had been a member 
for thirty-nine years. To them were born fifteen 
children, of whom five are still living. Mr. Smith 
is their fifth child, and moved with his parents to 
Arkansas when in his fourteenth year. He attained 
his majority on the place where he now resides, 
and, after reaching that age, his first steps were 
toward improving the farm, and it is now his great 



satisfaction in being able to say that, since coming 
to this point, he has lived to see trees grow from 
mere shrubs to be over two and one-half feet in 
diameter. He has under cultivation about 100 
acres of land, and is the owner of some 200, wilh 
orchards and buiklings upon them. His new fruit 
evaporator is the only one in the county, and since 
he has been in possession of it, has evaporated 
over 3,000 pounds of fruit. Mr. Smith was mar 
ried on the 1st of January, 18()3, to Miss Letitia 
Moore, of this coiinty, a daughter of Jackson Moore, 
one of the earliest settlers. They have had five 
children, four of whom are still living: James H. , 
Charles B., Julia A. and William H. Mr. Smith 
is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , of Kock Cave, 
this county. He has served as justice of the peace 
for seventeen years, and is the present justice of 
the peace and notary public. He fought in the 
late war, and held the rank of lieutenant in the 
Thirteenth Arkansas, Company D. He had com- 
mand of Company D in the battle of Shiloh, and 
his lips give many a thrilling recital of narrow 
escapes during that period. Mr. Smith is an en- 
ergetic citizen, a popular official, and a ])rominent 
figui'e in his county. 

David C. Smith was born in Lawrence Coun- 
ty, Ark., February 10, 1837, and is the son of 
David Smith, of Vermont, who settled in Kentucky 
in his earlier days, where he met and was married 
to Miss Mariah Hornby, a native of that State. In 
the year 1830 Mr. David Smith and his family 
left their Kentucky home and found a suitable lo- 
cation in Lawrence County, Ark. This section of 
country was sparsely settled at that time, and Mr. 
Smith had all the difficulties to contend with that 
befell the pioneers of that State. However, he 
cleared up a portion of the timber and commenced 
farming, which occupation he followed until the 
time of his death, which occurred on the 1 2th of 
March, 1881. Both Mr. and Mrs. Smith were 
members of the Methodist Episcoisal Church. 
Seven children were born to them, of whom four 
are still living, David C. being the youngest. The 
advantages of education were very limited in those 
days in Mr. Smith's section, owing to the newness 
of the country, and he found, quite early in life, 



~7\~<i 



:±=4>t^ 




the necessity of schooling himself. At tho awe of 
twenty two ho located on the home jilacc, where 
he remained nntil he was able to purchase a home 
of his own, and, owing to his natural ability and 
pluck, was not long in attaining his object. He 
served three years in the C(jnfederate army, being 
a memljer of Col. Shaver's regiment, and was 
present at the surrender at Jacksonport, Jackson 
County, Ark. At the close of the war he returned 
home and engaged in farm work, and some years 
later was elected justice of the peace of Black 
River Township, tilling the duties of that office 
for two terms. He was then elected to the office 
of county judge in the fall of 188f). serving two 
years. Mr. Smith has also been a member of the 
board of equalization for four years, and has filled 
several minor offices. He was first married in 
1859 to Miss Mary A. Bottoms, a lady of Tennes- 
see, who died on the I'Jth of Marcli, 1888. He 
had seven children b}' this wife, five of them de- 
ceased: David W., Elias H., Mary E., Clay C. 
and Emmett E. Those living are James C. and 
John R. Mr. Smith was married a second time 
to Mrs. Vj. a. Pyland, a native of Tennessee, and 
this lady had three children: Mary F., Georgia A. 
and Modena W. They are meml)ers of the Bap- 
tist Church. Mr. Smith is an active worker in 
school and church affairs. He is a stanch Demo- 
crat, and was a Whig b(>for<< the reconstruction. 
J. C. Starr, M.D., was born in ("annon County, 
Tenn., on the 2d day of August, 1843. He is a 
son of John and Celinda (Shumate) Starr. The 
family settled in Missouri, in IS50, and located in 
Wright County, where Mr. Starr, the elder, en- 
gaged in farming and stock raising. The Doctor 
remained with his- father until he reached maturity, 
when he began the study of medicine with Dr. J. 
F. Brooton, one of the leading physicians of 
Wright County, in 1808. He finally moved to 
Lawrence County, Mo., and enrolled as physician 
and surgeon in the clerk's offic(> in Mount Vemon, 
Mo., in July, 1874, where he remained until mov- 
ing to Arkansas, when ho settled in Lawrence 
County in 1875. His first place of residence was at 
Smithville, but in 1887 he selected Black Rock as 
a more desirable location, and has continued there 



ever since. He has a large jjractice, and is a man 
of high .standing in that community, which position 
has been won by his sterling qualities and skill in 
his profession, and ho is in every way worthy (jf 
the success attending him. The Doctor mot and 
won Miss E. J. Smith, a yoimg lady of Arkansas, 
in 1882. Five children have been born to tlieui- 
Clara, Tolivar, Webby, Ophelia and Mary. The 
family are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and the Doctor himself is a member and 
Junior Warden of Black Rock Lodge of ilasons. 

Andrew J. Stewart, a well-known and exten- 
sive stock raiser and farmer, was born January 1 5, 
1S4S, in Phelps County, Mo. His father, James 
Stewart, was married in Missouri to Miss Melinda 
Lane, of Iowa, who, after their marriage, first 
settled in Dent County, Mo., and subsequently in 
Phelps County, where Andrew J. was born. An- 
drew remained with the family until his sixteenth 
year, and then came to Arkansas, and settled in 
Lawrence County, where he has resided since. 
He was married on September 24, 1872, to Miss 
Sarah Thomason, of North Carolina, a lady who 
has proven herself a devoted wife and mother. 
After his marriage Mr. Stewart bought 12t) acres 
of land, partly cleared, and since then has added 
to it considerably, now owning some b'lO acres in 
three tracts, with perhaps 200 acres cleared. He 
has a good box Innise on one place and a log house 
on each of the others, besides a good many im 
provements having been done upon all of his land. 
Mr. St(>wart's position in life is a gooil exami)le 
of what thrift, good management and common 
sense will do toward building up a man's fortune. 
He first started in life with comparatively nothing. 
l)nt l)y the aid of these qualities has accumulated 
an independent competence, and is now considered 
as one of the most substantial men of his county. 
He has a family of four children: Filli'nore L., 
James T., Jessie and Charles H. ; and has lost one 
child. Mrs. Stewart is a member of the Old 
School Presbyterian Church, and takes an active 
interest in all matters pertaining to it. 

Joseph Taylor was born in LawTence C uunty. 
Ark.. January 'IH, 182:^, his parents being Will- 
iam and Mary (Fortenberry) Taylor, whoso ro- 



— ► 



824 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



spective places of birth were Tennessee and Vir- 
ginia. The father was born in East Tennessee, on 
Clinch River, near Kingston. The grandfather 
died at an early age, leaving a widow and two 
children — "William and Nancy. His wife married 
a short time after the death of her husband, and 
William was compelled to leave home on account 
of the ill treatment of his stepfather. At this 
time, being abont seventeen years of age and 
weighing only 104 pounds, he started for the 
West. He crossed the Mississippi River not far be- 
low the mouth of the Ohio, and located in Capo 
Girardeau County, near the southern line, on a 
small stream called White Water. He was wholly 
illiterate, being unable to read, save a little, while 
to write his own name was an impossibility. He 
remained in this coiintry until about the age of 
twenty -two, and having grown to be a reasonable 
sized man, he married. He was in this country in 
time of the earth's shaking and during the War of 
1812. During this time his wife presented him 
two sons — Milledge and John — and about the year 
1816 or 1817 he removed with his wife and family 
to Arkansas, and located in the woods, on the bank 
of Strawberry River, a very poor man. He suc- 
ceeded in procuring lands, on which he erected a 
building and cleared a farm, and, following the 
occupation of farming and stock-raising through 
life, he became a well-to-do man. After he settled 
here his wife bore four other sons — James, Wesley, 
Joseph, and one that died soon after its birth. 
The mother died at the same time, leaving Joseph 
a little over two years of age. The father remained 
a widower about two years, and married a lady 
named Lear Williams. This wife became the 
mother of four children, Nancy, William, Eliga and 
Elie. The father died at about the age of fifty- livo 
or fifty six, leaving eight sons and one daughter, 
all of whom became grown, married and had fami- 
lies, save one son, William, who died single at the 
age of twenty two. Joseph was about seventeen 
years old when his father died. He remained with 
his step-mother one year, and then lived with his 
brother until twenty years of age. On November 
7, 1843, he married Mary J. Hinderson. They 
lived together about three years, and she died. 



During this union they had a son born unto them, 
named William Alexander (after his grandfather). 
This son (without consent of his father), at the age 
of sixteen, joined the Southern army in the fall of 
1861, and was killed at Atlanta, Ga. After the 
death of his wife, Mr. Taylor remained a widower 
about three years, leading a very reckless life, but, 
under the influence of his brothers, he was per- 
suaded to marrj' a second wife, Martha A. Findley, 
November 7, 1850. This lady was a member of 
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and a de- 
voted Christian. Through the influence of his 
wife, Mr. Taylor made a profession of religion in 
September, 1853. The next morning he joined 
the church to which his wife l)elonged. Shortly 
after he was elected and ordained to the office of 
ruling elder of the Strawberry congregation, which 
office he has held to the present time. Mr. Tay- 
lor lived with his second wife about fourteen years, 
and she died, after having given birth to five chil- 
dren — John W., Margret A., Sarah W., Melissa 
A., Matilda E. Mr. Taylor again married, a third 
time, the lady being a sister of his second wife, 
and the widow of J. M. Barnett. They had three 
sons, all of whom are living: Joseph G., Benjamin 
D. and George W. He lived with this wife about 
eighteen years, when she died, on the 31.st of De- 
cember, 1883. In 1887 he was married to the 
widow McHenry, who had one little daughter — 
Allis McHenry, who is now living with them. Mi'. 
Taylor's present wife's maiden name was Crits. 
Her native State is Virginia. Mr. Taylor is the 
only one of this branch of the family now living. 
He is in his sixty-sixth year, and lives at the Jack- 
sonport Crossing, on Strawberry, a place within 
two miles of where he was born. 

Thomas J. Thorn, farmer and stock raiser, was 
born in Bedford County, Tenn., December 25, 
1837. His father, W. Thorn, was a native of 
North Carolina, who moved to the State of Ten- 
nessee, and was there married to Miss Penelope 
Crumple, of that State. After his marriage the 
elder Thom settled on a farm in Bedford County, 
where he resided until his death, in 1856. His 
wife still survives him, and is a resident of Law 
renee County. He served through the Seminole 



^ 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



825 



War in Florida, and had n(W(*r fully recovered from 
the exposure and hardships broucrht on while en- 
deavorinf( to subdue this savage tribe. Thomas 
J. Thorn remained with his father until he had 
reached his maturity, and then started out to tind 
his own fortune. In 1859 he settled in Oregon 
County, Mo. , and one year later moved to Law- 
rence County, Ark. In ISOl he enlisted in the 
Confederate army, and after six months' active 
service was badly wounded and discharged. He 
received his wound in the thigh, from a rifle ball, 
while engaged in a battle at Springfield, Mo., in 
180L and at that time was a member of Col. 
McBryant's division. Finding it impossible to 
light any longer, he returned to Lawrence County, 
and, as time passed, and he was able to resume 
his farm work, he did so, and has been at that oc- 
cupation ever since, with the exception of a short 
period, in which he did carpenter work. He sold 
out his farm and moved to Florida, in 1880, spend- 
ing twelve months in that State, and, at the end 
of that time, returned to Lawrence County and 
bought the place upon which he now resides. He 
owns forty acres of fine land, and has about twenty- 
five acres under cultivation, with a comfortable 
house, Ijarns and all necessary adjuncts. Mr. 
Thorn was first married, in Teimessee, to Miss 
Mary Bennett, who died in Arkansas. Two chil- 
dren are yet living by this wife and two deceased. 
His second marriage was in Randolph County, to 
Miss Rebecca Holt, who left five children at her 
death. He was married a third time to Mrs. Sarah 
Hatfield, a widow of Lawrence County, who is 
still living. Both Mr. and Mrs. Thorn are mem- 
l)ers of the Missionary Baptist Church, of which 
the former is a deacon, and are people who are 
held in the highest respect in their community. 

George Thornlnirg, born in Havana, Mason 
County, 111., January 25, 1847, moved to Smith- 
ville. Ark., in December, 1855. His educational 
facilitie.s were meager, but used industriously, such 
as they were. He assisted J. N. Hillhouso for 
two sessions, and taught one session at New Hope. 
Ho l)egan the study of law in 1807, with Col. 
Bal)er, and then in the law department of the 
Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1808. 

52 



He was licensed to practice by Judge (afterward 
Governor) Baxter, and had charge of the circuit 
clerk's office fi-om 1808 to 1870, during which time 
the county seat was moved to Clover Ben.l, and 
from there to Powhatan. He entered into mer- 
cantile business at Smith ville, from 1870 to 1873, 
and in June, 1873, moved to Powhatan, where he 
began the i)ractice of law in co-partnershij) with 
Col. Baber. This firm did a large and successful 
business until June, 1880, when Col. TLornburg 
withdrew to take charge of a newspaper at Walnut 
Kidge. He moved to Walnut Ridge, in July, 1 880, 
and began the publication of the Tele])liono. The 
change from law to newspaper was not made from 
any pecuniary interest: but for the reason that 
journalism was more congenial to his taste. He 
was elected to the legislature as a Democrat, in 
1870, but, after serving a month, his seat was con- 
tested, and the house l)eing largely Repul)lican, 
and j)olitics being very bitter, he was ousted to 
give place to William B. Janes, who received less 
than one- fourth as many votes. He was reelected 
to the legislature in 1872, and stood with the im- 
mortal minority in the house in 1873. In 1876 he 
was nominated liy his county for the senate, but 
declined on account of business engagements. In 
1880 he was forced by the demands of his party 
and friends to submit to an election to the legisla 
ture again, and was elected speaker for the bouse 
during the session of 1881. It is said of him, as 
it can be said of no other speaker of the Arkansas 
legislature, that none of his decisions were ever ap- 
pealed. In 1884 he was again elected to the legis- 
lature, and was made chairman of the judiciary 
committee. In 1886 he was nominated by the 
State Wheel convention for secretary of State, 
but declined the nomination, because, as a Demo- 
crat, he could not accept any nomination that 
would antagonize the Democratic party. Since 
1884 he has .sought no political oflice, devoting his 
attention to his paper. He was appointed a col- 
onel in the Arkansas militia, l)y Gov. Baxter, and 
again appointed by Gov. Garland. Col. Thorn - 
burg was made a Mason, in Smithvilli' Lodge No. 
20, in ISON. He served as Secretary of his lo<lge 
and Worshipful Master. He was made a Royal 






826 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Arch Mason, in 1870, in Pythagoras Chapter No. 
34, held at Powhatan. This Chapter is now 
defunct. He was made a Sir Kni<^ht Mason in 
Hugh De Payne Commandery, at Little Rock, in 
1871. He has been a delegate to every Grand Lodge 
and Grand Chapter from 1871 to the present time. 
He was Secretary of the Masonic Convention of 
1873, which made the present constitution of 
the Grand Lodge. Elected Grand Orator of the 
Grand Lodge in 1874, in 1875 he made and de- 
fended the famous minority report, which cut the 
Grand Lodge loose from supporting St. John's 
College. He was elected Grand Master of the 
Grand Lodge in 1878, and re-elected to the same 
position in 1879. In 1880 he was elected Deputy 
Grand Commander of Knights Templar, and 
elected Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter, 
and in 1883 was elected Illustrious Grand Master 
of the Grand Council. He has delivered over 
twenty public addresses on Masonry, and is a per- 
manent member of the committee on law of the 
Grand Lodge and Grand Chapter. He is now the 
special representative of the Grand Lodge of Geor- 
gia, the Grand Chapter of Illinois, and the Grand 
Orient of Spain. In July, 1886, he founded the 
Masonic Trowel, a paper devoted exclusively to 
Masonry. It has a large circulation throughout 
the State, and grows in favor with the craft. It 
has been adopted by the Grand Lodge as its 
official organ. Mr. Thornburg is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and has been 
steward continuously since 1876, also Sunday- 
school superintendent for sixteen years. He ia the 
only layman in the Southern Methodist Church 
who is secretary of an annual conference, and he 
has the honor of being the author of the system 
of reports now used throughout the church. Prior 
to 1886 the church had no uniform plan or system 
of reporting. Mr. Thornburg arranged a system 
for the conference, of which he was secretary. 
This form was so complete and systematic that 
Bishop McTyeire urged its adi)[)tiou hy the general 
conference, and it is now the only form allowed to 
be used in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
Mr. Thornburg is a strong temperance advocate, a 
supporter of the free school system and a conserva- 



tive but straight Democrat. In the newspaper 
fraternity he stands high, having been selected as 
orator the year before last, and vice-president last 
year. He has, perhaps, delivered more addresses 
on Masonic, Sunday-school and miscellaneous 
occasions than any man in North Arkansas. In 
September, 1868, Col. Thornburg was married to 
Miss M. C. Self, a daughter of J. M. Self, a 
physician and Methodist local preacher. He has 
a pleasant home, is surrounded b}' an interesting 
family, and enjoys a quiet life with his wife, chil- 
dren and flowers. 

Judge William A. Townsend, one of Arkansas' 
most respected citizens, is a native of Alabama, 
where he was born in Franklin County in the year 
1853. He is a son of John \V. and Mary L. 
(Weatherford) Townsend, the former of Illinois 
and the latter from Alabama. The elder Town- 
send was reared and received his education in Ala- 
bama, where he also practiced medicine, and was, 
in his day, a prominent physician of that State. 
About the year 1855 he moved to Arkansas, and 
settled near Smithville, where he began the prac- 
tice of law. He lost his wife a year later, and re- 
turned to Alabama, where he remained until 1863. 
He again came back to Arkansas, and located in 
Lawrence County, where he resided and was or- 
dained a minister of the Baptist Church in 1870, 
serving until his death, in January, 1878. Judge 
W. A. Townsend is the second child in the family. 
He came to Arkansas when very young, and was 
reared in Lawrence County, where he was edu- 
cated. He was taught principally at the home 
schools, and was an apt and attentive scholar, 
though the higher branches of education were out 
of his reach, on account of the poor facilities ofPered 
at the time. He afterward taught school himself 
for three years, but in 1878, bought out an estab- 
lished business in Smithville, and has been actively 
engaged in mercantile affairs since then. He car- 
ries one of the largest and most complete stocks of 
merchandise in Lawrence County, and has built 
up a reputation for fair dealing and honest goods 
second to none in the State. This fact has brought 
him a trade of 115,000 a year, which is still 
growing. In 1876 Mr. Townsend was elected 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



ST, 



assessor, and served one term, .and in 1878 he was 
elected sheriff and collector, and served one term. 
In 1884 he was elected county judge, and in 1888 
was again chosen to fill that office. He also had 
charge of the postoffice at Smithville in 1878-79. 
Judge Towusend was married in Independence 
County October 31, 1880, to Miss Belle Toler, a 
daughter of J. B. Toler, and this marriage has 
given them three children: Neva, Roy and Mary, 
whose l)right faces and childish voices are a great 
source of happiness to the parents. Judge Town- 
send belongs to the Masonic order, and is a Master 
Mason. He is held in high regard by the entire 
community, and is a man of irreproachable honor. 
While performing his judicial functions, he gained 
a reputation for the fairness of his decisions, and the 
justness with which he wielded the law irrespective 
of ]>arty, creed or color. 

Francis M. Wayland, of the lirm of James & 
Wayland. dealers in general merchandise, is 
another name that will be rememlicred for years to 
come as belonging to a pul)lic-si)irited and progres 
sive man of this community. He was born in 
Lawrence County October 7. 1840, and is a son of 
Rev. Jonathan Wayland, of Vii-ginia. a noted 
])reacher of that period, who came to Arkansas in 
1815, and settled in what is now Lawrence County, 
with his father. Nevil Wayland. (irandfather 
Wayland died soon after his arrival in Arkansas, 
and Jonathan was thrown on his own r<>sources: 
lint though the prospects ahead of him at the 
time were very dark, he was never daunted in the 
least, and through thf troul)les and |)rivations of 
his early life he grew to manhood with the |)roud 
consciousness of having overcome all obstacles that 
had been thrown in his path. He was married in 
Lawrence County, to Miss Amy A. Kdily. of Indi 
ana. whose parents wore among the pioneers of 
Arkansas, and locat(>d with his wife on a farm near 
Powhatan, where lie resided until his death. He 
was a noted minister of the Methodi.st Episcopal 
Church, South, in tiiat section, and his sermons 
were often the occasion for drawing hundreds of 
people from the surrounding country. His loving 
and faithful wife died about the year 1870. some 
fifteen years before his own death, leaving besides 



her husband, two .sons and a daughter to mourn 
her. The elde.st of these children was Francis 
M. Wayland, who remained with his father until 
he reached his majority. He received agooil edu- 
cation at the common schoolfl of Lawrence County, 
supplemented by a course of study at the Academy 
High School, of Iron County, Mo. When througli 
with his schooling he commenced teaching in Law- 
rence County, and <'oiitinued at it until induced by 
the offer of a lucrative position at Powhatan, to go 
to that city. In 1879 he entered into mercantile 
life on his own res|)onsil)ility, and his eiiter[)riHi-, 
honesty in all transactions and untiring energy have 
I built uj) for him a large and well-established bnsi- 
j ness. This firm carry one of the largest and best 
selected .stocks of general merchandise in Lawrence 
County, besides dealing in lumber, and operat- 
ing a cypress shingle-mill, having a capacity of 
80,000 per day. They do a iiusiness of .^()(),()(10 
annually, with the different branches combined, 
and are well and favorably known throughout the 
entire county. In the month of October, ISfJN, 
Mr. Wayland was united in marriage to Miss 
Sarah K. IMatthews, of Georgia, and this happy 
union has given th(>m three children: Charles M., 
j assisting in his father's business, Katie and Nettie. 
They are members of thi' Methodist Episcnpal 
Church, South, and Mr. Wayland is supt^rintend- 
I ent of the Sabbath-school, a position he has held 
for the past five years. He is also a Royal Arch 
Ma.son, and is Warden of his lodge. Mr. Way 
land is one of those men who can look back from 
his assured and substantial position in the world 
to that time when, as a young man struggling 
through life with nothing but a stout heart and an 
honest character to .sustain him. he fought his way 
U[)ward, like the hero of Longfidlow's E.xcelsior, 
never stopping until he had reached the summit of 
his ambition. His career has been one that can be 
pointed out as an example for the younger genera- 
tion to follow, in order to be placed upon ns solid 
a foundation, antl it is of such men the luition 
shoiUd i)e conji>oseil, in order to draw the admira- 
tion of the worlil upon us. 
I John P. Wel)b was born and raised on a farm 
J in Coffee County, Tenn. His parents. John B. 



>^ 



828 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and Mary (Pearson) Webb, were natives of the 
same State, who moved to Arkansas in the fall of 
1858, and settled at a point seven miles west of 
Powhatan, where they continued to reside until 
the death of Mr. Webb's father in 1865, two years 
before the mother. Mr. Webb is the seventh of 
ten children, all of whom lived until their matur- 
ity, when four have since died. He remained on 
the farm with his parents until the disruption of 
the North and South, and gave up the plow and 
rake for the more deadly implements of war. In 
1862 he enlisted with Newton's regiment of cav- 
alry, and thereafter fought on several battlefields 
before the surrender. He took ])art in the battles 
of Helena and Alexandria on the Red River, and 
also at Little Rock, and was one of the followers 
of Gen. Price on his raids through Missouri. Af- 
ter the war had ended, he once more sought the 
peace of his home, and remained with his mother 
on the farm until his marriage, in the fall of 1866. 
He then located near the home place, where he 
resided until 1882, when he removed to Black 
River Bottom, near their present home. Here he 
put his energies into saw-milling for three years, 
and after that venture engaged in cotton -ginning. 
He moved to his present home in 1887, and com- 
menced farming, and has also established a thriv- 
ing business in general merchandise. Mr. Webb 
was married to Miss Asenath Denton, of Tennes- 
see, who died in 1871 after a happy wedded life, 
leaving seven children to mourn a mother's loss. 
Since then three of them have died. He was 
married a second time to Miss Rebecca Johnson, 
a young lady also from the State of Tennessee, who 
is now the mother of three children. The names 
of those by his first wife are William F. , Charles 
(deceased), Wiley J., John It., Chesley N., Mary 
(deceased) and Harvey (deceased). The children 
by his second marriage are Henry P., Matilda 
and Elisabeth. Mr. Webb and his wife are mem- 
bers of the Missionary Baptist Church, of which 
Mr. Webb is a deacon. He has also been a mem- 
ber of Dry Creek Lodge No. 453, A. F. & A. M., 
for the past sixteen years, but was a member of 
Rock Cave Lodge No. 347, this county, when Dry 
Creek Lodge was organized in 1886. Mr. Webb 



is a generous, public -spirited citizen, and one of 
the foremost to assist in pushing his county to the 
front. He takes an interest in all public and 
private enterprises, and is one of this section's 
most valued citizens. 

John H. S. Weir, a well-known resident of 
Dent Township, was born in North Carolina in 
1842. The parents of Mr. Weir moved west, and 
settled in Arkansas in 1845, locating at Old Jack- 
son, December 24. From there they moved to a 
point in Black River Township, where they have 
resided since 1846. James A. Weir, the father, 
has been one of the foremost citizens of this 
county, and a leading spirit in its affairs. He is 
one of the best-posted men in Northeastern Arkan- 
sas, and now, after a liusy and useful life, is living 
quietly with his children. The mother died. May 
23, 1885, a firm believer in the Seceder Church. 
Out of eight children six are living. The first four 
born were twins. Mr. Weir came to Arkansas 
with his parents when three years old. and has 
always remained in that State, excepting the time 
he spent in the late war. In 1862 he enlisted in 
Wells company, and soon afterward was dis- 
charged. He re-enlisted in R. C. Newton's Cavalry 
Regiment, of Little Rock, Ark., and served until 
1865, when he was paroled in Drew County. He 
took part in the battles at Mark's Mill and Poison 
Springs, in this State, but was principally sent out 
on skirmish duty. After the war he returned home, 
and worked on the farm until 1867, when he ac- 
cepted a position with William Jones, of Pow- 
hatan, who owned a general merchandise store, 
which was then sold to the firm of Stuart, Cravens 
& Balfor. On leaving the above business Mr. 
Weir entered school, where he studied diligently 
for ten months. At the end of his student days 
he met and married Miss Thirsey J. Moore, a 
daughter of Robert W. Moore, of Tennessee, who 
came to Arkansas in 1832, with his mother and 
stepfather. Mr. Moore was a representative citi- 
zen of this county in his day, and one of its most 
popular men. He died at the age of sixty-six 
years. When Mr. Weir first purchased his pres- 
ent place it was heavily covered with timber, but 
since that time he has put upwards of seventy-five 







s-mm 




J.H.M^.Gauqck. 

(qe ceased) 

Mississippi County, Arkansas , 



LA.\VEENCE COUNTY. 



829 



acres under cultivation, all of which has been done 
by the labor of his own liaadH. His mother-in- 
law is still living, and is a member of tli(> Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, South, which she has at- 
tended ever since her girlhood. She was boru 
near Huntsville, Ala., in the year 1819, and her 
first marriage was with Hezekiah Darter, of Vir- 
ginia, by whom she had one child, Charlotte. Mr. 
Weir and his wife have had seven children, two of 
them deceased. Their names are: Margaret E. 
(wife of Henry H. Rainwater), Eobert S., Mary L., 
Burett S., Moses N. , Clay C. and Laura B. They 
are both members of the Methodist Epi.scopal 
Church, South, and are zealous workers. Mr. 
Weir has been one of the school directors for a 
number of years, and is an active leader in public 
and private enterprises. 

George F.Weir, of Imboden, Lawrence County, 
was born in this county, in 1846. He is the son of 
James A. and Elisabeth (Sloan) Weir, who were 
among the earlier settlers of this State, locating here 
in the year 1845. Mr. Weir was born and reared 
on a farm, and remained at home until his twenty- 
fifth year, when he enlisted in the Confederate 
army in 1863, under Capt. Butler, and served 
until peace was established. He was one of 
the foremost in the raids through Missouri, under 
Gen. Price, and was engaged in some of the 
hottest work of that time. After the war was 
over he retiu-ned to his hom(>, and has since fol- 
lowed the occupation of a farmer. He was mar- 
ried, in 1871, to Miss Martha J. Smith, but lost 
his wife in December, 1S84; she had been a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for 
fifteen years. Six children were born to them — 
all of them living: Margaret R., James F., Wil- 
liam H., George R., Julia E. and Lenora L. Mr. 
Weir's second marriage was with Mrs. Charlotte 
Nation. They have one child, a step-daughter 
of Mr. Weir's, Ella V. Nation, and Mrs. \\eir 
has one daughter married, Mi-s. John StaiT, resid- 
ing in Dent Township. Mrs. Weir is a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. 
Weir is a Democrat. He has upwards of 100 acres 
of land under cultivation, and can be counted as 
one of the successful men of this county. 



Burett S. A\eir, postmaster, of the firm of Weir 
«& Matthews, is a native of Aikansas, and was born 
in Lawrence County, on the 'ilst day of December, 
1856. He is the son of James A. and Sarah E. 
(Sloan) Weir, both of North Carolina, who moved 
west and settled in Arkansas in 1845, locating at 
Old Jackson, in what is now known as Randolph 
County. From there he moved seven miles south, 
now in Lawrence County, where Mr. Weir estab- 
lished a home for his family, and lived until the 
death of his wife, in 1885. Mr. Weir, the elder, 
served with distinction through th(> late war, hold- 
ing the rank of lirst lieutenant, and took an active 
part in that portion of oui' country's history. 
After remaining with his father until he reached 
the age of twenty-eight years, Mr. Weir started 
upon a career of his own. He received the greater 
part of his education from the public schools, and 
is a self-made man in the true sense of that phrase, 
being a strong representative of what pluck and 
perseverance will do. On the 7th of June, 1883, 
he was united in marriage to Miss Eudora Perry, 
daughter Of William and Elisabeth Perry, and re- 
moved to Black Rock, where he occupied a position 
cif trust in a general store. In 1885 he entered 
into the grocery business on his own account, and 
continued in that business luitil 1880, when the 
present firm of Weir & Matthews was organizeil. 
Mr. Weir has held several local positions, and was 
appointed postmaster of Black Rock on the 14th 
of December, 1888, but has had charge of all busi- 
ness connected with the postoflSce since it was es I 
tablished in 1884. He is a member of the Knights 
of Honor and holds the uGice of Past Dictator. 
I Dr. John R. Wells, a successful and well 
■ known physician and surgeon of Powhatan, comes 
from a family of Arkansas pioneers. He was 
born in Lawrence County, Ark., Se|>tember 5, 
1838, and is a son of G. W. Wells, of the same 
State, whose father was one of its earliest settlors, 
coming here in the year 1807, and locating at what 
is now known as Ravendeii JuiictiuM, in fwiwrence 
County. G. W. Wells grew to mauliood, and was 
married, in what is now Lawrence Comity, his wife 
being Miss Nettie Stubblefield. of Cape fiiranleau 
j County, Mo., whose father C. S. Stubbleliehl, was 



'-^ 



830 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



also one of the pioneers of this State, and repre- 
sented Lawrence County at an early day. After 
his marriage Mr. Wells settled on a farm across 
the river, in this county, where he resided until 
his death, in 1840. Ho was a farmer and stock 
dealer, and shipped his stock to the Southern 
markets. His wife died in 1887, at the age of 
seventy-tive years, after rearing her family with 
all the care of a gentle Christian mother. Dr. 
Wells grew to maturity on the farm at home, and 
received a good common school education. He 
subsequently attended college for two years, at 
Springfield, Tenn., and in 1857 began the study 
of medicine at Jacksonport, Ark., under the care 
of Drs. Kirkwood and Matlock, both noted physi- 
cians of that period. He took his first course of 
lectures at the Memphis Medical College, in 
1858-59, and the following year completed his 
course at the University of Louisiana, one of the 
most celebrated schools of medicine in the South. 
He graduated from the latter place, in the spring 
of 18fi0, and came to Powhatan, where he com- 
menced to practice his profession. Dr. Wells has 
kept unceasingly at his practice, from the time of 
obtaining his diploma, to the present day, except- 
ing the period when he enlisted in the Confederate 
army during the war. He entered as a private, in 
the First Arkansas Regiment of Riflemen, but was 
soon after detailed as steward on the medical staff. 
In 1862 a new company was organized, of which 
he was made captain and assistant surgeon, and in 
that capacity served in Col. Baber's regiment until 
the close of the war. When the war was over, he 
returned home and resumed his practice, and has 
succeeded in building up a reputation in that sec- 
tion that is second to none. The Doctor was mar- 
ried, November 24, 1804, to Miss Nettie Stuart, 
of this county, a daughter of C. F. Stuart, and 
now has a family of five children: Laura G. .W., 
John L., Ada, and Frank Stuart, besides three 
children, who died in infancy. Dr. Wells and his 
wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and the Doctor is a member of the 
Masonic order, being a Master Mason. 

Frederick W. Westphal, the leading butcher 
of Walnut Ridge, was born in Pomvaigne, Ger- 



! many, November 7. 1844. He learned the tan 
ner's trade in his native country, and in 186'J 

'. came to Baltimore, Md. Mr. Westphal was de- 
sirous of seeing something of the country of his 
adoption, and shortly after his arrival at Balti- 
more, he went to Illinois, and thence to La Porte, 
Ind. , where he settled down for awhile, and worked 
on a farm. He then came to Chicago and wcwkcd 
at his trade, and afterward moved to Effingham, 
111., where he remained three months. His next 
visit was made to St. Louis, in the spring of 1878, 
and from there he came to the then small village of 
Walnut Ridge. In the second year of his arrival, 
he bought 160 acres of land, and has since that 
time homesteaded 160 more. He has also pur- 

i chased enough additional land to make in the ag- 
gregate 420 acres. His homestead is three miles 
due west of Walnut Ridge, and has on it a fine 
fruit orchard, and at least 125 acres under cultiva- 
tion. In the fall of 1887 he started in the meat 
business, and has succeeded in building up a good 
trade. He is a member of the Knights and Ladies 
of Honor, and Odd Fellows, and also of the Pro- 
testant German Church. Mr. Westphal has al- 
ways remained a bachelor, as the lady has not yet 
appeared to captui-e his heart. His mother re- 
sided with him until her death, January 5, 1887. 
He is a much respected citizen. 

Samuel Williams was born in Lawrence County, 
in 1845, and was reared in the same county. He 

! is the son of James and Sally (Rose) Williams, 
also natives of this State. Mr. Williams lost his 
mother when still very young, and his father died 
in the year 1888, leaving two children to survive 
them: Samuel Williams, and his sister Leah, the 
wife of George W. Goodwin, but now deceased. 
The father married again after the death of his 
first wife, his second bride being a sister to the 
first. This union gave them five children — three 
of them now dead, and those living are Margaret 
and Nancy, who are both married. Mr. Williams 
reached his maturity in this county, and, in fact, 
has resided here ever since. He is a man of lib- 
eral ideas, and has traveled extensively through 
the South, but, in the face of all his wanderings, 
still believes there is no place like home. He was 



LAWRENCE COUNTY. 



831 



a gallant soldier during the war, and did some 
excellent work in Coleman's regiment, which, as 
the advance guard, always brought on the engage- 
ment. He escaped without injury, the closest call 
he ever had being at Kansas City, where his horse 
was shot from under him. He surrendered at 
Jacksonport, June, 1865, and then returned home, 
where he commenced farming and trading in stock. 
In 1872 he was married to Miss Sally Brandon, of 
Tennessee, who came to Arkansas, a girl of eight 
years, with her parents. Mr. Williams and his 
wife have had eight children, three of them now 
dead. Those living are: Eebecca, Ashley, Clay, 
Roxien, William. The children who have died are 
Addie, George, and James Lacy. He and his wife 
are members of the Baptist Church, and are strong 
adherents to its teachings. Mr. Williams has eighty 
acres of fine land under cultivation which is the 
work of his own hands, besides 180 acres of tim- 
bered land, in all 260 acres. He is a Democrat. 
John E. Willmuth, elder of the Baptist Church 
at Hazel Grove, was born in Graves County, Ky. , 
in the year 1840. He is the son of Edmund and 
Mary (Edwards) Willmuth, of Tennessee, who lived 
in that State until their marriage, and fi-om there 
moved to Kentucky. Edmund Willmuth gave the 
greater portion of his attention to farming, but was 
also a carpenter by trade, and sometimes worked 
at shoomaking. He died when his son, John E. 
Willmuth, was a child, and his wife survived him 
but a few years after, consequently, young John 
knew but little of parental authority. This couple 
had ten children born to them, nine of them living 
until they had reached maturity, and four yet re- 
maining. John E. continued on the homestead 
tmtil his tw(>nty third year, and then married and 
located on a farm of his own. Since then he has al- 
ways lived within a radius of three miles from his 
present home. In 1861 he enlisted in the Con- 
federate army, becoming a member of Harrington's 
company, in McCarver's regiment, and served two 
months. His wife was Miss Lncinda Campbell, of 
Tennessee, a daughter of Alex. Campbell, a native 
of that State, and their marriage has been blessed 
with seven children, namely: William R., Sidney 
G., George W., Lawrence F., John W., Henry C. 



and Mary E. All of them are single, and reside 
with their parents, making one of the happiest 
homes in Arkansas. Elder Willmuth and his wife 
are members of the Baptist Church, and are among 
the most faithful workers in the fold. He has a 
splendid farm, and is the owner of a cotton-gin, 
built in 18S7, that ginned some 20S( bales of cotton 
the following year. He is a man of sound common 

, sense, whose word is always considered as good as 
his bond, and possesses the qualities that go to 
make up a valued and influential citizen. 

William J. Wilson, one of the leading mer- 
chants of Eavenden, was born in California, in 
1858. He is a sou of Capt. Isaac D. Wilson, whose 
birthplace was in Tennessee, but was reared in 
Arkansas, having come to this State and settled in 
White County, among the first arrivals. I. D. 

' Wilson grew to manhood in White County, and 
was married in Lawrence County to Miss Martha 
F. Estes. After their marriage they made a trip 
to California and remained several years, return- 
ing about the year 1855, and locating in Washing- 
ton County. Capt. Wilson held a commission in 
the Confederate army, and died in that service 
about 18()3, while gallantly defending his cause. 
William J. Wilson was reared in Lawrence and 
Sharp Counties, and cultivated the soil until the 
year 18S2, when he entered into commercial life at 
Williford. He remained here two years and then 
moved to Ravenden, where he formed a piu'tner 
ship with Mr. Ball, with whom he continued in 
business for the same length of time. He after 
ward went to Texas and purchased some land, and 
on his return was inactive until 1887, when he 
once more entered into business. He carries a 
large stock of gcMieral merchandise, and has estab- 
lished a line trade, enjoying an enviable reptita 
tion for fair dealing and honest goods. He also 
handles cotton to n consideralile extent, and is in 
terested with Mr. Ball in the erection of a cotton 
gin. Mr. Wilson was married, in 1S73, to Miss 
Mary Osborn. and tln»y are now the parents of six 
children: Isaac M., Martha A., Minnie, Alvin. 
Thomas and ToUie. Both parents are members of 
the Christian Church, an.l Mr. Wilson is a member 

, of the Masonic order, and is secretary of his l.Hlge. 



r 



832 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Illfiifi 



-4-+-5- 



Jackson County— Act of Creation— Seat of Justice Located— County Structures— Official Cata- 
logue—Votes AND Voters— The War of 1861-65— The Administration of Justice— Church 
Denominations Represented- School Matters Outlined — Names of the 
Early Settlers— The County Located— Topography— Streams- 
Timber— Soil— Resources— Property Valuation— Rail- 
roads— Population— Towns AND Villages- 
Personal Memoirs. 



The "good old times " — all limes, when old. are good- 
Are gone; tlie present might be, if they would; 
Great things have been, and are, and greater still 
Want little of mere mortals but their will. — Byron. 



hs:i*s 




ACKSON COUNTY was organ- 
ized in accordance with an act of 
the legishititre of the Territory 
of Arkansas, approved Novem- 
l)er 5, 1.S29. * As then consti- 
'■<: tilted it embraced nearly all of 
what is now Woodruff County. 
The latter was cut off in 1S62. By 
the act creating Woodruff, and 
other acts, the county has been re- 
duced to its present limits, as 
given in subsequent pages of its 
history. 

In 1832 the site for the per- 
manent seat of justice for the 
county was chosen at a place 
called Litchfield, which was on the Jacksonport 
and Augusta road, at the crossing of Village Creek, 
a point some two or three miles southeast of the 
present town of Newport. Here the county seat 
remained until 183U, when it was removed to 
Elizabeth, a point on the northeast side of White 
*Named in honor of General Jackson. 



River, about midway between the present sites of 
Jacksonport and Newport; there it continued until 
1S52, when it was removed to Augusta, which is 
now the county seat of Woodruff County. The 
next year, 1853, it was changed to Jacksonport, 
and there has since remained. It is predicted 
that its next and final removal will be to Newport, 
the largest town in the county, and the one having 
the greatest transportation facilities. 

A small frame court-house was erected at 
Elizabeth, but no county building was constructed 
at either of the other places where the seat of jus- 
tice was fixed until after it was removed to its pres- 
ent location, and not there until early in the 70' s, 
when the present, court hou8e_ was erected. This 
house was built by Col. J. A. Sehnable, the orig- 
inal contract being for .140,000. It is claimed, 
however, that it cost twice that amount by the time 
final payment was made. It is a very substantial 
two story brick structure, large and commodious, 
with halls and ofiices on the first fioor. and court- 
room above. A serviceable fire-proof vault, cost- 
ing, together with its burglar proof safe and other 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



HHH 



i'uniiture, iibout$2,S0(), hasrefiniitly bocii attached. 
Near the court-house stands a small, frame jailer's 
residence and a safe and com]>lote stone jail with 
iron cells. 

The county poor farm, consisting of forty 
acres, on which the jiaupers are supported, lies 
live miles north of Jacksonport. 

The following is a list of the names of officers 
of Jackson County, with the dates of their terms of 
service annexed, from its organization to the pre- 
sent time: 

Judges: Hiram Glass, l(S3()-32; E. Bartley, 
18<J2 33; J. llobinson, 1833-35; D. C. Waters, 
1835-36; John Rodby, 1836-38; D. C. Waters, 
1838-40; O. M. Stephenson, 1842-44; John 
Robinson, 1844-50; J. H. T. Webb, 1850-52; A. 
J. Langford, 1852-54; J. C. Johnson, 1854-56; 
H. D. Casey, 1856-58; J. C. Kirkpatrick, 1858 
62; A. J. Langford, 1862-68; T. J. Randolph, 
1868-72; J. W. Stayton. 1874-78; J. W. Phillips, 
1878-84; W. H. Jago, 1884-86; M. M. Stuckey, 
present incumbent, tirst elected in 1S8(). 

Clerks: J. C. Saylors, 1830-33; A. M. Car- 
penter, 1833-35; P. O. Flynn, 1835-36; J. C. 
Saylors, 1836-40; W. J. Haggard, 1840-42; 
Garlen Silvey, 1842-44; W. J. Haggard, 1844-46; 
A. Crow, 1846-48; A. H. Logan, 1848-52; W. R. 
Jones, 1852-54; D. C. Perry, 1854-5(); C. W. 
Board, 1856-58; R. R. Kellogg, 1858-68; Will- 
iam Akers, 1868-71; M. McCannany, 1871-74; F. 
R. Hargrave, 1874-76; H. C. Lowe, 1876-78; R. 
W. Bandy, 1878-84; J. J. Walker, present incum- 
bent, first elected in 1884. 

Sheriffs: Isaac Gray, 1830 35; James Roijiu- 
son, 1835-38; Isaac Gray, 1838-42; J. Robinson, 
1842-44; J. H. T. Webb, 1844-46; J. J. Waddle, 
1840-50; G. Silvey, 1850-54; R. Hudson, 1854- 
56; A. H. Logan, 1856^62; J. R. Jelks, 1862-64; 
L. R. Clay, 1864-66; J. R. Loftin, 186(; 68; R. 
Kinmau, 18<)8-72; H. N. Faulkinbnry, 1872-74; 
J. R. Loftin, 1874-82; T. S. Stephens, present 
incumbent, tirst elected in 1882, and served con- 
tinuously since. 

Treasurers: G. W. Cromwell, 1836-40; B. 
Bailey, 1840-42; J. Webb, 1842-44; J. C. Pngh, 
1844-46; J. R. Frost, 1846-50; John Cowdry, 



1850-52; L. R. Clay, 1852 54; A. H. Logan. 
1854-56; W. F. Mason, 1856 60; P. S. Wisdom, 
1S60-64; W. F. Young. 1864-68; A. J. Green- 
haw, 1868-72; G. Brandenburg, 1872 74; W. S. 
Shuford, 1874-78: W. H. Heard. 1878 80; W. S. 
Shuford, present incumbent, elected in 1880, re- 
elected and served continuously since. 

Coroners: M. Copolaud, 1830-32; Hiram 
Glass, 1832-35; J. Matthews, 1835-36; Samuel 
Matthews, 1836-38: Sam Allen, 1838 40: R. 
Montgomery, 1840-42; J. Williams, 1842 44; A. 
Crow, 1844-46; James Patten, 1846 48; I. Hamil 
ton, 1848-50: L. R. Clay, 1850-52; J. G. New 
bold, 1852-54; Charles McKinney, 1854-58; C. H. 
Jackson, 1858-60; J. L. Quiun, 1860 62: W. J. 
Sweat, 1862-64; A. J. (ireenbaw, 1864 66; W. 
H. Watkins, 1866-68; J. J. Green, 1868-72; 
George Gordon, 1872-74; R. O. Duffer, 1874-80; 
W. D. Shackelford, 1880-82; R. O. Duffer, 1882- 
84; R. W. Wallace, 1884-86; F. Harrison, 1886 
88; Thomas Nance, present iucumi>eut, elected in 
1888. 

Surveyors: ■bilni ivubinson, 1832-35; Hall 
Roddy, 1835-38; William Scruggs, 1840-42; J. 
Gibson, 1842-44; H. H. Pongur, 1844 46; William 
Hughes, 1846-48; Jesse Oats, 1848-50: John 
Towey, 1850-52; B. Ford. 1852-54: .). Mullin-. 
1854-56; J. C. Mullin.s, 1856-58: J. M. Miillms. 
1858-60; John Glass, 1860-62; J. K. Siddell. 
1862-64; Ignatius S])rigg, 1864 6S; B. F. Chand- 
ler, 1868-72; C. E. Brizzell, 1872 74; M. Hawk. 
1874-76; W. P. McDonald, 187fi 78; F. Simmons. 
1878 88; T. W. Jamison, present incumbent, 
elected in 188S. 

Assessors: ^\ illiam Brian. 1N6S 71; W. .1. 
Scott, 1871-72; F. W.Lynn, 1872 74; J. G. 
Bandy, 1874 76; G. C. Buford, 1876-80; J. R. 
West, 1880-81: J. S. Jones, 1884-88; F. R. 
Dowell, present incumbent, electeil in 1888. 

Representatives in con.stitntional conventions; 
John Robinson, 1836; J. H. Patterson, 1861; 
John Box, 1S61: W. H. Pickett.* 1868; Franklin 
Doswell, 1874. 

R. Tidwell was the first representative of tiie 
county in the council, and Morgan Magness and 

* Never preseat. 



V 



834 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



C. S. Manley the first rejiresciitativeH in tlio lioiise 
of tho Torritorial legislature. This was in 1S81. 

The votes cast in .Jackson County for the can- 
didates for governoi' and for president at the late 
elections will show its political aspect. They were 
as follows: At the September election, 1888, for 
governor, James P. Eagle (Dem.), 1,808; C. M. 
Norwood (Com. 0pp.), 1,200; at the November 
election, 1888, for president, Cleveland (Dem.), 
1,555; Harrison (Rep.), 842; Streeter (U. L.), 82; 
Fisk (Pro.), 5. 

At the approach of the Civil War of 1861-65, 
the people of Jackson County were found to be 
almost unanimously in favor of secession and the 
proposed Southern Confederac}'. The delegate 
elected to represent the county in the State conven- 
tion, held at Little Rock in March, 18()1, was in- 
structed to vote for secession of the State from the 
Federal Union. Eleven companies of infantry and 
cavalry and McCown's battery, about 1,200 men 
in all, were organized within the county for the 
Southern army. 

The companies were originally commanded, re- 
spectively, by Capts. A. C. Pickett, Harvey Wilson, 
O. Percell, Orm, J. H. Hunter, M. M. Bate- 
man, Robert Anthony, A. C. Hooker, J. H. Patter- 
son and others. No Federal troops were raised 
hero, and no fights worthy of mention took place 
within the county's boundaries. It was held alter- 
nately and over-run by the'contending armies, and 
much property was destroyed. A few little skir- 
mishes took place between scouting parties, and a 
few individuals were killed. The citizens suffered 
considerably for the want of provisions, and shared 
alike with those of adjoining counties, the hard- 
ships of ' ' cruel war. ' ' Numerous Union soldiers 
have settled here since the war, the effects of which 
struggle are rajiidly passing away. 

The first terms of the courts held in the 
county were early in 1830, at the house of Thomas 
Wideman, at the place now called Irwin, a flag 
station on the Batesville & Brinkley Railroad, five 
miles south of Newport. At this point the organ- 
ization of the county was completed, and the 
courts continued to be held there until the seat of 
justice was established at Litchfield, in 1832. 



Hiram Glass was the first county court judge, and 
J. C. Saylors the first clerk of the courts. Judge 
Thomas P. Eskridge convened the first term of the 
circuit court on Monday, May 3, 1830, and finding 
no business he immediately "adjourned to court 
in course. ' ' The next term began on the first 
Monday of November following, when the first 
grand jury was empaneled. This jury, after a 
short deliberation, reported ' ' no business found. " ' 
and were then discharged. No such report has 
ever l)een made since. At the third term of this 
court the grand jury found three indictments — the 
first against a man for bigamy, the second against 
a man and woman for adultery, and the third 
against a man for vagrancy. In the first case the 
defendant was "too much married," in the second 
the df^fendauts were "not enough married," and 
the third proves that there were "tramps" (va- 
grants) then as well as now. Judge Eskridge con- 
tinued on the bench until 1835, when he was suc- 
ceeded by Judge Archibald Yell, who in 1837 was 
succeeded by Judge Lewis B. TuUy. 

The county court of Jackson County convenes 
on the first Mondays, and the probate court on the 
second Mondays of January, April, July and Oc 
tober, and the circuit court on the fourth Mondays 
of April and October of each year. 

The legal bar of the county consists of the 
following named attorneys : William R. Jones, 
Franklin Doswell, Joseph M. Bell, J. W. Stayton, 
Joseph W. Phillips, L. Minor, A\'. A. Monroe, 
Isaac T. Davis, M. M. Stuckey, O. W. Scarborough, 
J. M. Stayton, Gustave Jones, C. F. Greenlee and 
F. M. Lamberton. 

The county's criminal record is comparatively 
small. One white man and two negroes have been 
legally executed since the close of the Civil War 
for the crime of murder, and two colored men have 
been taken from the jail and hanged by a lawless 
mob. During the war period a niimber of murders 
were committed by roving bauds of soldiers and 
others, who took advantage of the circumstances of 
the times. 

The leading religious denominations within 
Jackson County are the Methodist Episcopal, 
South, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Chris- 



*n^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



88,- 



tiau. The Methodists have three stations — New- 
port, A. M. Branson, pastor, witli a membership 
of 11 T); Jackson port, W. K. llntledge, pastor, mem 
berslii[> alxint ninety, and Auvergue, W. R. Foster, 
pastor, with a membership of sixty-three ; also 
Titckerman circuit, E. M. Davis, pastor, and 
Weldon circuit, R. M. Manloy, pastor. The 
former of these circuits embraces two or more 
appointments with an agijreijjate membership of 
sixty three; and the latter, three or more appoint- 
ments, with an aggregate membership of 112. 
Seven Sunday schools are reported with these 
churcli organizations.* 

Of the Baptist Church organizations there are 
Pleasant Valley at Aiivergne, Elder J. I. Martin, 
pastor, with a membership of seventy-four; Oak 
Grove, Elder John Ball, pastor, membership nine- 
teen; Hickory Grove and Litchfield. Elder F. M. 
Brannon, pastor, membershij), respectively, eighty- 
two and eighteen, and Pleasant Hill, the latter 
having only a small meml)ership. All of these 
belong to the AVhite River Valley Baptist Associa- 
tion. 

There is only one Presbyterian Church organi 
zation in the county, the one located at Newiwrt. 
It was organized January 29, 1S82, by Rev. Dr. 
Long of Batesville. The pre.sent pastor is Rev. 
Richard B. ^\ illis, of Searcy, and the membership 
is nineteen. 

Of the Christian Church, there are within the 
county the following named organizations: Shiloh, 
Surrounding Hill, Grand Liike, oneatMcCullough's 
School house on Departee Creek, Rol)inson'sChapel, 
Hopewell, one in Richwood Township, one eight 
miles southeast of Newport, one three miles east of 
Tuckerman, and Swifton; the whole having an 
aggregate membership of al)out 5(10. Elder Ritch 
erson preaches at Shiloh, Surrounding Hill and 
Robinson's Chapel; Elder S. Bowman at Hopewell; 
Elders Townsend and Mills at and near Swifton, 
and Elder J. G. Connor at a point three miles east 
of Tuckerman. 

In addition to the foregoing there is one Epis 
copal Church in the county, located at Newport, 
Rev. Coursan, of Little Rock, officiates as rector. 

*Stati8tic8 mostly from last Uonfereiice minutes. 



The educational facilities of .lackson ('(juntv 
are best shown by the following statistiiis, taken 
from the rejiort of the State superintendent of 
public instruction, for the year ending June :i(). 
LSSS: Scholastic population — white, males l,74(i, 
females l,5fl5, total 3,:U1; colored, males Tyfil, 
females o4S, total 1,115. Number of pupils 
taught in the public schools — white, males 1,122, 
females 1)28, total 2,050; colored, males 407, fe- 
males 3S2, total 789. Numi)er of school districts 
31; number reporting enrollment 24; number vot 
ing local tax 20; number of teachers erajiloyed, 
71; average monthly salary of teachers— first 
grade, males, 150; females, $45; second grade, 
males, .'542.50, females $37.50; third grade— males, 
$35, females $30. Amount expended for the sup- 
port of the free schools — teacher's salaries, $18,- 
015.47; treasurer's commissions, $405.35, total 
$18,480.82. These statistics, if fidl and correct, 
would show that only a little over sixty-one per cent 
of the white, and a little over seventy per cent of the 
colored scholastic population, were taught in the 
public schools; this, however, is not correct forth(> 
reason that the number of pupils att(>nding schocil 
in seven of (lie thirty-one districts were not re- 
ported at all. The State school system is very 
defective. A school law should compel fidl and 
complete statistical reports showing all of its opera- 
tions, proving itself adequate to meet the demands 
of the cause of education. The wages paid teachers 
is sullicient to secure good talent, and the amount 
of money expended for the public schools, if prop- 
erly a|)plied under a more efficient school system, 
would bring about ijetter results. Jackson County, 
however, makes a far more favorable showing in 
respect to her schools than many other counties 
within the State. 

Auvergne Academy is a private enterprise, ami 
was established in 1S85 at the |)rogressive town 
of Auvergne. by the re(piest of the leading citizens 
of that place and vicinity. The Academy building, 
which is a large two story frame, was en«ct<»d in 
1885, by D. W. Bristol, of Beebe, under the man 
agement of Dr. G. D. Clements and R. M. Laird. 
The property was purchased June 22, 1888, by D. 
L. Paisley aTid \. L. Blake, now the jirincipals 



4 



Air 



836 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of the faculty of the Academy. The town of 
Auvergne is high and rolling, free from mud and 
malaria, and the school is strictly moral, but not 
sectarian. It is open to lioth sexes. More ex- 
tended mention of this institution is made in sub- 
sequent pages. 

The settlement of the territory now composing 
Jackson County began some time prior to 1830, 
the date of its organization, but by whom or just 
when the first settlement was made can not be 
definitely stated. The following named persons 
who composed the first grand jury of the county 
were, as a matter of course, prominent pioneers 
here: Nicholas Copeland, Dudley Glass, Jesse 
Gray, Jacob Haggerton, Michael Haggerton, Silas 
T. Glass, Samuel Stokes, Joseph Haggerton, 
Elijah Bartley, Holloway Stokes, John Teagne, 
John Flannery, Jacob Flannery, William Melton, 
John James, Martin Copeland, Martin Bridgeman 
and Redding Stokes. Some of tlie.se, perhaps, 
lived in that part of the county since cut off in the 
formation of Woodruff County. John Wideman, 
at whose house the first courts were held, the Cope- 
lands and Newton Arnold, were the first settlers in 
the neighborhood of what is now Irwin Station, 
on the Batesville & Brinkley Railroad. George 
Hatch and a Mr. Daugherty were the first to 
locate at Newport. 

Alexander, George, William, Samuel and John 
Robinson, five brothers, and their cousin James 
Robinson, all from Tennessee, togethei' with George 
Crummel and several others, with their families, 
located in 1831 in the neighborhood of Litchfield. 
The Grays and Stokes were the first settlers in the 
southern pait of the county, a Frenchman, Shave- 
naugh by name, Dunbar and the Hollenheads, 
were amotjg the first in the northern part, and 
Thomas T. Tunstall and Samuel Reid were early 
residents at Jacksonport. About the year 1833 or 
1834, the Robinsons l)oiight a steam-boat, the 
"Mount Pleasant,"' with which they carried on a 
trade for several years following, between their 
landing at Newport and New Orleans. [For the 
names of other pioneer settlers see the early 
county officers and biographical sketches.] 

The county lies in Northeast Arkansas, and 



is bounded on the north by Lawrence, east by 
Craighead, Poinsett and Cross, south by Woodruff 
and AVhite, and west by White and Independence 
Counties. It has an area of ()50 square miles, of 
which only about one fifth is improved. There are 
some government lands in the county subject to 
homestead entry, and some State lands subject to 
donation, and about 30,000 acres belonging to the 
St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway 
Company; the remainder is owned by individuals. 

The boundary lines of the county are as fol- 
lows: Beginning on the fifth principal meridian, 
where it is intersected by the township line divid- 
ing Townships 14 and 15 north; thence south on 
the meridian line to the point where it is inter- 
sected by the township line dividing Townshi|)s 
8 and U north; thence west on the township line 
to the range line between Ranges 2 and 3 west; 
thence north on the range line to the township 
line dividing Townships U and 10 north; thence 
west on the township line to the range line between 
Ranges 5 and 6 west; thence north on the range 
line to the township line dividing Townships 10 
and 1 1 north ; thence east on the township line to 
the range line between Ranges 3 and 4 west; thence 
north on the range line to White River; thence 
down White River, following its meanders, to the 
mouth of Black River: thence up Black River, 
following its meanders, to the point where it first 
crosses (in its downward course) the township line 
dividing Townships 14 and 15 north; thence east 
on the township line to the place of beginning. 

Jackson County is situated in the valleys of 
White, Black and Cache Rivers. White River, 
after forming a short portion of the boundary, 
enters from the west at the town of Jacksonport, 
and flows thence in a general southeasterly direc 
tiou to Newport, and thence a little west of south 
until it crosses the southern boundary, in the middle 
of Range 4 west. It is a most magnificent river, 
and is navigable throughout the year to points far 
north. Black River, as has been noted, forms 
about one-half of the western boundary of the 
county, and empties into White River just above 
the town of Jacksonport. It also is a beautiful 
stream, very deep, and is navigable during all the 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



ss-; 



year for a considerable distance. Cache River 
makes its appearance near the center of the 
eastern boundary, and tlows thence west of south, 
passing out at a point aljout eight miles west of 
the southeast corner. Village Creek enters the 
county at a point about two and a half miles west 
of its northeast corner, and flows in a southerly 
and southwesterly direction, and empties into 
White River about four miles south of Newport. 
Departee Creek, from the north, runs in a south- 
erly direction across the eastern part of Township 
10 north. Range 4 west, and empties into White 
River below. These, the principal streams of the 
county, and their tributaries, furnisli its entire 
drainage. Cache River, and some of the smaller 
streams are extremely slow and sluggish. In that 
region lying east of Black and White Rivers there 
are several small lakes or bayous. Some good 
springs are found here, though they are not so 
numerous as in a more hilly country. Cisterns 
and wells are in general use, and the supjjly of 
good water for all purposes is abundant. 

That part of the county lying west of Departee 
Creek, emliracing about one and a half ('ongres- 
sional townships, is hilly, while the balance is com- 
paratively low and level; the farming lands l>or- 
dering on White River being elevated some six 
to eight feet above the Cache tlats. The best 
farming lands embrace that portion of country 
lying between Village Creek and ^\'hit(< River, 
occupying a low ridge rising several ff't't aljove the 
adjacent flats, and elevated about tea feet above 
high water of White River, and that portion of 
the Oil Tiough Bottom extending into the County 
of Independence. This latter tract is situated in 
the bend of White River, south of Jacksonport and 
west of Ni^wport. The low ridge dividing the 
waters of Villag(j Creek and White River has a 
siliceous soil and sul)soil of seven feet, under which 
is a stratum of tough yellow clay, eighteen feet in 
thickness. These are underlaid by a light colored 
sand, the thickness of which has not lieen ascer- 
tained; this sand forms the sub-stratum, alTording 
unfailing supplies of excellent pure water, and is 
reached In' sinking wells from lifteen to thirty feet. 
The soil of the " lirst bottoms," or the lowe.st 



valley lands, is composed of alluvial deposits and 
vegetable mould, and that of the higher lands in 
made up of sjuid, clay and vegetalile mould, anil 
all, (excepting some portions of the hilly and ridg<( 
lands, are exceedingly rich and fertile. The low 
lands along the streams and bayous support a 
growth of large timber, gam, cypress, ash, pin oak. 
hackberry, sycamore, cottonwood, elm, etc.. wlii!.- 
the higher lands al)ound in l)lack. wiiitf and |)i>st 
oak, l)lack walnut and some hickory. Tiie growth 
on the liilly lands consists of aev(>ral varieties of 
oak and some hickory, while the summits are cov- 
ered principally with l)lackjack oak. There is yet 
an unlimited supply of good timber. No mineral 
is claimed to exist here. Aside from the malaria 
cau.sed by stagnant surface water in the extensivi' 
forests, the county is comparatively healthy. Tiic 
malaria disappears in proportion as the country is 
cleared of its forests and the lands are drained. 

At present the lumber industry is a leading 
source of income to individuals, and as the supply 
of timber seems almost inexhaustibli- it will .so con 
tinuo for many years. One stave factory, thirteen 
sawmills and a planing-mill are in operation. Th<f 
lnml)er is extensively shi|)ped to the manufacturing 
cities of this country and also of Europe. Cotton, 
corn, oats, wheat, millet and potatoes ar«< the prin- 
cij)al products of the soil, and with proper culti- 
vation the lands will produce per acre from 800 
to 1,500 pimnds of seed cotton, thirty to sixty 
bushels of corn or oats, and fifteen to twenty-five 
bushels of wheat. Clover and tlic seed gra.sses 
succeed well, but they are not as yet I'xtensively 
cultivated. All varieties of fruit c(>mmon to this 
latitude can also be raised in great excellence and 
abundance, but horticulture has not received much 
attention. In ISSO tiiere were 1.282 farms within 
the county and 48,4ii7 acres of im|)roved lands, 
from which the yield of products for the previous 
year were as folKnvs: Cotton, 18,SS)r> bales; Inilian 
corn, 384,898 bushels; oats, (i.MlHt; wheat. 7,415; 
hay. inO tons; Irish jiotatoes, 4.*140 l>nshels: sweet 
pt)tatoes, 7.2:l'.t liushels; tobacco, 4.7!lO pounds. 
The United States census of 1W)0 will nndoubtedly 
show the ])roducts of the present yt>ar (ISSit) to b.- 
more than double these amounts. 



838 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



The climate being so mild and the water 
supply so abundant, this locality is well adapted 
to the raising of live stock, but little winter feed- 
ing being necessary. According to the census re- 
ferred to there were within the county 2. 192 horses, 
1,118 mules and asses, 11,246 neat cattle, 1,343 
sheep and 18,006 hogs. The assessment rolls of 
1888 show that the county then had 3,036 hor.ses, 
1,506 mules and asses, 15,171 neat cattle, 1,202 
sheep and 13,429 hogs — a noticeable increase from 
1880 to 1888 in horses, mules and asses and cattle, 
a small decrease in the numl)er of sheep, and a 
large apparent but not real decrease in the number 
of hogs. A liberal income can be derived by de- 
veloping the horticultural advantages hereabouts. 

In 1880 the real estate of Jackson Ooirnty was 
assessed for taxation at $1,029,404 and the per- 
sonal property reaching $366,091, making a total 
of !{! 1,935, 495, and the aggregate amount of taxes 
charged thereon was 127,389. In 1888 the real 
estate assessment was $2,146,781 and personal 
property, 1753,179, making a total of $2,899,960, 
upon which the aggregate amount of taxes charged 
was $49,320.55. These figures indicate that since 
the year 1880 the taxable wealth of the county 
has more than doubled in value. This increase is 
due mainly to the building of the railroads and 
the consequent rapid development of resources in 
the community, the railroad property itself adding 
to the assessment the sum of $615,856. 

The main line of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain 
& Southern Railway enters the county about three 
miles west of its northeast corner and runs thence 
in a southwesterly direction by way of Newport and 
other points — its length within the county being 
thirty- six miles. The Batesville branch of this 
railroad departs from the main line at Diaz, two 
miles north of Newport, its length within this 
territory lieing live miles. The Batesville & Brink- 
ley Railroad enters eleven miles west of the south- 
east corner and runs mostly in a northern direction 
to Newport, thence northwesterly to its present 
terminus at Jacksonj)ort, a distance of twenty-two 
miles. The total number of miles of main line of 
railroads within the county is sixty- three. 

The aggregate population of Jackson County 



since its organization, as shown by various United 
States census reports, has been as follows: 1830, 
333; 1840, 1,540; 1850, 3,086; 1860, 10,403; 
1870,7,268; 1880,10,877. During the first de- 
cade the population nearly trebled, during the 
second it doubled, and during the third, it more 
than trebled. Then, in 1862, nearly half of the 
territory was set off in the formation of Woodrufif 
County, which accounts for the reduction of popu- 
lation from 1860 to 1870. On account of the rapid 
immigration since 1880 the population at this writ- 
ing undoul)tedly equals 15,000 or more. The 
colored population of the county in 1870 was 
1,612, and in 1880, 2,763. It is now estimated 
at 3,000. 

Auvergne, on the Batesville & Brinkley Rail- 
road, fourteen miles southeast of Jacksonport, con- 
tains a postoffice, two general stores, a drug store, 
grist-mill and cotton-gin. a blacksmith and wood 
shop, puldic school-house, railroad depot, and 
some other establishments. The population is es- 
timated at 200, and it does a large amount of trade. 
It is also the site of Auvergne Academy. 

Campbell is a station on the St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern Railway, five miles north- 
east of Newport. 

Denmark, in Barren Township, in the e.xtreme 
sovithwestern part of the county, has two grist 
mills, a general store, blacksmith shop, post office, 
etc. 

Grand Glaize, also on the Iron Mountain Rail- 
way, fifteen miles southwest of Jacksonport, com- 
prises a saw mill, postoffice, railroad depot, and a 
general store. 

Irwin, a station on the Batesville & Brinkley 
Railroad, live miles southeast of Newjiort, has a 
small collection of houses. 

Jacksonport, on the north bank of White River 
just below the mouth of Jack's or Jacque's Creek, 
the present county seat, was established about the 
year 1839, l)y Thomas T. Tunstall, who in com- 
pany with Samuel Reid, opened the first store in 
the place. It contains the county buildings, three 
general stores, a drug store, a family grocery, a 
steam, saw and grist-mill, three church edifices — 
one for the white peo])le and two for the colored; 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



\M 



two public school houses, a livery stable, a cabinet- 
maker and undertaker' s shop, two restaurants, and 
a number of mechanics' shops. The population is 
estimated at 500, and is about equally divided be 
tween the whites and blacks. Before the day of 
railroads — or before they were constructed through 
this part of the country — Jacksonport did a flour- 
ishing business, but the building up of Newport at 
the crossing of two railroad lines, has interfered 
somewhat with its business. This is a desirable 
and excellent site for a town. 

Newport, the largest town in .lackson County, 
is situated on White lliver. at the junction of the 
St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern and the 
Batesville & Brinkley Railroads, eighty three miles 
northeast of Little Rock, and three and a half 
miles southeast of Jacksonport. It has within it 
two banks, eight general stores, ten family grocery 
stores, five drug stores, two hardware stores, an 
undertaking store, a harness store, a merchant 
tailor store, two millinery and dressmaking estab- 
lishments, a music store, two jewelry stores, two 
book and stationery stores, a photograph gallery, 
a livery stable, five restaurants, four hotels, two 
bakeries, marble works, three saw-mills, with 
lumber yards attached, three planing-mills, a car- 
riage factory, an extensivt! stave factory, foundry 
and machine shops, a complete system of water 
works, a capacious ice factory, a largo cotton com- 
press, commodious railroad depots and ware- 
houses, an important cotton seed warehouse (form- 
erly the oil mills,) opera house, three church 
edifices, pnljlic school houses, a telephone system 
forming communication between various points, 
a ferry across White River, many mechanics' shops, 
a full supply of doctors, lawyers, notaries public, 
iusnnince agents, etc. Two weekly news]>apers, 
both Democratic in politics, are also here; the 
Jackson County Herald, successor to the Jackson- 
port Herald, which was estal)lished at Jacksoni>ort 
in 1858, is a seven-column folio, published every 
Saturday by T. T. Ward, editor and proprietor. 
The Newport Weekly News is an eight column 
folio, published every Friday by J. J. Flahiff, edi- 
tor and proprietor. It was established in 187:^. 
and was the first paper published in Newport. 



Both of these journals al)ly advocate the interests 
of the community. In addition to the foregoing, 
Newport contains many other industries worthy 
of mention. The town was estal)lisiied and named 
soon after the settlement began, but remained 
only a small village until 187'J, wheti the St. 
Louis, Iron Mountain it Sontiiern Railway was 
completed. Its growth then coniineijced and il 
has been almost entirely built sinci' that date. 
It has lodges of several secret and l)enevolent 
societies, is incorporated and has its complement 
of cor])orate officers. It is a flourishing town, 
very advantageously located for manufacturing 
purposes, having two good railroads and u river 
navigable for large vessels. The lumber and 
timber traflic on the river has readied extensive 
proportions. The population of tiie |)lace is esti 
mated at 2,500. 

Olyphant is a station on the St. Louis, L-on 
Mountain & Southern Railway, eight miles south 
west of Newport. It has a railroad depot, jji^^t 
office, two general stores and a saw mill and cot 
ton gin. 

Swifton, also on the Iron Mountain Railway, 
twenty miles northeast of Jacksoni)ort. contains a 
po.stoffice, a steam grist-mill and cotton gin, two 
general stores, one dry goods and grocery store, 
two groceries, two hotels, a school-house, mechan 
ics' shops, etc., and a population of -about 150. 

Tuckerman, on the Iron Moinitain Railway. 
ninety-one miles northeast of Little Rock anil 
eight miles north of Newport, is comprised of a 
post-office, three general stores, two groceri<>s, two 
drug stores, two blacksmith and wood shops, one 
hotel, two boarding-houses, a school-house, a 
church, two saw-mills and cotton-gins coniliined, 
and has a population of 150. 

Tupelo is a station on the Batesville »t Brink- 
ley Railroad, twenty two miles south of Jackson 
port. 

Wehlon. on the Batesville \- Hrinkley Kail 
road, eighteen miles south of Jacksonport, con 
tains two general stores, two groceries, one hotel, 
postoffice, etc. 

Ceuterville (postoffice Keiiyon) lies in the 
northern part of Bird Township, foiirt«en uiiloH 



840 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



north of Newport, and contains one general store, 
two groceries, two cotton-gins, a blacksmith shop 
and school-house. There are a few other post ham- 
lets in the county, having a store, postoffiee, etc. 



R. W. Anderson, one of the pioneer merchants, 
and a highly esteemed resident of Jaeksonport, 
was born September 12, 1846, in the State of Ohio. 
His parents, John and Jane (Kerr) Anderson were 
both natives of Dublin, Ireland, who emigrated to 
America about the year 1880, and located in Penn- 
sylvania, from which State they moved to Ohio, 
and from there to Iowa, about the year 1850. In 
September, 1859, they came to .Jaeksonport, Ark., 
where the father died on February 28, 1888, the 
mother preceding him in 1887. They were the 
parents of nine children, of whom only one svir- 
vives — Roliert W. The father was a Pre.sbyterian 
minister, and had been ordained in Ireland. He 
preached the gospel up to within a few years of his 
demise, and was one of the most intellectual and 
scholarly men that ever spoke from a pulpit at that 
period. He afterward left the Presbyterian and 
joined the Methodist faith, and was also engaged 
for some years in mercantile life at Jaeksonport. 
His son, Robert W., was born in Ohio, but princi- 
pally raised and received his education in Iowa. 
He was still quite young, however, when his par- 
ents moved to Jaeksonport, and lie there received 
the higher branches of education from his father. 
The commercial instinct was early in life developed 
in Robert, and he was brought up behind the 
counter from a boy. The training he received in 
his young days was well calculated to tit him for a 
mercantile life, and his after career reflected the 
highest credit on himself and his father, who had 
instructed him. He has one of the largest and 
best stocked stores in the city, and owns about 480 
acres of land, most of which is under cultivation, 
and is adapted to almost any growth, the soil being 
a rich, sandy loam. Mr. Anderson has been twice 
married, his first wife l)eiug Miss Mary A. Jones, 
by whom he had four children, three of them yet 
living — John, Fannie, and Lizzie. The first wife 
died, and Mr. Anderson married a second time. 



being united to the next wife in 1884, who was 
Miss Ella Nixon, of Indiana. This union gave 
them four children (of whom three are living): 
Robert W. (deceased), Robert W., Pearl and Allie. 
Mr. Anderson is a Royal Arch Mason, and a mem- 
ber of the Knights of Honor. He was one of the 
first men to start in business at Jaeksonport, and 
his fortitude and pluck in struggling through the 
adversities of a young business venture and coming 
out victorious have won for him the admiration and 
respect of his fellow -merchants and citizens. 

Samiiel Anthony, farmer and stock raiser, is a 
native of Missouri, but came to Arkansas in 186(t. 
He remained but three or four months, when he 
returned to Missouri, and after a short time again 
returned to Arkansas, Jackson County, in 1861, 
where he remained until the following autumn, 
and then enlisted in the Fourteenth Regiment of 
Arkansas Volunteer Cavalry, serving as a scout for 
about two years. In 1863 he organized a com- 
pany of scouts, reported to Gen. Sterling Price, 
then stationed at Little Rock, Ark. , and served to 
the end of the war as captain of that company. 
In 1866 he purchased 240 acres of land, partially 
improved, adding by subsequent purchases, until 
he now owns 720 acres, on which he raises all 
kinds of produce known to American agriculture. 
September 12, 1872, he married Miss Mary A.Par- 
mer, a native of Tennessee. They have had eight 
children, four of whom are still living: Emma 
(burn in October, 1874), Ethel (born February 6, 
1883), Katie (born May 25, 1885) and Edgar (born 
August 15, 1887). Mr. Anthony is a member of 
Buck Skull Lodge No. 101, A. F. & A. M. Our 
subject's father was a native of Virginia, as was 
also his grandfather; he married Miss Unica Shep 
herd, a native of Missouri. Mr. Anthony's mater- 
nal grandparents traveled on foot from Georgia to 
Missouri, locating in the southeastern part, near 
Cape Girardeau. 

Adam Bach, an enterprising merchant, and the 
postmaster at Jaeksonport, was born in Hessen, 
Germany, on the 1st of March, 1863, and is a son 
of Conrad Bach, a native of the same place, who 
was a shoemaker by trade, which occupation he 
followed in Germany, previous to coming to Amer- 



5) \ 



ica. The father had two children by his first wife: 
Adam and Lizzie; the latter was married to G. A. 
Lockard. Ho was married a second time and had 
four children by the next wife: Margaretta, Morie, 
Conrad and Peter. Adam, the eldest son, was 
reared in Germany and completed his studies at 
Gross-Rohrheim College, from which he gradu- 
ated in 1878. He shortly afterward sailed for 
America, taking passage at Bremen, and landed at 
Baltimore, going from there to Tell City, Ind. , 
where he attended school for eight months in order 
to learn the English language. In the spring of 
1879 he came to Jacksonport, and was there em- 
ployed by his uncle Peter, with whom ho remained 
until the year 1882, when he embarked in business 
for himself.^ Since then he has been successful, 
and become very prosperous, making an enterpris- 
ing merchant and a valuable citizen to his adopted 
country. He was appointed postmaster in 1884, 
and his intelligence and many fine qualities would 
fit him for almost any other position or business in 
which he might enter. He is also a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. Peter Bach is a well-known 
and retired merchant of Jacksonport, who was 
born in Hesse- Darmstadt, Germany, on November 
4, 1835. He is a son of Peter and Margaretta 
(Crow) Bach, both natives of the same province, 
the father dying when his son was but two years 
of age. The mother, however, is .still living at the 
ago of eighty-one years, and came to America in 
1882. There were throe children born to the par- 
ents: John S. , Peter and Conrad. Peter was 
reared and educated in the homo college, and 
learned the barber's trade in his native place, an 
occupation he followed for four years. In 1853 
ho sailed for America, taking jjassage in France, 
and landing in New York City after a twenty- 
sovou days' voyage on the ocean. From New York 
ho wont to Cincinnati, whore he was employed at 
his trade for some time, and then found employ- 
ment on the Empire No. 3, a steamboat plying up 
and down th(> Mississippi. He remained on this 
vessel about six months, and then came to Jackson- 
port, where ho has resided ever since. On May 5, 
18r)l. he enlisted in Company G, of the Fir.st 
Arkansas Regiment, and served until a short time 



before the surrender. He took part, in all the Ijat- 
tles of his regiment, and was severely wonii.led at 
Atlanta. Ga., from which place he was taken to 
the Macon Hospital, and hovered between life and 
death for three months. He was furlougliod in 
1804, and went to Alabama, and in bSG") rcturnod 
home to Jacksonport. Mr. Bach is now practically 
retired from business. He is (juite pros[)oroii«. 
owning about 2,0r»() acres of valual)lo land and a 
tine residence at Jacksonport), besides interests in 
various industries. He was married, in 1805. to 
Miss Jennie Hndson, who has boon a devoted wife 
and helpmate to him. Mr. Bach is a Royal Arch 
Mason, Knight Templar, Kniglit of Pythias, and a 
member of the American Legion of Honor. 

G. W. Bandy, farmer and stock raiser. Tuck- 
erman. Ark. It is a fact unnecessary of denial 
that a person is better fitted to follow the occu|>a- 
tion with which he became familiar in early life, 
than to engage in an undertaking learned in later 
years. This truth is Iiorno out by the career of 
Mr. Bandy, who from a boy has known all the 
minute details of agricultural life. To this ac 
(juired knowledge may be added a natural faculty 
for that calling, for his father, Richard Bandy. 
was also a farmer. The latter was a native Vir- 
ginian, but emigrated to Tennessee when a l)oy, 
grew to manhood on the farm in that State, and 
there married Miss Keziah Pearce, by whom he 
had four children, only one, G. W. Bandy, now 
living. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, 
under Gen. Jackson, and afterward received land 
warrants, which he sold. His second marriage was 
to Miss Lucy Rushing, a native of Tennessee, antl 
they had four children, only one living, Amanda, 
now Mrs. John M. Glass, who resides in Glass 
Township, Jackson County, Ark. Mr. Bandy 
moved to Bird Township, Jackson County, Ark., 
in 1853, where he purchased eighty acres of land, 
with ten acres cleared. He died in 1854. His 
wife died in September. 1887, at the age of eighty- 
three years. G. W. Bandy was born in Sumner 
County, Tenn., in 1827, and as before stat<>d, was 
reared to the duties ou the farm. He received a 
fair education in the schools of his native comity; 
and in Bedford County, Tenn., in 184(5, Miss Dm 



842 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



cilia Salina Mitchell Perry, a native of Bedford 
County, became his wife. Her parents, Wiley and 
Letitia (Gentry) Perry, were natives, respectively, 
of North Carolina and Tennessee. Mr. Perry was 
a farmer and tanner, and made Bedford County his 
home until his death, in 1868. His wife had died 
previously, in 1867. Grandfather Allen Perry 
was in the Revolutionary War, and Grandmother 
Perry went to New Orleans to enter the fort for 
protection. G. W. Bandy after marriage settled 
in his native State, followed farming until 1850, 
when he came to Arkansas, landing at Jackson- 
port on the 25th of December, 1850. One year 
later he went to Izard County, purchased a claim, 
but the same year sold this and moved to Jackson 
County, Ark., where he purchased an eighty-acre 
tract with twenty acres in tillable shape. To the 
original tract he had added from time to time un- 
til he owned 280 acres with 100 acres cleared. 
Later he sold this and invested in 320 acres, unim- 
proved, set out an orchard, erected a cabin and 
otherwise improved his farm. He now owns 840 
acres, with 450 under cultivation, and has a great 
many tenants. He raises principally on his farm 
cotton and corn, and has 200 acres in cotton yearly. 
He is also engaged in raising stock, and on his ex- 
tensive meadows may been seen many fine horses 
and mules. He is a Democrat in politics, and 
is active in school matters, and represented the 
school interests of Bird Township as trustee. He 
has two school-houses on his land, donated for 
buildings, one for white and one for colored chil- 
dren. Socially, Mr. Bandy is a member of the 
Masonic order; was made a Mason in 1848, at 
Marsh Hill Lodge No. 144, Rutherford County, 
Tenn. He is now a member of Lunenberg Lodge 
No. 190, A. F. &A. M. , at Lunenberg, Izard Coun- 
ty, Ark. Mr. Bandy was charter member of Kirk- 
patrick Lodge No. 102. In 1865 he moved to 
Lunenberg, Izard County, Ark. , for the purpose of 
educating his children, live in nnmber, as five were 
deceased. Those living are named Richard W., 
now married and resides at Tuckerman; William 
A. , married and resides in Comanche County, Tex. ; 
George O. , married and resides in Bird Township; 
Jane, now Mrs. Conditt, resides in Bird Township, 



and Lucilla, at home. Mr. Bandy has been active 
in his support of worthy enterprises and contributes 
liberally to all. He is practically a self-made man, 
having made all by his own industry. 

A. P. Bateman, merchant, Elmo, Ark. Nowhere 
in this section of the county is to be found a more 
wide-awake, thorough-going business man than 
the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. 
Born to the union of Simeon D. and Mary (Con- 
naly) Bateman, on the farm where he now lives, in 
Jackson County, August 6, 1859, A. P. Bate- 
man has ever since been a resident of this county. 
His father, Dr. Simeon D. Bateman, was born in 
Tennessee in 1829, and emigrated with his father to 
Independence County, Ark., in about 1832. They 
located seven miles west of Sulphur Rock, and 
here Simeon D. was reared and educated. At the 
age of fifteen years he began the study of medi- 
cine and graduated at New Orleans Medical Col- 
lege some time later. He first began practicing 
in Independence County, and afterwards moved to 
Jacksonport, where he administered to the phys- 
ical wants of his fellow-men for thirty years. By 
his marriage to Miss Mary Connaly, a native of Ar- 
kansas, he became the father of eight children — 
six now living: Charles T. , Alice J., widow; 
Albert P., Nora C. (deceased). Savannah, David 
L., Mary and Susan. The grandfather of these 
children, Bonniah Bateman, died near Sulphur 
Rock, Ark. He was an old Mexican soldier, and 
was a military man most of his life. He was also 
a member of the legislature for several years, and 
the governor gave him the prize for the nicest suit 
of jean clothes to be found in the senate. He was 
a very matter-of-fact, stern man. A. P. Bateman 
attained his growth and received his education in 
Jackson County, and, being brought up on the 
farm, naturally his inclinations turned that way, 
after he had reached years of discretion. In 1884 
he also engaged in merchandising and this busi- 
ness he still carries on. He is successful and is a 
substantial business man. Charles T. was also 
reared to farm labor, and received the principal 
part of his education in the common schools. 
For several years he was engaged in teaching 
school, but the balance of his time was occupied 



^^ 



.^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



843 



on the farm. He was married, in 1877, to Miss 
Panthia Long, who died in 1882, and the re.sult of 
this union is two living children: Hattio and Mil- 
lie. Mr. Bateman was married the second time, in 
1884, to Miss Annie J. McGoffin, by whom he has 
three children: Annie, Emma and Fannie. Mr. 
Bateman is a member of the Masonic fraternity. 

William H. Beede, farmer and stock raiser of 
Cow Lake Township, residing five miles southeast 
of Lay ton, was born in Orange Couiity, N. Y., in 
1837, being the son of Addison C. Beede, of Ver- 
mont, and Elizabeth (Weygant) Beede, of New York 
nativity. William H. received his education partly 
in the public schools of his native county, and 
finished his education at Newburgh. At the age 
of seventeen, he was apprenticed to the carriage 
workers' trade, to Mr. Theodore Weygant, High- 
land Mills, Orange County, N. Y. At the break- 
ing out of the late war, he was working at his 
trade in Germantown, Tenn. ; he enlisted in the 
Thirteenth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, Confed- 
erate States Army, participating in the battles of 
Belmont and Shiloh, and after one year was 
discharged on account of physical disability. Re- 
turning to Tennessee, he worked at his trade, till 
he came to Arkansas, in 1867; that year he bought 
280 acres of land in Woodruff County, about ten 
acres being cultivated; he at once commenced 
improving and clearing the land, building stables 
and cribs, besides a log house. He remained there 
one year, when he came to Jackson County, pur- 
chased 100 acres of land, only eight being under 
cultivation. Since that time he has cleared and 
improved the land, and erected a good fi'ame 
house, and other buildings. He now owns 550 
acres of hind, 140 of which are under cultivation, 
having deeded KiO acres to his eldest son, after 
his marriage. August 20, 1867, Mr. Beede mar- 
ried Miss M. J. Nance; they have had nine chil- 
dren: Julane N., born July 11, 1868; Jasper 
Newton, born September 3, 1869; William W., 
born September, 1870; Macy, born February 28, 
1874; Joseph A., born May 0, 1875; Francis W., 
born March 2, 1877; Fletcher H., bom September 
19, 1880; Eugene A., born November 4, 1882, and 
Amelia Viola, born September IS, 1883. Mi\ 



Beede is a great friend to education, and whs the 
first school director in Cow Lake Township, and 
for four years the only one, and since 1874 had 
been superintendent of schools for the State. There 
are now four hee schools in Cow Lake TownHhiji. 

C. Biggers, planter and stock raiser of Bird 
Town.ship, was born in Randolph County, Ark., in 
1845, the fifth in a family of seven. His jiareuts 
were natives of Tennessee, and came to Randolph 
County in an early day, the father dying when our 
subject was young, the mother still surviving, in 
Baxter County, Ark. The subject of this sketch 
was raised on the farm, receiving a very limited 
education, and in 1804, at Pocahontas, enlisted in 
McCray's brigade, Crammond's regiment, for one 
year. At the battle of Pilot Knob he received a 
gun-shot wound, which prevented further service, 
and he returned to Jackson County, Ark., where, 
the same year, he married Elizabeth (Ridley) Con- 
ditt, widow of John A. Conditt. He then rented 
land, commenced farming, and in 1877 bought 
eighty acres of timber-land, which he has improved 
and added to, until he now owns 1 60 acres. 1 1 M) 
under cultivation, averaging about fifty acres a 
year in cotton, which is the principal product. He 
also raises some stock. They have a family of six 
children: Sarah A. (now Mrs. Tinsley, of Bird 
Township), Samuel E., James Henry, Thomas 
Calvin, Richard Franklin and William Richard. 
Mr. Biggers is a Democrat, and has been a mem- 
ber of the school board, taking an active interest 
in school work. He has seen a vast change in 
Jackson County, and has done his share toward 
opening it up and developing it. Mr. Biggers has 
made what he has by his own individual efforts, 
and takes an interest in everything for the welfare 
of the county. 

Oliver Blackburn, general farmer and .stock 
raiser, was born in the town of Cash. Jaekson 
County, in 1847, sou of William and Mary (John- 
son) Blackburn, the father a native of North Car- 
olina, who married in Alabama. The subject of 
this sketch married Miss Wilkiu.son, a uativo of 
Jackson County, Ark., and they have had three 
childi'en: Lydia, born in \X~\. married .\. W. 
Pariah in 1887; Harriet Emma, born in ISTI. at 



A 



844 



HISTORY OP ARKANSAS. 



liome, and Lyda, born in February, 1882. Mrs. 
Blackburn's father died in 1859, and -wasbm-iedin 
the family cemetery, on Sections 17 and 18. Mr. 
Blackburn, like all native-born Americans, is an 
ardent lover of his native State, and has witnessed 
great changes, having been an active participant 
in the development of the country. As early as 
Mr. Blackburn can remember, the market for the 
farm produce vpas Elizabeth, and game being 
plenty, many pelts and skins of animals adorned 
the fences and barn, which found a market at Jack- 
soiiport. Our subject now gives his attention to 
raising cotton and mules. While he has not had 
the best educational advantages, he has always 
been a friend to education and progress. 

J. C. Bleakley is a planter and stock raiser of 
Auvergne. His parents were William C. and 
Catherine Bleakley, of North Carolina. Mr. 
Bleakley came to the southern part of Arkansas 
before the war, where he married, after which he 
came to Jackson County and bought what is now 
the Pickett farm. Later he moved to Hempstead 
County, where he raised his family, and where our 
subject was born, October 20, 1854. The family 
consisted of nine children, four of whom lived to 
be grown — William, died at the age of twenty- 
one; J. C, Mary, wife of Charles Harris, now the 
wife of George Johnson, farmer of Oil Trough Bot- 
tom; and Robert, a farmer. The father, a conserv- 
ative man politically, died in 1865, and the mother 
in 1874. They were both members of Missionary 
Baptist Church. J. C. .spent his boyhood days on 
his mother's farm, and at the age of eleven years 
began its management. He was his mother's main 
stay, and assisted his brothers and sisters in get- 
ting an education, sending bis sister one term to 
the high school at La Crosse. In 1868 he sold his 
property in Hempstead County, came to Jackson 
County, and bought forty acres of land, which he 
began clearing and improving, and on which he 
has since resided. In 1877 he bought 120 acres 
adjoining, and now has 115 acres under cultivation, 
south of Auvergne, raising corn and cotton. In 
November, 1876, he married Miss AbertineClanton, 
daughter of Javison and Dulciana (Morris) Clan- 
ton, of South Carolina and Georgia, respectively, 



who came to Union Township, Jackson County, in 
1871. Her father died in 1882, but the mother, 
still surviving, resides in Union Township. She has 
three brothers — William, John and Thomas, farm- 
ers in Faulkner County, and a sister, Georgia, 
wife of John E. Manger, farmer, of Faulkner 
County. Mr. Bleakley' s family consists of five 
children living — Oscar, Lulu, Lina, Crawford, 
Claude and Georgia; Clyde died in childhood. In 
addition to this family, they are raising and giving 
a home to Idle, Willie and Eva Nelson, children 
of a widow, one of his tenants, whose dying wish 
was that they should raise her children. Mr. 
Bleakley has a pleasant and comfortable home, 
and has seen a great many improvements in this 
community. He and his wife are members of Sand 
Hill Baptist Church. He is a Democrat, but con- 
servative. He is a most enterprising farmer, rais- 
ing horses, cattle and hogs. He is always active in 
the interest of all public enterprises for the welfare 
of the county. 

John Boen is the only child of Thomas and 
Sallie (Leonard) Boen, both natives of Tennessee, 
and of Scotch and English descent, respectively. 
Thomas Boen came to Arkansas from Tennessee in 
the fall of 1845, and located on Sections 14 and 
15, in the township now known as Cache, purchas- 
ing from the United States Government 320 acres 
of heavily-timbered land, upon which he built a 
log cabin, and as he chopped down the trees made 
rails to fence the land. At the time of his death, 
which occurred in 1857 or 1858, he had seventy 
acres cleared and under cultivation, and his farm 
well stocked with cattle and hogs, wolves prevent- 
ing the raising of sheep. His first wife dying 
when John was biit an infant, Thomas Boen, in 
1847, married Mrs. Nancy (Kirldand) Mackey, by 
whom he had two children: James Wesley, now 
married, and residing on our subject's farm, and 
Andrew J. , who died in 1877, at the age of twenty- 
seven years. John Boen was married, in 1S59, to 
Miss Catherine Mathering, a native of Tennessee, 
and to them have been born two children, viz. : 
Henry J., born November 12, 1861, is a farmer, 
and resides near his father; be married Miss Callie 
Ragsdale, of Arkansas, May 2, 1886, and they 



:7i'. 



Lave oue cbikl, Lena, about two years old. Jubu 
R. Boen was bora February 4, 1865, and was mar- 
ried, September 1, 1887, to Cyatliia Luiiley, who 
has borne two children, one, Laura Belle, dyin" at 
the age of two months; the other, Thomas JefPer- 
son, is one month old. He is also a farmer, and 
owns a farm in Breckiuiidge Township. Mr. John 
Boen came into possession of forty acres of land 
throni,'h his wife; he now owns in all 3'20 acres of 
laud, about 125 acres of which are under cultiva- 
tion; corn and cotton are his principal crops, and 
his farm is well stocked with horses, cattle and 
hogs of good grade. Mr. Boen is interested in all 
matters tending toward the advancement of relig- 
ious and educational interests, and is in every re- 
spect an enterprising farmer of Jackson County. 
Mrs. Boen is a member of the Christian Church. 

Henry Bordwell, one of the leading citizens of 
Jacksonport, was born in Ontario County, N. Y. 
His parents were John and Abigail (Travis) Bord- 
well, the former a native of Massachusetts, who 
emigrated to New York at an early age, and 
located at Chautauqua Lake, where he resided 
until his death. After the demise of the father his 
family moved to Ontario County. They were the 
parents of three children, of whom Henry is the 
only one living. Henry was reared and received 
his schooling in Ontario County, N. Y. In 1858 
he moved to ■ Arkansas, and located in Jackson 
County, where he has since resided. When the 
Civil war commenced he enlisted in Company B, 
Eighth Arkansas Regiment, and during the battle 
of Shiloh was severely wounded in the ankle by a 
rifle ball. To add to his misfortune, he was cap- 
tured and taken prisoner to Louisville, and from 
there to Camp Chase, where be was closely con- 
fined for about four months. He was then taken 
to Vicksburg, where he was exchanged and re- 
turned home. Mr. Bordwell has been actively en- 
gaged in business up to within a few years, and 
during that time has acquired a comfortable fortune 
upon which he is entitled to retire. He owns con- 
siderable town property in Jacksonport, and, al- 
though not in active commercial life, he is wide- 
awake to the interests and development of his 
county, and is always ready to give his valual)K> 



assistance for that cause. He is an old resident of 
Jackson County, and has watched its growth from 
infancy up to the present, and can recount many 
interesting incidents of the various changes that 
have taken place during his stay. 

Dr. li. L. Boyce, physician and surgeon, 
Tuckerman, Ark. Dr. Boyce is recognized 
throughout the county as a friend of and laborer 
in the cause and advancement of the medical fra- 
ternity. He is a native of Ralls County, Mo., 
born in 1832, and is the fourth in a family of six 
children, born to Richard and Elizalietb (Foreman) 
Boyce, natives of the Blue Gra-ss State. Dr. 
Boyce was reared to farm labor, and in 1849, when 
but seventeen years of age, he was seized with the 
gold fever and started with an oxteam to cross the 
plains to California. He was three months in 
making the perilous trip, and after reaching that 
State was engaged in mining until 185'J, when ho 
returned to Ralls County, Mo., quite well satisfied 
with the result of his visit to the Golden State, 
after which ho engaged in cultivating the soil, and 
in 1854 entered the State University at Columbia, 
Mo. , taking a literary course. H(^ subsetjuently 
entered the St. Louis Medical University, graduat- 
ing from that institution in the spring of 18(50. 
He first began practicing medicine in Macon 
County, Mo., in 1857, where he remained until 
1859, entering the St. Louis Medical University, 
graduating _at the dates stated above. Then 
moving to Bird Township, Jackson County, Ark., 
he purchased a farm near Elgin, and began a 
systematic course of fertilizing and cultivating tlio 
soil. At the breaking out of the late contlict, he 
enlisted, in 1801, in Lawrence County, and was 
regimental surgeon in Col. Adams' regiment. Col. 
Shaver's brigade, and under Gon. Hindnian, but 
part of the time served as brigade surgeon. He 
remained in service until 1803, when he returned 
to Jackson County, and resumed the practice of 
medicine, which he has followed ever since. He 
has been actively engaged in faruiiug and having 
it carried on, and is now the owner of 320 acres of 
good land, with 160 acres in tillable condition. 
He has contrilmted more than any other man to 
the introduction of fine st(«'k in his neiglilMirhoml. 



t 



846 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



He brought the first Durham and Berkshire stock 
into that part of the county. The Doctor is quite 
active in politics, and votes with and is a supporter 
of the Democratic party. Socially, he is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity. In his religious con- 
viction he adheres to the Presbyterian Church, and 
is a liberal contributor to the same. He is deej)ly 
interested in educational matters, and is at present 
a member of the school board. His parents emi- 
grated to Missouri at an early period, settling in 
what is Ralls County, where the father tilled the 
soil for many years. He was quite an active man, 
politically, was county judge of Ralls County, 
quite a number of years, and was a good and use- 
ful citizen. He served in the War of 1812 from 
Kentucky, under Old Hickory. He died in 1869, 
and his wife, previously, in 1867. Their family 
consisted of the following children: James, the 
eldest, first settled on a farm in Missouri, later 
moved to Texas, locating near Bastrop, where he 
tilled the soil until his death, in 1859; Aaron, mar- 
ried, settled also in Texas, before it was part of 
the United States, having many fights with the 
Indians and narrow escapes, and there his death 
occurred in 1850; Nicholas, was also a pioneer of 
Texas, and died in 1858. A. W. Boyce, brother 
of the Doctor, came to Jackson County, with his 
family in 1884, and settled on a farm where the 
subject of this sketch resides, and there died in 
1886, leaving a widow and two bright and promis- 
ing children, son and daughter — the son holding 
a responsible position among the county officials— 
E. L. and Lucia. R. L. Boyce, the subject of 
this sketch had four sisters, all of whom married 
men of some distinction, and all have joined the 
silent throng, that are passing on before. 

Thomas Britt, planter and stock raiser, son of 
Alexander and Nancy (Prauat) Britt, natives of 
North Carolina, came with his parents from Mis- 
sissippi, in 1848, and located on Section 23. He 
was born April 10, 1842, in Mississippi, and re- 
ceived his education in the private schools of that 
time. In 1863 he entered the Confederate serv- 
ice in Col. Gaw's Regiment Arkansas Volunteer 
Infantry, was captured in the hospital at Little 
Rock, in September, 1863, and sent to Camp Mor- 



ton, Indianapolis, Ind. , where he remained till 
the close of the war, arriving home May 13, 1865. 
His father was wounded in battle, from the effects 
of which he died; the mother died in 1805. Com- 
ing into possession of all his father's property by 
will, Thomas took possession of the homestead, and 
at once commenced cultivating the land, which was 
in bad condition, but little of the farm having been 
cultivated during the war, and only fifty of the 
300 acres being cleared. August 11, 1868, Mr. 
Britt maiTied Miss Anna Combs, a native of Ala- 
bama, and whose parents came to Arkansas in 
1852; their children were Julia M., (born July 6, 
1870), Iduma (born March 7, 1873, deceased), Ida 
(born October 2, 1875), Alice (born July 29, 1880), 
Luvena (born May 7, 1878, deceased), Jacob L. 
(born March 4, 1883) and John F. (born August 
29, 1885). In 1872 Mr. Britt erected the com- 
fortable house in which he now lives. He has 
upon his place a steam cotton-gin, also grist-mill 
and barns. Being an early settler, he remem- 
bers well when the only grist-mills were turned by 
hand, when the meat was obtained fi'om the forests, 
and when wolves and bears rendered it almost im- 
possible to raise sheep and hogs. He is a member 
of the Missionary Baptist Church, and his wife of 
the Methodist. He is a Democrat, and has been 
justice of the peace, and although not an educated 
man himself, his children have received the advan- 
tages of the best schools in the neighborhood. 

Emma (Anthony) Buford, of Union Township, 
Jackson Countj% resides three miles south of New- 
port, upon the farm which her husband owned and 
improved, and upon which he died. May 28, 1889. 
Mrs. Buford is a native of Madison County, Mo., 
of which State her parents wore also natives. Sep- 
tember 4, 1873, she married William Buford. and 
the same year they located on the farm in Jackson 
County, Ark. , which has ever since been her home. 
They had four children, viz. : May Buford, born 
July 21, 1874; Maud Buford, born September 29, 
1877; Bertha Buford, born July 26, 1882, and 
Homer, born February 5, 1886. The maternal 
grandfather of Mrs. Buford was of German de- 
scent, and Mr. Buford' s maternal grandfather, 
George Nifong, lived to be eighty-eight years of 



^l 



JACKSON COTJNTY. 



sr 



ug(% r«taiuiug to the last full possession of all his 
faculties. Mr. Buford projected many plans for 
the improvement of hin farm, which his sudden 
death prevented him from carrying out, but Mrs. 
Bnford has taken up the management of the farm, 
and is completing her husband's plans. The place 
now contains 4'20 acres. Mr. Buford was an en- 
terprising farmer, a kind neighbor and affectionate 
husband, and in his death the county was deprivonl 
of a most exemplary man. The following pream- 
ble and resolution was adopted by the White River 
Stock Breeders' Association, at a meeting in June, 
ISSU, and appeared in the columns of the Newport 
News, issued June 7, 1889: "William Buford 
died at his home, May 28, 1889, and it becomes 
our duty to give formal expression to the sorrow of 
our association at the loss of so valuable a mem- 
ber. The mere mention of his name is sufficient 
to recall to the minds of surviving members more 
vividly than any words the uprightness and recti- 
tude of his conduct, which earned for him the high 
standing he enjoyed as a citizen, and as a valued 
member and acquisition to the White River Stock 
Breeders' Association. Plain, sincere and honest 
was William Buford, and as treasurer of the asso- 
ciation, to which position he was elected one year 
ago, he was prompt and fully alive to its interests. 
Dead — and where now are those e.aruest, loving eyes. 

Which kindled in so many eyes the light? 
Have they departed from our earthly skies 

And left no ray to illuminate the night? 
Shall man thus die and waste away 

And no fond hope be left? 
Is there no sweet, confiding ray for bosoms all bereft? 

Yes, yes, an earnest trust. 

Resolved, That a page of our records be suita- 
bly inscribed and set apart, sacred to his memory, 
and that a copy of this memorial be furnished his 
family, with our deepest, warmest and most loving 
sympathy." The resolution was unanimously 
adopted by a standing vote. 

Thomas J. Burton, postmaster at Layton, was 
born in Mississippi, March 15, 1847. His parents 
were Thomas F. and Nancy (Burton) Burton, who 
came to Arkansas in 1869. The father was born 
in Halifax, Va., in 1808, and the mother in Rock- 
ingham County, N. C, in 1808. In their family 



there were seven children: William F., Jolin A., 
Sarah Jane (wife of S. J. Moore), Mary S. (wife 
of D. A. Kiml)rongh), Henry J. and Thomas J. 
The father died in 1878, the mother in 1879. The 
subject of our sketch received his education in 
Kemper Comity, Miss., and made his first purchase 
of land in 18(59, on Sections 2f5 and 27, in Caclie 
Township. There were 220 acres in the tract, thir- 
ty-five of which were under cultivation, and fenced 
with rails. Thomas cleared twenty acres more, 
and erected a good double-box house, hauling lum- 
ber from Augusta, Woodruff County, a distance 
of twenty miles, and paying §20 per thousand. 
At various times Mr. Burton has cleared fifty acres 
of land. At the age of sixteen, Thomas J. enlist- 
ed in the Confederate service, served two years, 
participating in all the battles from Resaca to At- 
lanta, leaving Hood's army at Dalton, on his re- 
turn to Tennessee, after the campaign at Atlanta. 
He was in Gen. J. E. Johnston's army at the time 
of the surrender, at Gainsborough, in April. 
1865, and still has in his po-ssession the parole re- 
ceived at that time. In 1878, in partnership with 
Mr. D. A. Kimbrough, he opened a stock of general 
merchandise at Layton (now Bower's Ridge), and 
continued till 1882, when he sold out to his part- 
ner. In 1885. after farming three years, he again 
engaged in business with Mr. Hite, but in Jan- 
uary, 1889, Ml-. Kimbrough bought Mr. Kite's 
interest. In connection with this he carries on 
his farming enterprises. Mr. Burton's first wife 
was Miss Narcie Otey, of Arkansas; they had one 
child, Augustus, born June 22, 1873. Obtaining 
a divorce, in 1874, they separated, and December 
2, 1879, Mr. Burton married Miss Ada Murphy. 
They have had four children: T. Ewing, decea.sed; 
Beenie, born June 21, 1883; Willie May. Iwru 
January 5, 1885; David Henry, born April 2, 
1888. Mr. Burton is now the owner of eighty 
acres of land. His wife is a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. He has 8erve<l three 
terms as justice of the peace in Jackson County, 
Ark. . or for six years. 

George D. Camp, farmer and fruit raiser, of 
Jackson County, was born in IMttaylvania County. 
Va., September 30. 1S30. being a son of William 



■»P> 



^t 



848 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



H. Camp (German descent), of Virginia, and Cath- 
erine (Whitehead) Camp (French descent), also of 
Virginia. May 7, 1852, he married Miss Maria 
Ferguson, of McCraekon County, Ky., whose par- 
ents came from Khode Island. By this union 
they had two children: Luther R., now of Perry 
County, Ark., and Catherine F. (married Will- 
iam F. Hammond, and died in 1881). Mrs. Camp 
died June 15, 1806, and he again married Mrs. 
Martha (Nance) Robertson, who had two chil- 
dren : William Jesse Robertson and Martha A. By 
his second wife Mr. Camp has eight children: 
George Washington, born September 28, 1861; 
Nancy J. Camp, born May 10, 1863; Sarah E., 
born May 29, 1865; Doctor Dick Camp, born April 
10, 1867; Daniel L., born March 23, 1869; John 
H., born December 24, 1870; Laura Jane, born 
January, 1873; Mary A., born December 24, 1875; 
and Martha H., born February 8, 1880. Mrs. 
Camp died October 6, 1886, and Mr. Camp mar- 
ried Mrs. Missouri Crabtree, who had one child, 
Eva Blair, by her drst husband, who lives with her 
stepfather. Mr. Camp learned the carpenter's 
trade, tiuished it in 1853, and engaged in the busi- 
ness for three and a half years, when he com- 
menced farming. After coming to Arkansas he 
leased a farm belonging to the estate of John Jones, 
at the expiration of which lease he moved upon the 
present farm, which has since been his home. He 
bought the land of the State of Arkansas at sev- 
enty-five cents per acre, and with will and deter- 
mination commenced clearing and improving it. 
Mr. Camp now has fifty- live acres of land under 
cultivation, seven acres being in orchard, contain- 
ing apple, peach, pear and fig trees, he having the 
largest and finest variety of fruit in Arkansas, in 
which he takes a just pride. Mr. and Mrs. Camji 
are both members of the Christian Church, and 
Mr. Camp has always been a friend to religious, 
educational and social advancement, and by strict 
and honest dealing, has earned the reputation of 
an honest man. What higher tribute can be paid 
his name ? He well deserves a place in the pres- 
ent volume. 

Jarrett Record Carter, a planter and stock raiser 
of Jaekson County, was a son of Kinchen and 



Cazar (Johnson) Carter. The father came to Ar- 
kansas in 1849, bringing seven children with 
him, five remaining in Tennessee. He died in 
1851, leaving his widow and children almost desti- 
tute. The wife died in 1868. The subject of our 
sketch, born January 26, 1840, educated himself, 
and, although having little learning, is shrewd, in- 
telligent and liberal in business affairs, and in all 
things for the advancement of his State. Li 1863 
he purchased a tract of twenty-three acres of land, 
on which was a small hut, where he lived ten or 
twelve years, renting land and farming, and accum- 
ulating means, until at the present time he owns 
253 acres, about 100 under cultivation. He has 
good dwellings and barns on the place, and such 
improvements as ai-e necessary, together with a 
small orchard. In 1863 Mr. Carter married Mi-s. 
Melissa (Benson) Jones. His second wife was 
Mary Jane Sutherland. Of the family there are 
these living children: Bettie, born March 12, 1873; 
Sarah, born October 2, 1874; Jarrett R., Jr., born 
January 17, 1877; Mabel, born September 5, 1883; 
and Rosenell, born October 17, 1885. Mr. Carter 
has taken the degree of Fellow Craft, A. F. & A. 
IVI. , and intends to advance at the first opportunity, 
sickness having prevented. He is a member of the 
Christian Church, and a friend to religrious and 
educational advancement. 

Col. J. W. Clark, a prominent planter and 
stock raiser of Glass Township, Jackson County, 
was born in Madison County, Ala., in 1833. His 
parents were Thomas and Esther (Moore) Clark, 
natives, respectively, of South Carolina and Ala- 
bama, who had seven children, of whom J. W . 
was the third. Thomas Clark, who was also a 
farmer, removed to Madison County, Ala., in an 
early day, where he operated a large plantation 
and spent the remainder of his life, his death oc- 
curring in 1849; his widow survived until 1855. 
The paternal grandfather of our subject, who was 
also named Thomas Clark, was a soldier of the 
Revolution, and died in Alabama, at the advanced 
age of one hundred and twelve years. His wife 
lived to be one hundred and eight years old. Col. 
J. W. Clark was reared and educated in his native 
county. He learned the blacksmith's trade, and 



his first experience at farming for himself was in 
his native State. In 1857 he went to Gibson 
County, Tenn., where he was employed as an over- 
seer until November, 1860, when lie removed to 
Jackson County, Ark., locating near the present 
site of Swifton, on what is now known as the Har- 
ris place, where he remained one year. In 1801 
he enlistinl in Company B, Thirty -first Arkansas 
Mounted Riflemen, spending the early part of that 
winter in Central Arkansas, recruiting soldiers; 
the following March he went to Memphis. He was 
made major of the First Regiment, promoted to 
lieutenant colonel, and subsequently became colo- 
nel of the Thirty-second Arkansas Infantry. He 
took part in the battles of Richmond, Murfrees- 
boro, Perryville, Mansfield, Dickens' Ferry, Pilot 
Knob; was with Gen. Price on his raid through 
Missouri; thence south in Arkansas, to Fayette- 
ville; thence to Jacksouport, whore, June 5, 1805, 
he surrendered the Forty-fifth Arkansas Infantry. 
At the close of the war Col. Clark returned to Jack- 
son County. December 25, 1864, he was married 
in Calhoun County, to Mary S. A. Moore, daugh- 
ter of Leroy and Mary (Culp) Moore, of Alabama, 
who removed to Calhoun County at an early day. 
The father died some years ago, but the mother 
now resides in Jackson County. Mrs. Clark died 
in 1879, and January 1, 1882, Mr. Clark married 
the wi<low of Dr. A. J. Jones, whose maiden name 
was Lavina Elizabeth Heard, a daughter of Bailey 
and Margaret (Milner) Heard, natives of Ken- 
tucky and Virginia, respectively. Mr. Heard still 
resides on the homestead in White County, upon 
which he settled in 1851, owning considerable 
land in that county. His wife died in 1874. After 
his marriage. Col. Chirk l)ought a timber tract of 
200 acres, upon which ho erected a house and 
cleared and improvt^d some of the land. He now 
owns 1 20 acres, of which about ninety acres are 
imder cultivation. He devotes considerable atten- 
tion to stock raising, especially cattle. Ho also 
raises cotton largely. He is an active Democrat, 
has been magistrate and notary public, and brought 
before the county court the petition to form Glass 
Township, which he named. Ho is also a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, and he and wife 



are members of the Methodist Kiiiscopal (Church, 
South. 

Uriah Cole, farmer and stock raiser, and the 
oldest living settler in Bird Townsliip, was born in 
Middle Tennessee, Humphreys County, in 18^5, 
and was the fifth in a family of ton born to James 
and Martha (York) Cole, natives of North Caroliiui 
and Tennessee, respectively. The father, when a 
boy, emigrated to Tennessee, thence to Kentucky, 
when it had very few settlers, living si.\ty miles 
from a mill, and then back to Tennessee, and, in 
1847, to Jackson County, Ark., locating in what is 
now Bird Township, on the place where our sub 
ject now resides, and having to cut a road from 
Jacksonport to their claim, where plenty of game 
abounded. The father died in 1855, at the age of 
eighty-four years, his excellent wife following in 
1804. The subject of this sketch was reared to 
frimtier farm life, receiving his education ni the 
district schools of Tennessee and the subscription 
schools of Arkansas. He and his brother, Jack- 
son, ri>main(>d at home, clearing the farm, and in 
1849 Uriali married Martha Wann, a nativi> of Al- 
abama, and setthnl on the farm on which he now 
resides, which contains 240 acres, 190 under culti- 
vation, thirty-five of which are yearly planted to 
cotton. Mr. Cole also raises considerable stock. 
In 1801 he enlisted in Capt. Bateman's company, 
Dobbins' regiment of cavalry, and parti(-ipated in 
the battles of Helena, Little Rock, Marks' Mills, 
Jenkins' Ferry. At the close of the war, in 18fJ5, 
be was paroled at Jacksonport, when he returned 
to the farm. Though a Democrat, Jlr. Cole is not 
an office-seeker, and not very active in politics. 
Mrs. Cole died in 1879, leaving six chihlren: 
William Jason, married, residing in Bird Town- 
ship; Amanda, now Mrs. Gibson, of Bird Town- 
ship; Mary Elizabeth, now Mrs. Grooms, of Binl 
Township; Uriah A., single; Henry, single; and 
Harriet, now Mrs. Brightwell— the last two being 
twins. In 1882 Mr. Cole married Martha Deaton, 
a native of Alabama. Mr. Cole has seen the full 
growth of Jackson County — has cami)ed out and 
kilh'd bears where the town of Tuckermun is now 
situated. During the war Mr. Cole lost every 
thing, and what he now ha-* lia-* bi-oti iniid.' vjn,-.. 



■^ 



850 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



that time by economy and industry, and by taking 
an interest in everything for the good of the 
county. 

William Wesley Collier, a merchant of Tupelo, 
Jackson County, is a native of Limestone County, 
Ala. , and is a son of Mark M. and Elizabeth (Har- 
ris) Collier, born, respectively, in North and South 
Carolina, and of English and Scotch descent. The 
father died in 1840, and the mother in 1864. 
William AVosley was born April 12, 1826, and ob- 
tained his education iu the private schools of his 
county, and the H. H. Brown school, which at that 
time had a wide reputation, being conducted by a 
Methodist preacher, who was employed by the com- 
munity. At the age of twenty years Mr. Collier 
was employed by Dewooddy, Turentine & Hig- 
gins, at Athens, Ala. ; at the expiration of one 
year he went to Aberdeen, Miss. , where he served 
three years at the carpenters' trade, with J. W. 
Ellis. February 3, 1849, he emigrated to Califor- 
nia, with the Mississippi Rangers, a joint stock 
conipany, which dissolved after three months. 
Our subject arrived at Los Angeles, July 6, 1849, 
where until January, 1850, he engaged in the car- 
penter and joiners' trade. He then went to San 
Francisco, worked for weeks as journeyman, and 
then in partnership with K. T. Woody, engaged 
in mining; three months later Mr. Woody died, 
and Mr. Collier bought a stock of general mer- 
chandise, which he established at Agufrior Gold 
Mines, Mariposa County, Cal. He also built a hotel 
at the latter place, which he sold in 1851, carrying 
on his mercantile business there three years; he 
then took into partnership George Turner, of New 
York, and William T. Osburn, of Georgia. Early 
in 1853, Mr. Collier went to Stockton to buy goods 
and supplies for the store, remaining until fall, 
when he was notified by his partners to return and 
close out business, as they were not making any- 
thing; returning, he found that they had lost money 
gambling, and squandered the entire resources of 
the firm. After closing out the business, he went 
to San Francisco, in October, 1853, where he pur- 
chased a ticket for his home in Alabama, arriving 
there the following December. In 1854 he lo- 
cated on his mother's farm near Athens, where he 



lived the following three years. In January, 1856, 
he married Martha Walls, also a nativt» of Ala- 
bama. Of the eleven children born to them, six 
are now living, viz. : Albert, a farmer by occupa- 
tion, now residing in Breckinridge Township; he 
married Laura Stanley; William T., married a 
Miss Higgs of Mississippi, and has two children; 
he is also a farmer of Breckinridge Township; J. 
M. , who is engaged in business with his father, and 
farming; John M. is living with his father; Cath- 
arine, of Arkansas nativity, married Mr. W. C. 
Patrick, a native of Mississippi, and has one child; 
and Allen C, who is now a student at Searcy Col- 
lege, Ala. The children have all been liberally 
educated in the English branches. At the time of 
his marriage, Mr. Collier owned about 370 acres 
of land, some 100 acres of which were under culti- 
vation. He is a Democrat in politics, as are also 
his sons and son-in-law. 

Lee H. Conditt, planter and stock raiser, of Bird 
Township, was born in Ohio County, Ky. , in 1848, 
the fifth in a family of six, liorn to Jeduthan Lind- 
ley and Mary (Duke) Conditt, of Tennessee and 
Kentucky, respectively. The father was a cabinet 
workman and wagon-maker, and came to Jackson 
County in 1855, in Jefferson Township, then in 
1856 came to Bird Township, where he bought a 
partly improved farm of 275 acres. He was very 
active in religious and educational interests, being 
the principal man in organizing the school district. 
His death occurred in 1863; he was a Methodist. 
His widow survived until 1878. There are living 
of the family William Henry (of Baxter County), 
Lorenzo M., and Lee, the subject of this sketch, 
who was educated in the district schools of Bird 
Township, Jackson County. He aided in clearing 
the home farm, and at the age of twenty commenced 
farming for himself. After his marriage, in 1883, 
he settled where he now resides, owning a good 
farm of 275 acres, with ninety acres under cultiva- 
tion, having cleared forty acres himself; he also 
owns the original homestead. He raises corn, and 
on an average thirty-five acres of cotton a }'ear, 
and good average cattle; he has now a high grade 
stallion, Morgan and Bashaw, a well-known trotter 
and good roadster, six years of age, said to be the 



« k_ 



>^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



851 



best in the county. Our subject's wife was Jose- 
phine A. Snider, daughter of Ur. Jacob and Mary 
(Davis) Snider, of Tennessee, who came to Dunk- 
lin County, Mo., where they now reside; they have 
two chikb-en: Annie Beatrice and Phamous Arlee. 
Mr. Conditt takes a great interest in school matters, 
being secretary of the school board for District 10, 
which includes also the Tuckerman District, three 
white schools and one colored. He is now serving 
his second term. He is a Democrat, and liberal in 
all [)ublic matters. 

William H. Craige, dealer in groceries, drugs, 
and plantation supplies, also postmaster, Kenyon, 
Ark. Among the important industrial enterprises 
which contribute to the commercial .standing of the 
thriving town of Kenyon is the establishment of 
Mr. Craige, who is acknowledged to be one of the 
prominent business men of the jilace. He was 
born at Chapel Hill, N. C, on the 30th of Novem- 
ber, 1840, and his father. Rev. John M. Craige, was 
a Methodist minister, and a member of the East 
North Carolina Conference. The elder Craige' s 
health failing during his ministerial duties, he was 
ol)lig(^d to abandon this calling, and betake himself 
to agricultural pursuits, which he continued until 
his death, in 1864. His excellent wife, formerly 
Miss Elizabeth Barbee, a native of North Carolina, 
survived him until 1869. Both were of Scotch- 
Irish descent.- They became the parents of three 
children: James, married, and resides at Chapel 
Hill, N. C, on the old homestead. He enlisted in 
the Twenty- eighth North Carolina Infantry, in 
1861, and served during the war. Wesley enlisted 
in the Eleventh North Carolina Infantry in 1S62, 
and remained in service until the time of his death, 
but contracted sickness at Petersburg, Va., went 
home and died there in 1864: and William H. 
The latter at the age of fourteen was put under 
the tutelage of F. M. Hubbard, D. D., of the Tni- 
versity of North Carolina, and there remained for 
two years, receiving the preparatory course. Then, 
at the age of sixteen, he entered the University of 
North Carolina, and remained in college until 
1859, when ho was obliged to leave on account of 
ill health. In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate 
nnv\' at Charleston, S. C, but was transferred to 



heavy artillery at Wiiuiington, N. C. .w,. ,, i... 
remained until February, 1864. He was then put 
in charge of engineering corps, and remnineil in 
that capacity until the close of the war. After 
this he settled at Chapel Hill, N. C, where he fol 
lowed agricultural ])ursuits for one year and then, 
at the solicitation of Gov. Swain, entered college, 
finishing his course and graduating with the class 
of 1868. After this he followed teaching for some 
time, and then came to Lawrence County, Ark., 
where he still continued that avocation at Pow- 
hatan for two years. In 1878 his alma mater con- 
ferred on him the degree of A. M. Since that time 
he has been engaged in merchandising and farm- 
ing. Ho moved to Kenyon. Jack.sou County, in 
the spring of 1872, embarking in mercantile pur- 
suits, but has also been engaged in farming since 
1879. He owns a good farm of 1,000 acres, with 
500 acres under cultivation, has nearly HOO acres 
in cotton and 200 acres in corn. He raises consid- 
erable cattle, and has one of the best stock farms 
in the countj'. He has not been very active in pol- 
itics, but votes with the Democratic party. He 
has held the office of postmaster since 1879. and in 
all his relations with the public, as well as in all 
other respects, he is strictly honorable and upright. 
He was married in Jackson County, in August, 
1871, to Miss Lavinia Holford. a native of Tennes- 
see, and the daughter of William and Martha A. 
Holford, natives of Tennessee. Her |>arentscau)i' 
to Jackson County in 1859, settling on a farm, and 
there both passed their last days. Their family 
consisted of the following children: Mrs. C. W. 
Winfree, Mrs. B. F. Manning and Rev. B. F. Hoi 
ford, a Baptist minister, residing in Lawrence 
County, Ark., and Mrs. Lavinia (Holford) Craige. 
To the union of Mr. and .Mrs. Craige wore born 
these children: Hubbard, Augustus G. and Bar 
bee. Mr. Craige is a member of the Episcopal, 
and Mrs. Craige of the Baptist Church. 

C. G. Crow, farmer and proprietor of gristmill 
and cotton-gin at McCreary Station, Bird Town- 
sliip, was l)oru in Jackson County, in 1S44, the 
second in a family of three children of Atrides and 
^lary (Waters) Crow, the father of Kentucky, the 
mother of Cape Girardeau County, Mo. The 



« »-_ 



852 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



father was marrioJ in Missouri, and in 1840 came 
to Craighead County. He was practicing physi 
cian and surgeon, and in 1842 came to Jackson - 
port, Jackson County; after residing in various 
places, he returned to Jackson County, where he 
was county clerk; his death occurred in 1857. His 
wife died in 1851. The subject of this sketch was 
educated at the seminary in Hartford, Ky. In 1861, 
in Scott County, Mo., he enlisted for six months' 
State service, and on the expiration of this time, 
he reenlistod in Capt. William Cotter's company, 
Gen. Forrest's brigade, Neeley's regiment, and 
was mustered into service in Tennessee. He was 
in the battles of Fort Pillow, Harrisburg, Parker's 
Cross Roads, and the Oklahoma raid. He was 
paroled in Mississippi, in 1865, and returned to 
Jackson County, and in 1807 married Mary V. 
Parrott, a native of Tennessee, daughter of William 
H. and Martha (Darden) Parrott, of North Caro- 
lina and Tennessee nativity, who came to Jackson 
County in 18(51. Her father died in 1879, and her 
mother some years before. After his man'iage our 
subject settled where he now resides, buying a tim- 
ber tract of forty acres, which he cleared and added 
to, until he now owns 600 acres, nearly 300 under 
cultivation, the products being cotton and corn; 
he also raises some stock. Mr. Crow is a Demo- 
crat, active in politics, and has always taken an 
active interest in the schools, being now a mem- 
ber of the school board. He is a member of Jack- 
sonport Lodge No. 191, A. F. & A. M., and of 
Jacksonport Chapter No. 40. Mr. Crow always 
takes an active interest in everything for the good 
of the county, and has seen great changes in the 
course of its development. His family consists of 
four children now living: Ada, Maoima, Charles 
and Daisy Cleveland. William Atrides died in 
1868, at the age of two years; Maud Ida, in 1874, 
at the age of four years. 

Roliert L. Davis, farmer and stock raiser, was 
born in Alabama, September 25, 1832, son of Will- 
iam and Ann (McDonald) Davis, natives of Ala- 
bama. Samuel Davis, grandfather of our subject, 
a native of East Tennessee, came to Alabama 
between 1815 and 1825, and was the iirst settler 
at Huntsville. He located a claim, built a log 



house and returned to Tennessee for his family. 
In his absence his claim was jumped by David 
Hunt, after whom the city of Huntsville was 
named. Mr. Davis made no effort to substantiate 
his claim to the land, but located another, which 
he improved, and on which he resided till his 
death, at the age of ninety-six years. William 
Davis died at the age of seventy-three years, and 
his wife at the age of forty. Robert L. was the 
fifth of a family of eight: Elizabeth, Samuel, 
Steele, Jane, James, Anson and William. The 
subject of our sketch lived at home with his parents 
till he married Miss Eliza Henderson, May 16, 1857. 
In 1860 he came to Arkansas, locating a farm on 
Bower's Ridge, which he sold in 1863, when he 
liought 152 acres of wild land in Section 18, 
Breckinridge Township, which he commenced at 
once to clear and improve, and now has about 100 
acres of that tract under cultivation, and which has 
since been his home. Mrs. Davis died May 21, 
1885. They had three children : Walter S., born 
March 16, 1858; James H., born April 1, 1868, a 
telegraph operator in the employ of the St. Louis 
& Iron Mountain Railroad Company, and Georgie 
Laird, born January 28, 1872. Mr. Davis' chil- 
dren have been well educated at the j)rivate schools 
of the county, and also at some of the prominent 
colleges of the State and of Tennessee, Mr. Davis 
being a friend to education, and taking active in- 
terest in all matters of importance to the county 
and State. At this time he has 432 acres of land, 
230 under cultivation. 

R. M. Davis, mayor, Newport, Ark. Mr. 
Davis has been a resident of Jackson County, Ark. , 
for many years, and has been closely and usefully 
identified with its history throughout all that pe- 
riod of time. He was born in Madison County, 
Ala., near Huntsville, March 27, 1841, and is a 
son of Matthew and Sarah (Walls) Davis, the 
former a native of the Old Dominion, born near 
Lynchburg, and the mother a native of Alabama. 
They were married in Madison County, of the last 
named State, and emigrated to Marshall County, 
Miss., in about 1844. They remained there until 
1856, and then moved to Arkansas, settling in Jack 
son County, where the father died in 1866. The 







Maj .D. L. Ferguson . 
Mississippi County,Arkansab 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



853 



mot,}i(^r had previously died in Missisisippi. Their 
family consisted of nine children, only four living: 
IMrs. E. V. McDonald, Mrs. M. S. Ballard, Mrs. 
Anthony McDonald, and Richard M. , who is the 
youngest of the family living. He was only thir- 
teen years of age when he came to Arkansas, and 
finished his growth on a farm in this State. At 
the breaking out of the war, he was but eighteen 
years of age, and in 1861 ho enlisted in Company 
A, Ninth Mississippi Regiment, at Pensacola, Fla. 
He was one of the first three men to leave the State 
of Arkansas, before the ordinance of secession was 
l)assed. He was at the battles of Shiloh, Prairie 
Grove, Helena, and in Gen. Price's raid through 
Missouri. He was wounded at the battle of Hel- 
ena, by a gun-shot through the left leg. He served 
over four years in the Confederate army, and sur- 
rendered at Jacksonport, Ark. Afterward he en- 
gaged in the livery business at the last named 
plape, and continued at this for about three years, 
when he embarked in the mercantile business, 
which he carried on for some time. He then be- 
gan farming, but later went back to merchandising, 
which he continued until 1882, when he moved to 
Newport. He was here employed as clerk by E. 
L. AVatson & Son, with whom he remained until 
February, 1888, and then took charge of the stock 
of goods now owned by P. V. Davis & Co. The 
firm carries a good line of groceries, etc., and are 
doing a good business. Mr. Davis was married, in 
1863, to Miss Pauline Hudson, a native of South 
Carolina, who bore four children now living: Rush 
H. , Daisy D. , Mary E. and Fannie J. Mr. Davis 
is a member of the Masonic fraternitj'. In April. 
1880, he was elected mayor of Newport, and is fill- 
ing that position to the entire satisfaction of all. 
He has also served as alderman. 

C. F. Dean, a prominent planter, of Jackson 
County, whoso name is almost too well-known to 
need any comment, was born in Meigs County, 
Tenn., in 1853. His parents were Patrick and : 
Caroline (Stames) Dean, the former a native of 
Ireland and the latter from North Carolina. The I 
father emigrated to America upon reaching his ma- 
turity, and settled in Tennessee, where he was 
afterward married. He was a very intellectual | 



( 



man, and a school teacher by profession. He died 
in the State of Tennessee, while the mother snr 
vived him a number of years, and j)assed away in 
Jackson County, Ark., l.-aving three children yet 
living: Cornelius F., Margaret and Jamos J. Cor 
nelius was reared in Tennessee, where he remaineil 
until 1808, and then moved to Jackson County, 
Ark. For the first few years after his arrival he 
farmed on rented land, but his energy and slirewd 
ness in business transuclions have enaliled him to 
accumulate about 347 acres of valuabl.. land, with 
some 200 acres well nnder cultivation, almost all 
of which he has improved himself. His farm is 
situated on the west side of White River, ojiposite 
the city of Jacksonport. and the soil is some of tin' 
best in that section, being adapted to almost any 
kind of vegetal>le or grain, as well as a fine graz 
ing country. In 1875 Mr. Dean was married to 
Miss Lizzie Delaney, by whom he has had two 
children: Stella and Archie. He is a member of 
the Legion of Honor, and one of the most success 
ful men in Jackson County. 

Maj. William Deen. One of the men who has 
contributed much to the development of Jackson 
County is Maj. Deen, a ])romiuent planter and 
stock raiser of the county. He was born in Ansou 
County, N. C, on February 18, 1825, and was the 
fourth in a family of eight children born to Red 
dick and Martha (Morre) Deen. both natives of the 
same State. The father was also a planter in An- 
son County, and duiiug the earlier hi.story of that 
county was a prominent figure in politics. The 
Major was reared on a fai-m, and educated in the 
district schools of his birthplace. In 1843 he was 
married to Miss Rebecca Price, from tiie same 
State, who subsequently died after a hajipy married 
life, leaving him one child, John, who is now a 
prominent i>hysician and surgeon in Texas. In 
1855 Maj. Deen was again married, in Anson 
County, his second wife being Mi.ss Ann Lilly, and 
two years later he moved with ills bride In KempiT 
County, Miss., where he bought a plantation, and 
became a leading citizen of that county, Ix-ing al 
one time commissioned on the relief committee to 
look after the destitute of tliat section. In IStll) 
he moved to Woodruff County, Ark., and two years 



k_ 



854 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



afterward bought a timber tract of 320 acres, which 
was slightly improved. He has continued to im- 
jnove the land and add to it on different occa- 
sions, until now he owns about 1,080 acres, and 
has some 400 acres under cultivation. His princi- 
pal crops are corn and cotton, and he also raises 
some stock. Maj. Deen is not a very active poli- 
tician, but he takes a deep interest in all matters 
that augur for the welfare of his county, and is 
very liberal in his aid toward all enterprises, which, 
in his judgment, will make it one of the foremost 
in the State. The Major and his wife, who both 
attend the Missionary Baptist Church, have had 
eight children born to their union: Marcus L. (re- 
siding in Texas), William T., Laura (now Mrs. 
McCauley), Fannie (also married), Benjamin and 
Simeon, all residing in the same townshij) with 
their father except Marcus. Maj. Deen has been 
a valuable citizen to the community, and one whose 
efforts in building up his county have been well 
appreciated. 

F. R. Dowell, assessor of Jackson County, 
farmer, miller and ginner, was born in Jackson 
County, May 10, 1851. His father, Henry J. 
Dowell, was born in Virginia, in 1814, moved to 
Kentucky, and in 1838 married Miss A. M. Boyce, 
who was born in Kentucky, in 1819. In 1849 
they came to Jackson County, Bird Township, 
bought a farm of 100 acres, and improved and 
added to this iintil, at the time of his death, in 
1881, it consisted of 2,200 acres, 500 under culti- 
vation. Mr. Dowell was a strong Democrat, and 
served his township ten years as magistrate, and 
declined several other offices. The mother was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Our 
subject was the fourth of a family of six: Belle, 
J. H., Jimius, D. C. and Mary S. J. H. served 
diu-ing the war in the Confederate army. Henry 
J. was a man of great energy, and was of much 
service to the early settlers in locating land, being 
thoroughly acquainted with the country. His wife 
still lives on the old homestead, at the age of sev- 
enty. The subject of our sketch was raised on the 
farm, received his education in the common schools 
of Jackson County, and also spent two years at the 
academy in Philadelphia, Izard County, Ark. He 



left school at the age of twenty-two, and for ten 
years engaged in mercantile business at Tucker- 
man with his brother D. C. , the firm being F. R. 
& D. C. Dowell. In the spring of 1882 he with- 
drew from the firm, and, having been appointed 
administrator of his father's estate, he took charge 
of that and engaged in farming and stock d(>aling. 
In 1883 he built a large saw-mill and cotton-gin. 
later adding the grist-mill. He also owns 160 
acres of land, 100 of which are cultivated, and also 
has an interest in his father's estate. Mr. Dowell, 
in November, 1878, married Miss L. B. Billings- 
lea, daughter of J. C. and Mary E. (Woolley) Bil- 
lingslea, natives of Alabama, who came to Arkan- 
sas about 1807 and settled in Woodruff County, 
Mr. Billingslea .being a prominent farmer and phy- 
sician of that county, and dying in 1809. Our 
subject's wife was born May 19, 1858. They have 
had three childi-en : Harry E. (born in 1880), Mary 
A. (born August 20, 188(3; died March 7, 1888), 
and Henry J. (born September 2, 1888; died Feb- 
ruary 7, 1889). They are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. Mr. Dowell is an active 
member of the Democratic party, having served on 
both township and county committees. In Sep- 
tember, 1888, he was elected assessor of Jackson 
County, which office he still holds. He has also 
held the office of school director, and is active in 
the cause of education, and in support of all pub- 
lic enterprises. He is now making preparations 
for entering the business of raising blooded stock. 
D. C. Dowell, general merchant at Tucker- 
man, was born in Jackson Coiuity, in 1853, being 
a son of H. J. and A. M. (Boyce) Dowell, natives 
of Kentucky. The father, a farmer, emigrated 
to Jackson County, in 1849, settling in Bird Town- 
ship, near Black River, and opened up consider 
able land in the county; his death occurred in 
1881, his excellent wife still surviving. In their 
family were J. H. (now deceased,) Jimmie and 
Belle (who died young), F. R. (assessor of Bird 
Township) and M. L. (at home). The subject of our 
sketch was raised on the farm, educated in the dis- 
trict schools, and also at Izard County College. He 
aided at home in clearing the farm, and there en- 
gaged in mercantile business, and in 1 874, at Tuck- 



-^ V 



erman, in partnership with his brother, F. li. 
Dowell, erected the first store in the place, carry- 
ing a full line of notions, dry goods, groceries and 
drugs; this partnership continued till 1885, when 
our subject bought his brother's interest, they 
having been burned out in 1888, and in 188!) a 
good frame building was erected. October H\ 
1879, Mr. Dowell married Ida Thoroughman, a na- 
tive of Missouri, daughter of Thomas and Emily 
Thoroughman, natives of Virginia and Kentucky, 
respectively, the father then being an attorney in 
St. Louis, Mo., where they now reside. Five 
children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dowell: 
Gracie, Lou (died in 1885, aged four years), Fos- 
ter, D. C, Jr., and Taylor. IVIi-. Dowell daring 
his lifefime in Jackson County has seen a vast 
change; he is one of the prominent citizens, and 
takes an active interest in furthering all projects 
for the good of the county. 

G. "\V. Dudley, a highly-esteemed farmer and 
stock raiser of Jackson County, was born in Bod- 
ford County, Tenn. , in 1840. He was the third in 
a family of seven children born to Christopher S. 
and Louisa P. (Bandy) Dudley, of Tennessee, in 
which State the father was county surveyor of 
Bedford County for twenty-five years, and also en- 
gaged in farming quite extensively. The elder 
Dudley was a noted Democratic jwlitician during 
his life, and one of the best orators of his party in 
that section. During his lator days he t)ccupied 
himself with his farm entirely until his death, in 
1878, his excellent wife only surviving him one 
day. The seven children born to the parents are 
all living: Richard Hou.ston resides in Nashville, 
Tenn., and is engaged in the wholesale hardware 
business; Marion resides in Glass Township; G. 
W. also lives in Glass Township; Harriet M., 
now Mrs. Lucker, of Franklin Comity, Tenn. ; 
Fannie, now Mrs. Jarrett, residing in Tennessee; 
Guilford, residing in Nashville, Tenn., and in the 
hardware business; Robert M., residing at Na.sh- 
ville, and also in the hardware business. G. W . 
Dudley was reared to a farm life and attended the 
district schools of Bedford County, Tenn. In 
ISOl he enlisted in Company D, Senator Bates' 
regiment, and was mustered into service at Lynch- 



burg, Va. He was engagctl in ibi- liombarcliiient 
of Aqua Creek, on May 28, 1801; at .Mana.s.sas, 
on July 22, and was a member of Claiborne's 
brigade at Shiloh. Ho also took part in the l)attle 
at Richmond, Ky. (when captain and colonel were 
Iwtli killed), at Perryville, Murfroesboro and 
Chickamauga. and was severely wounded at Iwtli 
Perryville and Chickamauga. He was also at the 
battles of Missionary Ridge, Resaca, Calhoun, 
Konesaw Mountain, Marietta and Decatur. At 
the last place he was again severely wounded, and 
fell on the s])ot where Gen. McPherson was killed. 
He lay on the battlefield for some time, unable to 
move, but was finally discovered and taken to the 
hospital at Macon, Ga. After his recovery he 
again returned to the front and went with Hood to 
Middle Tennessee. At Franklin he heard Gen. 
Claiborne give his last command to his brigadii-r 
generals: 

Gentlemen, I have called you lopetlier to say lo you 
tliat Gen. Hooil comninnds that Franklin must lie taken. 
He says that line of works (scanninf; tlie breastwork-)) 
must be taken. He says: " I want you. General, and your 
staff otflcers to lead your brigades, and impress it on llic 
colonels and captains to lead their commands. I. myself, 
will lead the division, and the Hrsl man who lircs a gun or 
dodges to the rear we will eut his head off and put it on a 
pole, and carry it through the streets of Nashville with 
' cowardice' branded upon it." 

He then waved them off, the battle commenced; 
and Gen. Claiborne was killed while storming the 
breastworks, as were also Gens. Sniitli and Gran 
berry, while many of the officers were mortally 
wounded. After this event Mr. Dudley joined 
Gen. Forrest at A\'est Point, Miss., and was witii 
him at Selma, Ala., during the closing scenes. He 
surrendered at Gainesville, Ala., and returne<l to 
Tennessee, where he remained for a year, and (hen 
moved to Jackson County, Ark., where he com 
menced farming. In 18fW he was married, in this 
county, to ^liss Mollie Raynor, of Tenne.>«.see. 
whose death occun'ed the same year, and, in 1875, 
he was maiTiod to Miss Caroline Laster, of Mis 
sissippi. In 1878 he made his lirst purchase of 
laud and bought 170 acres on a timber tract, which 
he immediately set to work improving, and now 
has forty acres under cultivation. Mr. Dudley 



^ '^ 



856 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



has always been an active politician, and a valuable 
man to the Democratic party. He is very much 
interested in educational mutters, and has served on 
the school board for some years. In secret socie- 
ties he belongs to Thornbiirg Lodge No. 39, A. F. 
& A. M. , and has been Worshipful Master, and is 
a member of Jackson Chapter No. 40, at Jackson- 
port. Four children were born to Mr. Dudley and 
his wife: George William, Robert Guilford, Rich- 
ard Houston and Mary Louisa. Mr. Dudley has 
witnessed a great many changes in the county 
during his loDfr residence here, and has noted the 
adversity and prosperity of Jackson County, as it 
fell and rose fi-om year to year, until now it can take 
rank with the foremost through the efPorts of citi- 
zens like himself. 

Christopher Marion Dudley, farmer and stock 
raiser, now residing on Section 18, Township 14, 
was born in Bedford County Tenn., near Shelby- 
ville, a son of Christopher S. and Louisa Peirce 
(Bandy) Dudley, both natives of Tennessee. There 
were ten children in this family, Christopher M. 
and William being the only ones living in Arkan- 
sas. The former was raised on a farm in his na- 
tive State, where he attended the public schools, 
and also spent several terms at the Academy at 
Salem, coming to Arkansas November 7. 1860. 
His first purchase was of wild land, which he sold, 
and in 1868 or 1869 bought the farm on which 
he now resides, clearing and improving the same 
himself, and at the present time has upon his 
farm good house and stables, besides cotton-gin 
and grist-mill. Mr. Dudley is the owner of 746 
acres, about 800 acres being cultivated. January 
13, 1867, Mr. Dudley married Miss Letitia Bandy, 
of Arkansas. They had three sons and one 
daughter, George C, Richard Huston, Guilford 
and Louisa S. , all of whom have had good school 
advantages; and Richard, a graduate of University 
of Tennessee, in the wholesale hardware house of 
Dudley Bros. & Lipscomb, at Nashville, Tenn. 
The other children at home, attending school. 
Mrs. Dudley died, and in 1880 he married Mrs. 
Sarah P. Maxy {nee Winfred) ; they have one daugh- 
ter, Susan Maud. Mr. Dudley is a charter mem- 
ber of the Strangers' Home Lodge No. 391, Thorn- 



burg, Lawrence County, Ark. He is progressive, 
and ready and willing to take an active part in all 
enterprises which, in his judgment, are for the 
best interests of the county and State. ^ 

Dr. M. M. Erwin, physician, surgeon and 
planter, is a native of East Tennessee, having lieen 
born in Knox County, June 8, 1849. His parents 
were Wade H. and Melinda (Kincade) Erwin, of 
Tennessee, where their parents came from Virginia 
about 1812.- The grandfathers on both sides, of 
English and Irish descent, were soldiers in the Rev- 
olutionary War and the War of 1S12. Mr. Er 
win's father was a planter and mechanic, who, in 
1852, came with his family to Independence, then 
to Lawrence County, and settled a large farm 
near Smithville, where he lived till his death, in 
1882, his wife having died about three years pre- 
vious. He served four years in the late war; was 
twice discharged and returned, and closed his 
military career after Price' s raid through Missouri. 
Five of his sons were in the Confederate service, 
all of whom survived without a wound. Our sub- 
ject's parents were consistent members of the Bap 
tist Church, and his father an honored member of 
the Masonic fraternity, a strong temperance man, 
an active Democrat in politics, and served as jus- 
tice of the peace several terms. The subject of 
this sketch, a highly-esteemed citizen of Auvergne, 
came to this State thirty-seven years ago. He was 
reared to farm life, spending his school days in the 
common schools of Arkansas. In 1868 he began 
the study of medicine, under Dr. Bevens, of Bates- 
ville, Ark. ; was with him several years, when lie 
began the practice of his profession in Lawrence, 
Craighead, Independence, Cross, and Jackson 
Counties. In 1873 he married Miss Kitty A. 
Wright, daughter of George W. and Liddia (Old- 
ham) Wright, natives of Kentucky. Living in 
Lawrence County four years, he moved to Bower" s 
Ridge, where he engaged in farming and stock 
raising, in connection with his practice, remaining 
ten 3'ear8. In November, 18S6, ho removed to 
Auvergne, purchased farm and town property, and 
in March, 1886, associated with Dr. G. D. Clem- 
ents in practice, and also in the conduct of the 
drug business, in which connection he still con- 



♦^; 



a 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



857 



tiiiues. Dr. Erwin is the ninth of a family of 
eleven children, and himself has a family of five liv- 
ing; Willie Lee, Claude Mayo, Ira H., Dovie and 
Josie R. ; those who died were Alabama, Geortre 
A. and May. He is a member of Newport Lodge 
No. 71, I. O. O. F., is a Democrat in politics, but 
conservative, and himself and wife are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. He also takes 
an active part in supijort of schools, churches and 
public enterprises, and is thoroughly familiar with 
the development of the country since his residence 
here. He was one of the most liberal supporters 
of the Auvergne Academy, and one of the board to 
guarantee a support of that school until it should 
be made permanent. Dr. Erwin has a farm of 
620 acres, 285 acres of which are cultivated. He 
was one of the tirst to prove that swamp lands 
could be successfully drained, and that small fruits 
could be successfully grown. One of his farms, 
the Wideman farm, was the first land cleared in 
the village, and it was done by the Indians. 

John T. Flynn, superintendent of the Bates- 
ville & Brinkley Railroad, was born in Charleston, 
S. C on January 10, 1840, and is a son of John 
T. and Louisa (Abram) Flynn. of New York and 
South Carolina, respectively. The father went to 
South Carolina, and was married in that State, 
afterward entering into business, which he carried 
on until after the war, when he returned to New 
York, where he died in 1881, the mother dying in 
South Carolina. They were the parents of live 
children, of whom three are yet living, John T. 
being the oldest. Young Flynn was l)orn and 
reared in Charleston, and received his education 
in the public schools of that city. He commenced 
railroading at seventeen years of age, entering 
into the employ of what is now the Louisville & 
Nashville system, where he remained twenty years, 
first commencing as clerk in the freight dejiart- 
ment. and working himself up to be a division 
superintendent of that road. After leaving the 
employ of the Louisville & Nashville road, he 
went to Texas, and was made superintendent of 
the East Line & Red River Railroad for several 
years. He was then transferred to the Memphis 
& Little Rock Railroad, as agent for ««<<i. v. ,uk 



and in JS.S7 Ijccame suiieriulendent of the Hates- 
ville & Brinkley Railroad, which position he still 
occupies. Mr. Flynn has followed railroading 
almost all his life. He is one of the best informed 
men in railroad matters now in the State of Arkan- 
sas, and has a thorough knowledge of the workings 
of every department (Hi his line. He is a genial, 
pleasant man, of good address, and very |)opnlar 
in that section, where he has a large circle of 
friends. In 1869 ho was married to ]\Iiss Eliza- 
beth Rasser, of South Carolina, and together they 
make their home at Newport, the headquarters of 
the road. 

Charles Monroe Ford, planter and stock raiser, 
of Richwood Township, is a son of William and 
Nancy (Bunch) Ford, natives of North Carolina, 
and was born May 4, 1846. His parents came to 
Jackson County, Ark., in 1854, and in 1855 en- 
tered a (juarter section in Section 11, Richwood 
Township, but sold this and went to Illinois in 
1864. The subject of our sketch was one of a 
family of ten childi-en, and received his education 
in the schools of the county. He married Miss 
Margaret X. Paid.', who had four children: Rob- 
ert Newton (born December 14, 1873), Martha A. 
(bom November 25, 1875), Nancy E. (born March 
15, 1877), William Amos (born December 16, 
1878). His first wife died in 1879, and he mar- 
ried Miss Eliza Jane Brown, of Tennessee. They 
have four children: Charles L. (born A]>ril 6, 1882), 
Laura Jane (born September 10, 1885j, James 
Arthur (born August 4, 1887) and Rufus L. (Iwrn 
April 3, 1889). In 1868 or 1S(S9 Mr. Ford pur- 
chased eighty acres of partly improved land on 
Section 11, and lived there until 1880, when he 
bought the farm on which he now lives. He now 
has 160 acres of tine corn and cotton laud, about 
sixty-five acres uniinijroved, which is well stocked 
with good breeds of cattle and hogs. Mr. Ford 
is a member of Newport Lodge No. 397, A. F. & 
A. M., has been school director and justice of the 
peace, and is now postmaster at Ford jiostolVice. 
He takes quite an active part in polities, and id-n 
in educational and religions udvnucement. 

Rev. W. R. Foster, a member of the \\ lute 
River .\iiiinal eonfereiKH' of the Methodist F.pisco 



4^ 



858 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



pal Church, South, aud pastor of the church at 
Auvergne Station, is a native of Madison County, 
Tenn., born September 16, 1828. His parents 
were Elijah B. and Ann (Smith) Foster, natives of 
South Carolina and Virginia, respectively; the 
father a farmer, and an energetic and prosperous 
man, emigrated to Tennessee v^^hen a young man, 
and there married. He was magistrate of his 
county for several years, and died January 20, 
1845, his wife surviving him nine years, and de- 
parting this life in March, 1854. They were mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
Our siibject is the eldest of six children: W. R. , 
Sarah E., Harriet A., Fannie T., Julia P. and 
James L. Foster. W. R. was raised and received 
his education in Lauderdale County, Tenn. In 
1851 he professed religion and joined the above 
named church. In December of the same year he 
came to Mississippi County, Ark., with his mother, 
where be was engaged in the wood business on the 
Mississippi River for two years, after which he 
moved, with his mother to Phillips County, Ark., 
where she departed this life in the faith of the 
Gospel. He engaged in farming for two years, 
and was licensed to preach on the 24th of August, 
1855, by the Walnut Bend Quarterly conference, 
Helena district, Stephen S. Carlisle, presiding 
elder. In September, 1856, he was admitted, on 
trial, in the Arkansas Annual conference, as a 
traveling preacher, and was appointed to Salem 
Mission, where he had good success for a young 
preacher, aljout 144 persons being converted to the 
Christian religion, and some 200 added to the 
Church of God. At the close of that year (1857) 
he was appointed to the Lawrenceville circuit, 
where he met with some success, about sixty being 
brought into the church. In the fall of 1858 he 
was appointed to the Smithville circuit, where he 
had a good revival of religion, over 100 souls be- 
ing converted. In the fall of 1859 he was ap- 
pointed to Greensboro Mission, which he served 
two years with good success. Jonesboro was then 
a young town, and one of his appointments. In 
this town he preached the tirst sermon heard there, 
in a livery stable, and organized the church in that 
(now) city. In the fall of 1861 he was appointed 



to the Walnut Bend circuit, where he was licensed 
to preach. The war was on, and but little was 
done in the work of the ministry. In the fall of 
1862 he was appointed to Batesville Station aud 
circuit, where he had a good revival of religion, all 
over his work. While on this work ho was cap- 
tured by the Federal soldiers, and was held in 
l^rison one month. While in prison the annual 
conference was held, and he was appointed to the 
Strawberry circuit. In the fall of 1864 he w/is 
appointed to the Smithville circuit, and for three 
years he served this work with happy results. 
In the fall of 1867 he was appointed jjresiding 
elder on the Yellville district, laboring with good 
results for three years. In 1870 he was transferred 
by Bishop Keener to the White River conference, 
and was appointed to Searcy Station, at which 
place he met with some success. In the fall of 
1871 he was appointed to the Osceola circuit, 
where he served two years as pastor. In 1873 he 
was appointed presiding elder on the Mississippi 
district, which work he served four years with 
acceptability. In 1877 he was appointed to the 
Helena district, where he served two years. In 
1879 he was appointed again to the Mississippi 
district, where he served the church four years 
longer. In the fall of 1883 he asked Bisho]) 
Granberry to relieve him from district work and 
give him a circixit. The request was granted, and 
he was appointed to Jonesboro circuit. The fall of 
1884 he was appointed to Greensboro circuit, the 
fall of 1885 to Pleasant Hill (now Larado circuit), 
and in 1886 to Harrisburg circuit, and on this 
work he labored two years, with great success. 
In the fall of 1888 he was appointed to Auvergne 
Station. Rev. W. R. Foster was ordained deacon 
by Bishop Early in September, 1858. On account 
of the war the Bishop could not meet the annual 
conference, and he was not ordained elder until 
September, 1866, by Bishop G. F. Pierce. He 
was married, to Miss Mildred E. Barker, on the 
11th of December, 1857, she being a native of Rob- 
ertson County, Tenn. To them have been born six 
children: John C, Matilda A., William R. (died 
in early childhood), Dixie L. (a young lady of 
twenty-four years), Ida B. (seventeen years), and 







Minnie P. (eigbt years). Mr. Foster is a member 
of Jonesboro Masonic lodge; also Jonesboro Royal 
Arch Chapter, and of R. & S. M., Harrisburg 
Council. He was made a Mason in RitcLman 
lodge, in Cotton Plant, St. Francis County, Ark., 
in 1858. He is now closing up his thirty-third 
year's work in the ministry, all in the State of Ar- 
kansas. He never has been a supernumerary, nor 
a superannuated preacher, and he loves the itiner- 
ant ministry today as he loves his own life. Many 
have told him they would be stars in his crown 
when they get home to Heaven. 

Josejih P. Foushee, farmer and stock raiser of 
Union Township, Jackson County, is a son of Lloyd 
and Mary (Lambert) Foushee, natives of North Car- 
olina, the father being of French descent. Our sub- 
ject's paternal grandfather, Elijah Foushee, a na- 
tive of Paris, France, came to America in 1774, and 
participated in our Revolutionary War, supposedly 
under the immediate command of Gen. Washington. 
Daniel Foushee, brother of Lloyd, and Joab and 
Eli Lambert, uncles of our subject, participated 
in the War of 1812. George Washington Foushee 
and Elijah Foushee were in the War of 1861, Eli- 
jah being present at the surrender of Gen. R. E. 
Lee, at Appomattox, in 1805. Joseph P. Foushee 
was a member of the North Carolina militia, with 
the rank of captain, at the breaking out of the 
Civil War, which position ho tilled for three years, 
in Company B, Sixth Regiment, North Carolina 
Infantry. Home Guards. William F. Foushee, 
being colonel of militia, retained that position in 
the Home Guards for about three years. Elijah 
Foushee. the grandfather, married ]\Iiss Anna 
Stewart, in Chatham County, N. C. They had a 
family of ten children. Joseph F. married Miss 
Fanni(> Sanders, of Irish descent, a native of North 
Carolina, and they have had six children: James 
(born December 8, 1848), William A. (born in 
1852), Mary (married Thomas J. Sconyers, of Ala- 
bama), Fannie E. (married William Harwell), 
Eliza P. (married John Baker, of Tennessee), and 
George V. (at home). Mr. Foushee has had some 
education, and has given all his children good 
schooling, providing for them liberally as they have 
grown up, married, and left home, but still has 



plenty, owning 040 acres of good average cotton 
land. As an instance of Mr. Foushee' a kindheart- 
edness, may be mentioned the fact that he is now 
raising and providing for two orphan children, and 
a place in this volume may well bo accorded such 
an individual. Mr. Foushee is a member of the 
American Legion of Honor, of the Royal Arcaniim. 
and of the Missionary Baptist Church, his wife an.! 
the members of his family also belonging to the 
latter. 

N. M. Gardner was bom in Henderson County, 
West Tenn., July 7, 1830, the son of Joseph and 
Elizabeth (McLernan) Gardner, natives of North 
Carolina, who at an early day, in 182 1, moved to 
Henderson County, Tenn., and engaged in farm- 
ing. Mr. Gardner, though an uneducated man, 
by hard work accumulated quite a property, own- 
ing 3,000 acres at the time of his death, which 
occurred in Tennessee, at the age of seventy years, 
his excellent wife dying some years later. Grand- 
father Joseph Gardner served in the Revolution- 
ary war. Our subject, the sixth in a family of 
ten, was raised on the farm, and aided in clearing 
up the land; he was educated in the subscription 
schools of Tenno.?see. In 1859 he came to Jackson 
County, settling in Bird Township, where he bought 
400 acres of land, sixty-five acres being cleared; 
after clearing sixty acres more, he sold the land, 
and in 180'.) engaged in the mercantile lousiness, in 
which he is now engaged, as the proprietor of a 
general store, carrying a full line of groceries, dry 
goods, and shelf hardware; this was the (irst store 
opened in the place. Mr. Gardner also has a farm 
of 475 acres, 251) being under cultivation, on 
which are raised principally cotton, corn and oat.s. 
and some stock. June 23, 1857. our subject mar- 
ried Lavinia R. Hardgrave. of Madison Connty, 
Tenn.. daughter of F. R. and Melvina (Woodfolk) 
Hardgrave, of Tennessee. Her father came to 
Jackson County, in 1800, his death occurring at 
Kenyou, in 1878, his wife dying in Tennessee. 
They have two children: Emerson D., attending 
Batesville College, and Mattio Lou, attending the 
public school at Batesville, where th(> family 
reside during the school year. Mr. Gardner also 
owning property in that place. Mr. (lardner is a 



T' 



\ 



^k 



860 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Democrat, having been brought out by the party 
as representative, and made a strong run. He is 
a member of Tuckerman Lodge No. 192, and 
was made a Mason in Tennessee. He is practi- 
cally a self-made man, having made what he has 
by his own efforts, and has always been actively 
interested in eveiything, for the good of the county, 
aiding liberally in all pixblic enterprises. 

Eugene Bailey Gillim, farmer and stock raiser, 
residing in the village of Swifton, Jackson County, 
is a native of Daviess County, Ky., having been 
born October 3, 1849. His parents were Hamilton 
B. and Middle Gillim. Our subject was raised on 
a farm in Kentucky, and received his education in 
that State at Pleasant Valley High School. He 
made his home in Independence, and taught several 
terms in Independence County during the summer 
months, working on a farm during the remainder 
of the year. In 1874 he came to Jackson County, 
rented a farm near Tupelo, where he put in crops 
in 1874 and 1875. Mr. Gillim came to Swifton in 
1878, and engaged in mercantile business with Mr. 
A. D. Bailey, bought Mr. Bailey's interest in 1879, 
and finally sold ont to H. P. Mortensen. He pros- 
pected for a location, and finally invested in lots 
at Morrillton, remained there about nine months, 
when he sold his property at a nice profit, and in 
1880 returned to Jackson County and bought 480 
acres of land, abont twenty acres improved, where 
he moved his family, and now has 125 acres under 
cultivation. In 1888 he erected the comfortable 
house in Swifton in which he resides, working on it 
at odd times when not engaged in farm work. His 
first wife was Miss Clara B. Caviness, of Jackson 
County, a native of Tennessee, by whom he had two 
children, one. Gorilla, born August 26, 1875, now 
living. Mrs. Gillim died February 11, 1878, and 
in 1879 he married Miss Willie E. Moon; they 
have four children: Otis Eugene, born June 10, 
1880; Julia, born January 21, 1883; John M., 
born May 19, 1886, and Robert L., born March 
10, 1888. Mr. and Mrs. Gillim are members of 
the Christian Church at Swifton. Mr. Gillim is 
a member of Thornburg Lodge No. 371, Stranger's 
Home, Lawrence County, Ark. , and is a supporter 
of all worthy movements. 



J. M. Glass, Sr. , planter and stock raiser, 
Swifton, Ark. Mr. Glass, who is also numbered 
among the first-class farmers and stock raisers of 
the county, came originally from Fayette County, 
111. , where he was born in 1829. He was one of 
the first settlers of this township, after whom it 
was named, and the only original settler living in 
the same. He was the fifth of six children born to 
Elisha W. and Eleanor (Taylor) Glass, natives of 
the Old Dominion, but both of whom were reared 
in Illinois near Golconda, Gallatin County. Elisha 
Glass came with his father, Dudley Glass, to Illi- 
nois in 1802, but went to Tennessee in 1820, and 
settled in Weakley County, of that State. He 
was there married, and there remained, engaged in 
farming, until in September, 1829, when he bought 
land and settled in Fayette County, 111. He im- 
proved several farms, but in 1845 moved to Miller 
County, Mo., settling in Rich wood Township, 
where his death occurred in 1851. His wife after- 
ward moved to Hill County, Texas, and died in 
April, 1884. The paternal grandfather of the sub- 
ject of this sketch moved to Fayette County, 111. , 
at an early day, where he died, in 1843, at the age 
of sixty-six years. He was a soldier in the Semi- 
nole War. J. M. Glass, Jr., was taught the 
duties of farm life during boyhood, and received a 
fair education in the district schools of Illinois. 
He went with his parents to Miller County, Mo. , 
was engaged in clearing and developing the farm, 
and in 1850 made his way to Jackson County, 
Ark., and settled in Bird Township. During the 
fall of 1851-52 he taught school on Black River, 
and boarded with Henry Miller. In the last named 
year he entered eighty acres of land near Inde- 
pendence County, but later sold that, then invested 
in more land in 1854, again sold out, and from 
1854 to 1857 was engaged in the real estate bus- 
iness. In 1856 he purchased 167 acres of land, 
and commenced improving the same, erecting a 
cabin and planting a good orchard. From time to 
time he added to this farm, until he now owns 467 
acres with 150 acres under cultivation. At the 
beginning of the war he was the owner of 800 
acres but afterward sold some of this. He was 
elected county surveyor in 1860, serving until 



'C ( 



'->£ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



801 



1802, and iu July of that year enlisted in Com- 
pany A, in Capt. Henry's company, and was 
mustered into service at Clover Bend, Lawrence 
County, Ark. He participated in the battle of 
Prairie Grove, and was in many skirmishes while 
on detached duty. In the fall of 18(53 he was 
sent home on recruiting service by orders of Gen. 
Smith, and organized a company of which he was 
elected first lieutenant, serving thus until Novem- 
ber, ISG-t, when he was made adjutant, serving in 
that capacity until the close of the war. He was 
in Thomas H. McCray's brig.ide, was with Gen. 
Price on his raid through Missouri and Arkansas, 
and was in active service until the close of the war. 
He surrendered the company at Jacksonport, June 
5, 1865, after which he returned to the duties on 
the farm. He was married, in Jackson County, on 
the 7th of November, 1857, to Miss Amanda K. 
Bandy, a native of Bedford County, Tenn. , and 
nine children were born to them, four now living, 
viz. : Fannie, born October 18, 1858, and is now 
Mrs. A. Catlett, Prairie Grove, Ark. ; John M. , 
born February 10, 1863, and is at home; Lucy E. , 
born December 25, 1800, and Carrie A., born in 
Jiily, 1873: E. W. died in 1880, at the age of 
twenty years; two died in infancy: Samuel died in 
1875, at the age of five years, and George died in 
188-1, at the age of four years. After his mar- 
riage Mr. Glass located on his present fine farm, 
and there he has since remained. He is quite act- 
ive in politics, and votes with the Democratic 
party. He discharged such duties as were incum- 
bent upon the ofiice of justice of the peace in 
1858 and 1860, and has always taken an eixrnest 
part in all educational affairs, having served on 
the school board for about twelve years. He re- 
sided for a short time in Izard County, for the 
purpose of educating his children, and in this he 
has been successful. 

George W. Goddard is the popular proprietor 
of the Planters' Hotel, at Newport, Ark., and is a 
native of Wayne County, N. Y., born on the 2d of 
December, 1840. He is one of six living members 
of a family of eight children born to Edwin P. and 
Maria (Fillmore) Goddard. and is their third child 
in order of birth. He was reared and educated in 



York State, and like the majority of natives of the 
" Empire State" he is intelligent and enterpris- 
ing. After making his home with his parents 
until he attained his majority, he went to Leaven- 
worth, Kan., where he was employed in the (quar- 
termaster's and sutler's department for several 
years during the war, and he was thereafterward 
employed on the construction of the Kansas Pa- 
cific Railroad for some time. His next enterprise 
was to engage in the hotel business, at Salina, 
Kan. , but this enterprise he gave up, after a short 
time, to go to Old Mexico, where he spent a year 
or two in investigating a mining interest. Subse- 
quently he opened and developed the Bellville 
Zinc Mines, in Jasper County, Mo., putting up 
the improved reduction works, and these mines he 
operated, with good results, for several years. His 
nest business enterprise was to engage as a clerk 
in a hotel at Joplin, Mo., and from this point he 
returned to Old Mexico. After a time he settled 
in Little Rock, Ark. , where he became manager of 
the Doming House, continuing in this capacity for 
about three years. The following year he ran a 
hotel at Hot Springs, Ark., and in the month of 
October, 1887, he came to Newport, and took con- 
trol of the Planter's Hotel, which is a strictly first- 
class house. His establishment contains forty 
rooms, and the meals he serves are always of the 
best quality, and are palatable and well cooked. 
Mr. Goddard is connected with the mining in- 
terests of Marion County, and his mine gives 
promise of becoming one of the finest in the United 
States. Socially, Mr. Goddard is a momlier of the 
K. of P. He was married, in 1888, to Mrs. P. V. 
Sparks, the former proprietress of the Windsor 
Hotel. Edwin P. Goddard and wife were born in 
the State of New York, and in 1850 they emigrat 
ed to Knox County, 111., and until 1800 were resi- 
dents of Abingdon. In the latter year they re 
moved to Leavenworth, Kan., where the father 
died in 1867, still survived by his widow, who re 
sides in that city. 

Andrew J. Greenhaw (deceased), a native of 
Alabama, was born November 20, 1813. His 
fatlier, (Jabriel Greenhaw. who was l)orn August 0, 
1783. fiiiiif li> this country from tiie easterr\ sliores 



862 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of Scotland, and, after living in Alabama, removed 
to Mississippi, v^here be died. Andrew J. located 
in Jackson County, Ark., about 1840, where, for 
several years, he rented land and carried on farm- 
ing. In 1850 he settled on the farm upon which 
his widow now resides, in Village Township, which, 
at the time of his purchase, was entirely unim- 
proved, and covered with forest trees. He hung 
up a log-chain to mark the place for his cabin, 
which he afterward erected in the most crude way. 
He then went to work to clear and cultivate his 
land, which required years of labor and economy, 
but his toil was rewarded, for at the time of his 
death he owned in all 640 acres of land, of which 
200 acres were under cultivation. He devoted his 
time and attention entirely to farming and stock 
raising, and became a prominent man of Jackson 
County. During the war he was a member of the 
Home Guards, but saw no active service. After 
the war he was elected county treasiu'er, and also 
served as coroner. Mr. Greenhaw was married 
March 5, 1844. to Lucinda Pistole, daughter of 
David Pistole, a native of Virginia, who emigrated 
to Middle Tennessee, and thence to New Madrid 
County, Mo., where he died. Mr. and Mrs. Green- 
haw were the parents of nine children, five of whom 
are living, viz. : James A. , born in December, 
1847 (married September 27, 1866, to Mattie E. 
George); Mary, born July 1, 1851 (now the wife 
of Robert A. Spinks) ; Susan, born October 6, 1852 
(wife of Rev. E. A. Garrison, of Trinidad, Col.); 
Isaac N. , born May 27, 1854, and John, born Janu- 
ary 15, 1860. Those deceased were Lucy A., born 
December 18, 1844, died in February, 1846; Will- 
iam D., born March 20, 1846, died June 9, 1859; 
Anthony, born April 25, 1849, died November 24, 
1877, and Nicholas, born August 31, 1855, died at 
Center Point, Tex., May 16, 1884. The father 
died February 22, 1872, and his widow is still liv- 
ing on the homestead. The Greenhaw family now 
have in their possession 800 acres of land, of which 
400 acres are under cultivation. The land is all in 
one tract, and the different members of the family 
all have their homes upon it. The principal prod- 
ucts are corn and cotton, and some attention is 
paid to stock raising. They are enterprising and 



successful farmers, and an honor to the parent, who 
was one of Jackson County's jiioneers. 

Benjamin F. Grimes, farmer and stock raiser, 
now residing on Section 6, and owning land on 
Sections 5, 6, 8 and 17, is a son of Lewis and 
Ruthy B. (Embry) Grimes, natives of Kentucky. 
Lewis was a son of James and Sallie Bryan (Boone) 
Grimes, natives of Virginia, Sallie Grimes being: a 
sister of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer. The 
subject of our sketch was born in Fayette County, 
Ky. , March 24, 1836, receiving his education 
partly in the private schools of his native State; 
he also attended the State Normal School, of Col- 
umbia, S. C. , and finished his education at Bethany 
College, Virginia, in 1854, when he returned home, 
where he engaged in farming and stock raising, 
finding a market for his horses and mules in South 
Carolina. In 1860 he purchased 122 acres of land 
in Bourbon and Nicholas Counties. June 5, 1861, 
he enlisted in Company I, Forty-eighth Regiment 
Volunteer Infantry, Confederate States Army, 
serving fourteen months as a private, when he re- 
ceived a commission from the secretary of war of the 
Confederate States of America, to raise a regiment, 
which was mustered into service in November, 
1862, and was ordered to McMinnville, Tenn., un- 
der Gen. John H. Morgan, and finally entered the 
secret service. In the winter of 1863 Col. Grimes 
was captured, taken to Lexington, Ky. , and thrown 
into what was known as Gen. John H. Morgan's 
nigger prison; he was kept there ten days, when 
he was transferred to Kemper Barracks, Cincinnati, 
where he was kept in solitary confinement four 
months and twenty-three days, during which time 
he was court-martialed and sentenced to death on 
Johnson's Island, in Lake Erie, but six hours be- 
fore the time for the execution he made his escape 
by bribing the guards with money given him by a 
lady friend, and by sliding down a lightning-rod, 
hand over hand, thirty feet. He took the train for 
St. Louis, but, fearing danger, stopped off at Law- 
rence Station, 111. During his long service. Col. 
Grimes participated in the battles of Piketon, 
Chancellorsville, South Mountain, Antietam, seven 
days' fight before Richmond, Si^ottsylvania, Hart- 
ersville, Perryville, and many skirmishes, toonum- 



r 



'i'h 




erous to mention. April 4, 1882, Col. Grimes 
married Mrs. Hebe (Grayson) Butler, daiifrJiter of 
Col. William P. B. Grayson, of Kentucky, who 
was a sou of Robert Harri.son Grayson. Col. 
Grimes is a member of the Christian Church, his 
wife being a member of the Episcopal, having been 
confirmed with her father, at his death-bed, in 
1873, by Bishop Cummings. 

John Q. Guynn, who resides near Newport, in 
Jacksou County, came to Arkansas from Christian 
County, Ky. , in 1861. He is a son of Eandolph 
and Elizabeth (Collins) Guynn, the latter of whom 
died in Jacksonport, Ark., February 27, 1887, and 
is buried in the cemetery near Jacksonport. John 
Q. Guynn was born June 0, 1832, and lived in 
Kentucky until he emigrated to Arkansas, in 1861, 
as before stated. He received his edncation in the 
Counties of Trigg and Christian, of his native State. 
January 13, 1857, he married Miss Catherine 
Stenibaugh, a native of Trigg County, Ky. To 
them were born two children: John M. (born 
March 8, 1858, in Trigg County, Ky. ) and Will- 
iam A. (born March 6, 1868.) John M. Guynn 
was married December 15, 1882, to Miss Miimie 
Pistole, of Jacksonport, Jackson County; he is 
now employed in the freight depot of the St. Louis 
& Iron Mountain Railroad. Mr. Guynn first en- 
gaged in farming, on rented land, and has ever since 
devoted his attention to the pursuit of agriculture, 
with the exception of two years, during which he 
served in the Confederate army. His first pur- 
chase of land was in 1862, and consisted of 160 
acres in Cache Township, Jackson County, which 
was cultivated land. In 1872 he sold out and 
bought 300 acres in Sections 24 and 25, Jefferson 
Township, upon which were some small improve- 
ments. He now has about 160 acres under culti- 
vation, has erected four good tenant houses and 
two dwellings, one of the dwelling-houses being 
built for his son John M., and the other by him- 
self. Mr. Guynn is now renting his farm, which 
is situated midway between Jacksonport and New- 
port. Ho at present leases a farm about one mile 
east of Newport, where he has lived a year and a 
half. After the death of his first wife our subject 
married Mrs. Eliza (Holdby) Pistole, March 11, 



1878. They are members of the Shiloh congrega- 
tion of the Christian Church, at Deaz. Mr. (iuyiiu 
is also a member of Jacksonport Lodge No. IWI, 
A. F. & A. M., and also belongs to Jacksonport 
Chapter No. 40, K. A. M. 

Howell Jesse Hale, a farmer and stock raiser, 
residing on Section 34, in Grublis Township, Jack- 
son County, came to Arkansas when about four 
years of age with his parents. John and Jane 
(Tatum) Hale, both natives of Georgia. John Halo 
located in IndeiJendence County about 1853, and of 
the four children born to himself and wife Imt two 
are now living, our subject and a sister, who mar- 
ried Mr. T. M. Owens, and now lives in Indian 
Territory, near Oklahoma. Mr. H. J. Hale was 
born January 30, 1854. He married Miss Nancy 
C. Sullens, a native of Arkansas, who was lx>rn 
and luarried on the place now owned by Mr. Hale. 
She died in 1880, the mother of two children, one 
of whom, Julia A., died in 1876; the other. James, 
was born in 1877. In 1885 Mr. Hale married Miss 
Nora Kobin.son, of Jackson County. To the latter 
union have been born two children, of whom Al- 
berta died in 1887, and Clara, born June 4, 1888, 
still survives. After the death of his first wife 
Mr. Hale came into possession of her old home- 
stead, which she inherited from her father, con- 
taining 355 acres, to which Mr. Hale has adiled 
460 acres. He now has 260 acres under cultivation 
and has erected upon the place seven tenant houses, 
as well as good barns, a cotton-gin, and saw and 
corn-mill. In clearing his land Mr. Hale uses 
such of the timber as will make a good quality of 
lumber for l)uilding purposes, for which he fincN a 
ready market in the neighborhood and adjoining 
townshi]>s. He is a meml)er of Newport Lixlge 
A. F. & A. M., and also belongs to that Christian 
Church known as Robinson's Chapel. 

Isaac W. Hankins, by occupation a fanner and 
stock raiser, was born in (ieorgia. ami when but 
three years of age came to Arkansas with his par- 
ents. Elijah and Celia (Brock) Hankins, both na- 
tives of Georgia. The [larents located in Craig 
head County, Ark., in 1856. removing to Jackson 
County, in 1864. where they rented the McElrath 
farm in Grubbs Township, upon which they liveil 



864 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



two or three years, and afterward moved to a place 
in Village Township, known as the Quails farm, 
where both died, the mother surviving her husband 
only three years . To this worthy couple were born 
nine children, whose names in the order of their 
birth are as follows: J. W. , born in 1853; Winnie, 
R., born in 1858; Mintia D., born in 1879; Melia, 
born in 1881; Noria F., born in 1886, and Strator 
W. , born in 1889. Isaac W. Hankins, the only 
son, received the most of his education in the 
common schools of Village Township. Mr. Han- 
kins married Miss Winnie K. Freeman, a native of 
Johnson County, Ark., and took his bride to a 
home he had prepared on a small farm on Section 
28, Grubbs Township, Jackson County, where they 
commenced life, living there about five years. 
Three of their children were born on this place. 
In 1882 Mr. Hankins rented the farm upon which 
he now lives, on Section 29, which he purchased 
in 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Hankins have had six chil- 
dren, of whom but four are living, two having died 
in infancy. Those living are Mintia D.. Melia A., 
Nora and Strator. The parents are both members 
of the Christian Church, worshiping with the 
congregation at Robinson's Chapel. Mr. Hankins 
is also a member of the Wheel, an organization for 
the promotion of the interests of the farmers. 

J. A. Harlan. One of the best examples of 
enterprise to be seen in Jacksonport is the busi- 
ness of Mr. Harlan. This gentleman was born in 
Hardeman County, Tenn. , on January 1, 1851, and 
is a son of David and Sarah (McMuUeu) Harlan, 
of North Carolina, who emigrated to Tennessee 
shortly after their marriage, where they remained 
several years, and from there to Mississippi, where 
the father died in 1855. After his death the 
mother returned to Tennessee, where she is still 
residing. They were the paients of five children, 
of whom four are yet living: Cullen M. , Idotha 
(wife of Guy Smith), Bettie (wife of Dr. J. 
M. Higlin) and John A. The mother of the.se 
children was three times married, and by her j 
second husband had one daughter, Jennie Black. 
John A. was reared principally in Tennessee, and 
received his education in that State. In 1869 
he came to Jacksonport, and was engaged in | 



farming for five years. He afterward embarked 
in commercial life, and became one of the lead- 
ing business men of that city, as well as one of the 
most popular men, socially. He carries a fine stock 
of general merchandise, and has earned a rep- 
utation for square dealing, the best goods and 
lowest prices, that has enabled him to build up a 
large patronage in Jackson County. In 1880 Mr. 
Harlan was married to Miss Lulu Simpson, by 
whom he has had three children : Cullen D. , Elden 
B. and Ethel A. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity and Legion of Honor, as well as the 
Knights of Honor. Besides his mercantile inter- 
ests, he owns several hundred acres of valuable 
land, and altogether enjoys a liberal prosperity. 

B. F. Harris was the third in the family of five 
children born to John and Jane (Goodi-ich) Harris, 
and his birth occurred in Madison County, Tenn. , 
in 1856. The parents were natives of Tennessee. 
John Harris was a planter by occupation, and set 
tied in Glass Township, Jackson County, Ark., in 
1860, purchasing 400 acres of land, which he partly 
improved, and which was his home until his death, 
in December, 1872; his wife died in 1870. Of the 
children, two are living beside our subject: J. G., 
who resides iu Jackson County, and Elizabeth E., 
now Mrs. Hill, living at Swifton. B. F. Harris was 
reared to the pursuit of farming, receiving his ed- 
ucation in the district schools of Jackson County. 
He aided his father in clearing and improving tlie 
home farm, and commenced farming for himself 
on the same tract. Mr. Harris was married in 
Jackson Coimty, in 1880, to Emma J. Moon, a 
native of Calhoun County, Ark., and their three 
children are John Leroy, Thomas Edwin, and 
Tennessee. After his marriage, our subject set- 
tled where he now resides, near the village of 
Swifton, where he owns 160 acres of good farm 
land, of which 100 acres are under cultivation. 
He pays considerable attention to stock raising, 
owning some valuable stock. Mr. and Mrs. Har- 
[ ris are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and well known in the township, where 
they are highly esteemed. Politically, Mr. Harris 
is a Democrat in his political preferences, though 
he takes no active interest in politics. 



e; - 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



m;:, 



Albert Walter Harris, farmer and stock raiser, 
of Breckinridge Towaship, was born March 25, 
1859, in Alabama. His parents were Fletcher Har- 
ris (born in Alabama, in 183:^, died in 1877) and 
Sallie A. (Walls) Harris, of Alabama (born in 1836, 
and died January 29, 1889). Our subject was ed- 
ucated in the public schools of Jackson County, 
Ark. Upon the death of his father, he came into 
possession of some sixty acres of the old homestead, 
twenty-five acres of which were cultivated. He 
now owns 220 acres of land, forty acres cultivated. 
At one time, in company with his brother, James, 
he engaged in the mercantile business, erecting a 
building on the homestead, where they continued 
six years, moving to Tupelo in 1885, and selling out 
in 1888. In 1883 Mr. Harris married Miss Martha 
Ellen Rotenburg, of Alabama; they have three 
children: Laura Jane (born in November, 1883), 
Maud Ethel (born February 11, 1885) and Lena 
(born May 14, 1887.) Mr. Hairis is a Democrat, 
public-spirited and progressive, taking an active 
interest in things educational, social and religious. 
George C. Harrison, planter and miller, is a 
native of Mississippi, and was born March 23, 
1834. His parents were natives of Tennessee, and, 
both dying before our subject was one year old, he 
was raised by an uncle — G. C. Harrison. He 
lived on a farm, never attending school, and the 
considerable knowledge he has was gathered since 
his majority. At the age of nineteen he began life 
for himself, engaging in farming as an overseer, in 
Prairie County, Ark., where he remained till 1857. 
He has been three times married — in 1853 to Miss 
Mary Henderson, of St. Francis County, Ark. They 
had one child, Arthur, the wife dying in 1857. 
In 1863 he married Miss Sarah Bray, of St. Fran- 
cis County, daughter of Henry and Fanny Bray, 
the father a farmer and Baptist minister. By this 
union there were four children: Delia (died at fif- 
teen), Henry, \\'illiam, and George (married and 
living in Jackson). Mi-s. Harrison died in 1882, 
and in 1884 Mr. Harrison married Mrs. Sumette 
Mallory, widow of James Mallory, who had two 
children, Anna and Hannah O., aged fifteen and 
twelve years. In 1872 Mr. Harrison came to , 
Centerville, Jackson County, Ark., whore he lived 



live years, and in 1877 bought ninety-one acreH of 
new land, which he cleared, later adding forty 
acres to it, and has 100 acres of cleared land. He 
has since added forty acres to that, making 171 
acres in that farm in Union Township. In 1885 
he gave his wife a farm of eighty-five acres, sev- 
enty-five of which are cleared, lying half a mile 
northwest of Auvergne. Together, they now own 
570 acres, 350 of which are now under cultiva- 
tion. In 1882 he began ginning cotton with his 
own machinery, on his farm, in Union Townshij), 
insured his customers against loss l)y fire, and in 
October, 1885, the gin, together with eighteen bales 
of his customers' cotton and three bales of his own, 
were totally destroyed by fire, being a totjil loss. 
In 1886 he built his present gin and the grist mill 
at Auvergne. This gin is the best in Jackson 
County, having a capacity of fifteen bales. He 
does a general ginning business, and buys his ten- 
ants' crops. In 1861 our subject enlisted in the 
Thirteenth Arkansas Regiment, was made lieuten- 
ant of Company B, serving one year, when he was 
discharged. He re-enlisted in Capt. Anderson's 
company, Col. Dobbins' regiment, where he served 
until the surrender, in 1865. He was never 
wounded, but in the battle of Belmont, in which he 
was engaged, seven bullets were sent through his 
clothing. He was with Gen. Price on his raid 
through Missouri, and was at the battle of Lexing 
ton. He was also at the battle of Pilot Knob, and 
the last skirmish was at Fayetteville, Ark., in the 
winter of 1864. Mr. Harrison votes the Democratic 
ticket, and is conservative; is a member of the Ma- 
sonic order, of the Knights of Honor and the A. 
L. of H. He and his wife are members of the 
Baptist and Presbyterian Churches, respectively. 
He also contributes to the support of the cliurches, 
schools, and all other enterprises for the good of 
the county. 

J. Y. Harrison, a prosperous and enterprising 
farmer of Jefferson Township, was born in Chris 
tian County, Ky., near Hoi>kiusville, on tbe 22d of 
April, 1847. His parents were Robert nn<l Isabella 
(Means) Harrison, the father a native of Tennessee 
and the mother from Kentucky. The elder Hnr 
rison moved to Kentuckv in his voiith, and was 



^_^ 



866 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



afterward married in that State, taking his bride 
to Arkansas in 1850, and locating in Jackson 
■ County, near Jacksonport. He entered a tract of 
land in Bird Township, where he commenced cul- 
tivating the soil, and remained until his death in 
1874. The mother yet survives him as well as 
five children: Margaret, wife of A. D. Anderson; 
James, Robert, Frank and Mary, the latter mar- 
ried to C. B. Coe. J. Y. Harrison, one of the 
sons, came to Arkansas when only three years of 
age, and grew to manhood in this State, receiving 
in the meantime the best education afforded by 
the schools of that period. He left his parents 
when eighteen years old, in 1867, with 85 cents 
in money. He has always made farming his voca- 
tion, and after his marriage located on a tract of 
land in Bird Township, where he resided and cul- 
tivated the soil until 1863, when he removed to 
his present residence and rented land up to 1881, 
and then biiying 160 acres. He now owns 740 
acres of some of the most valuable land in that 
section, and has 320 acres under cultivation, 180 
acres of which were cleared and improved by him- 
self alone. The principal crop is corn and cotton, 
and of the former this year he has had 300 acres, 
and 200 acres of the latter. Besides his farm Mr. 
Harrison deals extensively in stock, having 
splendid facilities for that business, and raises 
some of the finest horses, cattle and mules in that 
section. He also owns a cotton-gin, grist and 
saw-mill, and raises some grass for the market. In 
1869 he was married to Miss Mary Hunter, by 
whom he has had eight children: Emma, Ida, 
Minnie. Norah and Pinkey (both deceased). Ber- 
tha, Spriggs and Cleveland. In politics Mr. Har- 
rison is a Democrat, and a valuable man to his 
party, as well as a popiilar citizen of his county. 

Robert H. Harvey, planter and stock raiser, was 
born in North Carolina, in 1830, the third in a 
family of nine children of William and Josephine 
(Harrington) Harvey, of North Carolina. Will- 
iam came to Jackson County, in 1850, settling in 
Bird Township, where he juade his permanent 
home, dying in 1885 at the age of eighty-two. His 
wife died some years ago. Of the family there 
are living Emma (now Mrs. Poe), Robert, Simeon 



(of Oregon), Benjamin (of Oregon), and W. R. , 
who has a large farm in the upper part of Jack- 
son County. Our subject was raised on the farm, 
received his education in the subscription schools 
of Tennessee, and came to Jackson Count}* at 
the age of twenty and engaged in overseering on 
plantations for nine years. In 1859 he married 
Mary B. Palmer, daughter of Samuel and Louisa 
(Means) Palmer, of Kentucky (both deceased), 
who came to Jackson County in 1850. After his 
marriage he entered forty acres of land where he 
now resides, on which he planted an orchard, and 
otherwise improved and added to it, until now 
he has 400 acres, with about 200 under cultiva- 
tion, raising cotton and corn, and grade stock. 
Mr. Harvey is a Democrat, has been road overseer, 
and always takes an active interest in school work, 
and aids liberally in public enterprises. In 1869 
Mrs. Harvey died, leaving three children: Herbert 
(killed at Tuckerman, in 1879), Samuel and Mag- 
gie B. (now Mrs. Shoat, residing in Texas). In 
February, 1878, Mr. Harvey married Josephine 
Thomas, of Tennessee, daughter of Columbus and 
Elizabeth (Long) Thomas, of South Carolina, 
early settlers of Tennessee. Mrs. Harvey has had 
two children, both deceased. On his farm Mr. 
Harvey has a cotton-gin and grist-mill, and does 

I a general business for people in the vicinity. 

William R. Harvey, a planter and stock raiser, 
of Glass Township, Jackson County, is one of the 
pioneer settlers of that county. He was born in 
Hardeman County, Tenn., in 1843, and was the 
tenth in a family of thirteen children born to Will- 
iam M. and Josephine (Blunt) Harvey, natives of 
North Carolina. AA'illiam M. Harvey settled in 

I Hardeman County, Tenn., in an early day; he 
owned and operated there a large plantation until 
1849, when he emigrated to Jackson County, Ark., 
entering land in Bird Township. He cut a road to 
his claim, upon which he erected a small log cabin 
and commenced clearing and injproving his land; 
this was his home until 1872, in which year he 
went to Oregon, remaining in that State until 
1876, when he returned to Jackson County, where 

I he spent the remainder of his life, his death oc- 
curring in August, 1886. The mother of our sub- 



^Izz^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



8(57 



ject died iu 1860. William R. was reared on the 
farm, and receivod the limited advantages of the 
subscription schools, assisting his father in the 
meantime in clearing the farm. In 1862 he en- 
listed in the Confederate army, Capt. Hooker's com- 
pany, for two years, and was assigned to Gen. Van- 
Dorn's bodyguard, being afterward transferred to 
John McRay' s brigade, Col. Young's regiment; he 
was in the battles of Prairie Grove, Eockfence, Pilot 
Knob, Jefferson City, and was with Gen. Price on 
his raid through Missouri and Arkansas, to Fay- 
etteville. At the close of the war Mr. Harvey re- 
turned to Jackson County and engaged in farm- 
ing, purchasing a tract of 280 acres in Bird Town- 
ship, which was partly improved; in 1880 he -sold 
out and removed to Glass Township, where he 
first bought 440 acres, upon which was considera- 
ble improvement, and to which he has since added 
until he now owns iu all 700 acres, with over 220 
acres under cultivation, one of the finest stock 
farms in the township, as it is well watered. Mr. 
Harvey devotes a good deal of attention to stock 
raising, owning about sixty head of cattle, forty 
horses, and a large drove of hogs. He annually 
raises about 100 acres of cotton. Mr. Harvey was 
married, in Bird Town.ship, in 1865, to Miss Eliza 
Bettisworth, who was bom iu Tennessee, and 
is a daughter of George and Sarah (Anderson) 
Bettisworth, natives of Kentucky, who removed to 
Independence County, Ark. , in 1850. Mr. Bettis- 
worth, who was a saddler by trade, died in 1855; 
his widov,', who removed to Pocahontas, Randolph 
County, in ISGLdied in 1880. Five children have 
been born to Mr. and ^Irs. Harvey, viz: Joseph, 
AVilliam, Sydney, Arthur, and Ross (who died in 
1877, at the age of four years). Mr. Harvey is an 
active jwliticiau, working and voting with the Demo- 
cratic party. He is an enterprising farmer, and fully 
alive and interested in the advancement and de- 
velopment of the county. 

Dr. W. H. Heard. One of the earliest physi- 
cians to settle in Jackson County was Dr. Heard, 
who was born in Chicot County, on June 13, 1840. 
He is a son of John and Harriet N. (Hardy) Heard, 
of Georgia and Kentucky, respectively. The ma- 
ternal grandfather was a colonel in the Warof 1812, 



who was one of the earliest settlers, and died in 
Jackson County. Dr. Heard's father, John Heard, 
was an extensive planter in Drew County, where 
he died during the war, the mother dying some 
time previous. They were the parents of six chil- 
dren, two of whom are .still living: Dr. William 
H. and Emma (wife of Samuel Holloway). The 
Doctor was reared on the plantation in Arkansas, 
and was comiiaratively young when his parents 
died. He was attending school at the Georgetown 
College, in Kentucky, when the War of the Rebel 
lion began, but when the news came info the 
school-room his youthful ardor was fired with the 
ambition to become a soldier, and he exchanged 
the books and orders of his spectacled profes.sor to 
shoulder the musket and listen to the drumbeat 
and cannon. He enlisted in Company D, of the 
First Arkansas regiment, and .served through the 
entire war, taking part in the battles of Farming 
ton, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Perryville, cam- 
paigning through Georgia and iu the retreat at 
Franklin, where he was captured and taken pris- 
oner to Camp Douglas. He was here confined for 
six months, and then taken to the city of New Or- 
leans and exchanged, and at Natchez received his 
parole. During his many battles he received a 
number of wounds, but hap])ily recovered from all 
of them, and lives to day to recount to his children 
the scenes of his struggle for the lost cause. After 
the war was over he returned to Jackson County, 
and began the .study of mi'dieine, and in lS<>i) 
graduated from the University of Louisville, an<l 
immediately commenced practicing. After an ar 
duous practice of seven years he went to New 
York City in the fall of 1870, attended lectures 
at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and received 
an ad eiiitdem diploma from that institution in the 
spring of 1877. Up to the present time no man 
in the jirofession has exceeded his reputation lis a 
skillful physician and surgiou, and, as a conse- 
quence, his practice is one of the largest in Jack- 
•son County. Dr. Heard was chosen a.s acting as- 
sistant surgeon of the United States Marine Hospi 
tal, and has held that position since 1S82. He i.s 
a member of the State Meilical So<uety, and has 
served on the board of examiners for some time. 









868 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and iu 1878 he was elected county treasurer, and 
served one term. In 1879 the Doctor was married 
to Miss Mattie Foushee, by whom he has had two 
children: Kate P. and Walter L. He is a Royal 
Arch Mason, and a member of the Knights of 
Pythias, also the Royal Arcanum and Knights of 
Honor. Politically, the Doctor is a Democi'at, and 
one of the strongest supporters of that party. He 
attends the Methodist Church, and is also one of 
the directors of the Newport Bank. 

Capt. James T. Henderson, a prominent and 
influential man of Jackson County, and the father 
of Auvergne, the town where he resides, is a na- 
tive of Giles County, Tenn., and was born Sep- 
tember 14, 1835. His parents were Benjamin 
Franklin and Nancy C. (Blackwood) Henderson, 
natives of North Carolina, and of Irish and En- 
glish ancestry. The parents were married in North- 
ern Alabama, and in 1834 moved to Giles County, 
T^enn., locating upon a large plantation, where 
they reared their family of four children. B. 
Franklin Henderson was an active and influential 
Democrat, and the family were members of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. James T. was 
the eldest of the children; the others are Eliza J., 
who became the wife of Robert L. Davis, in April, 
1857; Emma, wife of R. M. Laird, a merchant 
and farmer of Auvergne; and John C, a farmer 
and stock raiser, also of Auvergne. Benjamin 
Franklin Henderson died in the early part of 1849, 
which sad event made it necessary for James T., 
who was then attending college in Tennessee, to 
return home and assist his mother in the manage- 
ment of his father's estate; the mother died in 
1856, leaving him sole manager at the <ige of 
twenty-one. He was made joint administrator, 
and Henry Henderson, a colored slave, was ap- 
pointed foreman under our subject' s direction. In 
1857 Mr. Henderson was em])loyed l)y John T. 
Shapard, of Elkton, as a cotton buyer, in which ho 
was successful, and was subsequently engaged in 
the store of John T. Shapard under permanent 
contract at $100 per month; at the end of six 
months he bought a one-half interest in the busi- 
ness, and the lirm became Shapard & Henderson, 
of Elkton, Tenn., carrying on an extensive busi- 



ness until 1860; in the latter year our subject sold 
out and removed to Jackson County, Ark., first 
locating on Bowen's Ridge, where he lived two 
years. At the outbreak of the war he raised Com- 
pany H, Thirty-second Arkansas Regiment, of 
which he was elected captain, and after serving in 
that capacity a short time, he was selected to till 
a position in the secret service under Gens. Hind- 
man, Shelby and Price, and Kirby Smith. He 
was quite successful in the work of securing sup- 
plies for the army, and escaped capture, receiving 
honorable discharge at the close of the war. He 
then returned to Arkansas, and bought a large 
farm near Newport, but was employed as mercan- 
tile salesman in the store of J. W. Stayton & Co., 
of Jacksonport, for three years, afterward, for 
about the same length of time, in the same capac- 
ity with A. Hirsch & Son. In 1873 he bought 
755 acres of land, on which he settled, and the 
first year cleared 400 acres; of this tract he has 
sold a considerable portion, now owning 480 acres, 
of which 410 acres are under cultivation. He has 
erected good houses, barns, etc. , and made other 
improvements. When Mr. Henderson first located 
his present home, there was no open laud be- 
tween his place and Newport, but his enterprise 
and perseverance have opened a large area; he has 
a beautiful home among the trees, one-half mile 
west of Auvergne, and upon his place is growing 
a young peach orchard of 1,000 trees, of more than 
a dozen varieties; he also has other orchards con- 
taining nearly all kinds of pears, apples, plums 
and cherries. All of the twenty-five slaves whom 
Mr. Henderson owned and brought with him to 
Arkansas before the war are still living, and have 
farms of their own, loading independent lives. 
Capt. Henderson owns ten places, comprising in all 
1,220 acres, besides four residences in Newport, 
and the towns of Tuckerman and Swifton. He 
located the town of Auvergne, and built the first 
house there in 1886; he also built and furnished 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which he 
presented to the town. With six others besides 
Capt. Henderson a board of directors was formed, 
who built and established Auvergne Academy, and 
in many other ways has our subject taken a lead- 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



vCi'.l 



ing part ia tho upbuilding of his town. In 1888 he 
was appointed by the State Immigratiou Society 
to organize a Jackson County society, to which he 
was successful, holding the position of vice-presi- 
dent of his township and director of the county 
board. Capt. Henderson has devoted considerable 
attention to the breeding of thoroughbred cattle, 
and has some of the finest stock in the State. In 
1858 the Captain married Miss Amanda M. Laird, 
daughter of Martin and Margaret (Malone) Laird, 
natives of Virginia. Capt. Henderson is a mem- 
ber of Newport Lodge No. 191, A. F. & A. M. ; 
he is an Odd Fellow, a member of the K. of H. , 
and A. L. of H. , and of the Wheel. He takes an 
active part in the politics of his county and State 
as a Democrat, having been elected in 1874 to rep- 
resent the Twenty-ninth District in the senate, 
where he served until 1878. Mr. and Mrs. Hen- 
derson are consistent members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South. 

Henry Henderson is a prominent colored resi- 
dent of Northeast Arkansas, and one whose name 
is rightly entitled to appear on the pages of Ar- 
kansas history. He was born in Madison County, 
Ala., in 1821, and is a son of Joseph and Amy 
Walker, who were the property of Samuel Walker, 
a noted Alabama legislator and slave owner. 
When Henry was at the age of nineteen years, 
Samuel Walker died, and he became the property 
of his heir, Milton Walker, with whom he re- 
mained until his twenty-eighth year, when he was 
then traded to a man named Franklin Henderson, 
in exchange for a man of the same weight, the 
trade being made in order to allow the family to 
remain together. In 1844 he was united in mar- 
riage to Malindia Halloway, a comely young slave, 
who was the property of Louis Halloway, and to 
this couple were born the following children : Mary, 
Chatman, Matildia, Ann, Ellon, Sam, Bryson, and 
a child who died in infancy. Mary is now the 
mother of a family, and resides in Tennessee, as 
does also Ann, who has a family of her own. 
Chatman is the father of a family, and owns a 
farm adjoining his father, as does also Sam, who 
owns his own land. Matildia is married, and has 
a large family, and lives in Washington County, 



Miss. Ellen has a family also, and lives near Lor 
father, while Bryson, who is a well educated and 
very intellectual man, teaches school at Weldon. 
In tho year ISfiO Mr. Henderson came to Bowen's 
Eidge, Ark., with his owners, the Henderson fam- 
ily, and assisted in farming and improving the 
land. During tho war he was taken to the army 
as cook, and at the close of that period he was 
paroled at a point near St. Louis. After an ab- 
sence of four years he returned to his family, and 
later on moved to the vicinity of Auvergne, Ark., 
where he conducted the farm work of his old mas 
ters, the Hendersons. He remained with them two 
years, and then took a lease on forty acres of land, 
where Auvergne now stands. At the end of five 
years he purchased forty acres, and shortly after- 
ward added fifteen more, and then fifty-five acres 
still later. Since then he has become more pros- 
perous from year to year, and has donated consid- 
erable land to his childi-en. He is one of the 
leading men of the colored r.ace in that section, 
and the oldest of the Hendersons' former slaves. 

L. Hirsch, real estate dealer and insurance 
agent, at Newport, Ark. The principal necessity 
to the success of the real estate business, the safest 
and surest form of investment, is to have reliable 
agents, who are thoroughly posted on their city 
and locality, and the town of Newport has found 
such a man in the person of Mr. Hirsch, who is 
one of the largest land-holders in the county, being 
the owner of about 2,000 acres of real estate, and 
fifteen valuable lots in the town of Newport. In 
connection with this work he is engaged in the 
insurance business, and represents the following 
companies: The Hartf(jrd, Phtenix, Orient, -Etna, 
of Hartford, Conn. ; the Springfield, of Spring- 
field, Mass. ; the Phoenix, of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; the 
Anglo-Nevada, Union, Commercial and California, 
of the State of California; the Lancashire and North 
British and Mercantile, of England; the New Or- 
leans Insurance Association, Crescent, Southern, 
Hibernia, Sun Mutual, and Mechanics and Trad- 
ers, of New Orleans, La. ; the Fire As.sociatioii, of 
Philadelphia; the Arkansas Fire, of Little Hock, 
Ark. ; the East Texas, of Tyler, Tex. ; the Mutual 
Fire Insurance Com[mny. of New York, and the 



-^ — A,^ 



870 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Fidelity and Casualtj- Compan_y (Accident), also of 
that city. Mr. Hirsch was born in Batesville, 
Ark., on the 9th of August, 1855, and is a son of 
Aaron and Amelia (Blochman) Hirsch, the former 
a native of France, and the latter of Heidelburg, 
Germany. While Aaron Hirsch was still a single 
man, he took passage on board a vessel bound for 
the United States, and, after reaching this country, 
gradually drifted to the State of Tennessee, where 
he was afterward married. In 1853 he removed 
to Arkansas, locating near Batesville, where be 
opened a mercantile establishment, and conducted 
business here and in Jaeksonport for many years. 
L. Hirsch, the subject of this memoir, made his 
home in Batesville until 1862, then removed with 
his parents to New Orleans, making that city his 
home until 1870. Four years later he returned to 
New]3ort and established a mercantile store, under 
the tirm name of A. Hirsch & Son, but in 1878 
this partnership was dissolved, and the firm name 
became L. Hirsch & Co., and remained such iintil 
1880. At this date Mr. Hirsch sold out to Wolf 
& Goldman, and embarked in his present business, 
and up to 1885 was associated with H. L. Remmel, 
but in that year he purchased Mr. Remmel' s inter- 
est, and continued alone until January, 1889, 
when he gave an interest to his younger brotlier, 
Ralph, and the firm is now Hirsch & Bro. He is 
also treasurer of the Newport Water & Irrigating 
Company, and has full control of the plumbing 
department. He is secretary of the White River 
Telephone Company; is secretary and manager of 
the White River Ice Manufacturing Company, and 
is a director of the New^^ort Compress & Storage 
Company, now being organized. He is a member 
in good standing of the Masonic fraternity, be- 
longs to the K. of P. , and is treasurer of the lat- 
ter organization. He has also held the offices of 
city treasurer and recorder, and has been deputy 
sheriff and deputy clerk. He is one of the ablest 
youug business men in Jackson County, and in all 
enterprises of a worthy character he has been the 
first to identify himself, and take an interest in 
their successful establishment. Miss Nettie Staf- 
ford, a native of Virginia, became his wife in 
September, 1884, and their union was blessed 



in the birth of two children; Irving S. and 
Eugene A. 

J. B. Hirsch is a dealer in hardware, groceries 
and. plantation supplies, at Newport, Ark., and is 
conducting a successful business. He was born in 
Batesville, Ark., November 25, 1861, but received 
his education in the cities of New Orleans and St. 
Louis, and from his earliest youth he has been 
familiar with the details of mercantile life. At 
the age of sixteen years he came with his father, 
A. Hirsch, to Newport, and began clerking in the 
latter' s mercantile establishment, continuing thus 
employed until 1881 , when they formed a business 
partnership and continued under the firm name of 
A. Hirsch & Son, until January, 1889. At this 
date J. B. Hirsch purchased his father' s interest 
in the business, and began life on his own responsi- 
bility, and by honesty and fair dealing is doing an 
exceptionally prosperous business. His stock of 
goods is well selected, and in point of size is of 
fair proportions. For two years he was associated 
with Wolf, Goldman & Co. , but thinking he could 
do better alone, this partnership was discontinued, 
and the result has proved that his judgment was 
sound. He is an intelligent and enterprising 
young man of business, and his future prospects 
are bright. He is a Mason and a meml)er of the 
K. of P. His marriage with Miss Dora Pollock, 
of Little Rock, Ark., was consummated in Sep- 
tember, 18S8. 

Stephen G. T. Hite resides on Section 23, 
Cache Township, Jackson County, Ark., and is a 
farmer and stock raiser by occupation. He is a 
son of S2:)encer and Martha J. (Wilkins) Hite, na- 
tives of Virginia, where they were married and 
reared a family of twelve children; one child died 
in infancy, and another at the age of six years, 
making in all fourteen. The parents still live on the 
place upon which thej' settled immediately after 
their marriage, Mrs. Hite receiving the land by 
deed from her father December 25, 1869. Stephen 
G. T. Hite married Miss Sarah White, a native of 
Virginia, and a schoolmate. To them have been 
born the following children: David Russell, born 
October 13, 1870; Albertana, born September 5, 
1872; Ella James, born November 6, 187-t; Eunice, 



^wv 






JAC^KSON COUNTY. 



87) 



born ; Amos Andrew, born in July, 

1881; Charles, born January 20, 1884, and 
Stephen, born July 17, 1887; two died in infancy. 
The two elder chikli-en were born in Virginia, and 
the rest in Arkansas. When Mr. Hite first went 
to Arkansas he located in the neighborhood in 
which he now lives, purchasing in December, 
1875, his present farm, of which about forty acres 
were under cultivation, and upon which the only 
buildings were two small log cabins. He now has 
lifty-two acres under cultivation, and has erected 
a good two-story frame dwelling. He has also 
built a cotton-gin, saw and grist-mill, good l)arn8, 
and has a well- improved place, contemplating 
still greater improvements, which will beautify his 
home, as he believes the more attractive the home 
the better will be the morals of his children. He 
aims to give his children six months schooling 
each year, as he thinks a good education is better 
than a legacy. Mr. Hite served nearly three years 
in the Fifty-ninth Virginia Volunteer Infantry, 
Confederate States Ai-my, and in May, 1864, was 
wounded by a musket ball carrying away the 
fourth toe of his left foot. He participated in the 
siege of Richmond, belonging to the command of 
Gen. Lee at the time of his surrender to Gen. 
Grant. Mr. and Mrs. Hite are members of the 
Missionary Baptist Church, and are highly re- 
spected by all who know them. 

W. G. Hogan, planter, of Bird Townshi[i, is a 
son of Granville and Mary Jane (Taylor) Hogan, of 
Tennessee. The father, a farmer, went to Texas in 
ISoS, where our subject was born March 8, of 
the same year. Soon after arriving the father 
died; the mother remained some eight years, and 
finally settled in Bird Township, this county, 
where she still resides, with her son, W. G. Mr. 
Hogan was raised on the farm, receiving his edu- 
cation in the schools of Cross County, this State. 
In 1877 he came to Jackson County, settling in 
Bird Township, and engaged in farming. He is a 
Democrat; is active in politics, and has held the 
offices of justice of the peace and constable, and is 
a member of the school board, Tuckerman District. 
He is a member of Kirkpatrick Lodge No. 192, at 
Tuckerman, holding the office of steward; he is 



also a member of the Triple Allianci-. In IHll 
our subject married Maggie Smith, a native of 
Tenne.ssee, whose parents, Ross and Martha 
(Woodard) Smith, came to Jackson County in 1874. 
The mother is still living. They have bad four 
children, three of whom are living: Lafay Ella, 
Charles Henry and Daniel Green. Mrs. Hogan 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and has a brother, M. M. Smith, who is presiding 
elder of White River conference, located at Joncs- 
boro. Mr. Hogan is actively interested in the 
schools, and in all enterjirises for the advancement 
of the county. 

James W. Howard, farmer and stock raiser, of 
Jackson County, lives six and a half miles east of 
Newport, on the Memphis road. His parents were 
Philip and Hester D. (Bidwell) Howard, of Ohio and 
Tennessee, respectively. The father lived and 
married in Arkansas, but returned to Ohio, where 
James W. was boyn, the eldest of six children, two 
now living: Sarah Jane and James W. At the 
age of nine years the subject of this sketch came 
to Arkansas with his parents; he had then received 
the greater part of his education, but attended 
common school only eleven days in Arkansas. At 
the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion he was 
living in Village Townshij), Jackson County, but 
enlisted in the Southern army in Company A, 
Eighth Regiment of Arkansas Volunteer Infantry, 
served about three and a half years, and at the 
close of the war returned home, since which time 
he has given his attention to farming and stock 
raising, purchasing, in 1873, 120 acres of land, to 
which he has added l)y purchase eighty acres, and 
upon which he has since made his homo. At that 
time, realizing the necessity of an education, he 
applied him.solf diligently to study, acquiring suffi- 
cient knowledge to carry on his business. Mr. 
Howard married Miss Margaret Lamkins, a native 
of Ai'kansas, who lived ten years, and in 1877 he 
married Miss Margaret Ballew, of Arkansas, daugh- 
ter of Robert J. and Mary (Pucket) Ballow, natives 
of Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Howard are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church, and ho has always 
been a friend to progress educational, religiotis 
and social, liberally supporting the church. 







Capt. George \V. Hurley (retired), Newport, 
Ark. The career of the above mentioaed gentle- 
man affords a striking example of encouragement 
for the youth of the present day who have not very 
favorable circumstances surrounding them, and yet 
who are desirous of attaining to positions of trust 
and esteem in the communities where they may 
hereafter reside. Left an orphan at an early day, 
Mr. Hurley attained his growth without the influ- 
ence and tender care of parents, and for this rea- 
son, if for no other, he deserves great credit for 
his success in life, not only in material affairs, but 
as a man. His birth occurred in Frederick Coun- 
ty, Md., on the 1st of May, 1829, and he is the 
son of Morris and Catherine Hurley, both natives 
of County Clare, Ireland. The parents were mar- 
ried in their native country, and in about 1829 
emigrated to America, where the father, who was 
a civil engineer and contractor, worked on the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. He was a large con- 
tractor on the canal, and had his headquarters at 
the Point of Rocks. They were the parents of 
these children: John, Catherine, Charles and 
George W., the first three of whom died in the 
year 1833, as did also the parents, leaving George 
^\'. Hurley, only four years of age, alone and 
among comparative strangers. He was taken by a 
family who thought considerable of him, received 
as good an education as they could afford, and, 
when nine years of age, was apprenticed to learn 
the tailor's trade. When about thirteen years of 
age he ran away fi-om his master, went to Balti- 
more, and shipped as a cabin-boy on board the 
brig Edith. He made a trip around Cape Horn, 
visited Santiago, and numerous other places on 
the Pacific slope, and remained on the ship for 
about two years, being quite a favorite of the Cap- 
tain and his wife. Mr. Hurley relates an incident 
which took place while on the vessel, and gives it 
as a reason for leaving the sea. It was his duty 
to wait upon the table, and one day, after dinner, 
he put some nuts, raisins, etc., in the pockets of 
his little sailor's suit. The Captain, who fre- 
quently indulged too freely at the noon meal, met 
George on deck, and asked what was in his pockets. 
The boy replied, "Nothing,'" which so incensed 



the Captain that the latter gave him a severe whip- 
ping. George was ever after afraid of the com- 
mander, and at the first opportunity left the vessel 
and returned to Baltimore. There he finished his 
trade as a tailor, and soon after went to Washing- 
ton, thence to Richmond, Ya., where he was taken 
sick and came very near dying. He became penni- 
less, hut, through the charity of friends, obtained 
enough money to return to Baltimore, where he 
obtained emjjloyment, and there remained until 
the breaking out of the Mexican W'ar. He then 
enlisted in the Second Baltimore Battalion, under 
Col. Hughes, and served one year, receiving a sabre 
and lance wound at the battle of Monterey, for 
which he now receives a pension. After recovering 
he was placed in the quartermaster's department, 
and was on the Southern route. Upon his second 
return to his home he had some means saved, and 
located at New Richmond, Ohio, where he started 
up a modest tailoring establishment, but only re- 
mained there a short time. He then sold out and 
moved to Indianapolis, Ind. , where he secured a 
position as emitter in a large establishment; but, at 
the end of one 3'ear, he became restless, and en- 
listed in the Cuban Lopez expedition. He, with 
about 200 old Mexican soldiers, went to Cuba; 
eighty-six were captured, fifty -two were taken to 
Havana and shot, and thirty-four carried on the 
steamer "Pizarau,'' a large Spanish man-of-war — 
and was taken to Spain, with aljout thirty-four 
other comrades. They were kept prisoners some 
six weeks, and during that time, which seemed, no 
doubt, like so many years, experienced some of 
the most heartrending scenes imaginable, being 
taken out every day and counted, with the expec- 
tation of being shot. They were finally released 
by President Fillmore, who sent a United States 
cutter for them. They were treated like kings 
on the vessel, being given money, clothes, etc. 
He came to Kentucky, being again entirely broken 
up, and invented a patent for garment cutting, 
with which he traveled over several different States, 
and made considerable money on the same. He 
subsequently went to Keokuk, Iowa, where he 
started another tailoring establishment, and carried 
it on until 1857. From there he went to Jackson, 



"'« spV 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



87:5 



r 



Tonu. , where be was married, and removed with 
his family to White County, Ark., being there en- 
gaged in agvieultwral pursuits. In 18(51 he was 
appointed by Gov, Rector, of Arkansas, as quarter- 
master of the State troops, and in the organization 
of a regiment at Mound City, was appointed by 
Colonel-elect (afterward General) Cleburne, quar- 
termaster of the tirst State troops. The regiment 
moved to Pocahontas, where State troops were 
abandoned and regiments for the Confederacy 
formed. Being, as a consequence retired, he re- 
turned home and organized a company, of which 
he was made first lieutenant, and afterward, for 
meritorious conduct, was promoted to a captaincv. 
He participated in all the general engagements on 
this side of the Mississippi River, receiving one 
slight wound from a shell. In 1S64 he asked for 
retired papers, and then took the superinteudencj' 
of cutting and fitting clothes for the soldiers at 
Shreveport, La. His family still living in White 
County when he came home, he moved with them 
to Augusta, Woodi'uif County, Ark., where he re- 
mained for nine years, being engaged for two 
years in the livery business, and after this took the 
traveling agency for a cotton commission house at 
New Orleans. Having speculated too heavily in 
cotton, he became involved, and then entered the 
hotel and confectionery business, which he carried 
on until 1873, when he came to Newport, then a 
town of about thirty-one inhabitants. He em- 
barked in the wholesale and retail liquor and to- 
bacco business, afterward turning his business into 
a grocery and general planters' sujsplies, and buy- 
ing cotton, in which he was very extensively en- 
gaged until about 1880. Since that time lie has 
been engaged in the real estate business, and in 
building up Newport, owning five large brick bus- 
iness buildings and several residences. He also 
owns a good farm, and is one of the leading citi- 
zens of Jackson County. He has taken great in- 
terest in secret orders, is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, advancing as far as a Knight Templar. 
He is also a member of the I. O. O. F., is Past 
Grand Master, and has been a meml)or of the order 
since 1847; was initiated in Mechanic's Lodge No. 
15, at Baltimore, Md., being subsequently con- 



nected with the order in the States of Ohio, Indi- 
ana and Kentucky. He is the founder and orig- 
inator of Newport Lodge No. 71, Newport, Ark., 
which was organized May 17, 1875. He has Ix-en 
lionorod with nearly every oflicial position within 
the gift of the order; has served as Grand Master, 
was Grand Representative to the Sovereign Grand 
Lodge for six years, and Grand Patriarch in the En- 
campment branch for two years. In 1876 he repre- 
sented the State of Arkansas in the Sovereign Grand 
Lodge, at Philadelphia, and in 1882 at Toronto. 
He is an indefatigable worker in the interests of 
Odd Fellowship, and is one of the most highly 
honored members of that fraternity. He is also a 
member of the Knights of Pythias, and a member 
of the Royal Arcanum, of which he is past officer. 
His marriage to ilrs. Mary L. Boyd occurred in 
1858, and one child, now deceased, was the result 
of this union. Mrs. Hurley is a member of the 
Episcopal Churclj. Both Mr. Hurley and Mrs. 
Hurley are hale and hearty in their old age. 

Samuel C. Ireland, now residing in Auvergne. 
was born in North (!arolina, February 26, 1841t, 
son of John and Elizabeth (Isley) Ireland, natives 
of North Carolina. Mr. Ireland came to Arkan- 
sas in 1872, without a dollar, and located in Cow 
Lake Township, on property which belonged to 
his father, there then being but twenty-two fam- 
ilies in the township. On this place was a doulile 
log house, and twelve acres had been cleared and 
planted the year previous. In 1878 he had thirty- 
two acres planted to corn: eight acres he cleared 
with the assistance of one man, and twelve acres 
he cleared after night, without assistance. Mr, 
Ireland continued to clear the land, and the next 
year planted sixty acres. In 1875 he bought 
eighty acres of W, L. Johnson, planted seventy 
acres, which he worked himself, and rented twenty 
more, making ninety acres under cultivation on his 
place. At that time, by various purchases, he wa.s 
the owner of 400 acres of land, 320 of which he 
bought of his father; he is now the owner of 1.834 
acres, 380 of which are under cultivation, the 
various tracts being in Cow Lake and Richwood 
Townships. On the places are good dwelling 
houses and barns, and on that in Cow Lake Town- 



^ f. 



874 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ship are a cotton-gin and a grist-mill. Mr. Ireland 
gives a great deal of attention to mule and cattle 
raising, finding a home market for them. Novem- 
ber 20, 1873, Mr. Ireland married Mrs. Mar- 
garet Ireland, widow of his brother, W. W. Ire- 
land. They have no children, but are raising four 
orphan boys, Henry Lee and Willie Benelield, 
born in 1871 and 1873, resi^ectively, and Willie 
and Connie Barnes, nephews of Mrs. Ireland, born 
in 1880 and 1S83, respectively. Mr. and Mrs. 
Ireland are members of the Christian Church. 

Thomas William Jamison, county surveyor of 
Jackson County, Ark., and farmer of Bird Town- 
ship, was born in Buckingham, Canada East, the 
youngest of six children born to Thomas and 
Clara (Hall) Jamison, natives of Scotland and Ire- 
land, respectively, who came with their parents to 
Canada, and there married. The father was a 
farmer, and, in 1859, when our subject was about 
seven years old, removed to Woodford County, 111., 
and settled near Minonk, returning to Canada in 
1876, where he died in 1884. His wife died in 
Canada in 1852. The subject of our sketch was 
raised on a farm near Minonk, receiving his edu- 
cation in the district schools of that county, and in 
Minonk. After leaving school he learned tele- 
graphy at La Salle, 111., and engaged in that busi- 
ness at Colona, 111. , Columbus Junction and West 
Liberty, Iowa, on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pa- 
cific Railway. On May 11, 1882, he married Clara 
LafPerty, a native of Mercer County, 111., and 
daughter of William Lafferty, of Ohio, an early 
settler of Mercer County. In September, 1879, 
he came to Jackson County, as agent and operator 
at Tuckerman, where he remained till last year, 
when he was elected county surveyor. He is not 
very active in politics, but votes with the Demo- 
cratic party. He is a member of Trinity Lodge 
No. 561, A. F. & A. M., Monmoiith, 111. He has 
bought a tract of timber land, containing 120 
acres, improved, and now has seventy-three acres 
under cultivation. He has been engaged in stock 
raising. He has imported a thoroughbred stallion, 
also a heavy-draft Clydesdale, which carried off 
the first prize at this and adjoining county fairs. 
He is public-spirited and liberal. 



Anderson Johnston, planter and stock raiser, is 
a native of Arkansas. His father, Andrew John- 
ston, was born in Maury Countj', Tenn. , in 1829: 
came to Arkansas in 1841, and, at the age of eight- 
een, married Miss Sebelle Durham, a native of Mis- 
sissippi, and about that time settled a farm in 
Jackson County, where he raised his family, and 
where our subject was born, August 12, 1849. 
Andrew is a Democrat, and has been magistrate of 
his township. His wife is a member of the Chris- 
tian Church. Anderson was raised on the farm, 
and spent his school days in Jackson County, and 
in September, 1871, married Miss Julia A. Brown- 
ing, daughter of Nimrod and Emeline (Vandiver) 
Browning, natives of Tennessee, who was born in 
1847. They have the following family: Auzell 
Bibb, fifteen years old; Lewin A., thirteen; Min- 
nie B. , ten; James H. , eight; Silvey, six; Ada and 
Etta (twins), three, and a babe one month old. 
After his marriage Mr. Johnston opened up a farm 
of 160 acres, thirty acres of which he cleared and 
cultivated. He sold the farm, and in 1887 lived 
in Boone County, Ark., and in 1888 came to Jack- 
son County and bought a farm of 160 acres, eighty- 
five under cultivation, on which he now lives. He 
rents his land for corn and cotton, and makes a 
specialty himself of raising sweet potatoes, raising, 
also, his own stock, hogs and cattle. He and his 
wife made themselves an excellent home, and a 
competency. They are members of the Christian 
Church. He is a Democrat, and a member of 
Fortitude Lodge No. 397, A. F. & A. M., and 
takes an active interest in all public enterprises. 

Retherford Lewis Jones, a prominent planter 
and stock raiser of Breckinridge Township, was 
born in Carroll County, Tenn., in 1825, and was 
the fourth in a family of eight children born to 
Richard and Polly (Martin) Jones, of Tennessee, 
where the father was an extensive planter in Wil- 
son County. The elder Jones moved from Wilson 
County to Carroll County, and a few years later 
went to Wayne Count}', Mo., where he became en- 
gaged in farming until his death, in 1844. While 
in Carroll County ho took an active part in politics, 
and was one of the prominent figures in the his- 
tory of that county, and was also a member of the 



-^; 




Masonic fraternity for a number of years, and 
deputy sheriff. He had one brother, who fought 
in the Creek and Seminole Wars, and his father 
was an old Revolutionary soldier, who was born in 
North Carolina, and in 1839 died in Davidson 
County, Tenn., at the age of eighty-four years. R. 
L. Jones was reared in Carroll County, Tonn., and 
instructed in the duties of farm life. In 1843 he 
moved with his parents to Wayne County, Mo., 
and continued farming in that State until 1847, 
when he ^ent to Jackson County, Ark., settling 
in Breckinridge Township, where he took up a 
pre-emption claim, and later entered the same. 
The land consisted of sixty acres of virgin soil, and 
he at once commenced improving it and erected a 
log cabin. In 1850 he was married to Miss Ema- 
line Brazeale, a daughter of Archibald and Dorcas 
Brazeale, of Tennessee, and resided with his bride 
on the first farm until 1859, when he sold it and 
bought a claim of 160 acres, of which twenty-five 
were under fence. He has added to this and im- 
proved the land since he first occupied it, until 
now he owns a fine farm of 520 acres, and has 225 
under cultivation. He raises principally corn and 
cotton, and other portions of the land make excel- 
lent grazing for cattle, in which he also deals quite 
largely. In 1871 Mr. Jones lost his wife after a 
happy married. life of twenty-one years. Eight 
children were born to this marriage, of whom four 
are yet living: Mary Dorcas, now Mrs. Martin; 
Sarah, now Mrs. Jagers, who resides on her father's 
farm; Edgar, and Nancy Alice, now Mrs. Harris. Mr. 
Jones was again man'ied, in 1872, his second wife 
being Miss Barbara C. Outlaw, of Tennessee, who 
died leaving two children, Joseph E. and Jeanette, 
both of whom reside at home. In 1880 Mr. Jones 
married his third wife, who was Miss Fanny B. 
Hall, of Alabama, by whom he has one child, Nora. 
He does not take an active part in politics, but his 
sympathies ever since the war have been with the 
Democratic party. In educational matters he is 
greatly interested, and his efforts toward promot- 
ing the schools in Jackson County have been 
praiseworthy. He is a member of Augusta Lodge 
of the A. F. & A. M., while in the religious faith 
he attends the Missionary Baptist Church, of whicli 



r 



his wife is also a member, and Mr. Jones has held 
a membership in that church for forty-three years. 
During the war he accompanied Gen. Price on hi^ 
raid through Mi.ssouri, and also took part in the 
battles of Pilot Knob, Jefferson City, Blue Gap, 
Kansas City, Newtonia and Fayetteville, Ark., 
from which place he returned home after an hon- 
orable service. Mr. Jones is a very attentive man 
to the welfare of his children, and is providing 
them with the best education to be obtained. He 
is a very close observer, and, from an educational 
and religious standpoint, notes that there is a de- 
cided change for the better constantly going on. 

R. E. Jones, a planter and stock raiser of Glass 
Township, Jackson County, was born in Gibson 
County, Tenu., in 1842, the second in a family of 
nine children born to Gabriel and Elizabeth (Webb) 
Jones, natives of Virginia, where they were mar- 
ried. In 1838 Gabriel Jones emigrated to Gibson 
County, Tenn., where he lived many years, and 
followed his trade of carriage-builder. He re- 
moved to Jackson County, Ark., in 1800, and his 
death occurred in the latter county in 1883. He 
took an active part in politics in Tennessee, sym- 
pathizing with the Democratic party. The mother 
of our subject died in 1884. R. E. Jones was 
reared to the pursuit of farming, receiving the ad- 
vantage of a common school education in his native 
county. He removed to Jackson County, Ark., 
with his parents, in 1860, and subsequently be- 
came located on the farm where he now i-esides, 
which contains about 200 acres, and belongs to the 
heirs of Dr. Beard. In 1801 Mr. Jones enlisted 
in the Confederate army, in Capt. Hunter's com- 
pany, under command of Col. Hart. He served 
three years, and participated in the battles of 
Helena, Pea Ridge and several others. At the clo.se 
of the war he returned to Jackson County, Ark. . 
and again devoted his attention to farming. In 
1805 he married Martha Taylor, a native of Louis- 
iana. They are the parents of three children, viz. ; 
John W. (who is married and lives at home I. 
Laura and Eddie. After marriage Mr. Jones set- 
tled in Glass Township, where he now lives, which 
place he has greatly improved. At the time of bis 
settlement the nearest market was Jacksonport, but 



f 



.u 



876 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the country has since undergone a great change, 
having been extensively cleared and improved, and 
now he finds a market at Swiftou, only three miles 
distant. Mr. and Mrs. Jones are members of the 
Christian Church. Mr. Jones is a Democrat, 
though he takes no active interest in politics. 

Di'. J. M. Jones. Among the people of Jack- 
son and suri'ounding counties the name that heads 
this sketch is a very familiar one, for, in his pro- 
fessional capacity he has become intimately ac- 
quainted with the majority of their inhabitants. 
He was born in Weakley County. Tenn. , July 3, 
1846, and is a son of Darling and Margaret E. 
(Miller) Jones, the father a native of North Car- 
olina, and the mother of Tennessee. They were 
married in the latter State, and are still hale and 
hearty old people, residing on the homestead, in 
Weakley County. The following are the living 
members of their family of six children: Marion 
D., Dr. John M., William H. (a resident of Para- 
gould), Dr. A. M. , and Sarah J. (wife of Asbury 
Kensey); James is deceased. Up to the age of 
seventeen years. Dr. J. M. Jones resided on the 
home farm and learned all the details of farm 
labor, but when the war broke out he left the plow 
to enlist in the army, and became a member of 
Company I, Twelfth Tennessee Regiment. He 
continued to remain in service until the final sur- 
render, participating in a number of battles, then 
returned to his home with the consciousness of 
having faithfully performed every duty imposed 
upon him. Not deeming the education he had ac- 
quired prior to the war sufficient to enable him to 
successfully cope with the world, he entered a 
Normal School, which he attended until 1868, and 
during this time he formed the resolution of mak- 
ing the practice of medicine his calling through 
life. In order to fit himself for this work he en- 
tered the Medical University, of Nashville, Tenn., 
from which he was graduated as an M. D. in Feb- 
ruary, 1872. He had come to Jackson County, 
Ark., the jjrevious year, where he has since made 
his home, and, during his residence of eighteen 
years in this county, he has become well and favor- 
ably known to the majority of her citizens as an 
able and successful medical practitioner. To his 



marriage with Miss Callie Patterson, which oc- 
curred in 1872, he has become the father of four 
children: Nora, Jamos, Minnie and Oscar. Mrs. 
Jones was born in the State of Tennessee, and she 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
The Doctor is a Mason, a member of the I. O. O. / 
F., the K. of H., and the Royal Arcanum. 

Gustave Jones is a member of the law firm of 
Jones & Jones, of Newport, Ark., and, in connec- 
tion with his law practice, he is also engaged in 
the loan and insiu-ance business, and in these dif- 
ferent occupations he is meeting with flattering 
success. He is a native-born resident of the county, 
his birth occurring on the 25th of August, 1861, 
and as such is looked upon with considerable pride 
by the people of the locality, for he is a live, ener- 
getic business man. To live an entire life in one 
community and still retain the reputation Mr. 
Jones enjoys, is by no means as easy as it is for a 
stranger to come into a place where he is entirely 
unknown and build up a reputation. The ac- 
quaintances of Mr. Jones, therefore, know who 
and what he is. He is having a fair practice in 
his profession, and in the management of his cases 
displays considerable ability and sagacity for one ■ 
of his years. After attending the common schools 
of Jackson County in his youth, he entered the 
Arkansas Industrial University at Fayetteville, and 
was graduated in the class of 1882. Previous to 
graduating, however, he had taught school to ob 
tain means with which to defray his expenses in 
college, and after leaving school he began his legal 
studies, and after a searching examination, he was 
admitted to the Jackson County bar in November, 
1886. He has since been associated with his father 
in his practice, and represents the Phcenix Fire In- 
surance Company, and is secretary of the Emigra- 
tion Society, and is county school examiner. So- 
cially, he is a member of the K. of P. , the Royal 
Arcanum, and the Masonic fraternities, and in his 
religious views he is a member of the Episcopal 
Church. His parents, William R. and Kate (Hud- 
son) Jones, were born in Breckinridge County, 
Ky. , and Charleston, S. C, respectively, and were 
married in Jacksonport, Ark., in 1857, whither the 
father had come in 1851. At an early age he be 



■^1 




^a^t:^ 



Independence County, Arkansas. 



4^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



HTi 



I 



gan the study of law, and after being admitted to 
the Vjar in Kentucky, and practicing there for some 
time, he came to Arkansas and pursued his calling 
in Jacksonport for several years, being in partner- 
ship with F. Doswell. In 1854 he was elected to 
the oflSce of county clerk, but after serving one 
term gave his entire attention to his practice, and 
by long years of hard and unremitting toil he has 
become quite wealthy. He spends his summers at 
Maryville, Mo., where he has a pleasant summer 
residence. Of sis children born to himself and 
wife five survive: Hattie, wife of Judge J. B. 
Newman; Ida, wife of J. R. Cox; Gustave, Mol- 
lie and Ellen. The paternal grandfather, William 
B. Jones, was born in Campbell County, Va. , and 
was a soldier in the Mexican War. He died in 
Missouri, in 1879, when over eighty years of age. 
He was a farmer by occupation, but his latter days 
were spent in retirement and ease. The maternal 
grandfather was Hush Hudson, a South Carolinian, 
who once served as sheriff of Jackson County. 

Capt. W. A. Joyce, the well-known Newport 
druggist, was born in Memphis, Tenn., on the 
20th of February, 1847, and is a son of William 
and Alcena (Austin) Joyce, the former a native of 
Kentucky, and the latter of Nashville, Tenn. The 
parents were married in the latter State, and made 
their residence in Memphis at an early day, where 
the father was a prominent physician, being a 
graduate of the Botanical College of that city. 
Previous to practicing medicine, he was a steam- 
boatman, and at that period owned one of the 
largest standard steamers that plied on the river, 
besides having an interest in several other large 
boats. About 1850 he moved to Augusta, Ark., 
and from there to Jacksonport, where he was 
among the earlier settlers of that city, and one of 
its first physicians, residing there until his death, 
in 1855. The mother is still living, and makes 
her home in the State of Indiana. She was twice 
married, bearing two children by her first mar- 
riage, only one of whom survives, Sarah Dollis. 
Her second union resulted in two children, of 
whom W. A. is the only survivor. He was but 
three years old on his arrival in Arkansas, and was 
principally reared in Jacksonport, but received his 



education at Cincinnati, Ohio, whore ho was at the 
outbreak of the war. In 18fi4, although still quite 
young, he enlisted in Capt. Bateman's company, 
and served until the fall of Little Rock, taking 
part in the battle of Helena, Little Rock and. sev- 
eral skirmishes. After the war was over, he re- 
sumed steamboating (which he had commenced in 
1863) fi'om St. Louis to New Orleans, and also on 
the White River, occu))ying the positions of pilot, 
master and clerk, and continuing until 1882. In 
1874 he engaged in the drug business at Jackson- 
port, where he remained until August, 1882, when 
he removed to Newport, and since has successhilly 
carried on the business, his store being one of the 
best in this locality. Capt. Joyce was a member 
of the council at Jacksonport, and also tilled the 
office of mayor of that city for a length of time. 
December 15, 1800, he was married, in St. Louis, 
to Miss Miriam M. Major, of Pittsburgh. Penn., 
by whom he has had four children: Mary A. . Katt- 
S., William A., Jr., and Emma C. Mr. and Mrs. 
Joyce are both members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, while Mr. Joyce is a member of the 
American Legion of Honor, Knights of Honor and 
Royal Arcanum, as well as belonging to the Ma- 
sonic fraternity. 

D. A. Kimbrough, railroad agent and merchant, 
at Weldon, Ark. , was born in North Carolina, June 
14, 1842, in Caswell County. His parents were 
Miles and Dicia (Burton) Kimbrough, natives 
of North Carolina. His father was a son of 
William Kimbrough, one of the earliest settlers , 
of that section of North Carolina; was an active 
Democrat and planter, and is still living at the 
age of eighty-eight. Miles Kimlirough's wife was 
a daughter of Capt. Thomas Burton, of North 
Carolina, captain of Light Horse Muster Company 
in an early day. He was a farmer and teamster 
and moved to Alabama about 1850, where he died 
in 1858. ^Iis. Kimbrough died in North Caro- 
lina in 1873. She was a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. D. A. was raised on a 
farm, received his schooling in North Carolina, and, 
at the age of seventeen, l)egan life for himself, 
working as a farm hand two years, and then went 
to Mississippi, where he remained till May, 1801. 



when he married Miss M. S. Burton, of Mississippi. 
They have the following family: J. T. (a young 
man of twenty-seven, unmarried, living at home), 
Sarah A. (young lady of twenty-three), Nancy S. 
(wife of J. M. Burford, died in 1888), W. S., D. 
A., George W., Miles (who died at the age of 
three years) and Dinah M. (a little girl of twelve 
years). After marriage our subject continued farm- 
ing till March, 1862, when he enlisted in Com- 
pany A, Thirty-lifth Mississippi, Col. Barrey's 
regiment, under Capt. Watson. He was in the 
battles of Corinth, luka, Second Corinth, Holly 
Springs, the siege of Vicksburg, when he was 
paroled and returned home, afterward returning to 
the Parole Camps, at Columbus. Miss. , from which 
place they were called to join Johnson, at Resaca; 
they went to Meridian, Miss. , thence to Mobile, 
through Florida, then to Selma, Ala. , then through 
the campaign of Johnson to Atlanta; then, under 
Hood, assisted in the destruction of the railroad 
fi-om Atlanta to Dalton; then to Franklin, Tenn., 
Spring Hill, Nashville to luka, Miss., thence to , 
Mobile and Blakeley, being captured and consigned 
to Ship Island, where he remained till the close of 
the war. He was paroled at Vicksbm-g, June 1 , 
1865. On his return he engaged in farming till 
1870, when he sold out and moved to Bowen's 
Ridge, in Jackson County, where he bought ninety- 
three acres of land, and engaged in farming, and 
buying and clearing land, till he had 370 acres, 
150 under cultivation. In 1878 he engaged in 
mercantile business in Bowen's Ridge, till 1885, 
when, seeing there was an opening for a town at 
the present site of Weldou, he built a house there 
and moved to that place, and trading half of his ' 
goods to W. H. Wise for half of eighty acres of 
land, they began business, with success, and dur- 
ing that year the Batesville & Brinkley Railroad 
reached that point, and the town was laid off, and 
in the fall of 1885, the depot was erected. Through 
his influence the town grew rapidly, and in the 
spring of 1886, Mr. Kinibrough was made agent 
of the railroad company, which position he still 
holds. He now owns 280 acres of land, and one- 
half of the town property at Weldon. He has over I 
100 acres in cultivation. He is a Democrat, and 



he and his family are members of the Methodist 
Church. He is also prominent in all enterprises 
for the good of the country. 

T. D. Kinman, a popular resident, and cashier 
of the Newport Safe Deposit Bank, of Newport, 
was born in Batesville, October 5, IHi-i, and is a 
son of Riley and Jane (Bates) Kinman, of Lexing- 
ton, Ky. , and Batesville, Ark. , respectively. The 
Bates family were among the first settlers of Bates- 
ville, and are of Irish descent, the maternal grand- 
father, Robert Bates, coming from Ireland, and 
first settling at Philadelphia. He was a tailor by 
trade and followed his occupation in that city for 
some time. Later on he became a well-known ho- 
tel keeper, until retired by old age. Riley Kin- 
man immigrated to Batesville in 1842, and was 
there married and resided for a number of years. 
He was a steamboat captain during the earlier 
years of his life in Arkansas, and his latter days 
were spent on a farm in Jackson County. His 
death occiured on the 17tli of September, 1883, 
leaving a large circle of friends to mourn him. 
Two children were born to Mr. Riley Kinman and 
his first wife, the latter dying in 1846, aod he has 
had one daughter by the second marriage, Mattie E. , 
wife of Judge J. H. Wynn, of Greenville, Miss. 
His son, T. D. Kinman, was reared in Batesville, 
and educated at that place. In July, 1861, he en- 
listed in Capt. John Dye's company of the Seventh 
Arkansas Regiment, and served all through the 
war until the surrender. He was assigned to the 
paymaster's and supply departments, and was one 
of the adjutant-general's staff officers, taking part 
in the battles of Stone River, Shiloh, Chickamauga 
and several others. After the surrender he re- 
returned to Jacksonport, and engaged in the steam- 
boat agency and commission business, in which he 
continued for four or five years, when he embarked 
in the steamboat business, running to Memphis 
and New Orleans. In 1876 he was associated with 
Capt. Albert B. Smith in steamboating on the 
White River to the mountains, and remained with 
him until 1880, when he returned to Newport, and 
entered into the firm of Wishon Bros., as book- 
keeper, continuing with them until 1883, when the 
business was discontinued. He then went with E. 



^-. 



f 




L. Watson & Son, with whom bo remained until 
April, 1889, and then accepted a position with \A'. 
L. McDonald as book-keeper until September, re- 
signing to go in the bank. Mr. Kinnian was treas- 
urer of Newport for some length of time. He 
owns about 2.000 acres of land, with about 700 
acres iinder cultivation, and has one of the finest 
farms in Jackson County. The land is adapted to 
almost any kind of grain and vegetables, and he 
also deals quite largely in stock. He was njarried, 
in 1867, to Miss Mary E. Dillard, of Missouri, by 
whom he has had one son, Thaddons D., Jr. Mr. 
and Mrs. Kinman are members of the Episcopal 
Church, and Mr. Kinman belongs to the Royal 
Arcanum, of which he is treasurer. He has an 
elegant residence and one of the most pleasant 
homes in Newport, and is very pojuilar in his 
community. 

Francis M. Lamberton is a leading and influ- 
ential attorney at the bar of Newport, and lends 
eminent strength to the fraternity, his name shin- 
ing as a star of the first magnitude in the firma- 
ment of Arkansas law. His birth occurred in 
Cedar County, Mo., on the ()th of April, 1850, 
and he is a son of Christopher I. and Miranda 
(Edsell) Lamberton, the father a native of the 
" Keystone State "' and the mother a native of the 
" Backeye State." They were married in Mans- 
field. Ohio, but about the year 1840 removed to 
th(> State of Missouri, and took up their location in 
Cedar County, where the father followed mer- 
chandising and dealt in live stock. In this county 
l)oth parents died, having reared a family of seven 
children, of whom our subject is the youngest. 
His boyhood days were spent in his native State, 
and being a youth of a rather thoughtful disposi- 
tion, he applied himself closely to his l)ooks dur- 
ing his school days, and in later years while a stu- 
dent in the University of Nebraska he was diligent 
and })ainstakiiig. From this instutitiou he was 
graduated in 1877, and the following year (1878) 
he located in the State of Arkansas, and in 1883 
took up his abode in Newport being admitted to 
the bar the same year. He has since successfully 
followed the practice of law, and is now filling the 
office of justice of the peace, to which position he 



was elected in 1884. To his marriage to Miss 
Annie Wearham, which occurred in December, 
1883, have been born a family of three children: 
Horace C. and Annie L. (twins), born in 1887, and 
Frank. Mrs. Lamberton is a member of the 
Methodist Episco[)al Church. The paternal grand- 
father, Christopher Lamberton, was a native of 
Ireland, and was a graduate of Dublin University. 
By profession he was a lawyer, and was one of the 
early settlers of Ohio, dying there at the ago 
of ninety-four years. The maternal grandfather 
was a colonel in the War of 1812, and died of 
cholera in Cairo, III. 

T. D. Lawrence, general merchant, Tuckerman, 
Ark. Mr. Lawrance's career in life, as far as its 
connection with industrial afFairs is coucerued. 
might be divided into two periods, that during 
which he was occupied in agricultural pursuits, and 
his more recent experience in the capacity of a 
merchant. He owes his nativity to the Blue Grass 
State, where his l)irth occurre>d, in 183f), and is 
second in a family of five children born to William 
and B. Gatsy (Pace) Lawrence, natives of Alabama. 
They settled in Kentucky at an early day, Ijut 
later moved iroxn there to Tennessee. Mr. Law- 
rence was a very active man in the early history of 
the State, and was a successful tiller of the soil. 
His death occurred in West Tennessee, in 1844, 
and he was a member of the Hard Shell Baptist 
Church. The mother died in 1886, at the ago of 
seventy -two years. T. D. Lawrence secured a fair 
education in the schools of Gibson County, and 
was early instructed in the mysteries of farm life. 
He was the second of the following children ; ^lary 
(now Mrs. Shelton, resides in Weakley County, 
Tonn.), T. D. , Susan (now Mrs. demons, resides 
in Howell County, Mo.), Elizabeth (now Mrs. 
Parker, resides in Weakley Connty, Tonn. ), and 
John William, whose death occurred in Weakley 
County. Tenn., in 1858, at the age of nineteen 
years. T. D. Lawrence came to Jackson County, 
Ark., in November, IStiil, locating in Bird Town- 
ship, entered land and bought KU) acres, which he 
proceeded to cultivate. He was married in Jack 
son County, in 1861. to Miss Sarah V. Palmer, a 
native of Memphis, Tonn., and daughter of Samuel 



J'- 



IhL 



880 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and Louisa (Means) Palmer. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer 
were natives of Kentucky, and were among the 
pioneers of Jackson County, Ark. Mr. Palmer was 
a farmer and an honorable, uprij^ht citizen. After 
his marriage, T. D. Lawrence settled in Bird 
Township, where he opened up some land, and 
where he now has 800 acres under cultivation. 
He is the owner of 1,700 acres in Jackson Countj% 
and 330 acres in two farms in Lawrence County, 
neai' Alicia. He is a successful stock raiser, and 
on his extensive farm may be found many fine cat- 
tle and hogs. He has about seventeen tenants on 
his farms. He also runs two cotton-gins and a 
blacksmith shop, besides owning considerable prop- 
erty in town. He owns 160 acres adjoining Tuck- 
erman, or rather owns East Tuckerman, and lots 
have been laid off. He has resided in town since 
1 885, and has followed tlie general mercantile busi- 
ness since, although in 1881 he engaged in this 
business on his farm. He lost his wife in 1879. 
By that union he became the father of five chil- 
dren: William Shelby (married, and resides on the 
home farm), Lula Lee (now Mrs. Spriggs, resides 
in this count}'), Felix, Albert and Lucien. 'Mr. 
Lawrence was married again in Jackson County, 
in 1881, to Miss Elizabeth Perrox, a native of 
Craighead County, Ark. He has taken quite an 
active part in politics, and votes with the Republi- 
can party. He was in the service a short time 
during the war, then exchanged and remained in 
the North until the close of hostilities. He has 
served in different official capacities, viz. : deputy 
sheriff, magistrate, and has been a member of the 
school board. He is deeply interested in educa- 
tional matters. Mrs. Lawrence is a member of the 
Missionary Baptist Church. 

Andrew Lawson, farmer and fruit raiser, is a 
native of Denmark, and by occupation a carpen- 
ter. He left his native land on an expedition to 
Greenland, remaining six months, when he came 
to Philadelphia, Penn. , in 1869; from there he 
journeyed to Buffalo, and thence to Chicago, where 
he made an engagement to go to Mississippi, to 
clear land, at $20 per month, working at this in 
the winter and at his trade in Memphis, during 
the summer. In 1873 he was united in marriage 



to Miss Delia Nelson, a native of Denmark, after 
which they traveled and prospected in Texas, re- 
turned to Mississippi, and in the early part of 
1874, came to Arkansas, and engaged with Dr. 
Peters, to take charge of the stock, orchards, etc. , 
on the plantations. There he remained two years, 
and then started for Little Rock, engaging with 
the Baring Cross Bridge Company; he worked on 
the bridge across the river at Baring Cross, and on 
its completion secured the position of watchman, 
where he remained for three years, when he locat- 
ed at Grande Glaise, in charge of the water 
station. In 1883 he bought eighty acres of partly 
improved land adjoining that upon which stood 
the water station, which he improved, and there is 
now upon the place a fine young orchard and vine- 
yard. Mr. Lawson was instrumental in securing 
the postoffice at Grande Glaise, and has been the 
only postmaster in charge. Mr. and Mrs. Lawson 
are both members of the Danish Lutheran Church. 
He is a member of Newport Lodge, I. O. O. F., 
in which he takes an active interest: he is also a 
member of the Knights of Honor, Lodge No. 
1159, Little Rock, Ark., and takes a very active 
interest in temperance matters, and all religious, 
educational and social enterprises. 

Thomas James Laytou, of Cache Township, 
Jackson County, is a native of Fountain County, 
Ind. , and was born September 28, 1830. He is a 
son of Samuel and Ella (Ogle) Layton, natives of 
Ohio, where they were married. The father died 
in Indiana, about the year 1859, and the mother 
in Illinois, in 1877. Thomas J. was reared to 
farming, receiving the advantages of the common 
schools of his native State. At the age of four- 
teen he learned the cooper's trade, which ho fol- 
lowed in connection with farming until he was 
twenty years of age. In October, 1854, he mar- 
ried Miss Anna Bradshaw, who was born in Indi- 
ana, and to their union were born four children, 
viz. : Samuel James Layton, born in 1855, a 
merchant of Weldon, Ark., who married Miss 
Georgia Symmonds, of Stafford County, Kas. , in 
August, 1879; John McElroy Layton, a farmer by 
occupation, who married, in 1883, Miss Emma 
Bowen, of Indiana; David L. Laytou, married 



Miss Neila Burton, in February, 1884, and is in 
partnership with his brother, Samuel, at Weldon; 
Jesse B. married Miss Lydia Burton, and is a 
farmer, also operating a cotton-gin. Th(! mother 
of this family died in September, 1864, in Cham- 
paign County, lU. , and her remains were taken to 
Indiana for interment. In October, 1865, Mr. 
Layton, married Mrs. M. J. McCorkhill, nee Ful- 
ler, widow of W. J. R. McCorkhill, of Indiana. 
She had one child by her former marriage, Mahala 
Josephine, born in Vermilion County, 111. , who, in 
1864, married William C. Glover, of Virginia, a 
farmer and carpenter by trade; he was the princi- 
pal contractor in rebuilding Newport, Ark., after 
its loss by lire. Mr. and Mrs. Layton have seven 
children, viz.: Anna C. , born in Missouri, in 1866, 
married, in December, 1885, Howard Fletcher; 
William Thomas, born March 28, 1869; Fairel- 
lener, born May 9, 1870, married, December 9, 
1888, Lee Stanley, of Cross County, Ark. ; Mar- 
garet, born April 11, 1872: Katie, born December 
3, 1873, and Jacob H., born January 13, 1876, 
died February 15, 1889. Mr. Layton removed 
with his family to Arkansas, in 1867, locating in 
the neighborhood in which he now lives, where he 
rented land for three years. In 1871 he bought 
eighty acres of his present farm, which was en- 
tirely unimproved, and which he began at once to 
clear and improve. He has been successful, and 
has added to his farm from time to time, until now 
it contains 346 acres, seventy-eight acres of which 
are under cultivation. He has one of the finest 
farms in the county, as a result of enterprise and 
jjerseveranee. Though not an active politician, 
Mr. Layton votes with the Union Labor party. 

Dr. W. H. Lenox, physician and surgeon, 
Denmark, Ark. This prominent and successful 
practitioner was born in Kolla, Phelps County, 
Mo., in 1837, and located in Denmark, Jackson 
County, Ark., in 1878. His parents, Hamilton 
and Permelia (Harrison) Lenox, were natives, re- 
spectively, of Kentucky and South Carolina, and 
both immigrated to Missouri in ISl 1. They settled 
in what is now Callaway County, were reared in 
that county. l)ut were married in Pulaski County, 
in 1834, after which Hamilton Lenox followed till- 



ing the soil in Craighead County for some time. 
From there he moved to Phelps County, but in 
1861 left the State of Missouri, and took up his 
residence in Jackson County, Ark., where he made 
his home until 1863. He then went to Van Burea 
County, where he [)nrchasod and improved a farm, 
and there resided until his death, which occurred 
in November, 18()5. He took a deep interest in 
the early settlement of the county, and was promi- 
nently fdentified with its affairs. In politics he 
was first a Whig, but later became a Democrat. 
His faithful and much beloved companion followed 
him to the grave in 1874. Grandfather Williani 
Lenox was one of the early pioneers of Callaway 
County, Mo., was a soldier in the War of 1812, 
and also saw duty in the Seminole War. Great- 
grandfather Lenox was also a soldier in the War of 
1812. Grandfather Harrison was an early settler 
of Pulaski County. Mo., and made that his home 
during life. He lived to an advanced age. Dr. 
W. H. Lenox attained his growth in Phelps 
County, Mo., and received his rudimentary educa- 
tion in the subscription schools of the same. He 
first began reading medicine under the tutelage of 
J. P. Harrison, of Phel|)s County, then under N. A. 
Davis, of Greene County, and finally under John 
Hyer, of Dent County. In 1855 he entered 
McDowell College, now called Missouri Jledieal 
College, at St. Louis, but later, on account of 
bronchial troubles, went to Lake Providence, La.. 
to recuperate. After remaining in that State for 
three winters, he returned to Phelps County, Mo., 
and was there occupied in farming and trading in 
horses and mules. He selected for his companion 
in life Miss Ellen E. Stiegleman, a native of Cum- 
berland Valley. Penu., and was married to her in 
Laclede County, Mo., in 1861. Her father, Dr. 
Stiegleman, was an eminent physician of Penn- 
sylvania, and received his final summons in Mis- 
souri. Her mother now resides in Dent Coimty, 
Mo. In 186 1 , or the same year of his marriage. Dr. 
Lenox moved to Jackson County. Ark., settled in 
Union Township, and the same year enlisted in 
Company A, Col. Freeman's regiment, but did 
not serve with the regiment, as he received per 
mission to remove to .Vrkansas. He then went to 



882 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Jackson County, to Corinth, and enlisted in Com- 
pany K, Fourth Missouri Infantry, Col. McFar- 
land's regiment, after which he participated in 
the engagements around Corinth, Jackson, Ray- 
mond and Big Bhick Bridge. Prior to the engage- 
ment at Vicksburg, he went to Little Rock, thence 
to Van Buren County, Ark., and there, in 1864, 
raised Company C (cavalry), and was made captain 
of the same under Col. Coleman. He joined Gen. 
Price's raid through Missouri, and was in the bat- 
tle of Pilot Knob. He was captured near Jefferson 
City, and confined a prisoner at Johnston Island 
until the close of the war. After his release he 
returned to Van Buren County, Ark., engaged in 
farming, and there remained until coming to Jack- 
son County in 1878, as above stated. He com- 
menced the practice of medicine in Van Buren 
County in 1S73, and has thus continued ever since, 
having built up a paying and profitable practice. In 
connection with this Dr. Lenox is also engaged in 
cultivating the soil, having purchased 210 acres, to 
which he has since added eighty acres, and now 
has forty acres in tillable condition. One hun- 
dred and thirty acres of the Doctor's laud are in 
White County, and he is also engaged in raising 
stock. He is not active in politics, and does not 
vote; in school matters he takes a decided inter- 
est, and is connected with an incorporated school 
at Pleasant Plains, being trustee of the same. Dr. 
and Mrs. Lenox are members of the organization 
collectively known as Ecclesia of the Deity, com- 
posed individually of Christ Adelphians, which 
means Church of God, composed of Christ's 
Brethren. To their marriage were born the follow- 
ing children: Shelby L., Laura E., Florence O., 
Edna G. and Pearley E. 

George W. Littleton, a farmer and stock raiser, 
of Village Township, is a son of William and 
Martha (Brown) Littleton, the former a native of 
North Carolina, and the latter born in Tennessee, 
in which latter State this worthy couple were mar- 
I'ied. William Littleton emigrated to Tennessee 
with his father in 1801 ; he was the father of ten 
children, of whom four sons and four daughters 
are still living. In the order of their birth George 
W. was the fourth. In 1886 he married Miss 



Telitha Jane Hall, a native of Virginia, and to 
them have been born seven children, viz: Martin, 
born in 1858; Eliza, who married Mr. Henry Sul 
livau in 1873, and died in 1875; Samuel P., who 
was born in 1865; Martha Lena, married John 
Darden, February 23, 1887; William, born in 
1870; Amanda, born in 1872; and Henry, born in 
1875. Mr. Littleton and family removed from 
Tennessee to Arkansas in 1872; he rented land 
which he farmed for several years, when he pur- 
chased eighty acres, only six acres of which were 
under cultivation; he and his sons cleared forty- 
nine acres of this place, and he is now negotiating 
the purchase of 220 acres in Bird Township, Jack- 
son County, 125 acres of which are cleared ami 
broken, to which place he expects to move. He 
has some very fine stock on his place, among which 
are thirteen blooded horses, good grades of cattle, 
and about eighty hogs of the best breeds. In poli- 
tics Mr. Littleton is inclined to be liberal. In 
1862 he enlisted in Company I, First Regiment 
Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, was immediately 
promoted to the sergeantcy, and subsequently be- 
came first lieutenant, thus serving luitil the close 
of the war, in all three years and four months. 

George A. Lockard, deputy county clerk at 
Jacksonport, Jackson County, Ark. This promi- 
nent citizen of the county owes his nativity to 
Breckinridge County, Ky., where his birth oc- 
curred on the 5th day of June, 1846. His parents, 
Phillip A. and Armilda (Dowell) Lockard, are na" 
tives, respectively, of Westmoreland County. Va., 
and Breckinridge County, Ky. They were mar- 
ried in the latter State whither the father had 
come when a boy, and there remained until 1849, 
when he and family moved to Jackson County, 
Ark. They located at Jacksonport, and there the 
father engaged in the livery business until 
about the year 1852, at which time he moved to 
the country near Jacksonport, and followed the 
occupation of overseer of slaves, in said county, 
until the year 1856. Moving to the State of 
Louisiana he continued as overseer of slaves on a 
plantation, near Donaldsonville, until his death, 
which occurred in March, 1859. Then in the fall 
following the mother and family returned to Jack- 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



^s:', 



son Conuty, Ark., aud there roniained until her 
death, which occurred in November of 1859. The 
family consisted of five children, of whom our 
subject is the only survivor, he being only three 
years old when his father first moved to Arkansas. 
At bis mother's death he returned to the land of 
his nativity, and remained there during the war. 
and in 1866 returned to Jackson County, Ark., 
where he grew to manhood, receiving such educa- 
tion as the schools of that day afforded, and, at an 
early age, he began the occupation of clerk in the 
mercantile business, at Jacksonport, where he has 
since resided. Since the year 1S7S he has been 
acting as deputy clerk of Jackson County, and 
at present is still acting in that capacity. He is a 
pioneer of Jackson County, and during bis residence 
here has witnessed many changes in the way of 
improvements, etc. He was married, in May, 1885, 
to Miss Lizzie Bach, a native of Germany, and the 
fruits of his union are two sons: George A. and 
Franklin A. Mr. Lockard is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, and American Legion of Honor. 
Mrs. Lockard is a member of the Lutheran Church. 
Samuel W. Loftin, a general farmer and stock 
raiser, residing on Section 15, township of Grubbs, 
Jackson County, was born in liutherford County, 
Tenn. , August 31, 1834. His parents were Eldredge 
and Elizabeth (Moore) Loftin, natives, respectively, 
of North Carolina and Tennessee. The father died 
two years after his location in Jackson County, 
Ai'k., which was in 1849; the mother died in Ten- 
nessee in 1840. Samuel W. received a limited 
common school education in the private schools of 
Tennessee, and in 1857 commenced business for 
himself. He married Miss Elizabeth Denton, 
whose birth occurred August 12, 1843, and of 
their eight children, four died in infancy; those 
living are Sallie, born January 19, 1867 (who tin- 
i.shed her education at Jacksonport, and is now the 
wife of Eli Evans, a native of Tennessee, and has 
three children, of whom two are living: Bertha, 
born in 18S6, and Elizabeth, I)orn in 1888), Rob- 
ert M.. born December 15, 1873; Rachel E., born 
September 12, 1875, and Cora, the latter born July 
25, 1882. In 1859 Mr. Loftin bought eighty acres 
of wild land, upon which he erected a log cabin. 



and industriously set to work to clear and improve. 
He afterward bought 200 acres more, and liuilt a 
comfortable farm house, in which the family now 
live. Mr. Loftin takes an active interest in educa- 
tional matters, and proposes to give his children 
the advantages of a good education, as, having been 
deprived of the same himself, he realizes its im- 
portance, and does not wish them to grow up in 
ignorance, and the humiliating consciousness that 
they are inferior to others in that direction. Mrs. 
Loftin is a member of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and the family is highly respected by all. 
B. R. McDearmon, one of the prominent citi- 
zens and manufacturers of Weldon, Ark. , is a native 
of Tennessee, having been born in Wilson County, 
September 19, 1858. His parents were William 
W. and Martha (Wright) McDearmon, of Tennes 
see. His father came to Batesville, Ark., and en- 
gaged in business of contractor and builder, till 
his death in 1879 or 1880. The mother died A]>ril 
19, 1887. They were members of the Missionary 
Baptist Church, and the father was a Democrat, 
and served four years in the Southern army, being 
once captured, but never wounded. The subject 
of this sketch spent his school days in Batesville, 
and attended the State University at Fayetteville 
one year, receiving a good English and scientific 
education. At the age of eighteen he went to 
Tennessee for his health, and spent two years as 
apprentice with S. L. Garrett, a noted architect of 
Louisburg, Tenn. In 1879 he returned to Arkan- 
I sas, and, on account of his father's ill health, ran 
1 his saw-mill on what is now the Pickett farm, at the 
I same time carrying on the same business ten miles 
south of Newport. In 1880 he sold his father's 
mill (after his death), and in 1888 his own. in the 
meantime having built the grist-mill and machine 
shops at Weldon. He also in 1.S88 built the larg 
est cotton-gin and press in the county. November 
15, 1881, he married Miss Susan L. ShoiTner, 
daughter of A. E. and JIartba (Patterson) Shoffiier. 
Mr. Shoffner being a prominent fanner of Jackson 
County. They have two daughters: Pearl, three 
years old. and Node, eight months, respwtively. 
Mr. McDearmon, who has been active in the de 
velopment of Weldon, now owns several town lots. 



I' 



j!dl 



884 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and two blocks in the town. In connection with 
the milling and ginning business, he does general 
repairing and manufacturing, and takes no part in i 

politics. 

Roberts Manly, farmer and stock raiser of 
Union Township, Jackson County, Ark., was born 
January 16, 1830, in Henderson County, Tenn. , 
a son of Elkarp and Catherine (Roberts) Manly, 
who are of English and Irish descent, natives of 
North Carolina, and who both died in Tennessee. 
In 1855 Mr. Manly went to Missouri, locating in 
Dunklin County, where he engaged in farming for 
ten years, and in 1806 located on his present farm 
in Arkansas, which consists of eighty acres of fine 
land, sixty of which are in a high state of cultivation, 
cotton being the principal crop; on this farm he has 
planted a veiy tine and large apple orchard, con- 
taining the very best varieties, his object being to 
raise fruit which will keep the year round. Mr. 
Manly, by his thrift and perseverance, has made 
all the tine improvements to be seen upon his farm. 
While he had not the advantages of an education, 
he is greatly interested in the schools, and believes 
the interests of the country could be best subserved 
by liberally educating the children. Mr. Manly 
married Miss Mary Armstrong, of North Carolina. 
By this union there were seven children, one, W. S. 
Manly, growing to manhood, and now residing in 
Marion County, Ark. Mrs. Elizabeth Manly died 
in 1863, and Mr. Manly was again married, to Mrs. 
Rhoda (Bates) Berry, a widow, and a native of 
Georgia. They had one child, Rufus H. Manly, 
born in 1866. The other children were William, 
Sutton, Elizabeth, Harriet and Tennessee Caroline; 
two daughters and one son are now living. Mr. 
Manly, his wife and children, are members of the 
Missionary Baptist Church; Mr, Manly being a 
Democrat, and a member of Jackson Lodge No. 
91, A. F. & A. M. He was formerly a Whig. 

Fred J. Mason, farmer, Jacksonport, Ark. Of 
the many residents of foreign birth in Jackson 
County, none are more honest, industrious or more 
deserving of success than the German element of 
which Mr. Mason is a representative. He was born 
in Saxony, December 16, 1840, and his parents, 
Carl and Christina (Gehering) Mason, were natives 



of the same province. The father followed agri- 
cultural pursuits in the old country. In 1852 he 
sailed to America, taking passage at Bremen on a 
sailing vessel, and landed at New York City after 
a forty-two days' ocean voyage. He came as far as 
Buffalo by railroad, then took a boat on Lake 
Erie, went from there to Sandusky, Ohio, thence 
to Cincinnati, and fi'om there down the Ohio River, 
stopping in Southern Indiana. They located in Per- 
ry County, and there both parents died. They had 
three childi'en : Fred J., Augusta and Christopher. 
The eldest child, Fred J., was only eleven years 
old when he came to America, and he remained in 
Indiana with his parents until of age. During 
the stirring period of the war he came to Little 
Rock, Ark., and was there employed as butcher 
for the government, remaining in that capacity un- 
til cessation of hostilities. He subsequently moved 
to Batesville, where he followed the butcher" s trade 
for one year, and in the fall of 1869 he came to 
Jacksonport, Ark. , where he followed his trade for 
fourteen years. For the past few years he has 
been engaged in farming, and has one of the finest 
tracts of land along the river, 700 acres in all, with 
200 acres imder cultivation. Mr. Mason makes 
his residence in Jacksonport, and is a progressive 
and enterprising citizen. He was married, in 1868, 
to Mrs. Mary Sharj), nee Young, by whom he has 
five children: Frank, Carrie, Ruth, Fred and Fan- 
nie. His wife Mary died January 15, 1883, and 
Mr. Mason married his present wife, Ella Cameron, 
September 12, 1886. 

Dr. David May, practicing physician and farm- 
er, is a large planter, of Breckinridge Township. 
He was born in Missouri, November 15, 1826. 
His parents were John and Guyan (Morgan) May, 
natives of Pennsj'lvania and Virginia, who moved 
to what is now Bollinger County, Mo., about 1820. 
David's father was born in 1759, in Pennsylvania, 
and at the age of seventeen ran away from home, 
and joined the American army, serving four years 
in the field, and the last three years of that strug- 
gle as a hospital nurse. On coming to Missouri he 
bought 160 acres of land, on whicli he lived, and 
died in 1841. He was a Democrat, and both him- 
self and wife were members of the Baptist Church. 



•^ Q 



9 k^ 



.^M 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



8S5 



Our subject is the youngest of a family of eight 
children: William (deceased), Hamilton (deceased), 
Andrew (deceased); Alpha, wife of James Boker, 
farmer, of Missouri; Eliza, of South Missouri; 
Mary, wife of Anderson Virgin, farmer, of Missouri, 
and John (deceased). Dr. May was raised on a 
farm, and received his education in the common 
schools, and in the academic school near Bloom- 
field, Mo. When a young man he secured med- 
ical works, which he studied for the purpose of at- 
tending his own family, but, the demand being 
great, in 1875, he went to Nashville and attended 
a course of medical lectures, and has since had a 
successful general practice, until the present, when 
he is about retiring. At the age of eighteen years 
he began his career as a farmer, and in 1850 married 
Miss Rina W. Naremore. They had one child, 
George W. , born April 5, 1851, who now lives in 
Jackson County. Mrs. May died in 187G, and in 
1877 he married Evaline T. Gwynn, a native of 
Tennessee, who had one child, but both mother and 
child died in 1878, and the same year our sub- 
ject married Sarah E. McMinn, relict of Jos- 
eph W. McMinn. They have one child, Will- 
iam Lee, ten years old. In 1848 Dr. May came 
to Jackson County and settled on what is now 
the Pickett farm. He bought and entered 160 
acres of land, cleared fifty or sixty acres of the 
same, and in 1858 sold it and entered 160 acres of 
the farm he now works, which was then in the 
woods. He now owns 600 acres of land, having 
200 acres under cultivation, all of which he cleared. 
During his residence here of forty-one years, Dr. 
May has seen a great many changes, and has done 
his share in the development of the country. He 
served as magistrate sixteen years, during which 
time but one appeal was taken from his decision, 
and that appeal was not sustainc^d. He and his 
wife are members of the Baptist Church, and for 
the last twenty years he has filled the position of 
local minister of that church. He is a member of 
the Royal Arcanum, is a Wheeler, and votes the 
Democratic ticket. In addition to his farming and 
l>ractico, Dr. May is taking some interest in horse 
and mule breeding, and has as good a stock farm 
as there is in the county. 



William Miller, planter and stock raiser, was 
born in Humphreys County, Tenn., in 1839, the 
oldest of two boys born to Henry and Louisa (Cole) 
Miller, natives of Tennessee. The parents dying 
when the boys were quite young, they were left to 
depend upon themselves. Our subject was reared 
to farm life, and also learned wood-work, and re 
ceived his education in the subscription schools of 
Tennessee. He was married in Humphreys County. 
Tenn., in 1857, to Martha Jane Plummer, of Ten- 
nessee, daughter of John and Parthena (Mat 
this) Plummer, natives of Virginia, who emigi-ated 
to Tennessee in an early day, where they died. 
After his marriage William settled on a farm, and 
in 1861 enlisted in Capt. MoAdoo's company for 
three years; he was in the battles of Bell Buckle, 
Tallahassee, where he was taken sick, and sent to 
Atlanta, where ho remained two months, when he 
returned to Tallahassee. He was in the campaigns 
in North Alabama, East and Middle Tennessee and 
North Mississippi, and in 1865 surrendered under 
Col. Hurd. In 1872 Mr. Miller came to Jackson 
County, Ark., settling in Bird Township, where, 
in 1880, he bought 120 acres of improved land; 
he has continued to improve it. and has now nine- 
ty acres under cultivation, having planted a good 
orchard, and has all varieties of fruit. He raises 
hogs, horses and cattle. In 1870 his wife died 
leaving foiu' children: Henry (married), James 
William (married), Charles Lafayette, and Louisa 
(now Mrs. R. Donahoe), all residing in Bird Town- 
ship. In Jackson County, in 1881, Mr. Miller 
married Belle Corson, a native of North Alabama, 
daughter of Charley and Julia (Anderson) Corson, 
who were early settlers of Alabama. They have 
had foui- children: Jesse, Dawson, Julia Pinckuey 
and Rosa Lee. Our subject is not active in poli- 
tics, and votes independently. He has been road 
overseer, and is a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church; he is practically a self-made man. 
and interested in the welfare of his coinity. 

Lancelot Minor is a leading member of the 

! bar of Jackson County, and owes his nativity to 

Albemarle County, Va., his liirth occurring in 

Charlottesville, June Ki, 1S47. He inherits Scotch 

and Irish blood from his ancestors, and is a son 



J^ 



HISTORY OP ARKANSAS. 



of Dr. Charles and Lucy W. (Minor) Minor, both 
of whom were born in Louisa County, Va., the 
father's birth occurring at what was known as 
Minor's Folly, the old homestead. He was reared 
on this farm, and upon reaching a proper age be 
gan the study of medicine, and became a graduate 
of a medical university of his native State, and of 
one in Philadelphia, Penn., both noted colleges. 
He first entered upon his practice in Albemarle 
County, Va., continuing there iintil 1S54, then 
gave up his profession and established the Brook- 
hill College, or preparatory school, which he suc- 
cessfully conducted until the breaking out of the 
late Civil War. He then raised a company and 
sent it into service, but was unable to go himself, 
and died in 1862 at the age of sixty years. His 
widow survived him until 1879, when she, too, 
followed him to the grave. Seven of the family 
of thirteen children born to them are now living: 
Mrs. William R. Abbott, whose husband is prin- 
cipal of the Bellevue Institute of Bedford County, 
Va. ; Mrs. Loed, a widow residing in Wilmington, 
N. C. ; Lancelot, Kate, residing in Virginia; John 
B., Jr., also in Virginia: Annie and Dr. J. C, of 
Walnut Ridge, Ark. Both the paternal and ma- 
ternal grandfathers were soldiers in the Revolu- 
tionary War. and were well educated men, having 
prepared themselves for a professional life, but 
were practically good farmers. Lancelot Minor re- 
sided on his father's farm until Civil War times, 
then left the Brookhill school, of which his father 
was manager, to take up arms for the Confederate 
cause. He enlisted in Rock Bridge Artillery, and 
served the cause he espoused, faithfully and well, 
until April 8, 1865, when he was wounded at 
Cumberland Church, Virginia, by a gun shot pass- 
ing through his right lung. He was left at a 
farm house, being thought dead, but at the 
end of about five days he began to recover, and 
in the care of the kind people with whom 
he was left he remained until he was thor- 
oughly convalescent, but, from the effects of his 
wound, he had become paralyzed. He remained 
in this condition until 1867, when he recovered 
the use of his limbs, and soon after resumed farm- 
ing, continuing until 1868, when he was taken 



with the pioneer fever, and determined to push 
westward. He did so, and settled at Miami 
County, Kas. , where he farmed until 1 870, then 
came overland to Jacksonport, Ark. , and was en- 
gaged in farming and dairying at this point up to 
1875. In the meantime he had been reading law, 
and in the above mentioned year he was admitted 
to the bar, and formed a partnership with his 
brother, Charles, which continued up to the lat- 
ter' s death, in 1879. After being in practice 
alone for four years, he entered into partnership 
with Franklin Doswell, one of the oldest attorneys 
in Jackson County, and their connection has since 
continued, the firm being known as Minor & Dos- 
well. They make a strong legal firm, and, by their 
superior abilities, command a large patronage in 
this and surroiuiding counties. Mr. Minor owns 
a great deal of real estajte in Jackson County, and 
is the originator of the White River Stock Breed- 
er's Association, of which he is the president. 
They have forty acres with a mile track for train- 
ing, which is now under the management of Prof. 
Menkie. Mr. Minor is deeply interested in this 
enterprise, and, so far, it has proved a decided 
success. He has attained the hig-hest dearree in the 
Masonic fraternity, and is also a member of the 
K. of P. and the Royal Arcanum. He has been 
a member of the city council, and is at present 
chief of the fire department. He was married, 
in 1868, to Miss Emma W. Minor, by whom he 
became the father of two children, Charles and 
Louisa, but in 1884 was called upon to mourn her 
death. In July, 1887, he espoused his second 
wife. Miss Theo Ferguson, of Augusta, Ark. They 
are members of the Episcopal Church. 

Nathaniel D. Moon, farmer and stock raiser, 
was born July 19, 1844, and in 1858 came to Ar- 
kansas with his parents, Leroy and Mary A. (Gulp) 
Moon, who were natives of Alabama. Nathaniel 
was raised on the farm, receiving his education in 
the private schools of Alabama, and the public 
schools of Arkansas, and in 1868 came with his 
parents to Jackson County, and in 1869 bought a 
farm of 120 acres in Section 1, erected a double 
log-house, and at once commenced clearing and 
improving the land, and in 1870 put four acres 



•? a 



:x. 



<i fc_ 



1^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



887 



into corn; each year be weat through the same 
routine, and in 1875 had thirty-eight acres under 
cultivation. At various times he bought adjoining 
land, until the homestead now contains 280 acres, 
Mr. Moon at the present time owning 874 acres, 
200 of which are under cultivation. In 1883 
be entered the mercantile business with A. J. 
Mills, opening up a stock of family groceries and 
drugs. In 1885 J. H. Myers was admitted to 
partnership, the business being conducted under 
the firm name of Mills. Moon & Co., for one year, 
when Mr. Myers withdrew, Messrs. Mills & Moon 
continuing the same until 1SS8, when Mr. Moon 
retired to private life. November 25, 1806, Mr. 
Moon married Miss Frances M. Dickenson, of 
Tennessee. They had nine children, fom* of whom 
are living: Mollie W. (born October 16, 1867), 
Leroy \\. (born March 16, 1871), Ozella K. (t)om 
December 27, 1873) and James N. (born February 
19. 1879). June 15, 1884, Mr. Moon married 
Miss Myra E. Lawler, of Arkansas. One child 
was born to them, which died. Mr. Moon is a 
member in good standing of Thornlnirg Lodge No. 
371, A. F. & A. M., and is a member of the Chris- 
tian Church. He always takes an interest in enter- 
prises for the advancement and progress of the 
county and State. 

John T. Moon, an enterprising farmer and stock 
raiser of Glass Township, Jackson County, was 
born in Washington County, Ark., in 1850, being 
the fourth in a family of eight children born to Le- 
roy and Majy (Culp) Moon, natives of Alabama. 
In early life Leroy Moon was a school-teacher. 
He was married in Alabama, and, in 1848, located 
in Washington County, Ark. , where he purchased 
a large farm, which he disposed of, and removed 
to Calhoun County, thence to Glass Township, 
Jackson County, in 1868, settling near where our 
subject now resides, where he died in November, 
1880. He was Democratic in principle, and took 
an active part in politics in Washington and Cal- 
houn Counties. The mother of our subject is still 
living, and resides near S wifton. John T. Moon re- 
mained at home until his father's death, and com- 
meiiced farming for himself on the old homestead. 
In 1880 he purchased 160 acres in Glass Township, 



which he partly cleared, adding 240 acres, so that 
his farm now contains 400 acres, of which seventy 
five are under cultivation. He has made many im- 
provements, having erected a good frame house 
and sfarted a good orchard. He devotes considera- 
ble attention to stock raising, keeping good grades. 
In 1875 Mr. Moon married Julia Dozier, who was 
born in Greene County, Ark., and is a daughter of 
William Herndon and Mary Elizabeth (James) Do- 
zier, natives of Kentucky. She is of French de- 
scent on fhe paternal side, and her grandfather. 
Zachariah Dozier, was an early settler of Louis- 
ville, which was his permanent home. The father 
of Mrs. Moon was a carpenter by trade, and re- 
moved from (Jreene County to Pocahontas, Ran- 
dolph County, where he lived several years. He 
died in 1859, and his widow survived until Augast. 
1887. Of the two children born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Moon only one is living, Joseph Leroy. Mr. Moon 
is a Democrat politically, and takes an active in- 
terest in matters pertaining to the welfare of his 
county, lending hearty and liberal support to all 
worthy public enterprises. 

Stephen J. Moore, a farmer and stock raiser of 
Cache Township, Jackson County, is a native of 
Person County, N. C. , and was l)orn March 28, 
1829. His parents were Alfred L. and Sarah 
(Cates) Moore, both born in North Carolina. Philip 
Moore, grandfather of Stephen J., was a native 
of New York, and his parents were natives of 
England. Phillip Moore was a prominent church 
worker of the Methodist Episcopal denomination, 
and held many important ofKces in his county: his 
father, Stephen Moore, was a veteran of the Rev- 
olution, and was second in command of the force 
that was captured through Arnold's treason. Philip 
was a planter and machinist, and, when a young 
man, went to North Carolina, where he married 
and reared his family: he built the first horse- 
power threshing machine ever used in that part of 
North Carolina, and served a long time as surveyor, 
at which latter work he contracted pleurisy, which 
terminated his life in December, 1840. Alfred L. 
Moore was an enterprising and successful planter, 
of North Carolina, and he ami family were mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the fath- 



"A 



« w. 



-^ 2> 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



er's death occurred in August, 1883, and that of 
his wife in April, 1884. each living to be about 
eighty-three years of age. Stephen J. is the third 
child of a family of seven, viz.: William L. (a 
farmer, teacher, and mechanic, enlisted in the 
Confederate army in Texas, and met his death at 
Richmond, Va. , in 1864), Caroline (became the wife 
of A. H. Bumpass, a farmer of North Carolina, 
and died April 17, 1889, leaving a family of nine 
children), Rufus R. (was a farmer, who married and 
had two sons; he served in the Confederate army 
and was killed in the second battle of the Wilder- 
ness, in 1865; his two sons are DeWitt and Rufus, 
the former now living on the original Moore home- 
stead, and the latter a merchant at Birmingham, 
N. C), Susan (is the wife of Henry Foust, a farmer 
and mechanic, living in Chicot County, N. C), 
Sarah E. (married William Moore, a teacher and 
farmer, of Washington, Hempstead County, Ark. ; 
they have six daughters and one son), and Alfred 
Dudley (a farmer, of Person County, N. C, hav 
ing a family of live children). Stephen J. Moore 
was reared to the pursuit of farming, in Person 
County, N. C. , and at the age of twenty-one en- 
gaged in farming for one year in his native State, 
after which he went to Sumter County, Ala. , 
where he remained three years, going thence to 
Greenfield, Dade County, Mo., where he turned 
his attention to the mercantile business for four 
years. In 1859 he sold out and returned to North 
Carolina. August 16, 1859, he married Sarah 
Jane Burton, daughter of Thomas F. and Nancy 
Burton, natives, respectively, of Virginia and 
North Carolina. Mr. Burton was a prominent 
farmer of Alabama and Mississippi. Prior to the 
birth of Mrs. (Burton) Moore, her parents lived in 
the Cherokee Territory, afterward moving to Ala- 
bama, where she was born March 2, 1835. To our 
subject and wife have been born seven children, 
two of whom died in infancy; those living are: 
Nancy E. (wife of George T. Damerson, a native 
of Randolph County, Mo.), Fanny (wife of W. H. 
Wise, a merchant, of Weldon, Ark.), Alfred T. 
(born March 15, 1868, a graduate of Jones Com- 
mercial College, of St. Louis), Margaret J. (born I 
November 28, 1870, attending the school for the 



blind, at Little Rock, Ark. ), Georgia (bom Janu- 
ary 21, 1873, also attending the blind school at 
Little Rock). Immediately after his marriage Mr. 
Moore retu^rned to Dade County, Mo., and the 
same year went to Texas, where he engaged in 
merchandising three months, then sold out and 
went to Kemper County, Miss. ; he farmed one 
year, railroaded one year, and, in April, 1862, en- 
listed in the Thirty-fifth Mississippi Regiment; he 
participated in the battles of Corinth, luka, Chick- 
asaw Bayou, and all the summer campaign in 
Georgia; August 26, 1864, he was captured in 
front of Atlanta, and remained a prisoner of war 
at Nashville, Tenn. , Louisville and Camp Douglas, 
until June, 1865, when the close of the war set 
him free. He then returned to his farm, which he 
worked until November, 1809, when he emigrated 
to Jackson County, Ark. , and bought and settled 
upon the farm upon which he now resides. He 
first bought 105 acres of land, very little of which 
was cleared; he cleared, improved and built, add- 
ing to his acres from time to time, until he now 
owns 235 acres, 120 acres of which are under a high 
state of cultivation. He votes the Democratic ticket 
and is a member of the Masonic fraternity. Mr. 
and Mrs. Moore and family are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, except Alfred, who 
is a Baptist. The family is highly esteemed by all 
who know them, and Mr. Moore has done his share 
toward the support of worthy, public enterprises. 
William H. Morris, a farmer, residing at New- 
port, and one of the pioneers of Jackson County, 
was born in Pennsylvania on the 6th of January, 
1834. He is a son of William H. and Eliza (Proc- 
tor) Morris, of New York City and Boston, Mass. , 
respectively. The Morris family are of French 
descent. William H. Morris, Sr. , was married in 
New York State, and a few years after removed 
with his bride to Dayton, Ohio, which was almost 
nothing but a wilderness at that period, and owned 
a portion of the land upon which the city now 
stands. In 1838 he moved to little Rock, Ark., 
where he entered into commercial life and carried 
on a successful business until 1840, when he 
moved to Austin, in Prairie County. Mr. Morris 
remained in that county for one year, and then 



^1^ - 

-n sIV 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



fSSU 



removed to what is now Jackson County, bringing 
with him his stock of merchandise and locating at 
Elizabeth, then the county seat of tliis county. 
He continued in business at that point until 1S54, 
when he changed his business to Jacksonport, 
where he remained until his death, in 1855, the 
mother dying at Little Uock, while residing in 
that city. They were the parents of six children, 
of whom two still live, and after the moth<>r's 
death, the father married a second time, this union 
giving him three children: Robert, John and Anna. 
During the early days of his settlement he was 
postmaster at Elizabeth. At that time coon skins 
and beeswax were legal tenders for postage. 
William H. Morris was quite young on his arrival 
in Jackson County, and was given the l>est educa- 
tion to be had at that time. He was early in life 
instructed in commercial affairs, and was taught to 
look upon it as being marked out for his after 
career. He remained with his father until almost 
of age, and was then associated with several prom- 
inent iirms in Jacksonport and Newport. In 180!) 
he purchased his present farm and commenced 
cultivating the land, and now has 175 acres, out of 
500, under a good state of cultivation. In 1857 
he was married to Miss Amelia C. Hamilton, of 
Alabama, by whom he has had five children, three 
of them now living: Marguerite E., wife of 
Stephen Brundidge, Jr., of White County, Ark.: 
Savannah H. and Charles M. Mr. Morris is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and one of the 
first settlers of Jackson County, having witnessed 
a great many changes from the time of his an'ival 
to the present day. 

B. C. Morrison is a member of the firm of 
Morrison. Decker & Co., manufacturers of tight 
barrel staves and hardwood lumber, at Newport. 
Mr. MoiTison was born in Denmark, on the 11th of 
March, 1843. and until his twentieth year resided 
in his native land, and learned farming and tavern 
keeping of his father, who followed both occupa- 
tions. Becoming imbued with the idea that better 
opportunities were offered to young men of push and 
energy in the New W^orld, he determined to seek 
his fortune in tlie " land of the free," and accord- 
ingly, in April, 1863, hetook jiassage at Hambursr. 



and landed at Quebec in May. He iinniediai<'i_\ 
wended his way to Racine, Wis., where he hired 
out to a farmer, remaining with him four months, 
then entered a cooper shop to learn the trade, and 
this occupation received his attention until the fall 
of 1801, when he enlisted in the First Wisconsin 
Heavy Artillery, United States Army, and was a 
faithful servant of his adopted country until July, 
1805, when he was mustered out of service. He 
returned to his former home at Racine, where he 
worked as a jonrneyman for some time. In 1868 
he is found at work in a cooper shop in Keokuk, 
Iowa, but, in 1873, he determined to embark in 
business for himself, and from that time until 1881 
he successfully conducted a cooper shop of his own. 
In the latter year he removed to Newport, Ark., and 
began building his present mill, under the name 
of B. C. Morrison & Co., and on the 10th day of 
January, 1882, ho raised steam in his engine, and 
began running his establishment, which is the 
largest concern of the kind in Northeast Arkansas. 
They handle a great deal of lumber, piling and 
staves, and give employment the year round to at 
least 300 men. With this mill they are clearing a 
farm of 1,700 acres, and in a few years they ex 
pect to have every acre of it under cultivation. 
The pi'esent partnership was formed in 1884, and. 
in connection with their stave and lumber factory, 
they own a large saw mill at Pond Switch, which 
furnishes employment to about fifty men. They 
also own two steaml)oats: the '"G. W. Decker." 
which is a passenger boat, and the ' ' Bright Star, 
a freight boat, both of which iim regularly up as 
far as Cherokee Bay. These gentlemen may be 
termed benefactors of the community in whicli 
they reside, for they have done much to open up 
Jackson Count}', and have added materially to its 
commercial standing. They are building good 
houses, and have a railroad of their own, which is 
three miles in length. Mr. Morrison was united 
in marriage to Miss Hannah Prater, a native of 
Illinois, in 1868. 

Jasper Nance. One of the best known men in 
mercantile circles in Jackson County is Mr. Nance, 
who keeps a general store in Cow Lake Township. 
He was l)oru in what is now Woodntfr Countv. 



890 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Ark. , in the year 1 846, and was the fourth in a 
family of seven children, born to Joshua and Hetty 
(Forehand) Nance, of North Carolina and Georgia, 
respectively, the parents being married in the lat- 
ter State. After their union they moved to Wood- 
ruff County, and entered land in Barnes Township, 
which the father at once commeuced to cultivate 
and make a permanent home, and at the time of 
his death he had cleared up about 500 acres. He 
died several years before the Civil War, and his ex- 
cellent wife soon after moved back to her native 
State, where she survived him but a few years. 
Jasper was reared by his maternal grandfather, 
and received his education in the schools of Baker 
County, Ga. In 1858 his grandfather moved to 
Woodruff County, Ark. , where he bought a line 
farm, upon which he resided until his death, and, 
during the litigation over the estate, young Nance 
commenced farming for himself. In 1865 he in- 
herited his share of the land, and has added to it 
on different occasions until now he owns 100 acres, 
all of which are under cultivation, besides owning 
several other farms in different portions of the 
State. In 1884 he first started in business and 
opened np a general store, laying in a stock of 
everything to be found in a store of that kind, and 
has established a fine trade. He was married in 
Jackson County, July 20, 1866, to Mrs. Permelia 
M. Duty, who was a daughter of David Johnson, 
of Jackson County, and this iinion has given them 
eight children: Margai-el J., now Mrs. A. Sprague; 
William M. , Laura A. , Lewin A. , Alonzo, Martha, 
David J. and Elza Brown. Mr. and Mrs. Nance 
are both members of the Christian Church, in 
which the former is an elder, the daughter Mar- 
garet also being a member. Mr. Nance is not an 
active politician, but his interest in the affairs of 
his county are unbounded. He is a keen observer, 
and his remarks upon the various changes that have 
taken and will take place in his county are well 
worthy of attention. 

Thomas Nance, farmer, of Bird Township, was 
born in Cape Girardeau County, Mo. , in 1849, the 
youngest of fifteen children born to Thomas Nance 
and his wife. Thomas was a farmer of North 
Carolina, and in 1846 came to Missouri, bought 



land and improved it; he also bought land in But 
ler County, Mo., and in !March, 1861, came to Jack- 
son County, Ark. , moving to Cache Township in 
1866, and then to Independence County, where 
he bought land near Fairview, which he made his 
home till his death, in August, 1874. His wife 
died when our subject was an infant. Grandfather 
Nance died, at the age of one hundred and fifteen, 
in North Carolina; the grandmother died in the 
same State, at the age of one hundred and four 
teen. The subject of this sketch was raised on the 
farm, receiving his education in the subscription 
schools of Missouri. In 1861 he came to Jackson 
County, and aided in clearing and improving the 
home farm. In September, 1864, in Jackson 
County, he enlisted in C'apt. Steen's company, 
and was with Gen. Price on his raid through Mis- 
souri. He was in the battles of Pilot Knob and 
Kansas City, returning home in 1865, and engaged 
in farming. In August, 1866, he married Sarah 
Cheshire, of Jackson County, daughter of Jonathan 
and Nancy (Seiner) Cheshire, natives of North Car- 
olina, and early settlers of Jackson County. Both 
died some years ago. After his marriage Mr. 
Nance settled on Black River, this township, and 
later moved to Tuckerman, and engaged in farm- 
ing. His excellent wife died in October, 1877, 
leaving three children: George W. (married and 
residing in Lawrence County), Mollie (now Mrs. 
Parrott, of this county) and Savannah (at home). 
In 1881 Mr. Nance married Rebecca Goodman, of 
Tennessee, whose father was one of the early 
settlers of this county. Both her parents are 
dead. Mr. Nance has resided on his present place 
since 1880. He owns a good farm of eighty acres, 
forty acres of which are under cultivation. He is 
a Democrat, active in politics, being now county 
coroner; was bailiff of Bird Township two years, 
also deputy sheriff for two years, and has always 
taken an interest in school matters, and all enter- 
prises for the good of his county, aiding liberally 
in such matters. He is a member of the Masonic 
order, belonging to Kirkpatrick Lodge No. 192, at 
Tuckerman, and was Senior Deacon in 1888. He 
is also a member of Jacksonport Chapter, and a 
member of the Eastern Star order, as is his wife. 



^* 



±z=£k 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



891 



They are both members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. 

C. C. Nicholson is a native planter and stock 
raiser of Jackson County, and was born in 18G3. 
He is the youngest of the five children born to Major 
and Nancy (Tippett) Nicholson, both natives of 
Tennessee. The parents were early settlers of 
Jackson County, Ark., where the father opened a 
farm, and devoted his entire attention to clearing 
and improving it. He died in 1863, the mother 
surviving until 1872. C. C. Nicholson was brought 
up on the farm, which occupation he has always 
followed. He obtained his education in the dis- 
trict schools of his native county, and worked on 
the home farm vintil sixteen years of age, when he 
commenced farming for himself on sixty acres, 
which he cleared. He now owns 220 acres, eighty 
acres of which he has under cultivation, as a result 
of his own labor. In March, 1884, Mr. Nicholson 
married Elizabeth Dudley, also a native of Arkan- 
sas. They have two children: Willie and Nancy. 
Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson are members of the Chris- 
tian Church, and are highly esteemed by all who 
know them. Mr. Nicholson is one of the most 
enterprising young farmers of Glass Township, in 
the welfare and development of which he takes an 
active interest, aiding libei'ally enterprises for its 
advancement, educationally and religiously. 

Paisley & Blake, well known residents of the 
community, are closely identified with the affairs 
of Auvergne Academy, a graded school for both 
sexes, which is located on a beautiful eminence in 
the southern part of the village, facing the east. 
June 20, 1888, this property was bought by Prof. 
D. L. Paisley and A. L. Blake, of Mrs. G. W. 
Bristol. They have conducted it during the term 
of 1888-89, with signal success. The faculty are D. 
L. Paisley, A. L. Blake and Mrs. A. L. Blake (in- 
structor in instrumental music). The building is 
a large two-story frame edifice, with boarding de- 
partment below, and school rooms above, with a 
seating capacity of sixty. Prof. Paisley is a native 
of North Carolina, born in Guilford County April 
10, 1860. His parents, James and Minerva ( Whor- 
ton) Paisley, were also natives of North Carolina, 
of Scotch descent. His father was a farmer and 



magistrate. He enlisted in the army of Northern 
Virginia, under Gen. Loe, in the Guilford Grays, 
was dismissed on account of ill health, and died 
in 1866, his wife surviving until 1888. Tbey were 
members of the Presbyterian Church, and the 
father was an oldline Whig, and afterward a Dem- 
ocrat. Prof. Paisley was reared on a farm; his 
schooling was obtained first in the public schools 
of his county, then in Lych's select school, at High 
Point, N. C. ; in Horner's school, Oxford, N. C, 
and in 1880 entered the State University, in 
1881-82 taking an eclectic course. After complet- 
ing this term, he taught in Maysvillo, S. C, three 
years. After his marriage, in 1885, he taught at 
Bennettsville, S. C, one year, when became to 
Gurdon, Ark. . and aftersvard to Auvei-gne Academy. 
His wife was Miss Loula Rankin, daughter of 
Thomas and Nancy Rankin, of Guilford County, 
N. C. They have one child. Lacy, a bright babe 
of eleven months. Our subject is the sixth child 
of a family of seven, and has one brother and one 
sister living. He is a Democrat, and conservative, 
and himself and wife are members of the Method- 
ist Episcopal Church at Auvergne. Prof. Andrew 
L. Blake is a native of Abbeville County, S. C, 
son of William K. and Hattie (Law) Blake, also 
natives of South Carolina, and of Irish and Scotch 
descent, respectively. His father, a lawyer and 
member of the Masonic order, served one term as 
the Democratic representative of his county in the 
State legislature, and has, for years, held the office 
of magistrate. The parents were members of the 
Presbyterian Church, the mother dying February 
2, 1887. Our subject, the third of a family of six 
children, was reared on the farm, spent his school 
days at Greenwood, and from 1880 to 1884 was in 
Davidson College, Mecklenburg County, N. C. He 
began teaching at White Hall, S. C. , where he 
remained one yiear. He taught one jear near 
Greenwood, S. C. ; taught at McLeansville, N. C. , 
eighteen months, and in July, 1887, came to Clark 
Coimty, Ark., and engaged as bookkeej)er for 
William Paisley, of Gurdon. He remained in this 
position till February, 1888, when he taught an 
unexpired term at Gurdon. Closing this school 
April 20, he came to Auvergne, and taught the 



I 



@ Sfc_ 



892 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



last nine weeks of the term at Auvergne Academy, 
and in June, with Prof. Paisley, bought that in- 
stitution. Prof. Blake is a member of the Pres- 
byterian Church, a Democrat, and takes an active 
interest in all public enterprises for the general 
welfare of the country. He was married to Miss 
Josie B. Lindsay, of Athens, Ala., Jiily 16, 1889. 
George H. Palmer, planter and stock raiser, of 
Bird Township, was born in Memphis, Tenn. , in 
1848, son of Samuel and Louisa (Means) Palmer, 
of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. The father 
was a pioneer of Kentucky, married there, and in 
1849 came to Jackson County, Ark., in Jefferson, 
and the winter of the same year came to Bird 
Township, locating on the farm where our subject 
now resides, taking a claim of 520 acres of timber 
land, which he cleared and improved, erecting a 
house and planting an orchard. He died in Jack- 
son County, in 1866, his wife surviving till 1884. 
George H. was the fifth of the family, the others 
being Margaret (wife of Joel Bandy), George H. , 
Fannie (wife of William Haynes), and Joseph H., 
all residing in Bird Township. George H. was 
reared to farm life, educated in the subscription 
schools of Bird Township, and aided at home in 
clearing and developing the homestead. He com- 
menced farming for himself at the age of twenty- 
two, and in 1870 was married in Jackson County, 
to Laura Steen, a native of Jackson County, daugh- 
ter of John and Nancy (Stancell) Steen, who were 
among the early settlers of Jackson County. The 
father died about 1858; the mother is still living. 
Mr. Palmer owns a good farm of 120 acres, with 
about sixty-five acres under cultivation, having 
cleared the most of it himself. He raises princi- 
pally cotton and corn, and considerable stock. He 
is a Democrat, though not active in politics, and 
served as magistrate for two years. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, Kirkpatrick Lodge 
No. 192. Mrs. Palmer is a member of the Meth- 
cJist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Palmer re- 
members this country as a dense timber tract, and 
has always been interested in everything for the 
good of the county. There are three children in 
his family. Oda L., Samuel Tilden and Maggie 
Cordelia. 



Hon. John W. Parish, an enterprising farmer 
of Union Township, Jackson County, resides two 
miles east of Newport. He is a native of Tennes- 
see, and is a son of William B. and Elizabeth 
(Cheatham) Parish, both of whom were born in 
North Carolina. The parents were married in Ten- 
nessee, and to them were born seven children, all 
of whom are dead except two: Sarah N. (who 
married Richard Cole, and died, leaving three 
children, named William, Anna and Jennie), and 
our subject. John W'. Parish married Miss Sarah 
E. Lacy, a native of Tennessee, and a daughter of 
Hiigh R. and Eliza (Smith) Laeey. Their union 
has been blessed with sis children, viz. : Lydia, 
born December 19, 1873; Frederick, born October 
24, 1876; Cora, born June 4, 1884; Hugh, bom 
January 6, 1886. Mr. Parish removed to Union 
Township, Jackson County, Ark., in 1873, locat- 
ing on land which is now a part of his farm, and 
which he rented for about six years, subsequently 
buying the same. He purchased 326 acres, of 
which 150 acres were under cultivation. He now 
has 225 acres well improved, and has built four 
tenant houses, renting his houses and lands to re- 
sponsible parties. He has at present about 160 
acres of cotton, and the balance in corn and clover. 
At the outbreak of the war Mr. Parish was attend- 
ing college at Jackson, Tenn., now known as the 
West Tennessee College, where he was a student 
two years. He entered the Confederate army. 
Company I, Fifty-first Tennessee, in which he 
served six months, and the company then being 
consolidated with other Tennessee regiments, 
served until the close of the war. his regiment con- 
stituting a part of the reserve of Gen. A. S. John- 
ston at the battle of Shiloh. Mr. Parish takes 
an active interest in enterprises tending toward 
the advancement of all social as well as religious 
and educational interests of his community, and is 
highly esteemed by the people of the county, 
which is evidenced by the fact that in 1881 he was 
elected to represent the county in the XXIIId 
session of the General Assembly of the State, where 
his honest endeavors to promote the best interests 
of his constituents earned for him their hearty 
approval. He was elected on the Democratic 



' «^® r- 



9 »^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



898 



T 



ticket. Mr. Parish is a member of Newport Lodge, 
A. F. & A. M., and is a prominent and honored 
man of Jackson County. 

Alexander S. Parish, M. D., of Jackson County, 
student of the Allopathic School of Medicine, was 
born in Tennessee. He is a brother of the Hon. 
J. W. Parish. In 1871 became to Arkansas, and 
began the study of medicine with Dr. P. S. Wood- 
ward, and in 1879 took his first course of lectures 
at Vandorbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. He 
continued in Dr. Woodward's office until the fall 
of 1880, when he returned to the University, grad- 
uating in 1881, after which he returned to Jackson 
County, and actively engaged in the practice of 
his profession. March 26, 1884, our subject mar- 
ried Miss Annie Phillips, of Arkansas, daughter 
of Col. T. H. and Amanda (Robinson) Phillips, 
the father a native of Georgia, and the mother of 
Arkansas. They have one cliild, William Theo- 
dore, born March 31, 1885. Dr. Parish is one of 
the deservedly successful physicians of this portion 
of the community. Earnest, careful and search- 
ing in the investigation of the science to which he 
has given his best attention, he has become well- 
informed, keeping thoroughly apace with the ad- 
vancement made in this profession. His practice 
is a happy illustration of his worth. 

Lewis W. Penix resides on Section 13, Union 
Township, Jackson County. He is a son of Henry 
H. and Caroline (Roberts) Penix, both natives of 
Tennessee, who died in Jackson County, Ark. 
They were the parents of ten children, one of 
whom died in infancy : Minerva, died at the age 
of eighteen; Mary A., married R. V. Hunter, a 
farmer of Jefferson Township, and has four chil- 
dren; Susan F. (married R. T. Armstrong, de- 
ceased, and has six children); Lewis W., Eliza- 
beth (had two children by her first husband, Mr. 
R. P. Jackson, and afterward married Mr. T. D. 
Lawrence, a farmer and merchant of Tuckerman), 
Martha J. (single), Columbus C. (married Dora 
Jowers, and resides in Jefferson Township engaged 
in farming), they have three children: Lydia \V. 
(died at the age of eighteen), and James Henry 
(married Miss Jennie Anderson, by whom he has 
one child, is also a farmer of Jefferson Town- 



ship). Lewis W. Penix was born May 1, 1850, 
and received his education in the public schools of 
Jackson County, where he has lived all his life, 
commencing business for himself at the age of 
twenty one years. In 1880, in partnership with 
R. V. Hunter, he purchased 240 acres of land iu 
Jefferson Township, which they still own, and Mr. 
Penix afterward purchased forty acres in Union 
Township. Since 1882 he has lived on the home- 
stead of his wife's parents, in Union Township. 
Mr. and Mrs. Penix were married December 27, 

1877. Her maiden name was Miss Willie J. Car- 
ville, she was born in Memphis, Tenn., Deceml)er 
27, 1857, and is a daughter of W. K. and Mary 
A. (Estes) Carville. Of their four children, but 
two are living, viz. : Nora E. , born December 1 , 

1878, and Clarence E., born August 28, 1882. 
The parents are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church of Jefferson Township, while Mr. Penix 
also belongs to Jacksonport Lodge No. 191, A. F. 
& A. M. , Jacksonport Chapter No. 40, R. A. M. , 
and American Legion of Honor. 

Dr. W. H. Pickett, retired physician, Weldou. 
Ark. Originally from Limestone, Ala.. Dr. Pick 
ett's birth occurred on the 22d of Decemlier, 1826. 
and his early life was passed in attending the 
common schools and in assisting on the farm. 
Later he supplemented his primary education by 
attending Exeter College, in Exeter, N. H., and 
in 1846 and 1847 he attended the Medical College 
of the University of New York. From there he 
went to New Orleans and attended the University 
of Louisiana, where he graduated in medicine and 
surgery in the class of 1848. He began the prac- 
tice of his profession the same year at Whitesburg, 
Ala., and, after remaining there two years, came to 
Jackson County, where ho settled upon his present 
property. He entered and bought about 2,300 
acres of land, 1,200 under cultivation and 1,100 
acres of which he has cleared himself. Dr. Pick- 
ett was married, in 1850, to Miss A. R. Collier, a 
native of AlaViama, and two children were the 
result of this union: Ida G. , wife of John \V. 
Ferrill, a farmer residing at Batesvilie; and Eliza- 
beth B. , wife of William H. Hardy, also residing 
at Batesvilie. Mrs. Pickett died Julv 1. ISH."), in 



9 w 



894 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



full communion with the Episcopal Chui'ch. Dr. 
Pickett was exempt from any army service by 
Gen. Kirby Smith, in 1803, and practiced his pro- 
fession at home. In the year 1868 he moved 
to Batesville, and since that time he has remained 
a resident of that city, and is enj^aged in agricult- 
ural pursuits in Jackson County. He gave up 
his practice in 1868, and, in addition to ^neral 
farming, he lias also a large cotton-gin, grist and 
saw-mill, with which he does all his own work and 
general settlement business. He has on his farm 
about forty tenant families, aggregating 200 peo- 
ple, all in fair circumstances and furnished with 
good houses. The Doctor has seen many impor- 
tant changes during his residence of thirty-eight 
years in this county. When he first came here 
Elizabeth was the county seat, but was afterward 
changed to Augusta, and subsequently to Jackson - 
port. Wild game was plentiful and easily ob- 
tained. His parents, Steptoe and Sarah O. (Chil- 
ton) Pickett, were natives of the Old Dominion, 
the father born in Fauquier and the mother in 
Westmoreland County. The parents settled in 
Alabama, in 1820, and were among the earliest 
pioneers of Northern Alabama. They both bought 
and entered land (1,000 acres in all), and Steptoe 
Pickett was an extensive slave-holder. He was a 
schoolmate of James Buchanan, and was a coiisin 
to both Chief Justice John Marshall and "Light 
Horse ' ' Harry Lee. He was also a cousin of 
Gen. Pickett. He was a graduate of William and 
Mary College, and was an old-line Whig in his 
political views. His death occurred in 1848, at 
the age of fifty- four years. He was a member of 
the Episcopal Church, and the mother a member 
of the Christian Church. The latter died in 1864, 
at the age of seventy-four years. They were the 
parents of nine children : Martin, married, and a 
commission merchant at Mobile, Ala. ; Richard is 
an attorney and judge at Florence, Ala. ; Steptoe, 
Jr., was a farmer and died in 1884, at Madison, 
Ala., leaving a wife and two children; A. C. is a 
lawyer at Augusta, Ark. ; John S. was a physician, 
at Danville, Ala., and died in 1887, leaving a wife 
and two children, who reside in Des Arc, Ark; 
Felicia, the wife of Gov. Reuben Chapmore, of 



Huntsville, Ala. (she died in 1874, leaving four 
children); Virginia, wife of Samuel Blackwell, a 
farmer of Alabama; Anna S. Edwards, wife of a 
farmer, and resides in King William County, Va. 

I. D. Price is the efficient postmaster of New- 
port, Ark., and also deals in books and stationery. 
He is a native of the county, born December 10, 
1856, and is a son of Dr. John F. and Kate (Brown) 
Price, the former from South Carolina, and the 
latter a native of the State of Arkansas. Dr. John 
F. Price has become well known as a physician 
wherever he has resided, and is now living at Fort 
Worth, Tex. I. D. Price resided in Jefferson 
County until seven years of age, and was princi- 
pally educated in the schools of Cross County. In 
the spring of 1880 he came to Newport, Ark., and 
for four years followed the occupation of clerking, 
then opened a book and stationery establishment 
in the building he now occupies, and his stock is 
extensive and well selected. In February, 1888, 
he was appointed to the position of postmaster, 
and is now discharging his duties in a manner ac- 
ceptable to all. He was married, in 1884, to Miss 
Mamie Wallace, and by her he has had two chil- 
dren: Katie and Rina. His wife is a member of 
the Presbyterian Church, and he belongs to the 
American Legion of Honor. 

Lewis E. Purssell, a prominent merchant of 
Auvergne, Jackson County, is a native of Arkansas, 
born in Woodruff County, February 20, 1861. His 
parents were William O. and Lucy (Coyle) Purs- 
sell, natives, respectively, of South Carolina and 
Alabama, the former of whom came to Arkansas 
with his father, J. H. Purssell, who was one of the 
earliest settlers of Woodruff County, where he 
opened several large farms. William O. Purssell 
married Miss Lucy Coyle, in Prairie County, Ark., 
in 1854; they afterward moved to Woodruff County, 
where they lived imtil 1868, when they moved to 
Izard County, where Mr. Purssell died in 1872. 
He was a Master Mason and an Odd Fellow, and 
in the early part of the war enlisted, and served 
until its close as brevet-captain; at the time of his 
death he owned 900 acres of land in Woodruff and 
Izard Counties, about 160 acres being under culti- 
vation; he had been very successful as a farmer and 



stock raiser. His -widow remained on the farm in 
Izard County until December, 1875, when she re- 
turned to the old homestead in Prairie County, 
which was her home with our subject until 1871}. 
She died December 19, 1882, a member of the 
Methodist Ejjiscopal Church. The maternal grand- 
parents of Lewis E. came to Arkansas from Mis- 
sissippi in 1858, living one year in Woodruff 
County, and then locating in Prairie County, where 
they entered land and built a home. Mr. Coyle 
was a natural and successful farmer, and during 
his life cleared about 500 acres of land, l)eing able 
to do a good day's work at the age of seventy 
years. His death occurred in December, 1885, and 
his excellent wife, who survives him, still lives on 
the old home.stead; she is a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, to which her husband also 
belonged. Lewis E. Purssell was reared to the 
pursuit of farming, receiving a good education at 
the common schools of Woodruff and Jackson 
Counties, the Philadelphia Academy iu Izard 
County, and the Male College at Searcy, "White 
County. At the age of eighteen he left home, and 
was engaged as clerk for Gates Bros. & Co., at 
Des Arc, Prairie County, where he remained six 
months, when he entered the employment of Plun- 
kett & Erwin of the same place, in which capacity 
he worked two years; in 1882 he opened a drug 
and grocery store at Hickory Plain, Prairie County, 
which he conducted until January, ISSH, when, on 
account of his maternal grandfather's death, he 
sold out and assumed the management of his grand- 
mother's farm. In the latter part of the same 
year he moved to Auvergne, Jackson County, pur- 
chased a stock of groceries of M. J. Malone, to 
which he added a sreneral stock of drv-goods, cloth- 
ing. etc., and now has one of the best general 
stores in the country. Mr. Purssell also owns a farm 
of IfiO acres in Prairie County, sixty acres of which 
are under cultivation. Our subject was the fourth 
in a family of nine, and is one of the two surviving, 
the others dying in infancy, except Ada, who mar- 
ried J. W. Williamson, a farmer and stock trader 
of Izard County; she died in 1884, leaving one 
child. Ethel, aged five years. Alice Corrinne Purs- 
sell is the wife of James B. Gardner, a practicing 



physician and farmer near Hickory Plain, Prairie 
County; they have four children: Elmer, Earl, 
Oscar and Bessie. Mr. Purssell is iinniarrieil; lie 
is one of the leading men of the town of Auvergne, 
and is actively interested in its welfare, lending 
his hearty and liberal aid to the support of schools, 
churches and all worthy public enterprises. He 
takes no active part in politics, but his sympathies 
are with the Democratic party. 

B. F. Hay, planter and stock raiser of Bird 
Township, was born in Lauderdale County, Ala., 
in 1888, being the ninth of twelve children born to 
Benjamin and Nancy (Dixon) Ray, the fath<«r of 
East Tennessee and the mother of South Carolina. 
Benjamin Bay served in the War of 1812. He 
settled in Alal)ama, on a plantation, where he 
died in February, 1864, his wife having died in 
1861. He engaged in farming until his death. 
Our subject was reared on the plantation, receiv- 
ing his education in the subscription and district 
schools of the State of Alabama. In 1862 he en- 
listed in Company C, of the Sixteenth Alabama In- 
fantry, and was in the battles of Murfreesboro, 
Liberty Ga]>. Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, 
and a number of skirmishes, also in Ringgold. In 
January, 1864, he left the service and returned to 
Alabama, where he engaged in farming, coming to 
Jackson (bounty, Ark., in 1868, and settling in the 
vicinity of Newport. In ISfi'.t he married Josephine 
Slayden, of Jackson County, daughter of Coleman 
Slayden. a native of Middle Tennessee, and an early 
settler of Jackson County. Her father died in 
1859, and her mother in 1864. In 1878 Mr. Ray 
settled on his present farm, which consi.»ts of 280 
acres, 130 under cultivation; he raises considerable 
stock, and a mixed cro]> of cotton, corn and hay. 
Mrs. Ray died in 18S3, leaving two children: 
Prince Ella and William Thomas. In 1884 Mr. 
Ray married Elizal)eth Carter, of Alabama, dangh 
ter of James and Lucinda (Rankins) Akens. who 
came to Jackson County in 1S69; the father died 
in 1877, the mother is still living. Mr. Ray is not 
very active in politics, but votes with the Demo- 
cratic party; he has been a member of the school 
V)oard, and has always taken an active interest in 
school matters: he is a member of Kirkpafrirk 



3?^ 



896 



HISTOEY OF AKKANSAS. 



Lodge No. 192, and has been Senior Warden. He 
lias seen great changes in the county, and the edu- 
cational system is improving rapidly. The chil- 
dren by the second wife are Isaac and Franklin. 

WOson LaFayette Robinson is a son of Mathew 
B. and Sarah (Lindsay) Robinson, and is a farmer 
and stock raiser of Grubbs Township, Jackson 
County. The father was a native of Virginia, and 
the mother was born in Tennessee. In the fall of 
1860, W. L. came to Arkansas with his parents, 
the mother dying in 1862, and the father surviv- 
ing until 1872. Mr. Robinson attended school in 
Alabama until his twentieth year, receiving in- 
struction in the common branches. In 1862 he 
enlisted in Col. Mattock's regiment of Arkansas 
Volunteers, Confederate States Army, serving iive 
or six months, when poor health rendered him un- 
fit for service. In 1864 Mr. Robinson married 
Mrs. Frances (Blair) Coffin, who died in 1874; they 
had one child, which died in 1868. July 22, 1874, 
Mr. Robinson again married, and to the latter 
union seven children were born, only two of whom 
are now living, viz. : Grover Cleveland, born Oc- 
tober 11, 1884. and Robert LaFayette, born May 
7, 1888. In 1863 our subject purchased quit claim 
deed to land in Grubbs Township, which was 
partly improved, and to which he subsequently 
added forty acres, upon which he erected a house, 
in which he lived eighteen years. He now owns 
720 acres of land, of which about 325 acres are 
under cultivation, the remainder being woodland. 
He has one of the best improved farms in the coun- 
ty, as a result of industry and enterprise, as well 
as good management and perseverance. 

W. A. Roy, farmer and stock raiser, Layton, 
Ark. Mr. Roy is a typical Arkansas citizen, sub- 
stantial, enterprising and progressive, and such a 
man as wields no small influence in the commu- 
nity where he makes his home. He was born in 
Shelby County, Term., in 1886, and was the second 
in a family of ten children, born to the union of 
Merida and Susan (Gentry) Roy, the father a na- 
tive of South Carolina, and the mother of Tennes- 
see. Merida Roy came with his parents to Ten- 
nessee in 1807, settling in the middle part of the 
State, and after growing to manhood was united 



in marriage to Miss Gentry, a representative of one 
of the old and much honored families of Tennes- 
see. He tilled the soil in that State, and was a 
prosperous and industrious farmer. He was a 
Democrat in politics, and a member of the Masonic 
fraternity for many years. His death took place 
in Shelby County, Tenn. , in May, 1885, and his 
wife still survives him. She resides on the home 
farm in Shelby County. Their family was named 
as follows: John Thomas, presiding judge of Poin- 
sett County; W. A., Eliza, now Mrs. Crain, resides 
in Tennessee; Frances, now Mrs. Clarridge, re- 
sides in Tennessee; Merida, married, and resides 
in Tennessee; Alfred, married, and a resident of 
Poinsett County; Daniel, resides in Poinsett Coun- 
ty, and the remainder died when young. Tilling 
the soil was the pursuit ^V. A. Roy followed in 
youth, and his time was divided between this occu- 
pation and in attending the district school, where 
he received a good practical education. He was 
married, in Shelby County, Tenn., in 1857, to 
Miss Frances Jane Mustin, a native of Alabama, 
and the daughter of Henry and Hannah (Clark) 
Mustin, of Alabama nativity. Mr. and Mrs. Mus- 
tin first immigrated to Tennessee, thence to Jack- 
son County, Ark., in the fall of 1860, and settled 
in Cow Lake Township. Here both parents 
passed their last days. After his marriage Mr. 
Roy located on a farm in Tennessee, and there re- 
sided until 1861, when he came to Jackson County, 
Ark. , and entered 160 acres of land, which he im- 
mediately began to improve, erecting a house, set- 
ting out orchards, etc. He continued to add to the 
original tract from time to time, until he is now the 
owner of 520 acres, with ninety acres under culti- 
vation. He raises corn entirely, but his renters 
raise considerable cotton. Mr. Roy lost his wife 
in 1879. By that union he became the father of 
two living children: William Newton and Melinda 
Alice. His second marriage was consummated in 
Jackson County, in 1879, to Miss Martha Taylor, 
a native of Jackson County, Ark. , and the daughter 
of Richard and Melinda (Bigham) Taylor, natives 
of Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor came to Jack- 
son County, in 1859, and there both closed their 
eyes to the scenes of this world. Mr. Roy lost his 



*M 



k. 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



SOT 



wife in 18S7, and was left with four interesting 
children: Richard Charley, Louvenia J., Susan 
and Alafa. In 1888 Mrs. Susan (McFadden) 
Turner became the third wife of Mr. Roy. She 
was a native of South Carolina, the widow of 
Stephen Turner, and the daughter of Twitty 
McFadden, a native of South C'arolina. Her 
father came to Jackson County, Ark. , many years 
ago, and there died in 1808. Mr. Roy has been 
justice of the peace for some time, has been a mem- 
ber of the school board, and takes much interest 
in educational matters. He is a Democrat in poli- 
tics. In 1862 he enlisted in Company C, Col. Mat- 
lock's regiment, and was with Gen. Price on his 
raid through Missouri. He was in the battle of 
Prairie Grove and numerous skirmishes. He and 
Mrs. Roy are members of the Christian Church, 
and he is an elder in the same. 

Dr. J. H. Rutland, of Swifton, Jackson County, 
was born in Georgia, in 1853. He was the second 
child in a family of eight, born to J. H. and Orphy 
(Jordan) Rutland, natives of Sumter County, Ga. 
The father owned and operated a large plantation 
in his native State, 1,800 acres in one tract and 
1 , 300 in another. He is now president of the 
South Georgia Vocal and Instrumental Conserva- 
tory, and he and wife still live in Georgia. Dr. J. 
H. was reared on his father's plantation, receiving 
his early education in the public schools. He then 
entered the ^S'estmoreland Medical College, at At- 
lanta, Ga. , from which institution he graduated in 
1886. He first located in Texas Township, Craig- 
head County, Ark., where he built up a large and 
lucrative practice, removing to his present home in 
Swifton in 1889, where he is a prominent physician 
and surgeon, and enjoys extensive patronage. Dr. 
Rutland was married in Craighead County, in No- 
vember, 1888, to Florence Bell, a native of Ten- 
nessee, whose parents now live in Craighead Coun- 
ty, Ark. Dr. Rutland is quite an active member 
of the Democratic party, politically, and, religious- 
ly, is a member of the Christian Church. He is a 
liberal supporter of public interests, and is one of 
the rising yoimg men of Jackson County, where he 
is highly esteemed by all who know him. 

Otis W. Scarborough is one of the leading at- 



torneys of Jackson Coimty, and has been estab- 
lished in business in Newport since 1884. He was 
born in Ko.scinsko, Attala County, Miss., on the 
24th (lay of December, 1849, and is a son of Isaac 
and Lucy G. (Harrison) Scarborough, being the 
eldest of their five living children: Otis W., Othello 
C, a physician; Isaac W., also a physician; Fen- 
ton G., wife of Wade F. Fletcher, and Lucy L. : 
seven children are deceased. The grandfather, 
John Scarl)orough, was born in North Carolina, 
but was of Welsh extraction, his father having 
been born in Wales, but removed to the New World, 
owing to some difficulty he had with the Crown. 
He settled in North Carolina, where he died, after 
having taken an active part in the Revolutionary 
War, his son John being also a participant in that 
war. They were both planters by occupation. 
Isaac Scarborough was born in Edgecombe County, 
N. C, and his wife in Madison County, Ya He 
was a lawyer by profession, and after his removal 
to Mississippi about the year 1828. was admitted 
to the bar at Kosciusko, and there he has since 
made his home, being a prominent member of the 
legal fraternity in Attala County. He served as 
judge of the county and circuit courts for about ten 
years, and now, although in his seventy- fourth 
year, he shows few indications of decay, either 
mentally or jjhysically. Otis W. Scarborough ac 
quired an excellent education in the high school 
at Kosciusko, but. not being satisfied with the 
learning there ae<[uired, he entered Davidson Col- 
lege, Mecklenburg County, N. C. . in 1868, becom- 
ing a member of the sophomore class, and from 
this institution he was graduated as an A. B. . in 
June, 1871. Having determined to follow the pro- 
fession to which his father was devoting his time, 
he entered the law department of the University of 
St. Louis, in the month of October, 1883, and 
graduated in May, 1885, being admitted to the bar 
in Kosciusko, in August, of the same year. He 
practiced his profession in his native town until 
December. 18S4, when he came to Newport, and 
the following year began the practice of law. He 
is an able practitioner, and his iiifiuenee is felt 
when he takes the stand, for he is a fluent and elo- 
quent speaker, and is always the thorough master 



• i 



898 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



of the subject which he handles. He was married 
on the 24th of December, 1878, to Miss Cynthia 
E. Rimmer, by whom he has one child, James I. 
He and wife are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and he is a member of the I. O. O. 
F. , belonging to the Encampment. 

Thomas J. Sconyers, an enterprising farmer of 
Village Township, Jackson County, came to Arkan- 
sas in January, 1870, with his parents. Darling 
and Samantha (Snyder) Sconyers, natives, respect- 
ively, of South Carolina and Alabama. Upon his 
arrival in Arkansas the father leased the Davis 
farm, upon which he died in August, 1870. He 
was the parent of ten children, viz. : Catherine, 
who died with diphtheria about 18fi3; Elizabeth, 
who first married Green Jacks, and after his death 
married Julius Wright; George married a Miss 
Phillips; Mary married a Mr. Rhodes; Policy Ann, 
wife of B. Eason; Ellen became the wife of Mr. 
Myrick, and both are now deceased; Victoria mar- 
ried Thomas Hutson; Nisie died, the wife of Rollie 
Phillips, and John first married a Miss Strauther, 
after whose death he married Miss Arnett. Thomas 
J., who was born Februaiy 20, 1846, received his 
education in the common schools of his native 
State, Alabama. March 16, 1873, he married 
Miss Mary Foushee, whose birth occuired March 
20, 1856, and their six children are "William C, 
born January 26, 1875; Joseph Edward, born Jan- 
uary 20, 1878; George F., born March 4, 1881; 
Frances S. , born September 19, 1884; Monte L., 
born August 31, 1886, and John T., born Septem- 
ber 17, 1888. For about one year Mr. Sconyers 
worked for Mr. G. B. Branderburge, of Union 
Township, and the following six years rented land, 
which he farmed, and subsequently purchased. 
His first purchase consisted of 320 acres in Village 
Township, and afterward in partnership with Mr. 
J. T. Foushee, bought 240 acres in the same town- 
ship. He now has about 150 acres improved, and 
raises corn and cotton, at which he has been suc- 
cessful. Mr. Sconyers was a member of the Thir- 
teenth Alabama Regiment, Volunteer Infantry, Con- 
federate States Army, enlisting in 1 863. He partici- 
pated in the battles of the Wilderness and Peters- 
burg (Va. ), not taking off his cartridge-box for 



forty days and nights. Though a Confederate 
soldier, and, while in arms, fighting to conquer, 
Mr. Seon3'ers wishes it to go on record that he will 
hail with joy the day when sectarian animosities 
are forgotten, believing that there should be "no 
North, no South.'" He is an enterprising farmer, 
and is highly esteemed by all who know him. 

A. E. Shoffner, one. of the leading planters of 
Jackson County, was born in North Carolina, on 
April 18, 1831, and is a son of Frederick and Susan 
(Danison) Shoffner, both natives of Germany, who 
emigrated to this country with their parents, and 
settled in North Carolina, the grandfather becom- 
ing a prominent planter in Orange County. The 
father was married in the same county, and died 
in that place in 1845, near Hillsboro, the mother 
dying several years later. They were the parents 
of two sons, Aenes E. and T. M. The former son 
was born and reared in Orange County, N. C, and 
received his education in that place. In the fall 
of 1858, he emigrated to Arkansas, and located at 
Batesville, where he remained until 1860, when he 
removed to Jackson County and settled in Rich- 
mond Township. He bought some land and com- 
menced farming in that locality, but a few years 
afterward he moved to Breckinridge Township, 
and settled on a farm in that place. On his ar- 
rival in Arkansas he possessed very little, but be- 
ing a man of industrious habits and economy he 
became very successful and accumulated considera- 
ble property. He now owns about 960 acres of 
valuable land in Jackson County, with about 300 
acres under cultivation, and a great many improve- 
ments on his other land. Mr. Shoffner has passed 
through many hardships in his life, and encount- 
ered obstacles in his path on almost every occasion 
when seeking to make his fortune, but his strong 
will, determination and upright character, have 
placed him in an independent position, and he is 
now a respected and highly-esteemed citizen of 
his county. In the spring of 1862 he enlisted in 
Company I, of Gauze's regiment, and served until 
the surrender. He was principally assigned to the 
quartermaster's department during that time, but 
also took part in several battles. Mr. Shoffner 
was married in 1854, to Miss Martha N. Patterson, 



l)y whom be bad eight children: Emily I., Queeny i 
A., Susan L., William H., Charles C, Edwin P., V 
Daniel L. and Nannie B. Mr. Shoffner has served 
as justice of the peace and constable of his town- 
ship, and has also been one of the school directors. 
He is a member of the Knights of Honor and lioyal 
Arcanum, and also of the Masonic fraternity. 

W. S. Shuford, treasurer of Jackson County, 
born in North Carolina, November 29, 1821, in 
Lincoln County, was a great-grandson of Jacob 
Shuford, one of the earliest settlers of that section; 
at his death, in 1844, there were present seventy- 
five grandchildren, twenty-foiu* greatgrandchil- 
dren and several great-great-grandchildren. Jacob 
was born about 1764, in Lincoln County, was a 
farmer, and conducted a large plantation, owning 
several. He was several times elected sheriff. 
Our subject's parents were Abel H. and Adeline 
(Perkins) Shuford, natives of North Carolina, their 
parents, who were of Dutch and English descent, 
coming from Pennsylvania and Virginia, respect- 
ively; Abel H. was the fourth of eleven children: 
Betsey (Smyer), Eva (Ramsaeur), Fanny (Cansler), 
Susan (Reinhardt), John J. (merchant and farmer), 
Martin (member of the legislature), Abel Eli 
(farmer), Elkanah (farmer), Jacob (farmer), and 
Andrew (farmer, representative and Baptist minis- 
ter); they all lived and died in Lincoln County. 
Adeline (Perkins) Shuford was a daughter of 
Ephraim and Elisabeth (Abernathy) Perkins, na- 
tives of Lincoln County, and she was the eldest of 
a family of ten children: Adeline (died at the age 
of forty-two in North Carolina), Elisha, Caroline, 
Catherine, Elizabeth J., John (deceased), David, 
Patsey, Daniel, Robert J. M. Abel H. Shuford 
was born October 11, 1796, and died January 4, 
1858; October 4, 1820, he married; both himself 
and wife were members of the German Reformed 
Church. He was a Whig, but took no active part 
in ])olitic3. The subject of this sketch was reared 
to farm life, and spent his school days in the old 
schools of that date. He worked with his father 
till 1840, when he went to Northern Mississippi, 
where he resided seven years, and in February, 
1851, he married Miss Ellen Grider. daugliter of 
Jesse and Polly Grider, natives of Kentucky. Af- 



ter marriage he remained in Mississippi two years, 
when he came to Jackson County. Ark., and en- 
gaged in farming and clerking in Jacksonport till 
after the war, he being exempt from military serv- 
ice on account of age, and of being a cripple. 
Like a great many others, he lost all his property 
during the war, and when {)eaco was declared 
found himself in possession of a dog, which had 
followed him to Texas and liack, and two old mules. 
From 1805 to 1870 ho clerked, and then bought 
160 acres of land, on which he now resides, having 
cleared about ninety acres of the same. In 1874 
he was elected county treasurer, which office he 
has held continuously since, with the exception of 
the years 1880 and 1882, and is the present in- 
cumbent. He is a Democrat, though conservjitive, 
is a member of Poole Lodge No. 40, Chapter and 
Council, of the A. F. & A. M., at Jatfksonport, and 
he and his family are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, he being trustee and steward. 
The family consists of Fanny (wife of Frank How- 
ell), Mattie (wife of Rev. David Hare, deceased). 
Jesse (married and living at home), Mary T. (died 
at the age of eighteen months). Mrs. Hare and her 
four children live at home. Mr. Shuford had one of 
the first cotton-gins in this country, a horse- power 
(in 1871), and in 187<) erected a steam gin, and has 
been engaged in ginning and milling, during the 
season for such work, ever since. He was one of 
the first settlers of the county, and gives his sup 
port, as far as able, to schools, churches and all 
other public enterprises. 

Joseph E. Slaydeu (deceased) was a native of 
Jackson County, and was a son of Coleman and 
Elizabeth (Briggs) Slaydeii, the father a native of 
Virginia, and the mother of North Carolina. Tlie 
parents were married in Hickman County, Tenu., 
March 27, 1884. Two children were born to them 
in Tennessee, both of whom died. Six children 
were born in Arkansas, viz. : Atlantic, lx>rn April 
13, 1839; Artamesa, born November 11, 1841. 
man'ied Levi Eader, Deceml)er 27, 1858. and 
died December 18, 1870; Joseph E., born June 
22, 1S44, married Miss Cordelia Graham, a n.-itive 
of Jackson County, Ark. ; Cordelia, born December 
30, 1840, married Job Greenhnw. a farmer of Bird 



'-^ 



900 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Towniship, Jackson County: Ariminty, born March 
13, 1848, became the wife of James P. Gurgo, a 
native of Tennessee, and died June 2, 1871; Jo- 
sephine, born January 21, 1852, married Frank 
B. Ray, and is now deceased. At the time of his 
marriage Joseph E. Slayden owned a farm in Union 
Township, which was under cultivation, and upon 
which he lived fifteen years; he owned in all 300 
acres, of which 200 were well improved. He after- 
ward purchased 100 acres which were mostly under 
cultivation, and still later bought 240 acres more, 
upon which he erected a good dwelling and barns. 
The latter place was his home until his death, and 
then became the property of his wife and sister, 
Atlantic. To Mr. and Mrs. Slayden were born in 
all seven children, viz. : Levi Tillman, born Janu- 
ary 12, 1874; William H, born January 23, 1878; 
Thomas Jeffei'son, born August 23, 1870; Joseph 
E., born February 9, 1880; Julius B., born March 
20, 1884; James Morgan, born February 19, 
1886, and Augustus, born August 15, 1887. Mr. 
Slayden was a public-spirited man, of liberal views, 
and always took an active part in every enterprise 
for the advancement of his county or State. At 
the time of his death he was a member in good 
standing of Jacksonport Lodge No. 191, A. F. & 
A. M., and was a sincere friend of educational and 
religious interests. 

L. D. Smith, postmaster at Tuckerman, was 
born in Gibson County, West Tenn., in 1855, the 
fourth of nine children born to A. B. and M. J. 
(Woodard) Smith, natives of Middle Tennessee. The 
father was a farmer and came to Bird Township, 
Jackson County, in 1873, where he died in 1876, 
his wife surviving. Of this family there were Mon- 
roe M., LeroyD. , James R. (deceased), George L., 
Ashley, Maggie (Mrs. Hogan), Mollie (Mrs. Mc- 
Farland), Lena (Mrs. Layton), Decatur (deceased), 
Maud (deceased). The subject of this sketch, be- 
ing raised on a farm, received his education in the 
district schools of Gibson County. Coming to 
Jackson County in 1873, he engaged in farming 
until he entered the grocery and drug business, in 
1883, erecting a frame building that year, having 
lived in Tuckerman since 1882. In 1879, in El- 
gin, this county, he married Nora Coe, daughter 



of Thomas and Sarah (Coleman) Coe, early settlers 
of Independence County, where the father was en- 
gaged in mercantile business till his death, in 1864. 
His wife died in 1885. They have a family of four 
children: Gussie M., Gertie, Ralph and Kate. 
Mr. Smith is active in politics, voting the Demo- 
cratic ticket, and received his commission as jsost- 
master from Cleveland. He has served as magis- 
trate six years, has been delegate to county con- 
ventions at different times, and was a delegate to 
Little Rock, in 1888, to a convention of the various 
Democratic clubs. He always takes an active in- 
terest in all worthy enterprises for the advance- 
ment of the county. 

Hon. John W. Stayton is a prominent attorney 
of Newport, Ark., and is a native-born resident of 
Helena, Ark., his birth occurring on the 6th of 
November, 1835. He is a son of Thomas N. and 
Esther (Harns) Stayton, who were born in Dela- 
ware and Virginia, respectively, but their mar- 
riage occurred in the State of Arkansas, whither 
the father had moved with his father. Hill D. 
Stayton, in 1820. They located in what is now 
Helena, Phillips County. Hill D. was a civil en- 
gineer, and came here with a contract for sur- 
veying land for the Government, and this occu- 
pation he followed until his death. The ma- 
ternal grandparents were Virginians, who, at an 
early day, settled in the State of Kentucky, and 
later in Louisana, coming from there to Arkansas 
about the year 1832, also taking up their abode in 
Helena. Mr. Harns was a planter, and died in 
Helena. Thomas N. Stayton was a small boy 
when he was brought to Arkansas, and his earlj' 
youth was spent in farm labor. Like the majority 
of boys, the occupation which received his atten 
tion in his youth became his calling in after life, 
and his enterprises in the interests of agriculture 
have been attended with good results. Although 
he has now almost attained his four- score years, 
he is still quite active, the "ravages of time" 
having had but little effect upon him. Of six 
children born to himself and wife, but three are 
living: John W., Dr. D. A., and R. F., wife of 
Dr. C. C. Herring. John W. Stayton remained 
on the home farm until he had attained his 









Mississippi County, Arkansas. 



I 



A 



^ - 1> 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



'.Id I 



eighteenth year, when he entered the high school 
of Helena, and while there formed the resolution 
to make the profession of law his occupation 
through life, and upon leaving school he entered 
upon his legal studies with a determination to sue- i 
ceed, and after a most thorough preparation he 
was admitted to the bar in 1857, at Helena. From 
tliat time until the opening of the Civil War he 1 
was actively engaged in practicing in that town, 
then took charge of the county clerk's office, and 
served faithfully and well until the night of the 
9th of July, 1862, when Helena was captured by 
the Federal troops, and ovc^rybodj' was put under 
arrest, Mr. Stayton being among the number. I 
Upon his release he went to St. Louis, and being 
urged by some of his friends to accept a position 
there, did so, and remained about one year, i 
From that time until 1866 he resided in Helena, 
and at the latter date came to Jacksonport, and 
embarked on the sea of merchandise, and success- [ 
fully conducted this business until 1874, when he 
again engaged in the practice of his profession. 
The first office which he held was that of city re- 
corder of his native town, and in 1808 he was 
chosen mayor of Jacksonport, and in 1874 was 
appointed by the governor as justice of the peace. ; 
Upon the re-organization of the State government, 
under the constitution of 1S74, he was elected on 
the Democratic ticket, and in 1884 was chosen to 
the position of State senator from the Twenty- 
ninth District, and served a term of four years. 
In 1885 he was elected president pro tern, of the 
senate, and was acting governor in the absence of 
Gov. Hughes. From 1874 to 1878 he was county 
and probate judge, and the efficient manner in 
which he discharged the duties incumbent upon 
the different and responsible positions he has held 
is too well known to need any additional words of 
compliment; suffice it to say that he always labored 
on the side of right and justice, and that his career 
was above reproach. Since 1885 he has been a resi- 
dent of Newport, and as a member of the legal 
fraternity he has few superiors, and is a fluent and 
elegant pleader. He has always been victorious 
whenever his name has been announced before the 
public as a candidate for any office, and, although he 



has never been an office seeker, he has been i. >.,- 
nized as a leader by his numerous friends and 
acquaintances, and, as a natural result, honors have 
been bestowed upon him. He is a member in good 
standing of the Masonic fraternity. On the Slst 
of June, 1861, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Sarah J. Wickersham, a native of St. Louis, by 
whom he has had four children, three now living: 
JoHej>h M. . partner with John W. in l)usine.ss; 
Mattie B. and John W., Jr. 

George K. Stephens, a well-known liveryman 
and farmer of Jackson County, was born in Madi- 
son County, Tenn., in 1840, and is a son of Isaac 
and Mary J. (York) Stephens, of North Carolina 
and Tennessee, respectively, the father dying in 
the latter State in 185'.l. After his death the family 
moved to Jackson County, Ark., and located in 
Bird Township, where they resided until the 
mother's death, in 1882. George was reared prin- 
cipally in Tennessee, and came to Jackson County, 
Ark., when nineteen years of age. In 1861, when 
the Civil War called so many thousands of young 
men from home and family to face the fate that 
awaited tliem from cold steel or leaden bullet, he 
never hesitated a moment, but gallantly went forth 
to bear arms and battle for the Confederacy. He 
became a member of the First Arkansas Regiment, 
and the first that left the State, and was mustered 
in at Lynchburg, Va. His first battle was at Ma 
nassas, and, after that engagement was over, he 
was discharged, and returnetl to his home. 
He soon enlisted again, however, and joined Hook-» 
er's cavalry company, but was afterward dis- 
mounted and put into the Thirty second Arkansas 
regiment, in which body he served until the close 
of the war. Mr. Stephens took part in a number 
of battles, and, at the evacuation of Little Kock, 
was captured and confined for two months in tliat 
city. He was then taken to Pleasant Hill, and ex- 
changed, and, in a l)attle some time afterward, re 
ceived a wound in his left hand from a rifie ball. 
After the war he returned home and resumed his 
farm work, now owning between 8,000 and 4,(M10 
acres of valuable laud, with about 5)00 acres under 
cultivation. In 186V» he embarked in the livery bnsi 
ness at Jacksonport. ami continued there until 



3<: 



^' 



902 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



1880, when he removed to Newport, where he has 
been ever since, and has established a lucrative 
trade. He was married, in 1866, to Miss Mary 
Stewart, by whom be has had five children: Isaac 
W. (who has charge of the livery business), Mary 
A. (wife of Judge M. M. Stuekey), Florence M., 
Fannie G. and Sarah. Mr. Stephens lost his first 
wife, and, in 1878, was married to Miss Alice York, 
by whom ie has had three children: Stella, Guy 
and Lydia. He is a Mason, and a very popular 
man in both business and social circles. 

T. S. Stephens, the popular and efiicient sheriff 
and collector of Jackson County, was born in 
Madison County, Tenn., on the 30th of April, 
1849, and is a son of Isaac and Mary J. (York) 
Stephens, of North Carolina and Tennessee, re- 
spectively. The parents were married in Jackson, 
Tenn.. and resided in that city until the father's 
death occiirred, in 1851. The mother was again 
man-ied. her second husband being Alexander 
Claridge, and shortly afterward moved to Jackson 
County, Ark. Four children were born by her 
first mairiage, three of them yet living: George 
K., Fannie, widow of Elsie Brown, and Theophi- 
lus S. , and by her second husband one child was 
born, John H. The elder Stephens was a shoe- 
maker by trade, and followed that vocation all his 
life, while the husband of his widow, Mr. Claridge, 
was a school-teacher, who taught for some time at 
the West Union College, near Cuba. The latter 
gentleman died at Sulphur Rock, Independence 
County, about the year 1869, and his wife survived 
him until 1882, dying in the town of Newport. T. 
S. Stephens was only eight years old- when he 
moved to Arkansas with his mother, and received 
the greater portion of his education in Independ- 
ence County. He remained on the farm and cul- 
tivated the soil, an occupation he seemed to take 
delight in, until his twentieth year, when he made 
a visit to Jacksonport. While at that place he met 
and was introduced to several business men, and 
the idea of a commercial life then seemed to enter 
his mind. The consequence was that he remained 
at Jacksonport and went into one of the grocery 
firms, where he clerked for several years. In 
political life he was always very active, and after a 



few years' residence in that city he was elected con- 
stable, and filled the office for two terms, in the 
meanwhile terminating his engagement with the 
grocery firm, and carrying on a livery business of 
his own. His integrity and the manner in which 
he conducted himself while in office won the sup- 
port of almost every citizen, and in 1882 he was 
elected sheriff and collector, the office he fills at 
present, and to which he has been re-elected four 
terms Mr. Stephens owns about 1,200 acres of 
good land, and has some 500 acres under cultiva- 
tion, the soil being adapted to almost any kind of 
growth, and also good for grazing purposes. On 
March 4, 1884, he met and won Miss Belle Taylor 
for his bride, who died in November of the same 
year. His second wife was Miss Emma Kellogg, 
whom he married on July 15, 1885. This union 
gave them four childi-en, of whom three are yet 
living: George K., Ralph C. and Mary J. Both 
Mr. and Mrs. Stephens are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, while Mr. Stephens be- 
longs to the Masonic fraternity, I. O. O. F. Lodge 
and Encampment, Knights of Pythias, Knights of 
Honor and Legion of Honor. He is prominent in 
political affairs, and a popular man among all 
classes of society, his position being such that he 
is brought in contact with many different phases 
of life while in the discharge of his duties. 

A. Steveley, the proprietor of the Newport Lum- 
ber Company, was born in Essex County, N. J., 
May 1, 1824, and is a son of Andrew and Jean- 
nette (Hay) Steveley, who were of Scotch descent. 
The genealogy of the family can be traced back 300 
years. Both the paternal and maternal grand- 
parents died in New Jersey, in which State Andrew 
Steveley also died, his death Ijeing caused from 
cholera, in 1848. He was a copper refiner by oc- 
cupation, and made this his calling through life. 
A. Steveley, the subject of this sketch, is the only 
one of the two childi-en, born to himself apd wife, 
now living, and after his death his widow married 
again, becoming the worthy companion of John 
Frame, who was a participant in the War of 1812. 
She also died in New Jersey. A. Steveley was 
reared and educated in his native State, and in his 
youth learned the cabinet-maker's trade. At the 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



903 



[ 



agt> of twenty-one years he left his home and 
pareuts to take up his abode in New York City, 
and after working at his trade in that city for about 
five years he removed to the "Nutmeg State." 
In 1857 we find him- in Wisconsin, which State 
continued to be his home until 1873, in which year 
he removed to the city of Chicago, where he acted 
as foreman for different establishments until 1884. 
At that time he removed to Newport, Ark., and be- 
came manager for the Newport Lumber Company, 
continuing as such until February, 1889, when he 
bought oat the entire establishment, and has since 
managed affairs alone. He manufactures lumber 
of a fine grade, and ships to many different points, 
but principally to Chicago, and his establishment 
gives emploj'ment to about forty men the year 
round. Mr. Steveley is a member in good standing 
of the Masonic fraternity, is a public-spirited citi- 
zen, and in the interest of all good works has been 
an active participant. In 1846 he was married to 
Maria Adair, a native of Pennsjdvania, and by her 
he has five children: Eliza. Benjamin, Walter, 
John and William. 

Dr. J. H. Strider, though still a young man, 
has established an enviable reputation in Jackson 
County, and is one of its leading physicians. He 
was born in Tallahatchee County, Miss., on the 
]'2th of July, 1857, and is a son of Henry A. and 
Abigail (McMullen) Strider, the former a native of 
Virginia, who moved to Mississippi in his boyhood, 
locating in Tallahatchee County, where he was af- 
terward married, residing there until his death, 
in 1874, the wife, who was a native of Tennessee, 
dying a number of years previous. They were the 
parents of four children, of whom the Doctor is 
the only survivor, and when the latter was only two 
years old, he was taken charge of by an uncle, who 
died in 1865, and later by his aunt, with whom he 
still makes his home on a farm in Jackson County. 
At the age of nineteen years he began the study of 
medicine, and attended lectures at the University 
of Nashville, from which institute he graduated in 
1879. He immediately returned to Jackson Coun- 
ty, and commenced practicing, which he continued 
up to 1883, when he abandoned his profession, 
much to the regret of a large number of friends. 



and turned his attention entirely to farming. He 
owns 480 acres of land, and has 200 acres under 
cultivation, the largest portion of the farm having 
been iniproved since his residence upon it. He 
raises corn and cotton principally, but the soil is 
valuable, and well adapted to almost any growth, 
and he has l)een as successful in this venture as he 
was in hia profession. In 1S79 the Doctor was 
married to Miss Ada Frost, of Nashville, Tenn., 
by whom he has had throe children: Maud, Mary 
and Caroline, and he is a kind husband and in 
dulgent father, as well as a valuable citizen to the 
community. Dr. Strider is a member of the Bap- 
tist Church, Masonic fiatemity, and the Agricult- 
ural Wheel. 

M. M. Stuckey, the county and probate judge of 
Jackson County, and one of its leading men, was 
born at Alton, 111., on the 16th of December, 1853, 
and is a son of Michael ]M. and Amelia (Bush- 
weiler) Stuckey, the father a native of Kentucky, 
and the mother from Worms, Germany, in the 
province of Hesse-Darmstadt, Mrs. Stuckey coming 
from her native country with a cousin, Louis May, 
who is now a prominent New York banker. The 
father met and was married to her in Illinois, 
where they resided for a number of years, and then 
moved to Wichita, Kas. , their present residence. 
The father is a well known and popular minister of 
the Methodist faith. Nine children were born to 
the parents, of whom eight are yet living: Mar- 
garet, Lucy, M. M. , Milton, Frederick and Minnie. 
The elder Stuckey was twice married previous to 
meeting Miss Bushweiler, both of his former wives 
being sisters by the name of McCauley. M. M. 
Stuckey was reared and received a common school 
education in Butler, 111., completing his studies at 
the Depann University of Greencastle, lud. , which 
he left at the end of the sophomore term. After 
bis college days were over he traveled for thehonse 
of R. L. Billingsley & Co., St. Louis, for a few 
years, and then severed his connection with the 
firm, coming immediately to Jackson County, Ark. 
He there taught school for a short time, and com- 
menced reading law under Jmlge Phillips. In 
September, 1883, ho was admitted to the bur, and 
in 1884 he commenced to practice, meeting with 



i,pr 




remarkable success since that time. In 1886 he 
was elected to his present office, and re-elected in 
1888. Judge Stuckey is a self made man, and 
one who has worked himself up in the world by his 
own intellect and industry. He has made a repu 
tatiou in his profession that is seldom equaled, 
and it is said that he is better posted in the fine 
points of law than any other lawyer in that sec- 
tion. He was married, in July, 1888, to Miss Alice 
Stephens, who has been a devoted wife, and is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, while 
the Judge belongs to the I. O. O. F. He takes a 
great interest in all affairs of his county, which he 
understands will be of benefit to its citizens, and 
he is one of the most popular men in that commu- 
nity. The Judge has completed a set of abstract 
books of Jackson County, which are a boon to its 
citizens, as any title may be found within a few 
minutes, and they are at his office for inspection 
any day. 

Solomon D. SuUins, a farmer and stock raiser, 
residing on Section 29, Grubbs Township, Jackson 
County, came to Arkansas with liis parents in the 
year 1849. He is a son of Jesse and Catherine 
(Eaves) Sullins, both natives of North Carolina, to 
whom were born ten children, all of whom grew to 
maturity, married, and have homes of their own. 
One of the sons married in North Carolina, where he 
still lives. The other members of the family who 
are still living reside in Arkansas, all farmers and 
farmers' wives. Solomon D. married Miss Sarah 
A. Han kins, July 11, 1869. She is a native of 
Georgia, from which State her jjarents moved to 
Craighead County, Ark., and thence to Jackson 
County. To Mr. and Mrs. Sullins have been born 
eleven children, viz. : Celia C. , born in November, 
1870, now the wife of Nathan Holbrook, of Bates- 
ville, Independence County, Ark.; Georgia A., 
born in September, 1872; Cornecei A., born in 
January, 1874; William L., born March 30, 1875; 
Isaac J., born in 187C; Sarah J., born in 1878; 
Lydie O. , born in 1879; Mary Frances, born in 
1881; James A., born in 1884; Solomon Wright, 
born in 1886; and Jesse T., born in 1889. Mr. 
Sullins commenced business for himself in Decem- 
ber, 1866, working for three years with an older 



brother, James Sullins, at the expiration of which 
time he rented land that he cultivated one year. 
He then bought a tract of land which was partly 
improved, and had a very good log house which 
had been erected by the former owner. He made 
many substantial improvements on this place, 
planting a good orchard of peaches and apples. 
In 1882 Mr. Sullins rented and moved to the farm 
upon which he now resides, which place he pur- 
chased in 1884. He now owns in all 600 acres of 
good land in Jackson County, which is well adapted 
to all the varieties of products of the temperate 
zone. Mr. and Mrs. Snllins and the four older 
children are members of the Christian Church, 
worshiping in Robinson's Chapel. 

. J. A. Sursa was born in Madison County, 111. , 
in 1840. He was the eldest in the family of seven 
children born to William and Elizabeth (Steward) 
Sursa, natives of Tennessee. William Sursa, who 
was a farmer and millwright, moved from Tennes- 
see to Madison County, 111., in 1832, locating on a 
farm, upon which he remained until 1847; he then 
moved to Jefferson County, purchasing a farm near 
Mount Vernon, where he spent the remainder of 
his life, his death occurring in 1865. Mrs. Eliz- 
abeth Sursa still resides in Mount Vernon, 111. Of 
their children besides our subject, George is mar- 
ried, and is a farmer in Missouri, and Sarah, now 
Mrs. Staley, lives near Mount Vernon, 111. J. A. 
Sursa was brought up on a farm, receiving his 
education in his native county. In 1876 he re- 
moved to Jackson County, Ark. , first locating near 
Elgin, where he worked as a farm laborer. He 
then engaged in farming for himself, in Lawrence 
County, Ark., purchasing in 1880 a tract of timber 
of 120 acres, which he commenced clearing and 
improving; he erected a good log house, and now 
has all except forty acres fenced, with sixty acres 
under cultivation. Mr. Sursa was married, in 
Greene County in 1881, to Elizabeth Can, who was 
born in Tennessee and reared in Kentucky, a 
daughter of John and Margaret Can, the former of 
whom died in Kentucky ; the mother removed to 
Greene County in 1880, and later to Jackson County, 
where she died in 1882. Mr. Sursa has a good 
home in Glass Township, and devotes his entire 



atteution to farming and stock raising; he is inter- 
ested in every enterprise for the advancement of 
the county, and is a public spirited man. 

John Sweat, residing between Weldon and Tu- 
ytelo, on Section 9, was born in Georgia in May 
1848, being a son of Noah and Betsy J. (Hargett) 
Sweat, natives of South Carolina. John has been 
a farmer all his life, having been reared on his 
father's farm, and on coming to Arkansas rented 
of L. B. McDonald, of Newport, Ark., where he 
has lived for years. In 1888 he purchased 160 
acres of land, about sixty being improved, and 
since that time has cleared some twenty acres, 
about ten being under cultivation. Mr. Sweat has 
345 acres under cultivation on the McDonald farm. 
His father served three years in the Confederate 
army, participating in the battles of Shiloh and 
New Hope. December 26, 1883, Mr. Sweat mar- 
ried Miss Jennie Cooper; they have had a family 
of four children: Columbus, Maud, Lena and 
John. Mr. and Mrs Sweat are memliers of the 
Sand Hill Missionary Baptist Church. 

E. J. Taylor, a prominent and enterprising 
citizen of Bird Township, Jackson County, was 
born in North Carolina in 1814, the fifth child of 
Charles and Mary (Turner) Taylor, of North Car- 
olina, the father an extensive planter of North 
Carolina, who died in Mississippi in 1855, his ex- 
cellent wife dying in 1836. The subject of this 
sketch was reared on the farm, and educated in 
the subscription schools of Alabama, and at the 
age of twenty two enlisted for three months' serv- 
ice under Gen. Scott, against the Creek and Sem- 
inole Indians, after which time he clerked in 
Huntsville, Ala., for nine years, and in 1845 went 
to Memphis, and conducted a general store. After 
his man-iage, in 1850, he engaged in farming, in 
Do Soto County, Miss. , till after the close of the 
war. He improved a large plantation, and in 1866 
moved to Memphis, and opened a grocery and 
commission business, which he conducted until 
1873, when he sold the business, and came to Bird 
Township, locating at Elgin. He engaged in farm- 
ing, and now owns a good farm of '2,000 acres, 
in Jackson and Independence Counties, with 600 
under cultivation, raising principally cotton. In 

57 



connection witli his sun, James ().. lie has a cot- 
ton-gin and grist mill, and also a Ininbermill, for 
their own use. They also have a supply store. 
His son is jiostmaster at Elgin. Our subject is a 
Democrat, and a member of Memphis Lodge, A. 
F. & A. M., and he and his wife are members of 
the Methodist Episcoi)al Church, South. In 1850 
he married Mary J. Oliver, a native of Georgia, 
and daughter of James and Lucy (Clark) Oliver, of 
Virginia and Georgia; the father died in 1848, 
and the mother in 1850. They have two children: 
James O. married Julia Ethel Doswell, and Lucy 
Ann. Mr. Taylor is actively interested in every 
thing pertaining to the good of the county. 

Thomas Toler is a native of Johnson County. 
N. C, and was born in November. 1844. He is a 
son of Thomas and Mary (Holder) Toler, who were 
the parents of eleven children, of whom our sub- 
ject was next to the youngest. Both the paternal 
and maternal ancestors were of Irish descent, and 
were pioneers of North Carolina. The father of 
our subject, who was a native of \\'ayne County, 
N. C, owned and operated a very large plantation 
in Johnson County, where he was a well-known and 
influential man. He was a soldier in the War of 
1812, and for many years served as magistrate, 
taking an active part in politics and sympathizing 
with the Whig party. He died in Johnson CJounty 
in 1849, his widow surviving until 1865. Thomas 
Toler, the subject of this sketch, was reared to the 
pursuit of farming, receiving his education in the 
district and subscription schools of Johnson County. 
In 1861 he enlisted in Company E, Twenty-fourth 
North Carolina Infantry, and was mustered into 
service at Weldon, N. C. , June 24. He took part 
in the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, the 
battle of Antietam, Winchester, and at the siege of 
Petersburg, doing service with the corps of sharp- 
shooters; he received a wound in the left leg and 
was first confined in the hospital at Richmond. 
He was then sent home on wounded furlough, 
where he was captured liy Sherman, taken before 
Blair, and was impri.soned at Hart's Island. N. Y., 
until the close of the war. Returning to Johnson 
County, N. C. , he engaged in fanning until 1S67. 
when he went to Obion Countv. Ti'im unil fniin.M] 



<s s.^ 



LLt 



906 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



two years. In 1869 he removed to Jackson Coun- 
ty, Ark., and two years later bought a tract of 160 
acres, in Glass Township, six acres of which were 
cleared. He planted an orchard and made some 
improvements, after which he sold out and rented 
land. In 1877 he purchased 240 acres, which were 
partly improved, and which he still owns, having 
now under cultivation seventy -five acres, upon 
which he raises some timothy and clover, but more 
cotton. Mr. Toler read law at one time and now 
does some successiul practicing in the justice's 
court, having served as justice of the peace since 
1883. Mr. Toler was first married, in Sampson 
County, N. C. , in 1864, to Virginia J. Walton, of 
Raleigh, N. C, who died in 1879. Of the children 
born to this union four are living, viz. : Thomas W. , 
a phj'sician and surgeon, of Swifton; Charles A., a 
traveling salesman; Anna V. and tdward C. In 
1880 Mr. Toler married Martha Lollar, of Law- 
rence County, Ark. , whose parents, David and Sarah 
(Michael) Lollar, were natives of North Carolina, 
and settled in Lawrence County, Ai-k. , before the 
war, where the mother still lives, the father being 
deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Toler have three chil- 
dren: William A., Mary Carolina and Mattie. 
Mr. Toler is an active politician, voting with the 
Democrats. He is also a member and elder in the 
Christian Church, and one of the most prominent 
and influential farmers of Glass Township. 

Rush L. Tucker, farmer and stock raiser, of 
Grande Glaise Township, was born in Arkansas, 
October 22, 1843, the son of Stitch and Minerva 
(Steel) Tucker. Our subject's grandfather came 
to Arkansas in 1812, when Stitch was one year old. 
He had three children by his first wife, the father 
of Rush L. being the third, who died at the age 
of thirty-eight, his wife dying in 1873. In Stitch 
Tucker's family there were three children: Sarah 
E. , Chester A. and Rush L. The latter received 
his education iu the private schools of his county. 
In 1862 he enlisted in the Thirty-fourth Regiment 
Arkansas Volunteers, and served until October, 
1864. Mr. Tucker is the owner of 150 acres of 
land, which he gained by inheritance, 100 acres from 
his mother' s estate, the remainder from his father's. 
He has been a large land owner, but has sold it, till 



he now owns but 160 acres, twenty- five of which are 
under cultivation. He was married, January 31, 
1864, to Miss Mary L. Hall, a native of Tennessee. 
They had three children, two now living: Stephen 
H. and Chester A. September 12, 1875, he mar- 
ried Miss Celia Foster, a native of Arkansas. 
Their three children are Lucy, Robert Lee and 
Jesse Gray. October 12, 1886, Mr. Tucker mar- 
ried Miss Mary Snider, of Mississippi, who has 
borne one child, Nellie Ann. Mr. Tucker is a mem- 
ber of Byers Lodge No. 81, A. F. & A. M., of 
Bradford, White County, Ark. He takes no act- 
ive part in politics, but is a Democrat, and is a 
friend to all religious, social and educational ad- 
vancement. 

Joseph J. Walker, circuit clerk and ex-officio 
county clerk and recorder, of Jackson County, was 
born in Christian County, Ky. , on November 12, 
1843. His parents were Joseph and Delila A. 
(CofPman) Walker, of Logan County, Ky. , and of 
Scotch and Dutch descent. The Walker family 
were among the early settlers of Kentucky, and 
the grandfather, in his younger days, was an asso- 
ciate of Daniel Boone. The father was left an 
orphan when quite small, and was reared on a farm, 
but ujJon reaching maturity, he branched out for 
himself and entered into commercial life, at Chilli- 
cothe. Mo., where he remained several years. He 
next resided in Greene County, 111., where he died 
in 1871, the mother also dying in that county, in 
1886. They were the parents of eight children, of 
whom six are yet living: William E., of Boone 
County, Ark. ; George H. , of Quincy, III. ; Mary, 
widow of John Fitzsimmons, of Carrollton, III. ; 
Joseph J., Phillip, deceased; John R., James V., 
and Emma, deceased. Joseph was reared in Ken- 
tucky until his fifteenth year, when he moved to 
Missouri with his parents, in which State he re 
mained until the Civil A\'ar commenced. After 
that he went to Quincy, 111., and from there to 
Atchison, Kas. , then to Nebraska City and finally 
back to Quincy, 111., where he resided until 1866, 
when he came to Jackson County, Ark., and located 
at Elgin. He here found employment as book- 
keeper with a business house in that town and 
remained with the firm three years. He next 



d^ 




commenced farming and continued at that until 
the fall of 1875, when he removed to Jackson- 
port, and again entered into mercantile life, con- 
tinuing in that branch until 1883. He then en- 
tered the sheriff's office as deputy, and continued 
in that capacity until the fall of 1884, when he was 
elected to his present office, and twice re-elected. 
Mr. Walker is one of the pioneers of this section, 
and a prominent and influential man in the com- 
munity. He is a member of the Masonic Order and 
Knights of Honor, as well as the American Legion 
of Honor. He was married August 3, 1869, to 
Miss Deborah B. Foushee, by whom he has had 
live children: Joseph, Owen, Emma, Mattie and 
Bessie, and with his wife he attends the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

James Edward Wallace, a planter and stock 
raiser of Union Township, Jackson County, was 
born in Rutherford County, N. C. , Sept(*mber 7, 
185'2, and is a son of Wesley W. and Isabella 
(Rutherford) Wallace, natives, respectively, of Edin- 
burg, Scotland, and Rutherford County, N. C. 
Wesley W. Wallace emigrated to Mount Pleas- 
ant, Miss., about 1852, where he lived until 1862, 
when he removed to Arkansas, locating on Village 
Creek, Section 10, Jackson County, on the farm 
now owned by J. W. Parish: upon this farm Mr. 
Wallace lived until his death, in 1865, and was 
l)uried in the family cemetery, which was on the 
farm. He was the father of twelve children, eight 
of whom grew to maturity, viz. : Sarah (who died 
at the age of twenty years), William (who served 
in the Confederate Army, Seventh Arkansas Reg- 
iment, under command of Col. Cleburne, and at 
the battle of Franklin, Tenn., lost his right arm, 
died in 1871, and was buried in the family ceme- 
tery), Carrie (who married Dr. Chuun, and now re- 
sides at Searcy, White County, Ark.), James E. , 
Amelia (wife of N. B. Wishon, of Newport, Ark.), 
Mary (who married I. D. Price, postmaster of 
Newport), llina (wife of W. C. Wishon, agent for 
the Adams Express Company at Newport), Katie 
(wife of a i)hysician at St. Louis, Mo.), John W., 
and Dr. R. W. (who married a Miss Brooks, of 
Florida, and now resides in Texas engaged in 
farming and stock raising). James E. Wallace 



was but thirteen years of age at the time of his 
father's death, and being one of the elder boys a 
great deal of responsibility fell upon him. He 
assumed the management of the farm and took 
upon himself the rearing and educating of the 
younger children, all of which he performed with 
credit. Mr. Wallace now owns three farms, con- 
taining in all about 540 acres, of which 212 acres 
are well improved and under cultivation, growing 
principally cotton and corn, with some oats, millet, 
clover, etc. October 11, 1877, he married Mary 
E. Hart, who is a native of Tennessee. Of their 
four children three died in infancy; the survivor, 
William Wallace, was born March 11, 1884. Mr. 
Wallace is a member of Newport Lodge, I.O.O.F., 
which he joined in his twenty-first year. 

John A\ . Wallace, a prosperous and enterpris- 
ing merchant, of Newport, Ark. , was born in Mar- 
shall County, Miss., in the town of Holly Springs, 
on the 2l)th of January, 1854, l)oing a son of Wes- 
ley W. and Isabella M. (Rutherford) Wallace, the 
former a native of South Carolina, and the latter 
of North Carolina. They were married in North 
Carolina, and at an early day removed to the State 
of Mississippi, where they purchased a farm and a 
number of slaves, and conducted their plantation 
with success for a number of years. About 1802 
they removed to the State of Arkansas, and located 
in Jackson County, and from that time until the 
father's death, in 1865, he was engaged in farming 
a large plantation near Newport. His widow sur- 
vived him until 1877, when she, too, passed to her 
long home. Eight of a family of eleven children 
survive them: Carrie V. (wife of Dr. T. D. Chunn), 
James E., Amelia (wife of N. B. Wishon). John 
W., Mamie (wife of I. D. Price), Rina E. (wife of 
\V. C. Wishon). Kate (wife of Dr. G. Hurt), and 
Robert W. John W. Wallace, the subject of this 
biography, was only eight years of age at the time 
of his parents' location in this county, and here he 
was reared and educated, and after securing a good 
common school education he completed his scho- 
lastic training in the Xorth Arkansas College. Upon 
leaving his school days liehind him he started out 
in life for himself as a clerk for Wishon Bros., of 
Jacksonport, and after remaining with them in this 



908 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



capacity for seven years he was taken into the busi- 
ness as a partner. They only remained thus con- 
nected one year, when Mr. Wallace sold to them 
his interest and embarked in the same enterprise 
on his own responsibility, establishing himself in 
Newport, the firm name being John W. Wallace & 
Co. At the end of one year he purchased his part- 
ner's interest and has since been alone. He was 
so unfortunate as to lose his property in the fire of 
1883, but he removed to Rogers, Ark. , and opened 
a store; not liking the location, however, he sold 
his goods and returned to Newport. His stock of 
goods is well selected and extensive, and Mr. Wal- 
lace fully deserves the success which is attending 
his labors, for he conducts his affairs on strictly 
honest principles, and is enterprising and industri- 
ous. He belongs to the Royal Arcanum, and he 
and wife, whose maiden name was Vannie Lynn, 
and whom he married in 1884, are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was born 
iu the State of Indiana, and by Mr. Wallace is the 
mother of one child — Ruth. 

T. T. Ward. One of the best known members 
of the Arkansas press, is Mr. Ward, who edits the 
Jackson County Herald. He was born in Bertie 
County, N. C, on February 8, 1843, and is a .son 
of T. W. and Frances E. (Bentley) Ward, of the 
same State. The father died while on the way 
with his family to the State of Tennessee, and is 
buried at Glade Spring, Va. The other members 
of the family came on to Tennessee and located at 
Brownsville, where they remained until 1852, 
when they moved to Batesville, Ark. Young 
Ward was reared and educated in Batesville, and 
at the age of thirteen years was apprenticed to the 
printer's trade, which he had thoroughly learned 
at the end of his term. At the outbreak of the 
Civil War he enlisted in Company E, Seventh Ar- 
kansas regiment, and served until the surrender, 
taking part in the battles of Shiloh, Mufreesboro, 
Chickamauga, Franklin, and in fact all the greater 
engagements. His war record is one that will 
never be tarnished by time nor die out of the rec- 
ollection of his old comrades, and no man ever 
fought more gallantly for the caiise he undertook 
than did Private Ward. On December 16, 1864, 



he was severely wounded by a rifle ball in the 
right wrist, but after his recovery continued to 
serve until the surrender. After the war was over 
he returned to his trade, and in 1879 purchased 
the Herald, which,vinder his management, advanced 
to a larger circulation than it had ever attained 
before. In 1882 he moved the paper to Newport, 
and has since then issued it from that city. Mr. 
Ward was married in 1871 to Miss Belle Harbison, 
by whom he has had two children: Allie and May, 
and has one of the brightest homes in Northeast Ar- 
kansas. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity. 
W. J. Watkins. A name that is familiar to 
many households in Northeast Arkansas, and one 
of the leading physicians in that section, is Dr. 
Watkins. He was born in Rush County, Ind. , 
on October 14, 1849, and is a son of Joseph and 
Sarah A. (Miller) Watkins, of North Carolina and 
Virginia, respectively. The families are of Welsh 
and German descent, and the grandparents on 
both sides were born in Virginia. The paternal 
grandfather emigrated to North Carolina, and re- 
sided in that State several years, when he removed 
to Rush County, Ind. , where he died, as did also 
the maternal grandfather. The father of Dr. 
Watkins was a farmer, and was married in Indiana. 
In his latter days he carried on a successful bro- 
kerage business, and at the time of his death was 
one of the best known brokers in Brown County. 
His body was removed to Rush County and buried, 
as was also that of the mother. They were the 
parents of eight children, of whom seven are still 
living: Berry H. , Martha, Perry, William J., 
Louisiana, Hester A. and Felicia. The Doctor 
was reared in Rush County, and moved to Brown 
County when in his fourteenth year. He received 
a very liberal education in his youth, and, at the 
age of seventeen years, began to stvidy medicine. 
In 1867 he commenced to attend the medical lec- 
tures at the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati, 
and, in 1872, he graduated from the Cincinnati 
College of Medicine and Surgery. After being thor- 
oughly versed in his profession he went to New- 
burg, Ind., and commenced practicing. He re- 
mained there a short time, and then moved to Ar- 
kansas, locating at Clover Bend, but, three years 



^i 



— * \>?^ 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



flOO 



after, he again ehanged, and settled at Walnut 
Ridge, in the same county, whore he remained un- 
til the spring of 1889, when he left, to the regret 
of many friends, and moved to Newport. Ho is 
building up a fine practice, and is regarded as one 
of the most competent physicians in that section, 
besides being a very popular man socially. He is 
a member of the Lawrence County Medical Asso- 
ciation, and was its president for a number of 
years, as well as being a member of the State Medi- 
cal Society. The Doctor also belongs to the 
Knights of Honor, and was the State medical ex- 
aminer of that organization for three and one-half 
years, also belonging to the Masonic fraternity. 
He was married in 1872 to Miss Elizabeth T. Jen- 
kins, daughter of Dr. J. H. and Sarah C. {nee 
Wayland) Jenkins, both natives of Kentucky, by 
whom he has had one child, G. Masey, the lady 
being a sincere and conscientious Christian, and a 
member of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. M'at- 
kins has become one of the most enterprising and 
valuable citizens of whom Lawrence County can 
boast. He is always a leading spirit in anything 
advancing and improving the community. 

E. L. Watson. In any worthy history of Jack- 
son County, Ark. , the name that heads this sketch 
will always be given an enviable place among the 
leading citizens of the county, and its self-made 
wealthy l>usines8 men. His experience in life has 
been quite a varied one, but at the same time re- 
flects only credit upon him as a man. He was 
born in Pulaski County, Ga., November 25, 1819, 
and is a son of Grin and Lydia (Smith) Watson, 
who were of English descent, early settlers of 
Georgia, and removed to Tennessee, locating in 
Henry County, in 1822, where his motlier died, in 
1828, and his father died on his second trip from 
his home in Georgia, in camp on Chattanooga 
Mountains, Tennessee, in 1822. The father was 
a farmer by occupatii^n, and he and wife became 
the parents of thirteen childi'en, three of whom 
are living: LeRoy, Martha A. and Elbert L. 
The most important years of the latter's life were 
spent in Tennessee, after he had reached his fif- 
teenth year, and although he was reared in town, 
most of the education he received was obtained 



through self application. In 1836 ho left home 
and kindred to tight his own way in the world, and 
soon found himself in Hickman County, Ky., where 
he remained until 18,")!, being engaged in the oc- 
cupation of merchandising and farming. He also 
served for quite a number of years as sheriff of 
that county. On the 2yth of December, 1853, he 
arrived in Jackson County, Ark., and immediately 
located in Jacksonjiort, where he opened a mer 
cantile establishment, conducting the same with 
the best of success for a great many years, but 
in ISfil gave up this work to enlist in Patterson's 
Eighth Arkansas Regiment, serving until the month 
of June, 1862, when, on account of rheumatism, he 
was compelled to resign, and returned to his home 
and fireside. In 1883 he removed to Newport, 
where he carried on merchandising until February, 
1886, when he sold out and engaged in the broker's 
business, which he is still successfully conducting. 
He has now in process of erection, a substantial 
bank, iind is putting in a tine iron and steel cased 
burglar and fireproof vault, at a great expense, and 
the bank, when finished, will be known as the 
Newport Safe Deposit Bank. Mr. Watson owns 
about 20,000 acres of land in Jackson and adjoin- 
ing counties, a part of which is occupied by ten- 
ants, and several of his farms are very finely im- 
proved and are very valuable. To his second 
marriage, with Miss Lizzie J. Caldwell, in 1858, a 
family of five children have been born: Oren D. , 
Mattie, Ellen, Birdie and Bessie. Mrs. Watson 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, • 
and he is a Mason, and is one of the leading and 
prominent men of Jackson County, having been a 
resident of this county for thirty-six years. 

T. J. Watson, a retired and highly respected 
merchant of Jackson County, was born in Hick- 
man County, Ky., on the 8th of December, 1845, 
and is a son of E. L. and Mary (James) Watson. 
Mr. Watson was liut nine years old when he came 
to Jackson County, Ark. , with his parents and re- 
ceived the greater portion of his education at the 
Forest Homo Academy. Like many of the young 
men at that period, his Southern blood was aroused 
at the first intimation of war. and he joined the 
Confederate army in the early days of the rebellion, 



910 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



becoming a member of the Tenth Tennessee Cav- 
alry, Company E. He took part in the fight at 
Parker's Cross Roads, Thompson's Station and a 
number of other engagements and skirmishes, and 
in February, 1864, he was captured at Fort Donel- 
son and confined for about three months. At the 
end of that time he was paroled and returned 
home, where he embarked in business at Jackson- 
port, until February, 1883, when he moved to New 
port and carried on his business quite extensively, 
but in 1889 he sold out and has been practically 
retired ever since. In 1874 he was elected by the 
county court to collect the revenue of Jackson 
County, but owing to some fault of the bond, 
which was $200,000. he was never qualified. Mr. 
Watson was married in 1869 to Miss Elizaleth 
Boyd, of Jackson County, by whom he has had 
five children: Kate M., Lucy, Elbert L., Bessie 
and Fannie. He is a member of the Masonic fra- 
ternity and Hugh DePayne Commandery at Little 
Rock, as also the Hiram Council No. 18 and 
Blue Lodge, at Newport, holding the offices of 
Past Master of the Blue Lodge, and Past High 
Priest of Jackson Chapter, as well as positions in 
the Council; he is also an ex-member of the Knights 
of Pythias and Ancient Order of Odd Fellows. He 
is also Senior Warden of the lodge at Newport, and 
has been representative of the Masonic fraternity 
at the Grand Lodge. Mr. Watson is a full fledged 
Mason, and takes a deep interest in all matters 
pertaining to the fraternity. 

Dr. R. P. Watson, of Newport, Jackson Coun- 
ty, was born in Hempstead County, Ark. ; in 1848, 
and is the only child of William and Nellie (Cald- 
well) Watson, natives, respectively, of Virginia 
and Arkansas. William Watson emigrated from 
Virginia to Middle Tennessee at an early day, and 
in 1837 located in Hempstead County, Ark. ; he 
was a physician and surgeon, and became the 
owner of a large plantation in Hempstead County. 
In 1858 he moved to Jackson County, and the fol- 
lowing year went to Craighead County, where he 
engaged in farming and tlie practice of his profes- 
sion until his death, which occurred in 1864; he 
served in the Mexican War, and took quite an act- 
ive part in politics as a JefFersonian Democrat. The 



mother of our subject died in 1855. Dr. R. P. 
Watson was reared to the pursuit of farming; he 
attended the common schools of his native county, 
and after his father's death educated himself, at- 
tending the seminary at Jonesboro until 1870, 
when he entered the old University Medical Col- 
lege at Louisville, graduating from the latter insti- 
' tution in 1872. The same year he commenced the 
practice of medicine at Jonesboro, remaining, how- 
ever, but a short time. He also acted as medical 
examiner for a New York life insurance company. 
November 7, 1872, Dr. Watson married Martha 
Florence Dodd, of Jackson County, a daughter of 
Atlas and Margery (Stegall) Dodd, the former a 
native of Mississippi, and the latter of Memphis, 
Tenn. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd came to Jackson 
County, at an early day, and settled in Village 
Township, where Dr. Watson now resides; they 
j now live in Izard County, Ark. After his mar- 
riage. Dr. Watson removed to Jackson County, 
j and engaged in farming in connection with his 
practice. In 1881 he removed to La Crosse, Izard 
County, where he devoted the greater part of his 
attention to his profession; in 1884 the cyclone 
destroyed his residence, and the following year he 
moved to his present residence. Dr. Watson owns 
2, 354 acres of land in one tract, of which 350 acres 
are under cultivation, and near by has another 
farm of 1000 acres, with 350 acres more improved. 
I He has erected a good cotton-gin and grist and 
j saw-mill, and has been one of the leading stock- 
I men of the county. He is a member of the White 
River Stock Breeders' Association, and owns a great 
many fine full-blooded horses and cattle and hogs, 
in which he takes a great deal of pride. Politi- 
cally he is in sympathy with the Democratic party, 
and has twice been a delegate to the State Conven- 
tion. He is a member of Philadelphia Lodge No. 
127, A. F. & A. M., of Izard County, and also 
belongs to the I. O. O. F. at Newport. Six chil- 
dren have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Watson, viz.: 
Margery Ella, Belle, Willie Dodd, who died in 
1881, aged eighteen months; Gracie, Baxter B. 
and Robert S. Mrs. Watson is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and also of the East- 
ern Star Chapter, of Newberg. The Doctor is one 



^ 



f 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



'J 11 



of the live and enterprising men of Jackson Coun- 
ty, where he is well known for his public spirit 
and active interest in every public enterprise. 

Robert West, farmer and stock raiser, is a na- 
tive of Tennessee, the son of Robert C. and Sarah 
(Willard) West, of North Carolina and South Car- 
olina, respectively. They had a family of eleven 
children, of whom only two, the subject of our 
sketch and Dr. Crawford West, of Tuckerman, 
born May 18, 1855, are now living.. Robert West 
came from South Carolina with his parents, to 
Arkansas, in the year 1S(J6, locating in Jackson 
County upon a farm rented of W. R. Jones; they 
lived there one year, then rented a farm of a non- 
resident, where they lived one year; they again 
rented of Mr. W. R. Jones, and the following 
year bought a farm in Union Township, where the 
father died at the age of lifty-two. In 1875 he 
bought land in Union Township, Section 30, and 
after remaining there one year, bought the farm 
upon which he now lives. This farm was partly 
improved. At the present time Mr. West owns 
450 acres of cotton and corn land, 205 acres of 
which are cultivated; in addition to this, he is cul- 
tivating 800 acres of rented land. Mr. West is a 
man of unusual energy and determination, such a 
one as is needed to build up a country like 
this. In 1874, October 24th, Robert married Miss 
Josephine E. Miller; they have had a family of 
live children, three of whom are now living: Sarah 
Emma (born November 11, 1878), Cromwell H. 
(born February 18, 1886), and Thurman (born 
December 13, 1888). Mrs. West's parents were 
George W\ and Emma (H.) Miller, who were among 
the early settlers of Arkansas. 

Wiley J. Westmoreland, farmer and stock 
raiser, is a son of William and Annie (Bridges) 
Westmoreland, natis'es of Georgia, M'illiam's father 
being a native of Westmoreland County, Va. 
Wiley J. was born March 16, 1833, in Georgia, 
being the eldest of a family of twelve, four of 
whom are still living in Arkansas. Our subject 
was raised on a farm, and never engaged in any 
other business than farming. He came to Arkansas 
with his parents in 1857, and made his Jir.st pur- 
chase of land, a forty-acre tract, in 1859, in White 



j County. About twenty acres were cultivated; be 
put in one crop, and in the fall of that year sold 
it, after which he rented land, which ho worked 
till 18(52, when he enlisted in the Thirty-fourth 
Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment, participat- 
ing in the Prairie Grove battle in 1802, the battle 
of Helena in 1803, and also the battles of Pleas- 

j ant Hill and Jenkins' Ferry, and served faithfully 
till May 5, 1805, when he returned home, having 
been under Gen. Kirby's command, Pierce's divi- 

I sion. On bis return, he rented a farm in Barren 

i Township, where he lived till 1808, when he 
bought the farm upon which he now lives. At 
the present time, he has forty acres under cultiva- 
tion, and raises good grades of horses, cattle and 
hogs. In 1885 Mr. We-stmoreland married Mrs. 
Sarah (Gray) Swick, who has one child, Susan 
Naomi Swick. They have had no children. Mr. 
Westmoreland has served his township as school 
director for five years, and in May last was elected 
for a term of three years. In politics, he is a 
Democrat, and with his wife, belongs to the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church of Denmark, a small vil- 
lage of Barren Township. 

J. M. M'estmoreland, farmer and stock raiser, 
Bradford, Ark. Originally from Coweta County, 
Ga., Mr. Westmoreland's birth occurred in 1853, 
and he is the youngest in a family of eleven chil- 
dren born to the union of Dr. William and Anna 
(Bridges) Westmoreland, both natives of the same 
State as their son. Dr. William Westmoreland 
attained his growth, and was married in his native^ 

, State, removing from there to Arkansas in 18511. 

I He settled in White County, Liberty Township, 
and there ret\ted land, but at the same time fol- 
lowed his profession, becoming prominentl}- known 

1 all over the county in the latter capacity. He then 
moved to Jackson County, Barren Township, where 

! he purchased an unimproved farm, and l)pcame 
well known all over the county, not only as a sue 
cessful and eminent physician, but as a social, 
pleasant gentleman. He was a Democrat in poli- 

I tics, and socially a Ma.son. His death occurred on 
the 2d of June. 1S77, and his wife j)revious to 
this, on the 21st of February, 1S74. J. M. West- 
moreland, like the average country boy. a.ssisted on 



912 



HISTORY OF AEKANSAS. 



the farm and received his education in the district 
schools of Barren Township. He was married in 
that township, in 1883, to Miss Nettie Lovell, a 
native of Missouri, and afterward settled on his 
present property, where he has 125 acres of land, 
with thirty-five acres under cultivation. He has 
erected good houses and out -buildings. He is at 
present quite deeply interested in the raising of 
stock. He votes with the Democratic party, but is 
not active in politics. Mr. and Mrs. Westmore- 
land are members of the Baptist Church. Their 
marriage was blessed by the birth of two children: 
Willie and Alta. Mr. Westmoreland has always 
taken an active interest in all matters relating to 
the community's welfare, and is a tirst-class citizen. 
John N. Williamson, of Arkansas, planter and 
stock raiser, was born in Marshall County, Tenn. , 
in 1822. His father was John Williamson, of 
Virginia, who married Mary Hunter, of South 
Carolina, and was a farmer and one of the early 
settlers of Tennessee, where he died, in Marshall 
County, in 1832, his widow surviving till 1852. 
John N., the sixth in a family of eight children, was 
raised on the farm and received his education in 
the subscription schools of Tennessee. He followed 
the life of a farmer, and in 1850 moved to Greene 
County, Mo., where he remained for five years, 
then going to Cedar County, of the same State, 
and in the fall of 1860 removed to Sharp County, 
Ark., engaging in farming jsart of the time during 
the war, in Missouri. In 1866 he came to Jackson 
County, Ark. , located at Elgin, renting land, and in 
1870 bought a timber tract of 160 acres, on which 
there were no improvements, and no settlement be- 
tween there and Elgin. For 120 acres of this 
land he paid $16 an acre, and for forty acres, $10. 
He at once cleared off a place for a cabin, and 
commenced clearing and improving the land, until 
now he has eighty acres under cultivation, on' which 
is a good orchard. He raises a good grade of 
stock. In 1847 Mr. Williamson married Willmarth 
Roberts, a native of Marshall County, Tenn., born 
in 1829, the daughter of Jeremiah and Rebecca 
(Jones) Roberts, of Virginia and North Carolina, 
who were among the early settlers of Tennessee. 
They have been dead some years. To Mr. and 



Mrs. Williamson have been born twelve children, 
eight of whom are living: Narcissa (died at the 
age of nine), James M. (died at the age of twenty), 
Thomas N. (of JefPerson Township), Mary E. (died 
at the age of sixteen), Christopher C. (of Bird 
Township), John F. (of Western Arkansas), An- 
drew Jackson (died at the age of twenty), William 
S. , Sarah Frances (resides in the West), Virginius 
F., Josephine J. (at home), and Monroe Pinckne\' 
(at home). Mrs. Williamson is a Baptist in belief. 
Mr. Williamson is a Democrat, but not an ofiSce 
seeker, and always takes an active interest in public 
enterprises for the advancement of the county. 
Our subject is practically a self-made man, and one 
of the leading citizens of the county. 

P. L. Williamson, farmer, of Bird Township, 
was born in Limestone County, Ala, in 1828, the 
only child of F. L. and Sarah (Lookenbill) Wil 
liamsou, the father a native of England, who came 
to this country at an early day, married in Virginia, 
and finally settled in Tennessee, where he died in 
1828. Our subject's mother went to Alabama be- 
fore the country was sectionized, settling in what 
is now Limestone County, Ala., and later moved 
to Tennessee, where her death occurred. Her 
father was among the first pioneers of Pennsylva- 
nia, and served through the Revolutionary War. 
He had two sons in the War of 1812. The sub- 
ject of this sketch was reared to frontier life, and 
went four miles on foot to the subscription schools 
for what education he received. He aided in clear- 
ing and developing the home farm, and commenced 
farming for himself in Wayne Coimty, Tenn. In 
January, 1862, he enlisted for twelve months in 
Capt. Powers' company, under Col. Crewes, went 
to Nashville, thence to Alabama, and was assigned 
to the Fifth Kentucky Infantry, under Col. Hunt, 
Gen. Breckinridge's brigade. He was in the bat- 
tle of Shiloh, then on the skirmish line to Corinth ; 
from there to Tupelo, Miss., then to Abbeville, 
Miss. He was in the company that reorganized, 
and was in service till the close of the war; he was 
in the battle at Jackson; thirty-two days at Vicks- 
burg; then went to Baton Rouge, returning to 
Jackson, Miss. . where he was on garrison duty : 
from there to Grand Junction, then to Jackson. 



n* 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



Vtl3 



Merita, Ala. , Mobile and thence to Florida, from 
there to Montgomery; to Atlanta and to Chattanoo- 
ga; to Knoxville, to Virginia, and l)ack to Knox- 
ville; to Chattanooga and Murfroesboro; engaged at 
Nashville, then on skirmish line to Murfreesboro; he 
was then transferred to Newman's command, Ten- 
nessee Regiment, and finally returned to Tennessee 
in 1864, and engaged in farming. In 1867 he came 
to Arkansas, settling in Independence County, 
and in 1869 came to Jackson County, in Village 
Township, and in 1872 to Bird Township, renting 
land, and in 1886, bought 160 acres in that town- 
ship. Mr. Williamson has taken quite an active 
part in politics, voting with the Democratic party. 
He has seen a vast change in this county, and has 
always taken an active interest in all worthy pub- 
lic enterprises. Mr. Williamson was first married 
in AVayne County, Tenn., in April, 1848, to Vianer 
Tally, daughter of Page and Nancy Tally, natives 
of South Carolina and Alabama, respectively, 
who came to Tennessee in an early day. Her 
father died in 1864, his wife later. By that mar- 
riage there were seven children: Levi, Mar}' Ann 
(now Mrs. Blake), Calvin, Elizabeth (now Mrs. 
Beech), William Marion, Caledonia (now Mrs. 
Stephens) and John, our subject. Mrs. William- 
sou died in 1886, and in 1887 Mr. Williamson 
married Josey Andrews, widow, daughter of John 
Petty, an early pioneer of Tennessee. 

C. W. Winfi-ee, farmer and merchant, Centre- 
ville, Ark. This gentleman, who was originally 
from West Tennessee, where his birth occurred in 
1850, is the second in a family of si.'c children born 
to Charles W. and Susan H. (Terry) Winfree. both 
natives of the Old Dominion. Charles W. Winfree 
emigrated to Tennessee at an early day, and was a 
mechanic (carriage workman) by trade. He moved 
to Jackson County, Ark., in 1870, settling in Bird 
Township, and there followed tilling the soil until 
his death, which occurred in 1873. His cheerful 
companion also closed her eyes to the scenes of this 
world in 1883. C. W. Winfree was early initiated ! 
into the duties of farm life and quite naturally, as 
might be supposed, has since principally followed 
that pursuit. He received his education in the 
schools of Tennessee, and came with his parents I 



to Jackson County, Ark., in 1S70, when- he re 
sumed the duties on the farm. This occupntion he 
has since continued, and has opened up considera- 
ble land, being now the owner of 1,700 acres in 
Bird Township, with 600 acres under cultivation. 
He has about 450 acres in cotton, and this is his 
principal pursuit. He also raises considerable 
stock, principally horses and mules, and in fact is 
one of the wideawake, thorough going farmers of 
the county. He is active in politics, and votes 
with the Democratic party. He has filled the offices 
of judge, clerk and supervisor, several times, and 
to the satisfaction of all, and ho also takes au active 
interest in school matters. Mr. Winfree was mar- 
ried, in Independence County, Ark., in 1887, to 
Mrs. Fannie E. (Holdford) Gray, widow of Dr. 
Gray, and afterward settled in Centreville, where 
he has been engaged in merchandising since 1884, 
but akso carries on his farming interest. Socially, 
he is a member of Tuckerman Lodge No. 15)2, 
Masonic fraternity, and has been secretary' of the 
same. To his marriage was born one child. 

W. H. Wise is a farmer and merchant, being a 
partner in the firm of Kimbrough & Wise, of Wel- 
don, Ark. His parents were William H. and 
!Mary E. (Brown) Wise, natives of Maryland and 
Alabama, respectively, who moved to Mississiiipi 
at an early day, where the subject of this sketch 
was born, in De Soto County, April 1, 1849. His 
father, a farmer and mechanic, was a relative of 
Gov. Wise, of Virginia. He settled a large farm 
in Mississippi, also the town of Hernando, and l)e- 
came a large land owner. He was a Democrat, and 
held the office of magistrate a great many years. 
M'. H. Wise was'raised on a farm, where his op- 
portunities for education were limited, having at- 
tended only the common schools of Mississippi. 
At the age of twenty, in 1870. he came to Arkan- 
sas, engaged in farming, and in 1873 bought eighty 
acres of land in the woods, ou the present site of 
Weldon. He cleared fifty acres of this land and 
continued farming till 1885, when the Batesville 
& Brinkley Railroad reached Tupelo. At that time 
he sold forty acres of his land to D. \. Kiuibrongh 
for a half interest in the latter's store, and the 
same year the firm of Kimbrough & Wise began 






Aj ffl 



9U 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



business in Weldoa, where they have since contin- 
ued. They carry a general stock of goods and do 
a large business. Mr. Wise and his partner own a 
large part of Weldon property, twenty-two lots and 
two blocks having been sold. In 1873 he married 
Miss Maggie Godby, of Mississippi. They had 
five children: Ida, Willie, Estelina, Maggie Jef- 
ferson, Edward Hubbard, aged fifteen, thirteen, 
eleven, nine and six years, respectively. His wife 
died December 27, 1883, and in October, 1885, he 
married Miss Fannie Moore, daughter of S. J. and 
Sarah Moore, of North Carolina and Alabama, who 
came to Arkansas in 1870, where he has since en- 
gaged in farming. They live at Bowen's Ridge. 
Mr. Wise is a Democrat, though not an active poli- 
tician. He and his wife are members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South, of which he is stew- 
ard and trustee. He is active in the interest of 
schools and churches in his community, and has 
done his share in the development of the country. 
Robert A. Wise is a brother of W. H. Wise, 
and both are residents of Weldon, Ark. Robert 
A. Wise was born in Hernando, De Soto County, 
Miss., May 24, 1844. He is now postmaster at 
Weldon and engaged in the drug and grocery bus- 
iness. He was the second child of W. H. and 
Maiy E. (Brown) Wise, the former having been 
born and reared near Baltimore, Md., and the 
latter at Florence, Ala. W. H. Wise, a mechanic 
by occupation, came to Memphis, Tenn. , in 1838, 
and went to work at his trade, but his health be- 
coming bad he moved to Hernando, Miss., in 1839, 
and met Miss Brown, whom be married in 1840. 
He was elected magistrate and sheriff of De Soto 
County for a number of years, abd he invested his 
income in real estate in the town of Hernando. 
Finally his health became so bad that he gave up 
his oifice and sold his property in town, and in- 
vested in a large tract of land four and one-half 
miles east of Hernando, turning his attention to 
farming and stock raising, and at his death, which 
occurred in 1850, his estate, consisting of land, 
stock and negroes, was valued at $100,000. He 
and his wife were strict members of the Methodist 
Ei)iscopal (jhureh. South. Robert A. was raised 
on the farm, receiving his education in the common 



schools of North Mississippi, and at the age of 
seventeen he left school and enlisted as a volunteer 
in Company K, Ninth Mississippi Regiment, Monroe, 
Capt. Thomas White, Chalmer's brigade, in the 
Army of Tennessee. He was at the battle of Shi 
loh and was sent home on furlough sick from Cor- 
inth. Returning to the army at Tupelo he was 
taken down with typhoid fever, which settled in 
his right leg, disabling him from duty. He re- 
ceived an imlimited furlough to go home, and re- 
mained until further orders. Some ninety days 
later he recovered, and was ordered to join the 
army at Knoxville, Tenn., as it came out of Ken- 
tucky on its way to Mui'freesboro. He was in that 
battle and all the skirmishes and fights engaged in 
by his command through Tennessee, taking part in 
the battle of Chickamauga, and receiving a wound 
in the breast on the second day of the fight. This, 
however, did not disable him from duty, and sulj- 
sequently he was in the engagements at Mission- 
ary Ridge, Tunnel Hill, at Dalton, Ga. , and at 
Resaca; he was wounded in the thigh at Altoona 
Mountain. Following this he was occupied with 
his command in fights around Atlanta and at Jones- 
boro, but becoming ill again he was sent home, 
where he remained until the close of the war. 
Afterward he engaged in farming on a small scale. 
His father's and mother's estate was all destroyed 
during the war and taken away except the land. 
Robert A. received his portion of the land, which 
he sold and went to Louisiana to raise cotton on a 
large scale on Red River. He invested every dol- 
lar he had in a cotton crop, but the fir.st year the 
worms destroyed half of it and the next year the 
overflow destroyed all. He then came to Jackson 
County, Ark., and engaged in farming, starting on 
boirowed capital, and by hard labor and economy 
he managed to pay for a farm near Newport, 
which he sold in 18S7, and came to Weldon, em- 
barking in his present business. He is a bachelor 
and a member of the Methodist Church, South, 
and was an active member in the district school 
board in which he lived before coming to Weldon. 
He was also a member of the Farmer's Alliance or 
Wheelers. He has always been liberal, and has 
done his share toward building; churches, schools 





Bdlden LAKE,Miaar8aiPPi Co.Arhahms. 



1 

4 



JACKSON COUNTY. 



and all public enterprises. He is now a cripple, 
being paralyzed in the right hip and leg, but is 
making a good support by his own exertion. Him- 
self and his brother are the only surviving members 
of a family of nine children. 

N. B. Wishon is a prosperous real estate 
dealer and collecting agent at Newport, Ark., and 
was born in Phelps County, Mo., on the 12th of 
September, 1848, and is a son of Benjamin and 
Elizabeth (Singleton) Wishon, the former a native 
of North Carolina, and the latter of Kentucky. 
Their marriage took place in the latter State, and 
they afterward moved to St. Louis, Mo. , when the city 
contained less than 10,000 inhabitants (in 1829). 
Here Mr. Wishon remained for about ten years, 
being an employi^ of the A\'iggins Ferry Company, 
and acted in the capacity of engineer. In 1839 
he located near Eolla, Mo., and opened a very tine 
farm of about 1,500 acres, and here he and his 
wife resided until their deaths. N. B. Wishon 
remained on this farm until nineteen years of age, 
and in 1867 came to Arkansas and began clerking 
in a store in Jacksonport, continuing an employe 
of Holloway & Co. ,at a very low salary, until 1871. 
He then formed a partnership with his brothers, 
Frank and W. C. , and the firm became known as 
Wishon Bros.; they conducting a general merchan- 
dising establishment in Jacksonport. In 1873 
they opened up a branch store at Newport, 
which was the first business house in the place, 
and was a frame structure, and this together with 
two cheap box houses were located in the woods. 
They continued at this point until 1883, then sell- 
ing out to E. L. Watson & Son. Mr. Wishon then 
set to work to build up the town and put up a sub- 
stantial brick block and several residence buildings, 
but for the past few years he has given his atten- 
tion almost entirely to the real estate and collec- 
tion business. The brothers at one time owned a 
tifth interest in the original town site. They own 
eight brick business houses, and considerable im- 
jiroved residence property, and unimproved town 
lots and several line farms in a high state of culti- 
vation, together with several hundred acres of fine 
timbered and wild lands in the county. He has 
held several local offices, and he and wife, whom 



he married in 1871, atid whose maiden name was 
Amelia Wallace, are members of the Methodist 

I Episcopal Church, South, and an- the jiarents of 
two children; Lena and Karl H. 

\\'. C. Wishon, agent of the Batesville & Brink 
ley Railroad, and a popular resident of Newport, 
was born in Phelps County, Mo., in February, ]H'>\. 
and is a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Singleton) 
AVishon. He was reared and remained in Phelps 
County until attaining his twenty-second year, and 
up to nineteen years of age lived on the home 
farm, and attended the schools of his native place. 
At nineteen years of age he was oflFered and acce|>tcd 
a position in one of the business houses at Rolla, 
Mo., where he remained for two years, winning the 
confidence and esteem of his emi)loyers by per- 

i forming his duties in a satisfactory manner. In 
1871 he moved to Jaek.sonport, Ark., and entered 
into commercial life with his brother, N. B.A\'ishon, 
continuing at that city until 1873, when they both 
removed to Newport, where they were among the 
first and most onterjirising business men of that 
town, and helped to build considerable of the 
property. In 1880 W. C. was engaged bj' the 
Southern Express Company as express agent, and 
the business of the brothers was sold in February. 
1882. He remained with that company until 1880, 
when the Batesville &. Brinkley Railroad opened up 
its line, and he was engaged as their agent at New- 
port, where he has Vieen ever since, building up a 
reputation for being one of the best agents on the 
line. In 1877 he was mamed to Miss Rina Wal-^ 
lace, a pleasant and attractive lady, who has made 
his home one of the brightest in Newport. Mr. 
Wishon is a member of the Masonic fraternity and 
the Royal Arcanum. He is a prominent man in 
social and business circles at Jaek.sonport as well 
as Newport, of which latter city he is the pioneer. 
A. Wiysel, lumber manufacturer. Mr. Wiysel 
was born and reared among the industries of a 
great manufacturing place, his birth occurring in 
Cambria County, Penn., on the 24th of August, 
1824. He is a son of Joseph and Susanna (Weis- 
inger) Wiysel, of the same county and State, but 
the great grandfather was a native of Germany, 
who emigrated to this country at an early jHTiod 



u>£: 



916 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



and settled in Pennsylvania, afterward fighting 
in the War of the Revolution. The parents of A. 
Wiysel emigrated to Wabash (Jounty, Ind. , some 
years after their marriagi% whore the father died 
during the Civil War, while the mother still sur- 
vives him and is living in Indiana. They were 
the parents of six children, of whom four are yet 
living, A. Wiysel being the oldest. He was reared 
and spent his younger days in Pennsylvania, where 
he also received the greater part of his education, 
and afterwards moved to Wabash County, Ind. 
From there he went to Adair County, Mo. , and 
remained until 1859, when he came to Jackson- 
port and was employed in teaming. Diuing the 
war he was detailed as engineer of a large flouring 
mill on the White River, and after that event he 
embarked in saw-milling and lumber manufactur- 
ing, a business that he has fostered and built up 
to be one of the most successful in that section. 
He has various markets for his products, employs 
a large number of men, and turns out some of the 
best material to be found anywhere, and has the 
honor of being one of the pioneer mill men of 
Jackson County. Mr. Wiysel was married in 
1848 to Miss Susanna Stemman, by whom he has 
had five children, two of them yet living: Samuel 
and Charles. He is a member of the Lutheran 
Church, and one of the representative citizens of 
his county, taking an active interest in its promo- 
tion and welfare. 



William D. Yarbrough a merchant, of New- 
port, Ark., was born November 28, 1856, in 
Nebo, Hopkins County, Ky. His parents were 
Lewis and Lucy (Davis) Yarbrough, both natives 
of Kentucky. William D. received a fair educa- 
tion in the English Ijranches, in the public schools 
of his native State, and commenced business for 
himself in 1881, securing a position in the com- 
mercial house of Mr. H. V. Ames, of Newport, 
Ark., who carried a general line of merchandise, 
where he remained until 1885, when he paid a 
visit to his home in Kentucky, and while there, on 
the 10th of February, 1886, married Miss Katie 
Trigg, of Hopkins County. On the 25th of Feb- 
ruary they returned to Arkansas and he entered 
the employ of Mr. Johnson, of the firm of 
Ames & Johnson, his former employers. He re- 
mained with them until the latter part of the year, 
when he purchased a full line of groceries, and on 
January 1, 1887, opened an establishment for him- 
self, carrying a well selected line of staple and 
fancy groceries, and the prediction is, that Mr. 
Yarbrough will be one of the leading business men 
of the community. Mr. Yarbrough is a member in 
good standing, of the Newpoii Lodge. His wife 
died September 25, 1887, and was buried in Rose 
Creek Cemetery, in her native county. On August 
25, 1889, Mr. Yarbrough married Miss Saidie 
Roberon, a native of Ohio, an estimable young 
lady, and a general favorite. 




ft X> 



IZARD COTJNTY. 



'.tr 






Izard County— Thk Akiiival of the Settleus— Cikcuit am> Pkohate Courts— Mii.itakv Mioioiit- 
The County Formed— The County Seat Located— Public Buildings Prected— Election 
Returns— Church Organizations— Towns and Vii-LAtiKs- Educational Devel- 
opment— The County Bounded— .Statistics Showing its Desirabil- 
ity as a Place ok Residence— Population— Biography. 



There is a spot of earth supremely blest. 
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts n.si(Ie 
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride. 
That spot's tliy liome. — Montgomery. 




*HE exitct timo and place of 
the making of the tirst set- 
tlement of the territory now 
composing Izard County is 
uncertain. It is evident, 
however, that immigration 
must have commenced very 
soon after the beginning of the 
present century, points of location 
being, in general, along White and 
Strawborry llivers. Among the 
early settlers in the vicinity of the 
former stream were Daniel Hively, 
Elbert and Henry Benbrook. the 
family of the father of William 
and Hill Dillard, the JeflFerys, 
Moses Bishop, the Harrises and 
George and James Partee. Daniel Jeffery settled 
below Mount Olive, Jehoida, his brother, a mile 
above, and James, another lirother, at or near the 
mouth of Piney Creek. Of the Harrises there 
were four brothers: Augustus. Henry, James and 
Richard. Augustus located on the east side of the 
river, in (the present) Izard County, the others on 
the opposite side, now Stone County. Daniel 



Hively settled at the mouth of Piney Creek, anil 
there built a water-power grist-mill very early. 
Among the first to locate on Strawberry River wore 
the Simpsons, Billiugsleys and Finleys, John 
Gray taking up his residence on Rocky Bayou, 
and James Wren at Lunenburg. Other very early 
comers to the county were Ambrose, Harvey, Will 
iam and James Creswell. 

Later came the Lancasters, the Walkers, the 
AVatkiuses, Richard, Robert and William Powell. 
Thomas Richard.son. Samuel Bingham, William 
and James Woods, Col. Thomas Black, the Ar 
nolds, Jesse Hinkle, the Robinsons and many 
others. Both the early and subsequent settlers of 
the county principally came from Tennessee. .\ 
few were from Georgia, and some other Soutlieni 
States, but few, if any, from Northern .Stales. 
The early settlers here suffered in common with all 
who moved so far back from the Mississippi the 
many privations of frontier life. It was not long, 
however, until boats came up White River and fur- 
nished such provisions as could not be produced at 
home. The people of Izard ('ounty are iiitidli 
gent, kind and ho8])itablo. Society now is all that 
could be desired, and churches aro miraorous in all 



r 



918 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



settled portions. Subsequent pages contain more 
detailed mention of the county's pioneers and 
prominent citizens. 

Court affairs, of course, early occupied atten- 
tion. The county court was established in 1829, 
when Arkansas was a territory. Prior to that date 
the county business had all been transacted in the 
circuit court. This court meets on the first Mon- 
days of January, April, July and October, in each 
year. The probate court meets on the third Mon- 
days of March, June, September and December. 

The Izard circuit court convenes on the second 
Monday in April and October, in each year. It 
belongs to the Fourteenth judicial circuit, composed 
of the counties of Izard, Boone, Baxter, Marion, 
Fulton, Searcy and Newton, of which R. H. 
Powell, of Melbourne, is the judge. 

The legal bar of Izard County is composed of 
the following named attorneys: Ransom Gulley, 
John H. Woods, J. B. Baker, F. M. Hanley, 
Moreau Ashley, S. W. Woods, and E. B. Brad- 
shaw. Judge Powell, when not on the bench, is 
also a member of the bar. 

Aside from the war period, there has never been 
but one or two murders committed within the 
county, as it is now composed, and not a legal exe- 
cution of a criminal has occurred here. Other 
crimes have been committed frequently. 

At the approach of the Civil War, when the 
question of secession was first discussed, a majority 
of the people of Izard County seemed opposed to 
it, but when actual hostilities commenced, all but 
a few were naturally in full sympathy with the 
Southern cause, and soon thereafter favored the 
secession of the State. Of the several companies 
of soldiery raised within the county for the Con- 
federate army, one, gathered by Capt. Deason, 
served in the Seventh Arkansas Regiment; four, 
commanded, respectively, by Capts. C. C. Elkins, 
T. N. Smith, Hugh A. Barnett and T. J. Mason, 
became a part of the Ninth Arkansas Regiment; 
two, commanded, respectively, by Capts. C. Cook 
and Richard Powell, served in Col. Freeman's 
regiment of cavalry; three, commanded, respect- 
ively, by Capts. T. M. Gibson, R. C. Matthews and 
Samuel Taylor, formed a part of Col. Shaler's 



regiment. A portion of a company was raised by 
Capt. John H. Dye, the other part being raised in 
Independence County, and a part of another was 
raised by Capt. James Huddleston, the other being 
recruited in what is now Sharp County. Some in- 
dividuals went out and joined companies raised in 
adjoining counties. Thus ten companies, besides 
the fractions of other companies, were furnished 
by the county for the Confederate army. 

Early in the war period, most of the Union 
men here removed to Rolla, Mo. , and were there 
organized into a company by Capt. L. D. Toney, 
and served in the Federal army. All the able 
bodied men of the county, and many boys in their 
"teens," joined the armies. Only the old and 
feeble were left with the women and children. 
There was no fighting or bushwhacking among the 
citizens. The county, however, was over-run by 
scouting parties from the contending armies, and 
while but little burning was done, all stock and 
provisions that could be found were seized and car- 
ried away, thus leaving the citizens in great want 
for food. Parties of women, each accompanied by 
an old man, frequentlj^ hauled cotton inside of the 
Federal lines and exchanged it for salt and other 
necessities. Salt was also obtained by extracting it 
from the earth under old smoke houses. Meat was 
concealed from the scouting parties by hiding it in 
straw beds, in the rocks and under brush heaps. 
Grain was also hid in peculiar places. J. B. 
Hunt, the postmaster at Melbourne, states that he 
saved his corn by shelling it and hiding it in the 
hollow walls of his house, between the weather- 
boarding and the inside-boarding, and had a hole 
at the bottom through which he drew it out on 
going to the mill. Others, no doubt, saved their 
grain in a similar way. 

The county of Izard was organized in accord- 
ance with an act of the legislature of the Territory 
of Arkansas, approved October 17, 1825. It was 
named in honor of George Izard, who was the gov- 
ernor of the Territory, and contained territory 
since cut off in the formation of Fulton, Baxter and 
Stone Counties. Various acts have been passed 
since its formation, by which it has been created as 
at present. 






IZARD COUNTY. 



SHU 



The original county seat was located on White 
River, at the mouth of Big North Fork, now in 
Baxter County. Soon after it was moved to 
Athens, on White River, at the mouth of Piney 
Creek, and from there, about the year 1844, to 
Mount Olive, in Section 31, Township 16 north, 
Range 10 west, another point on White River. 
Here it remained until May 15, 1875, when it was 
taken to its present site at Melbourne. The first 
court house erected at the original site of the county 
seat was a hewed log cabin. The second was a 
small frame structure, built at Athens, and the 
third was also a frame erected at Mount Olive. 
The court-house at Melbourne was built in 1878, 
but on the 11th of April, 18S'J, it was consumed 
by fire, with all the public records aiul papers, sup- 
posed to have been of incendiary origin, as the fire 
occurred in the morning before daylight. The 
question of removing the county seat to some other 
point is now being agitated, but the probability is 
that it will remain at its present location. 

The only public building the county possesses 
is the jail and jailer's residence combined, at Mel- 
bourne. This is a wooden building, the jail proper 
being fi-ame on the outside, with a wall of squared 
timljers on the inside. The county owns a poor 
farm, but it has never been improved or made 
available for the support of the paupers. The lat- 
ter are let out on contract for their su{)port, to the 
lowest responsible bidder. 

The following is a list of the names of the 
county officers of Izard County, and the dates of 
their terms of service fi'om the organization of the 
county to the present time, as compiled from the 
report of the secretary of State: 

Judges: Matthew Adams, 1829-38; J. Jeffery, 
1833-38: B. Hawkins, 1840-42; J. A. Harris, 
1842-44; James Wren, 1844-46; J. A. Harris, 1846- 
48; G. H. Morton, 1848-50; Henry Cole, 1850-52; 
J. J. Sams, 1852-54; B. C. Hollowell, 1854 50; 
T. Black, 1858-60; H. H. Harris, 1860-62; Thomas 
Black, 1862.64; A. C. Jeffery, 1864-68; William 
Byler, 1868-72; commissioners, 1872-74; G. W. 
Shaw, 1874-80; J. A. Byler, 1880-82; W. Grim- 
mett, 1882-86; H. H. Harris, present incumbent, 
first elected in 1886. 



Clerks: J. P. Houston, 1825 30; Jesse Adams, 
1830-32; J. P. Houston, 1832-38; B. H. Johnson! 
1838-44; C. P. Lancaster, 1844-46; A. C. JefTery, 
1846-48; R. M. Haggard, 1848-52; William Wood, 
1852-54; H. H. Harris, 1854-58; W. C. Dixon, 
1858-60; H. H. HaiTis, 180068; I. H. Talley, 
1868 72; F. W. Pen-in, 187274; D. W. Billings- 
ley, 1874-70; J. N. Craig, 1870-78; H. H. Harris, 
1878-84; W. K. Estes, present incumbent, elected 
in 1884, re- elected and served continuously since. 
Sheriffs: John Adams, 1825-30; John Har 
grove, 1830-35; Daniel Jeffery, 1835-30; J. A. 
Harris, 1836-38; D. K. Lloyd, 1838-44; Miles Jef- 
fery, 1844-40; S. E. Rossen, 1846-50; S. J. Mason. 
1850-56; John Woods, 1850-58; A. Adams, 1858 
60; W. J. Cagle, 1800-08; R. L. Landers, 1868- 
72; J. M. Hinkle, 1872-78; R. L. Landers, 1878- 
82; J. S. Roberts, 1882-86; R. L. Landers, pres- 
ent incumbent, first elected in 1886. 
j Treasurers: W. B. Carr, 1836-38; A. Cres- 
I well, 1838-40; S. H. Creswell, 1840-42; Jacob 
; Wolf, 1842-44; A. McFelich. 1844-40: H. J. 
Wren, 1840-48; H. Dillard, 1848-50; William 
Gray, 1850-58; J. W. Cypert, 1858-64; H. H. 
Harris, 1864-60: E. D. Hayes, 1800-08; B. F. 
Brantley, 1808-72; J. B. Hunt, 1872-74; L. C. 
Holmes, 1874-76; A. J. Hutson, 1876-SO; John 
McElmurry. 1880-82; H. H. Hinckle, 1882-84; 
John McElmurry, 1884-80; J. B. Hunt, present 
incumbent, first elected in 1886. 

Coroners: H. C. Roberts. 1829 3U; J. Blyeth, 
1830-35; Jesse Adams, 1835-36; H. W. Bandy, 
1840-42; R. C. Moore, 1842-48; G. W. Neal, 
1848-50; J. D. Churchill, 1850-52; D. Jeffery. 
1852-54; R. Harris, 1854-50; S. T. Martili, 
1856-58; R. Landers. 1858-02; Jesse Hincklo, 
1802-04; J. A. Byler. 1804-66; R. Landers, 
1866-68; J. G. Richardson, 1808-72; J. H. Uoten, 
1872-74; J. F. Cornelius, 1874-76; F. M. Hall. 
1870-78; Squire Wood, 1878-80; J. R. Beaver. 
1880-80; John Schell. 188ii-.SS: S. F. Heaves, 
present incumbent, elected in 1888. 

Surveyors: William Clement, 1830-32; A. 
Adams, 1S35-30; Jesse .\dams. 1830-38; James 
Davis, 1838-40; William Seymour. 1840-42; J. 
M. Pugh, 1842-44; F. M. Copeland. 1844-46; R. 



r 



920 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Decker, 1846-4S: Cyius Crosby, 1848-52; J. 
Byler, 1852-56; J. W. Rector, 1856-58; A. C. 
Hardin. 1858-62; J. W. Rector, 1862-64; J. C. 
Claiborne, 1866-08; R. Sanders, 1868-72; J. A. 
Claiborne, 1872-76; Joseph Hixon, 1876-80; 
Jacob Franks, 1880-82; J. A. Claiborne, 1882-88; 
E. L. Billingsley, present incumbent, elected in 
1S88. 

Assessors: P. F. Heasler, 1868-72; W. O. Dil- 
lard, 1872-74; James Green, 1874-80: W. C. 
Hammond, 1880-84; Robert Gray, 1884-86; James 
Gray, 1886-88; P. J. Puckett, present incumbent, 
elected in 1888. 

Representatives in constitutional conventions: 
1836, Charles R. Sanders; 1861, A. Adams; 1868, 
W. W. Adams; 1874, Ransom Gulley. 

The tirst representative of the county in the 
Territorial legislature was Jacob AVolf, and the 
first one in the State legislature was Thomas Culp. 
The first State senator from the county was C. R. 
Sanders. 

The following will show the political aspect of 
Izard County. At the September election, 1888, 
James P. Eagle (Dem. ) received 1,328 votes for 
the oifice of governor, and C. M. Norwood, his op- 
ponent, 779 votes. At the presidential election, 
1888, the several candidates received votes as fol- 
lows: Cleveland (Dem.), 1,187; Harrison (Rep.), 
378; Streeter (U. L.), 68; Fisk (Pro.), 7. 

Religious affairs, here as elsewhere, date from 
the first settlement of the community. As usual, 
the Methodists and Baptists were the pioneer Chris- 
tian workers of the Territory, followed by the Cum- 
berland Presbyterians and Christians. The organ- 
izations of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
located within the county, are embraced in three 
circuits. The Melbourne circuit. Rev. W. L. King, 
pastor, has eight appointments; the Newburg cir- 
cuits. Rev. William A. Peck, pastor, has five ap- 
pointments, and the La Crosse and Evening Shade 
circuit. Rev. J. S. Brooke, pastor, has also five 
appointments, the latter being in Sharp County. 
The aggregate memViership of each, as shown by 
the last conference minutes, is as follows: Mel- 
bourne, 399; Newburg, 684; La Crosse and Even- 
ing Shade, 301; making 1,384 in all. Of the 



Methodist Episcopal Church, there is but one or- 
ganization in the county. 

Of the Missionary Baptist Church nineteen or- 
ganizations are known, sixteen of which belong to 
the Rocky Bayou Association, two to the Big Creek 
Association, and one to Independence Association. 
Those belonging to the first named are Melbourne, 
Lunenburg and Franklin, of which Elder J. L. 
Brown is pastor; Saints' Rest, Bellview, Mount 
Nebo, No. 2, and Piney Bayou, of which Elder J. 
J. Vest is pastor; Mount Pleasant and Bethel, of 
which Elder J. D. J. Faulkner is pastor; Zion 
Hill, Concord, Fairviow and Philadelphia, of which 
Elder William Dureu is pastor; Pleasant Valley, 
with Elder S. A. Merchant as pastor; Mount Nebo 
No. 1, with Elder J. H. Soden as pastor, and Hid- 
den Creek, which has no pastor at present. Those 
belonging to Big Creek Association are Cross Roads 
and New Prospect, while the one belonging to 
Independence Association is called Wilson Creek. 
The aggregate membership of these organizations 
within the county is between 700 and 80(\ 

The ten organizations of the Christian Church 
here consist of Mill Creek, at Melbourne; Walnut 
Grove, Oxford, Franklin and luka. with Elder H. 
T. King as pastor; Kent Mill, Liberty, Pleasant 
Spring and Newburg, with Elder W. G. Cypert as 
pastor, and Twin Creek, with Elder G. H. Metheny 
as pastor. The aggregate membership is 503. 

The organizations of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church are Mill Creek, at Melbourne, and 
Mount Olive, with Rev. P. M. Jeflfery as pastor; 
Nnl)bin Ridge, Rev. R. H. Evans, pastor; Olive 
Branch, Rev. J. S. Bone, pastor; La Crosse. Rev. 
W. B. Baird, pastor; Barren Fork, Rev. A. C. 
Evans, pastor; Dry Town, Rev. J. S. Bone, pas- 
tor; Palestine, Rev. Clark, pastor: Rocky Glade 
and one or two other organizations. Many of the 
church organizations have Sunday-schools connect- 
ed with them, and nearly all have regular preach- 
ing, and are doing good work in the cause of Chris- • 
tianity. There is an organization of the Adventists 
at La Crosse. 

The towns and villages of the county are small 
and scattered, and no one has gained much as- 
cendency over the others. Barren Fork, in the 



IZARD COUNTY. 



!)•_>! 



southeast part of the county, contains two general 
stores, one drug store, one grocery, two church 
houses, a school house, cotton-gin, and some shops, 
dwelling houses, etc. 

Franklin, in the opposite northeast jwrtion, has 
two general stores, a grist-mill, still-house, school- 
house, Masonic hall and lodge, and an Odd Fel- 
lows' hall and lodge. 

luka is a very small post village on the line 
between Izard and Baxter Counties. 

La Crosse, four miles northeast of Melbourne, 
contains two general stores, a drug store, a church 
edifice, two blacksmith shops, a Masonic hall and 
lodge, and the La Crosse Collegiate Institute. In 
the fall of 1883 a cyclone passcnl over this place 
and almost entirely demolished the buildings, be- 
sides killing a number of individuals. 

Melbourne, the county seat, located near the 
center of the county, includes within its limits 
four general stores, three groceries, a drug store, 
two hotels, four church buildings, a Masonic and 
Odd Fellows' hall and school- house combined, a 
lodge each of Masons and Odd Fellows, two feed 
stables, one newspaper (The Izard County Reg- 
ister, Democratic in politics, now in its eighth 
volume, and ably edited by its proprietor, Mr. 
Dave Craig), a steam grist-mill, mechanics" shops, 
etc., etc., but no court-house at present. Of the 
societies there is also an Encampment of Odd 
Fellows. The churches are Baptist, Methodist, 
Cumberland Presbyterian and Christian. 

Newburg, a few miles northwest of Melbourne, 
has three general stores, a steam saw-mill, school- 
house, blacksmith shop, a Masonic and Odd Fol- 
lows' hall and a lodge of each of these societies. 

Oxford is in the north central part of the coun- 
ty. Three general stores, a steam grist-mill, three 
churches, a school-house and an Odd Fellow's 
hall comprise its industries. 

Pineville, in the northwest part of the county, 
contains a general store, a blacksmith shop, and a 
Masonic hall, church and school -house combined. 

Violet Hill is eight miles northeast of Mel- 
bourne. It has a store, steam grist-mill, black- 
smith shop and a church. 

At each of these points is a postoflice, and 
ss >^ 



dwelling liouses corresponding in number to the size 
of the place. The other p<jstotlic(«s in the county 
are Wideman, Sage, Gid, Alder, Rockford, Engle 
and Byler. 

Prior to the inauguration of the present free 
school system there were no schools within Izard 
County, except a few sustained here and there by 
private individual enterprise. Education in those 
days for the masses was not advocated or encour- 
aged, and truth compels the assertion that, even at 
this date, the facilities for popular education are 
not as well sustained as they ought to be. How- 
ever, prejudice against free schools is wearing 
away, and the interest in their favor is slowly but 
gradually increasing. The following statistics 
compiled from the report of the State superin- 
tendent, for the year ending June 30, 1888, will 
show the progress of schools within the county: 
Scholastic population, white, 4,702, colored, 116, 
total, 4,818; number taught in the public schools, 
white, 2,572, colored, 19, total, 2,608; number of 
teachers employed, males, 47, females, 8, total, 
55; average monthly salaries paid teachers, first 
grade, males, .$40.25, females, $40; second grade, 
males, $37.50, females, §28.30; amount of revenue 
expended to sustain the public .schools, $9,433.45. 
According to these figures, only a little over one- 
half of the white .scholastic population and about 
one-sixth of the colored scholastic population were 
taught in the public .schools. It is l)elieved, 
though, that the statistics do not give the whole 
facts, as the number taught in some schools was 
not reported. The wages paid should secure teach- 
ers of fair talent. The free school system is yet 
young, and will improve with age and experience. 

The La Crosse Collegiate Institute, which bus 
been sustained for many years at the town of Lu- 
Crosse, has gained considerable reputation as an 
institution of learning. It is now taught in con- 
nection with the public school of that j)lace. There 
are eighty-four school districts within the county, 
and for the school year mentioned, thirty-four 
voted a local tax for school purjwses. 

Izard County is in Northeast Arkansas. It is 
bounded north by Fulton County, east by .Sharp, 
south by Independence ami Stum", and west liy 



922 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Stone and Baxter. It has an area of 600 square 
miles, with only about one-eighth of it improvisd. 
Being an interior county it has as yet no railroad 
facilities, its nearest railroad station being at Cush- 
man, in the adjoining county of Independence. 
The boundary lines are as follows: Beginning at 
the northwest corner of Section 1, in Township 
18 north. Range 7 west, of the fifth principal 
meridian; thence south three miles; thence east 
one mile to the range line, between Ranges 6 and 
7 west; thence south on the range line to the 
southeast corner of Section 25, Township 16 north, 
Range 7 west; thence west one and a half miles; 
thence south to the quarter-post between Sections 
14 and 23 in Township 15 north, Range 7 west; 
thence west to the southwest corner of Section 
16, same township and range; thence south 45° 
west, seven and a half miles to White River; 
thence up the middle of that river to the range line 
between Ranges 11 and 12, in Township 17 north; 
thence north on the range line to the township 
line between Townships 17 and 18 north; thence 
east to the middle of Range 11 west; thence north 
on section lines to the township line between 
Townships 18 and 19 north; thence east on the 
township line to the place of beginning. 

The principal streams are White and Straw- 
berry Rivers, both of which flow in a general south- 
easterly direction, the former on the southwestern 
boundary of the county, and the latter across the 
northeastern portion. Between these rivers there 
is a dividing ridge or water-shed in the same direc- 
tion. The principal tributaries of White River 
within the county are Piney, Mill, Knob, Hurri- 
cane, Rocky Bayou and LafEerty Creeks. The 
principal tributary of Strawberry River is Caney 
Fork. There are some smaller tributaries of these 
streams, and altogether they form a complete sys- 
tem of drainage for the territory. Numerous ex- 
cellent springs abound, and in most places good 
well water can be obtained at a depth of fifty feet. 
Cisterns are in general use. From the streams, 
springs, cisterns and wells, an abundant supply of 
excellent water for all purposes is obtained. 

The surface of the county is generally broken 
and hilly, though there are some tracts of beauti- 



ful and gently undulating table lands. The highest 
points above sea level are said to be about 1,000 
feet. A large percentage of the lands belong to 
the Government, and are subject to homestead 
entry. Of the entire area, a very small proportion 
is valley, or bottom lands. The soil of the latter 
is alluvial and exceedingly productive, while that 
of the uplands is light and sandy, and not so pro- 
ductive. Contrary to the general rule elsewhere, 
the most productive uplands in this county are the 
pine timbered lands. Altogether it is adapted to 
the cultivation of cotton, several kinds of grain, 
clover, and the tame grasses. It is probably best 
suited to the growing of corn. Clover and the 
tame grasses have scarcely been introdiiced, but, 
where tried, excellent results have followed. ' ' Cot- 
ton is king," and some lands are being exhausted 
by its constant cropping. All the uplands are capa- 
ble of the growing of all manner of fi'uits, com- 
mon to this latitude, but thus far the cultivation of 
fi'uit has received but little attention. 

In the southeast part of the county, over an 
area of twenty -five square miles are rich deposits 
of black oxide of manganese. This ore is used 
extensively in the manufacture of Bessemer steel 
rails. In Section 20, Township 17 north, Range 
9 west, there is a lead of antimony, and at differ- 
ent points elsewhere, notably in Townships 16 and 
17 north. Range 7 west, are strong indications of 
zinc. There is a good quality of sandstone, 
building stone, and a great deal of limestone within 
the county. In Sections 34 and 35, Townshijj 15 
north, Range 8 west, is a good deposit of litho- 
graphic stone, which is being worked by a New 
York company. 

The bottom lands and adjacent bluffs are cov- 
ered with white and black oak, red cedar, and 
black and sweet gum, allot good quality, the white 
oak being of very superior quality. In the north- 
west part of the county is a belt of good short- 
leaved yellow pine, the stumpage of which is care- 
fully estimated at 500,000,000 feet. Much of this 
timber averages from two to three feet in diameter, 
and many trees will cut four saw logs each. The 
rest of the timber is mostly black, post, and white 
oak. In the northeast portion the growth is mostly 



Of 



:|V 



►L> 



IZARD COUNTY. 



'.)'23 



post oak and black jack. Ash, cherry, walnut, 
and other varieties of timber abound in limited 
quantities. 

The county's resources, so fur as developed, are 
principally agricultural, the horticultural and min- 
eral wealth not having been unfolded. The supply 
of timber is extensive, as but little, aside fi'om the 
small quantity used at home, has ever been cut. 
This will be an important resource whenever ship- 
ping facilities are provided. The agricultural 
products for 1879, as given by the census of 1880, 
were as follows: Indian corn, 451,904 Vnishels; 
oats, 40,593 bushels; wheat, 25,902 bushels; hay, 
214 tons; cotton, 4,800 bales; Irish potatoes, 4,500 
bushels; sweet potatoes, 11,349 bushels; tobacco, 
13,212 pounds. These figures show that the lands 
of the county are best adapted to the raising of 
corn, cotton, sweet potatoes and tobacco. • The 
number of head of live-stock, as shown by the same 
report, were as follows: Horses, 2,109; mules and 
asses, 1,258; cattle, 9,492; sheep, 8,492; hogs, 
18,966. The number listed for taxation, as shown 
by the abstract of taxable property for 1888, are as 
follows: Horses, 2,436; mules and asses, 1,655; 
cattle, 14,857; sheep, 7,035; hogs, 1,619. This 
indicates by comparison a large increase of the 
three former and an apparent decrease of the two 
latter. But reflecting that the number of animals 
given by the census report include the number of 
sold and slaughtered during the previous year, 
while the tax lists include only those on hand when 
assessed, it is evident that in all, excepting proba- 
bly sheep, there was a large increase. 

In 1880 the county's real estate was assessed 
for taxation at 1584,303, the personal property at 
$411,715, making a total of $996,018. In 1888 
the real estate was assessed at $743,994, and the 
personal property at $759,607, making a total of 
$1,503,601. This shows that the taxable property 
of the county, since 1880, has increased in value 
over 61 per cent. The total amount of taxes 
charged in 1888, for all purposes, was $20,608. 

The population of Izard County at the end of 
each census decade, since its organization, has 
been as follows: 1830, 1,266; 1840, 2,240; 1850, 
3,212; 1860, 7,215; 1870, 6,806; 1880, 10,857. 



The colored population in 1870 was 182, and in 
1880, 222. 



Charles R. Aikin, a retired merchant of Calico 
Rock, Ark., was born in Colorado, in 1854, and is 
a son of William M. and Catherine W. (Rudolpli) 
Aikin, who were born in South Carolina and Mary- 
land, respectively. William Aikin removed to 
Arkansas in 1843 or 1844, and located in what was 
then Izard County (now Stone County), and these 
counties have since been his home, with the excep- 
tion of from 1852 to 1855, when he was a resident 
of Colorado. From 1861 to 1872 he resided in 
Batesville, Init upon the death of his wife, in the 
latter year, he removed from Batesville, and has 
made his home in Izard and Stone Counties since. 
He was a farmer during his early life, but after- 
ward gave his attention to merchandising, and was 
associated with Cox & Byers, at Sylamoro. He 
was married in 1850 or 1851, and he and wife be- 
came the parents of four children, Charles R., th(> 
subject of this memoir, being the only one living; 
Maggie L. (deceased) was the wife of Joseph Case, 
of Batesville, and died in 1881, leaving two chil 
dren, Maggie being the only one now living; the 
two other children died in infancy. Mr. Aikin has 
filled the ofSce of notary public, and w.is postmas- 
ter of Calico Rock for a number of years. He re 
sides in Sylamore, is sixty -six years of age, and is 
in the enjoyment of excellent health. Charles R. 
Aikin attended school in Batesville until he at- 
tained his sixteenth year, and then engaged in 
farmingfor himself on his father's farm, continuing 
thus occupied for three years; then entered college 
at Batesville, which institution he attended one 
year. He then entered the dry goods store of W. 
E. Maxwell, at Sylamore, but at the end of one 
year accepted a position in a store at Batesville, 
and after remaining in the employ of H. C. Smith 
for some time he returned to Sylamore and entered 
the employ of McMurtry & Whitfield. His next 
enterprise was to engage in merchandising in part- 
nership with W. E. Maxfield, but in 1879 he came 
to Calico Rock, and began working for that gen- 
tleman for a portion of the profits, and since li)iS8 



924 



HISTOKY OF AEKANSAS. 



has been out settling up the outstauding accounts 
of the business. He was married on the 22d of 
January, 1888, to Miss Mary B. Grimmett. He 
has been postmaster of this place for four or five 
years, is a Democrat politically, and belongs to the 
I. O. O. F. and the A. F. & A. M. He owns a 
good farm of eighty acres close to the town, well 
improved, besides other valuable property. 

A. G. Albright is one of the substantial resi- 
dents of Izard County, Ark., but his birth occurred 
in the "Old North State" October 9, 1838, his 
parents, Alvis and Mary A. (Stockard) Albright, 
being also born there, in 1808 and 1815, respective- 
ly. They were reared, educated and married in 
their native State, but about the year 1853 they 
moved to Arkansas, where they reared their family. 
Five sons and live daughters were born tc> them, 
and seven of their children are living at the pres- 
ent time. The father was an energetic tiller of 
the soil, in which occupation he acquired a hand- 
some competency, and at the time of his death, 
March 31, 1881, he was the owner of some 500 
acres of land. He was also a minister of the 
gospel, being an expounder of the Methodist doc- 
trine, but, after his arrival in Arkansas, he and his 
wife attached themselves to the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian Church, Mr. Albright being identified 
with this church at the time of his death. His 
widow is still living, and resides with a daughter 
at Barren Fork. A. G. Albright, their son, was 
educated near Pittsboro, N. C, and after com- 
ing to Arkansas with his parents he united his 
destiny with that of Miss Sarah T. Screws, who 
was born in this State, being a daughter of George 
W. Screws. Of the family of eleven children born 
to them eight are living: George A., James G. , 
Sarah C, Harriet E., Nancy N. , Julia Esther, 
William F. and Lula J. Mr. Albright owns an 
excellent farm comprising 352 acres, of which there 
are about 160 acres under cultivation, and it is well 
stocked with all the necessary animals for success- 
fully conducting the place. In connection with 
this work he is engaged in general merchandising 
at Barren Fork, his stock at the present time in- 
voicing at about $8,000. He is a member of three 
secret organizations, the Masons, the Knights and 



Ladies of Honor, and the I. O. O. F. , and in the 
former order belongs to the Commandery. When 
the war, which had for some time been threaten- 
ing, at last became an assured fact, Mr. Albright 
joined Kelley's Ninth Battalion, and went to Ken- 
tucky, but was discharged on account of disability. 
The same year he joined Capt. Woods' company, 
Shaler's regiment, and served to the close of the 
war in the quartermaster's department, as regimen- 
tal carpenter. In the latter part of 18fi6 he re- 
turned home and engaged in the milling business 
with his father, and still later embarked in the 
occupations mentioned above. He and wife are 
members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and are active and liberal supporters of churches 
and schools, as well as all other worthy enterprises. 
J. H. Ayler, farmer, Melliourne, Ark. Among 
the younger members of the agricultural com- 
munity of Izard County there are none more de- 
serving of mention than Mr. Ayler, and on this 
account, no less than that he has resided in this 
county since about three years of age, he is ac- 
corded a worthy place in this volume. His birth 
occurred in Tennessee in 1848, and he came with 
his parents, Charles and Minerva E. (Robison) 
Ayler, to Arkansas, in 1851, and settled in Izard 
County. He assisted on his father's farm until 
twenty-one years of age, when he started out to 
fight life's battles for himself, and rented land for 
about sis years. He then purchased a farm of 
eighty-six acres, which he afterward increased to 
286 acres, with sixty-five acres under cultivation, 
and has plenty of good stock to run his farm. In 
1870 he was married to Miss Icj^ D. H. Cornelius, 
and they became the parents of these children: 
John P., born October 13, 1871, at home; Ada M., 
born February 21, 1873, at home; Lou N., born 
July 21, 1875; Nancy E., born November 23, 1877; 
Willie Maud, born February 1, 1880 (deceased); 
Nettie E., born February 19, 1883, and Grover H., 
born June 7, 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Ayler are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church, and in politics he is 
a Democrat. His parents were both natives of 
Tennessee. The father, Charles Ayler, was reared 
on a farm and educated in the common schools of 
Tennessee. He came to Arkansas in 1851, as 



s^ i 



-f 



'4^ 



IZARD COUNTY. 



5»2r. 



above stated, and bought an unimproved farm in 
Izard County. After remaining on this farm for 
about fifteen years he sold out and bought an im- 
proved farm, close to where he first resided, and 
continued there about ten years. He then sold out, 
and bought another farm of 175 acres, where he 
remained until his death, which occurred in 1882, 
at the age of sixty-four years. He was twice mar- 
ried, the first time to Miss Minerva E. Robison, 
and by her became the father of seven children, 
five now living: J. H., William, Mrs. Nancy Evans, 
Mrs. Sarah E. Sterling and Mrs. Harriet J. Will- 
iams. The mother of these childi-on is a member 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Ayler's 
second marriage was to Miss Amanda Taylor, in 
1871, and they had a family of three children: 
Tennessee, Annie and John. Mr. Ayler was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
Mrs. Ayler still survives him. Mrs. Minerva Ayler 
was married the second time to Henry Williams, 
and they reside in this county. 

John N. Bates, farmer, Franklin, Ark. Not 
withstanding the rapid growth of the agricultural 
affairs of the county in the last few years, and the 
progressive ideas advanced, Mr. Bates lias kept 
thoroughly apace with the times, and is considered 
one of the leading farmers of the county. His 
birth occurred in Bedford County, Tenn. , in 1829, 
and he is the son of J. A. and Elizabeth (Davis) 
Bates, the former a native of the Old Dominion, 
and the latter of South Carolina. J. A. Bates 
came to Tennessee about 1820, but previous to that 
had been a resident of Georgia and Alabama. He 
was principally reared in Georgia, and served in 
the War of 1812 up to 1815. He was also with 
Gen. Noonan's command, was in the Florida 
swamps in 1830, and was present when the chief, 
Osceola, was captured. During the War of 1812 
he was a lieutenant, and served in that capacity 
until 1814 when, for his bravery and daring, he 
was promoted to the rank of captain, having piloted 
a boat-load of ammunition and provisions from 
Black Creek Station to Fort Scott. Fla. This 
boat-load of supplies had been ordered to Black 
Creek Station while Gen. Jackson was there, I)ut 
the commander at Fort Scott was hard-pressed. 



and had requested Gen. Jackson to come to his 
assistance. Lieut. Bates was off after deserters at 
this time, but when he returned to Black Creek 
Station he found Gen. Jackson gone, and the boat 
load of ammunition and provisions had arrived 
from the head of supjilies. There were not enough 
troops loft to guard the boat, so Lieut. Bates 
built breastworks on the boat and pushed off, 
reaching Gen. Jackson in safety. For this daring 
and almost impossible feat he was promoted to the 
rank of captain. He died in Coffee County, Tenn. 
in September, 1868, at the age of seventy-four 
years. Ho had l)0(>n twice married, first to Eliza 
beth Aulford, by whom he had three children, all 
daughters, Martha, Mary and Elizabeth, wife of a 
Mr. Carroll. Mrs. Bates died about 1819. and 
Mr. Bates was the second time married, to Miss 
Elizabeth Davis, in 1824. To this union were 
born seven children, six of whom lived to be grown. 
The yoimgest one died when quite small; Jasper 
M. resides in this county; Alethia (deceased), was 
the wife of J. S. Jones; John N., the subjiH^t of 
this sketch; Frances A., widow of J. Hickerson. 
now resides in Tennessee; Rebecca A. (deceased), 
wife of L. W. Angel 1, of Tennessee, and Louisa 
J. (deceased), was the wife of Alex. Oldfield. Mrs. 
Bates died in July, 1869. Both Mr. and Mrs. 
Bates were members of the Baptist Church, and 
he was a member of the Masonic fraternity. In 
politics he was a Whig. At the age of twenty-one 
years J. N. Bates started out for himself, after 
receiving a fair education in the common schools. 
He was a schoolmate of Judge Powell, of this 
county, in Bedford County, Tenn. He first began 
as a hired hand to learn the tanning business. 
boarded with his father, and worked for $5 per 
month for one year. In 1854 he commenced tan 
ning on his own account, and ran a yard for himself 
until 1864, when he lost all of his property. He then 
engaged in farming, and has foilowod this pursuit 
up to the pros(>nt. In March, 18(19, he came to this 
county, and settled on Strawljerry, where ho re- 
mained until 1876, when he sold out and Iwught 
his present property, consisting of 220 acres, 1(X) 
under cultivation, all the result of hard labor since 
the war. He was married, on the 4th of December, 



926 



HISTOKY OF ARKANSAS. 



1849, to Miss Harriet L. Oldfield, a native of Ten- 
nessee, born on the 11th of November, 1827, and 
they are the parents of ten children, eight now liv- 
ing: Nancy E., widow of Dr. J. M. Beaver, and af- 
terward married to John C. Billingsley; Rhoda J., 
wife of James Billingsley; Eliza F., wife of F. M. 
Wolf; Charles L. lives in Texas; John L. resides 
in Lee County, Ark.; Mary F. (deceased); Laura 
A., wife of J. T. Robertson; Susan L., wife of 
Walter Hardaway; Lillie M., wife of James M. 
Godwin, and Carrie L. (deceased). Mr. Bates 
was not in the army, but was detailed to make 
shoes for the soldiers, and to continue the tanning 
business. Previous to the war he was a Whig, 
but since then he has voted with the Democratic 
party until 1880, when he supported the Green- 
back and Wheeler ticket. He and wife are mem- 
bers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Chiuch. 
The paternal grandfather of John N. Bates, Samuel 
Bates, was a soldier in the War for Independence, 
and served first, until the battle of Lexington, 
when he was captured by the English, and kept 
prisoner for three months. He then made his 
escape. He was a silversmith by trade, and the 
English kept him at work at his trade while a pris- 
oner. He then joined the army again, was at 
Yorktown, and was present at the surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis. After the war he located in Vir- 
ginia, where he reared his family. He worked at 
his trade and became wealthy, owning many ne- 
groes. In 1807 he moved to North Carolina. 

Dr. E. A. Baxter, Melbomne, Ark. It is the 
prerogative of the physician to relieve or alleviate 
the ailments to which suffering humanity is prone, 
and as such he deserves the most grateful consid- 
eration of all. A prominent physician, who by 
his own ability has attained distinction in his pro- 
fession, is Dr. E. A. Baxter. This gentleman 
was born in Batesville, Ark. , in 1853, and is the 
son of Elisha D. and Harriet N. (Patton) Baxter 
[see sketch of ex-Gov. Elisha Baxter]. Dr. Baxter 
was educated at Batesville, Ark. , received a good 
English education at that place, and in 1877 en- 
tered the University of Louisville, from which he 
graduated in March, 1879. He then returned 
home, remained a short time, and then came to 



Melbourne, where he located in the last named 
year. He immediately began practicing his pro- 
fession. Realizing that it was not good for man 
to be alone, he was married on the 23d of Decem- 
ber, 1882, to Miss Maggie Powell, daughter of 
William and Millie Powell, and niece of Judge 
Powell, of Melbourne. They are the parents of 
two children, only one living. Hattie M. The one 
deceased was named Alfred A. Dr. and Mrs. 
Baxter are both members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and the Doctor is a member of the 
I. O. O. F., and also belongs to the Encamp- 
ment of that order. He makes no specialty in his 
line of practice, but has gained the confidence of 
all as a clever and scientific practitioner. He has 
been successful financially, accumulating property 
as rapidly' as could be expected in a healthy county 
like Izard. Coming as he does from one of the 
leading families of the State, and being well con- 
nected by marriage, the Doctor would be a very 
pojjular man even if it were not for his pleasant, 
social disposition, which has called around him 
many friends. Kind and obliging, open-hearted 
and free-handed, he is ever found at the bedside 
of the sick and helpless. He takes no active part 
in politics, and votes always for the good of his 
friends. He is a Republican, though he has voted 
with the Democratic party in this State. 

Elbert Benbrook is one of the most successful 
farmers and stockmen of Izard County, and de- 
serves much credit for the success which has at- 
tended his efforts, for when he began life for him- 
self he only owned one horse and rented land, 
whereas he is now the owner of 500 acres of as 
good land as there is in the county, and is one of 
the most successful stockmen of this region. He 
was born in Izard County, in 1838, and is a son of 
Henry and Catherine (Langston) Benbrook, who 
came from the State of Illinois in 1832, and settled 
on the farm on which our subject is now residing. 
The father was a miller as well as a farmer, and in 
1848 erected one of the first mills in the county, 
and was also the proprietor of one of the first 
cotton-gins. Upon settling in this region their 
neighbors, with the exception of the families who 
came with them, were twenty miles distant, and 



^^ 



^rr 



-^ — Aj- 



IZARD COUNTY. 



927 



Indians and wild game of all kinds were very 
abundant. Flonring-mills were very few and far 
between in tlie region at that time, and their com i 
and wheat were ground t)y machinery of their own 
manufacture and wore of a very crude description. 
The first mill built in the county was said to have 
been erected by Laugsten Close, near Melbourne, 
in 1811), its capacity being one bucket of meal per 
day, but this was sufficient to keep all the families 
in meal within a radins of fifty miles. Wild honey 
was very al)undant, and as a means of carrying it 
in considerable quantities they would sew up a 
deer skin in the form of a sack, put the honey in 
at the neck, throw the same across their horse as a 
sack, and thus convey it home. A few elk were 
found in the region by the earliest settlers, but 
there was no bufPalo, although the country showed 
evidence of their having been here, as the woods 
were entirely free from underbrush, the canelirake 
being only along the streams. At the age of twenty- • 
three years Elbert Benbrook began managing a ] 
steam saw-mill, the first one of the kind in the 
county, it being erected by A. H. Matthews and 
Ben BufFord in 1858, but owing to the breaking 
out of the war he was compelled to give up the 
work. In 1802 he enlisted in the' Confederate 
sei-vice, but at the end of six weeks he was dis- 
charged on account of disability and returned home, 
where he engaged in teaching school for a short 
time. He then operated his father's carding ma- 
chine until after the close of the war, when he 
again embarked in saw-milling, and also managed 
the carding machine and followed farming up to 
1S7:5. From 1878 to 1881 he ojierated a grist- 
mill, but since that time he has given his attention 
to farming and carpentering. He is a Democrat 
l)olitically. and has held the office of justice of the 
|)eace and deputy sheriff, and is the present in- 
cumbent of the latter office, to which he was ap- 
pointed in 1888, and had previously filled it from 
1N74 to 1878. Margaret M. Berry became his 
wife in 1861, but her death occurred seven years 
later, she having borne a family of three children: 
Susan A. (wife of W. J. Hudson), Robert H., and 
JIartha 0. (wife of W. C. Rodman). Mr. Ben- 
brook wedded his second wife. Miss Sarah A. 



Mathes, in 18R8, biit after bearing three children, 
Margie A. , Dora and Allan H. , her death occurred 
in 1878, she having been a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South. In the latter part 
of 1878 Mr. Benbrook wedded his present wife, 
Mrs. Elizabeth (Slyre) Rodman, and both are 
worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and he is a Royal Arch Mason. He is 
one of the men who has helped to build up the 
county and has always been noted for his Chris- 
tianity, benevolence, and high sense of honor. 

Uen Benbrook, farmer, Pinesville, Ark. Lo- 
cated in the midst of one of the finest agricultural 
centers of Izard County, the farm which Mr. Ben- 
brook occupies is conceded to be among the best 
in this vicinity, and this is saying not a littl<>. for 
on every hand may be seen superior places, whose 
ownership indicate thrift and prosperity. He is a 
native of this county, his birth occurring in 1849, 
and he is the son of Henry and Elizabeth (Tray- 
lor) Benbrook, natives of Illinois and Indiana, re- 
spectively. Henry Benbrook came to Izard Coun- 
ty, at a very early day, settled on a farm and tilled 
the soil, but in connection also carried on the mill- 
ing Inisiness. He and wife reared a family of ten 
children, eight now living: Maria J. (wife of David 
Smith), Uen, Armedia A. (wife of Green P. Staggs), 
Washington. Serenia V. (wife of A. J. Frank.s), 
Perry, Charlotte T. (wife of L. L. Bailey). Henry 
and Nancy (deceased). Mr. Benbrook died in 
1872, at the age of sixty years, and Mrs. Ben- 
brook died in 1808, at the age of forty years. 
They were members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and he was a uiemlier of the A. F. & A. 
M. He had accumulated considerable pn)perty at 
the time of his death, and owned about 1, 8(H) acres 
of land, besides a gri.st-mill, two saw-mills and a 
water-gin and carding machine. He was one of the 
leading men of his day, and contributetl liberally 
to all worthy enterprises. Fen Benbrook remaineil 
on his father's farm until twenty-four years of age. 
and acquired a taste for agricultural pursuits 
which has adhered to him ever since. He receive<l 
a good practical education in the subscription 
schools, and when twenty five years of age selected 
a wife in the person of Mrs. Acenith (Long) 



928 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Beabrook, a native of Izard County, Ark. This 
union was blessed by the birth of six children: 
Elizabeth, Angelene A., Albert, Robert, Acie and 
Elbert. Mr. Benbrook first commenced farming 
on rented land, but two years later purchased 200 
acres of land, selling part of this in 1881, and 
purchasing 1 15 acres unimproved. He then traded 
that for his present property, which consists of 205 
acres, with about 125 improved. He also owns 
one-half interest in a cotton-gin. He has excellent 
buildings and plenty of stock to run his farm. He is 
a liberal donator to all public affairs, and is active 
in educational matters. He and Mrs. Benbrook 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and he is a member of the A. F. & A. M. 
Mrs. Benbrook had been man-ied previous to her 
marriage to Mr. Benbrook, and to the brother of 
the subject of this sketch. He died in 1870. Her 
parents, George and Elizabeth (Langston) Long, 
were both natives of Arkansas, and her father was 
one of the earliest settlers on Strawberry Creek. 
He and wife were the parents of three children, two 
now living: Acey M. and Acenith. Mr. and Mrs. 
Long both died in 1834. 

Rev. J. N. A. Billingsley, Rockford, Ark. Like 
many others of the representative men of Izard 
County, Ark. , Mr. Billingsley is a native Tennes- 
sean, born in the year 1834. His parents, A. C. 
and Rebecca (Billingsley) Billingsley, were also 
natives of the eastern part of that State. A. C. 
Billingsley received a common school education in 
his native State, and moved to Arkansas in 1844. 
He purchased land in Izard County, and followed 
farming in the spring and summer, and the rest 
of the time was engaged as a house carpenter, and 
was interested in the ginning business. He was 
married in 1833 to Miss Rebecca Billing.sley, and 
the fruits of this union were ten children, nine of 
whom lived to be grown and four are now living: 
J. N. A., Harriet E., wife of W. Lee; Thomas C, 
resides in Yell County, Ark., and Eutonia E., wife 
of W. Ragan. When Mr. Billingsley first came to 
Arkansas the country was very thinly settled, and 
their clothes were principally made from deer skins, 
and their shoes were also made of the skins of ani- 
mals. The settlers depended principally on hunt- 



ing for their meat. Mr. Billingsley was a Whig in 
politics, and was justice of the peace in his county 
for a number of years. His father, Samuel Bil- 
lingsley, came to this county in 1840. He tilled 
many offices of trust in Fulton County, and was 
ex-county judge and representative of that county 
from about 1852 to 1853. Politically, he was a 
Democrat. He was a member of the A. F. & A. 
M. , and was a member of the Advent Church. 
The maternal grandfather of the subject of this 
sketch was Thomas Billingsley, brother to the pa- 
ternal grandfather. He moved to Sevier County, 
Ark., about 1840 and there followed agricultural 
pursuits. He was a Democrat in his political views. 
Upon reaching manhood. Rev. J. N. A. Billings- 
ley commenced life for himself and worked for 
some time as a hired hand. After this he clerked 
in a dry goods store for about fifteen months, and 
then went to tilling the soil on rented land. One 
year later he entered 320 acres in Van Bureu 
County, Ark., but sold out in 1868 and came to 
Izard County. He rented land for four years and 
then entered his present property of 160 acres. 
He now has seventy acres under cultivation. 
During the late conflict, or in 1862, he joined the 
Confederate army, and served until the 5th of June, 
1865, when he surrendered at Jacksonport, Ark. 
He participated in the following battles: Prairie 
Grove, Helena (July 4, 1863), Little Rock, and was 
in most of the battles during Gen. Price's raid 
through Missouri, in 1864. After cessation of hos- 
tilities he returned home and resumed his farming 
industry. His marriage was consummated, in 1 858, 
to Miss Catherine Orr, of Fulton County, Ark., 
and nine children were the result of this union, 
eight now living: David C, resides in this coun- 
ty; Mary E. , at home; Sarah F. . wife of Charles 
B. Thomas, resides in this county; J. N. A., Jr., 
(deceased); Samuel A., at home; R. Catherine, 
wife of L. J. Jackson; Eutonia E., at home; Edwin 
H., at home, and Martha E. , also at home. Mr. 
Billingsley was ordained a minister of the Advent 
Church in 1873, and was a pioneer minister of his 
faith in this section. He has had between thirty - 
five and forty conversions in the church, and has 
performed about a dozen marriage services. He is 



^, 



IZARD COUNTY. 



»2y 



in favor of all public enterprises, is active in school 
matters, and is a Prohibitionist and Union Labor 
man. He is also a member of the Masonic frater- 
nity. The father of Mrs. Billingsley, David Orr, 
was born in 1799, came to Cape Girardeau Coun- 
ty, Mo., in 1823, remained there for five years, 
and in 1827 came to this State and settled in Law 
rence County, where he remained until 1845. He 
then moved to Fulton County, and died there in 
1 849. He was a missionary in the Bapti.st Church, 
and his circuit extended from Jefferson City, Mo., 
to Little Rock, Ark. The State was still a terri- 
tory when he settled here, and the nearest neigh- 
bor was twenty-five miles distant. Often he would 
travel all day and not see a house. Sometimes he 
would get bothered and fail to reach a house by 
night time, and in that case he would be obliged to 
camp out, frequently in the dense canebrakes. 
Bear, panthers and other wild animals would come 
prowling around, and he would have to stay up to 
watch his horse. He followed his ministerial du- 
ties from 1827 to 1845, and was also a school 
teacher. He married Miss Eliza T. Caldwell, of 
Kentucky, on the 13th of September, 1821, and 
became the father of eleven children : -Tames (de- 
ceased), E. W. (died in 1863, and his family re- 
sides in Fulton County),' David (died in 1827), 
David (died in 1856), John H. (lives in Idaho Ter- 
ritory). Eliza A. (wife of A. S. Godwin), Cath- 
erine (wife of Rev. Billingsley), Martha J. (died in 
1847), W. H. H. (died and left a family in Texas). 
Joseph M. (lives in Fulton County) and Robert G. 
Mr. On- died in 1849 and his wife in 1874. Mrs. 
Orr was married the second time, in 1852, to 
Thomas R. Hill, a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church ; she belonged to the Baptist Church. 
Dr. J. K. P. Black, Melbourne, Ark. One of 
the leading and most successful physicians of Izard 
County is Dr. Black, who has acquired a flatter- 
ing reputation, and does credit to the profession. 
He was l)oru in Bedford County, Tenn. , in 1S40, 
and divided his time in youth between assisting on 
the farm and in attending the common schools. In 
1S61 he threw aside the implements of peace to take 
up the weapons of warfare, and enlisted in Com- 
pany K, Boon's First Battalion of Cavalry, and 



served until lS(»o, when he was paroled at Shrevi- 
port. La. He was engaged in the battles of Elk- 
horn, luka, Corinth, and was sick during the siege 
of Vicksburg. He came west after the surrender 
of that place and joined Capt. McCabel's cavalry, 
and was captured on Saline River, Ark., taken t(j 
Rock Island, 111., where he was kept over a year 
before being exchanged. He returned home after 
the surrender and engaged in agricultural pursuits, 
but also attended school. In 1870 he commenced 
to read medicine, and two years later attended 
lectures at the University of NashviUe, from which 
he graduated in 1876. He then commenced prac- 
ticing at Melbourne, and here he has remained 
ever since. He was married, in 1882, to Miss Su 
san Morton, of this State, and six children are the 
result of this union, all living: Edgar and Edna 
(twins), Thomas K., Ernest, Rufus and Mary. At 
the commencement of his life as a public man. the 
Doctor was not possessed of a great amount of 
property. I nit he is now the owner of a large farm 
of 310 acres, with about 100 acres under cultiva 
tion. He is at present erecting a very tine resi- 
dence, which, when completed, will be equal to 
any in the county. He is a stanch Democrat, but 
takes no particular interest in politics. He is a 
member of the I. O. O. F. Mrs. Black is the 
daughter of David and Nellie (Garmon) Morton, 
both natives of North Carolina. The father was 
born about 1807 or 1808, and came to the State of 
Arkansas in 1850. The mother was born alwut 
1810, and died in 1881. Dr. Black is the son of* 
Col. Thomas and Mary F. (Byler) Black, the for 
mer born on the 4th of October, 1807. In 1813 
Col. Black removed with his father from William- 
son to Bedford County, Tenn. , and when in his nine- 
teenth year he was elected lieutenant of the militia. 
When twenty-one years of age he was promoted 
to the rank of captain, and subsequently in his 
twenty sixth and twenty ninth years he was made 
adjutant-major and then colonel of his regiment. 
When twenty-three years of ago he was elected to 
the Tormesseo legislature, where he remained for 
four successive terms, representing Marshall and 
Bedford Counties. Within this time occurred the 
trouble of 1841 and 1S42, relating to aQineffoctunl 



930 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



effort to remove Foster and White from the United 
States senate; Col. Black being a Democrat, dyed 
in the wool, voted accordingly. In 1 849 he moved 
to Izard Connty, Ark., from which he was sent to 
represent the county in 1852. In 1856 he was 
elected county and probate judge, which office he 
filled successfully for four years, when he was ap- 
pointed by the governor for two years more. In 
1880 he again represented Izard Countj' in the 
State legislature, and with the expiration of his 
term of otfice came the end of his public life. His 
last years were spent in the retirement of the home 
circle, but he was at all times keenly alive to pass- 
ing events. His death occurred at his residence 
near Melbourne, on the 23d of June, 1889, when 
in his eighty second year, and after a long and 
useful life. When in his thirty-third year he be- 
came a member of the Cumberland Presb3'terian 
Church, and was at once made ruling elder, a re- 
lation to the church which he retained until his 
death. He was also a member of the I. O. O. F. 
Lee A. Bland, farmer, Melbourne, Izard County, 
Ark. Personal popularity, it cannot be denied, re- 
sults largely from industry, perseverance and close 
attention to bu.siness, which a person displays in 
the management of any particular branch of trade; 
and in the case of Mr. Bland this is certainly true, 
for he has adhered so closely to farming, and helped 
in so many ways to advance all worthy enterprises 
in this community, that he is considered one of the 
representative men of the county. His birth oc- 
curred at Augusta, in Woodruff County, Ark., and 
he is the son of James T. and Mary C. (Snow) 
Bland, the father a native of Tennessee, and the 
mother of Arkansas. James Bland came to Arkan- 
sas, at an early day, settling at Augusta, Woodruff 
County, and was married January 5, 1854. He 
followed farming, biit also engaged in merchan- 
dising previous to the war, and was broken up 
(luring that eventful period. He did not enlist, 
but was one of the few men who assisted the wives 
of the soldiers. He had three biothers killed while 
serving in the Confederate army. After the war 
he farmed extensively until his death, which oc- 
curred January 5, 1809, when he was killed by 
the State militia, serving under Powell Clayton's 



orders. He was at one time quite wealthy, and 
was the owner of some slaves. He and his tirst 
wife were the parents of two children, Lee A. 
being the only one living. Mrs. Bland died in 
1858, and Mr. Bland took for his second wife, in 
1858, Miss Lucy Perry, who bore him two children, 
only one living, Oliver P. , who is a telegraph oper- 
ator, and resides at El Paso, Texas. Mr. Bland 
was only about thirty-nine years of age at the time 
of his death, and his second wife followed him to 
the grave in 1869. In politics he was a stanch 
Democrat. At the age of sixteen years Lee A. 
Bland (the subject of this sketch) commenced life 
for himself, first as a dry goods clerk, and was 
then employed for eighteen months by Campbell 
Bros. , at Augusta. He then farmed for about two 
years, after which he again returned to mercantile 
pursuits, but not liking this he again returned to 
farming and has continued thus occupied ever 
since. He tirst rented land, but in 1887 he bought 
his present property, consisting of 397 acres, with 
sixty under cultivation, and has resided here since. 
In 1876 he abandoned his single state and was 
united in marriage at La Crosse, Izard County, to 
Miss Cornelia F. Helm, who bore him five chil- 
dren, three now living: Ada M. , born July 29, 
1877; Mary J., born October 5, 1879; Effie L. 
(deceased), born November 1, 1883; Nora S. (de- 
ceased), born February 17, 1886, and Willie L. , 
born November 22, 1887. Mr. Bland has been 
constable of La Crosse Township for two years, 
and, like his father, is a Democrat in his political 
principles. Mrs. Bland is a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. She is a daughter of 
George T. and Sally C. Helm, and was born in 
Izard County, Ark., September 16, 1859. 

Dedrick Blevins is one of the practical and 
representative agriculturists of this region, and 
from early boyhood has been familiar with the oc 
cupation of farming, having learned the details of 
the work from his father, who was a worthy tiller 
of the soil. He is the owner of a good farm of 140 
acres, of which about sixty-five are under cultiva- 
tion, and his jsroperty is well improved with good 
buildings, fences, etc., and is also well stocked 
with the necessary animals for successfully con- 




Mississippi County , Ahkrnsas 



fT^/- 



« k. 



-i 9 



IZARD COUNTY. 



il8l 



ducting the same. Ho was bom in Sullivan County, 
Teun., March 20, 1847, and is a son of W. K. and 
Rachel (Morgan) Blevins, who were also Tennes- 
seeans, the former's birth occurring in Sullivan 
County, June 26, 1818, and the latter' s on the 
28th of April, 1822. In connection with his farm 
work the father was engaged in blacksmithing, 
which occupation he followed on his farm of I'iO 
acres. He died on the 3d of October, 1865, hav- 
ing been an earnest member of the Christian 
Church for many years, but his wife, who is a 
member of the Baptist Church, still lives and re- 
sides with her son, John W., on the old homestead. 
Her family consisted of nine children, whose names 
are as follows: Mary, Eliza, Nathaniel, Hiley A., 
Thomas \i., Lydia, Henry B. , John W. and Dod- 
rick. Seven of these children reside in the State 
of Arkansas, the last named child having been 
reared and educated in Izard County, acquiring a 
fair education in the common schools. After at- 
taining manhood he was married to Miss Lucy 
Davidson, their marriage being consummated on 
the 10th of September, 1868, and to them have 
been born nine children, five sons and four daugh- 
ters, six of the family being still alive and residing 
with their parents: David G., Emily C. , Lydia 
F., Bartholomew, Owen A., and an infant. Mr. 
Blevins joined the Confederate army June 8, 1864, 
and, after serving under Oen. Price, was discharged 
in 1865. He has held the office of school director 
and constable, and he and wife are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Charles Henry Boatman was born in the State 
of Tennessee, in 1844, and is a son of John and 
Rel)occa (Shore) Boatman, who were born in 
(lioigia and Tennessee, respectively, the former's 
birth occurring in 1786, and their marriage in Ten- 
ue.ssee in 1838. Four sons and three daughters 
were born to them: William E., Richard, Wiley, 
Lucinda, Elizabeth J. , Eliza F. and Charles Henry. 
Mr. Boatman was a farmer, and died in 1861, fol- 
lowed by his wife, whose death occurred in Izard 
County in 1886. They removed to this State in 
1850, and entered 160 acres in Izard County, on 
which they erected a little log cabin, which con- 
tinued to be their home for a number of years. 



Charles H. Boatman came with his parents to this 
county and State, but received a somewhat limited 
education in the schools of Izard County. He was 
married here, in 1860, to Mi.ss Sarah, a daughter 
of Henry Hose, and of nine children born to them 
seven are living: Rebecca J., Lucinda E., Ira E., 
Jose])h B., Franklin A., Jasper O. , Lewis H., and 
William W., and Andrew C. , deceased. Mr. Boat- 
man owns eighty acres of good land, with thirty 
under cultivation, and on his farm he erected a 
substantial frame residence, in 1885, and an add! 
tion to the same in 1888. His principal crops are 
corn, cotton and small grain. His wife, who was 
born in the State of Tennessee, in 1843, is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church. John 
Boatman enlisted in the Confederate infantry, 
under Capt. Thomas Smith, in 1861, and, at the 
battle of Shiloh, he was woimded in the head. He 
was also at Franklin, Nashville and Chickamauga. 
Tenn. , besides l)eiug a particij>aat in many other 
hard fought battles, and served until the war closed. 
James H. Bone is a native of Izard County, 
born on the 18th of June. 1857, and is one of five 
living members of a family of ten children born to 
the marriage of A. W. Bone and Sarah L. McKee, 
both Tennesseeans, the former's birth occurring on 
the 8th of October, 1826. He gave his attention 
to farming throughout life, and is now residing on 
his farm of 200 acres in Izard County, Ark., there 
being about seventy-five acres of his land undei- 
cultivation. He and wife arc church membei-s, ho 
being a member of the Olil School Presbyterian 
Church and she of the Cumberland Presliyterian, 
and they are 8ul)stantiHl residents of the county. 
James H. Bone received a good practical education 
in his youth, and learned the rudiments of farm 
life from his father, who was a practical agricull 
urist, and by attending strictly to hisfiiosi-n calling 
he has done much to advance the reputation the 
county enjoys as a prosi)erous farming community. 
He is careful ami painstaking in the cultivation of 
his land, and very thorough in everything con- 
nected with its management, and of the 180 acres 
which he possesses he has about sixty acres under 
cultivation. He was married, in his native county, 
on the 7th of Fel)ruary, 1S7S, to Miss Amanda M. 






932 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Taylor, a daughter of Stephen and Arena Taylor. 
Stephen Taylor was born in North Carolina, but 
moved to Tennessee at an early daj' and married 
there. He then came to Arkansas, after which his 
wife died, and later he married Miss Arena Hinkle 
who still survives, a resident of Izard County. 
She was born in the State of Tennessee. To the 
union of Mr. and Mrs. Bone five children have 
been born: Fannie E. , AVilliam H., Sarah A., 
Stephen W. and Samuel J. Mr. Bone has held a 
number of local offices in his township, and he has 
always been ready and willing to support enter- 
prises of a worthy character. He and wife are 
members of the Missionary Baptist Church. Mr. 
Bone's paternal grandfather came from Tennessee 
to Arkansas in 1840, and his great-grandfather, 
McKee, was born in Ireland. He went from there 
to Virginia. Grandfather McKee was born in Vir- 
ginia, in 1801 or 1802, and moved from there to 
Tennessee, and in 1851 he came to Arkansas. 

W. L. Bramblette is a farmer of Izard County, 
and although his land only amounts to eighty acres 
yet his farm is so well tilled that it yields a larger 
income than many larger farms. He was born in 
Murray County, Ga. , July 8, 1851, he being one 
of five sons and three daughters born to the mar- 
riage of Wiley Bramblette and Mary A. Howard, 
whose birthplace was in the ' ' Palmetto State, ' ' 
where they were reared and married. At the time 
of the father's death, which occurred in August, 
1861, he owned about 200 acres of laud in Izard 
County, Ark., whither he had moved in the year 
1856. His wife survives him and lives with her 
son, W. L. Bramblette, our subject. He was a 
Mason in good standing at the time of his death. 
W. L. Bramblette received the advantages of the 
common schools of Izard County in bis youth, and 
after attaining manhood was married in this county 
to Miss Sarah Mosier, whose native State was Ar- 
kansas, their nviptials Ijeing celebrated on the 27th 
of May, 1877, and to them were born five children, 
whose names are as follows: Owen M. , Minnie A., 
Arab B. , Buggie and Delia C. , all residing at home. 
Mr. Bramblette is a member of the Agricultural 
Wheel, and was president of this organization for 
one year. The family are attendants at the Baptist 



Church, to which our subject and his wife belong, 
and they are liberal contributors to enterprises 
tending to benefit the community in which they 
reside. 

G. W. Bray is one of the rising young farmers 
of this region, and since starting out in life for 
himself he has applied himself steadfastly to agri- 
cultural jjursuits, and with what success may be 
inferred when we mention the fact that since 1881 
he has owned a good farm of 193 acres. He was 
born in Mississippi in 1851, and is a son of Will- 
iam and Permelia (Aikin) Bray, who were natives 
of Tennessee, but moved to Mississippi at an early 
day, where they engaged in farming, and reared 
their family of ten children, only two of whom 
are now living. Mr. Bray died in 1843, and in 
1868 Mrs. Bray and her son, G. W. , came to Ar- 
kansas (whither her daughter Permelia, wife of 
W. F. Raider had previously come), their journey 
being made in an ox-cart, which they had bor- 
rowed. Mr. Bray now says at that time he had only 
$2 in cash, and that the oxen were borrowed from 
W. Garner, and the cart from Sandford Hames. 
The first two years after coming here he raised 
crops on shares, and then entered land, purchasing, 
in 1870, his first horse, for which he paid the sum 
of $80, 130 of which he earned by picking cotton on 
the bottom lands, and the balance he paid the follow- 
ing year. In 1871 he married Miss Alice Nail, 
who bore him five children: JohnH. , born in 1872; 
Martha B., born in 1873; William A., born in 
1877; George W., born in 1879, and Newton E., 
born in 1882. This wife died in 1883. In 1881 he 
purchased his present property, and has thirty 
acres under cultivation and seventy-five acres im- 
proved with good fences, buildings, orchards, etc. , 
his building especially being in excellent condition. 
This property has all been acquired through unre- 
mitting toil and judicious management, and he 
may with tnith be called one of the self-made men 
of the county. He always favors public improve- 
ment, and although he never went to school a day 
in his life he is making every effort to give his 
children, Permelia R. , Isaac R., Mary B. and 
Ellen E. , the advantages of which he was deprived. 
Before coming to Arkansas, and for two years 



^ e 



IZARD COUNTY. 



ysa i 



after, he supported his mother out of his \va<,'es 
earned by daily labor, and for this filial care if for 
nothing else ho deserves the respect of his fellow- 
men ; and when it is taken into consideration that 
he has manfully fought his way up to his ])resent 
position, and that he has been honest and upright 
in all his dealings, words are but meager things 
with which to express the admiration his conduct 
commands. In his political views he is a Demo- 
crat, and socially he is a member of the I. O. O. 
F. His wife, whom he married in 1883, was for- 
merlj' a Miss Docia Hames. 

E. A. Brown, one of the worthy residents of 
Izard County, Ark. , was born in Hall County, Ga. , 
on the 16th of August, 1824, and is a son of Will- 
iam and Nancy (Grimes) Brown, whose native 
State was South Carolina, the former's birth occur- 
ring in 1797. They were reared and married in 
their native State, and their union resulted in 
the births of four sons and five daughters, E. A. 
Brown being the only one of the family now living. 
The father was a carpenter by occupation, and 
died on the 26th of December, 1880, his death be- 
ing followed by his wife's on the 9th of January 
following. They were worshipers in, and consist- 
ent members of, the Presbyterian Church, and were 
worthy and honored residents of the community in 
which they resided. E. A. Brown was educated in 
the State of Georgia, near Lawrenceville, and after 
reaching manhood, was married there on the 14th 
of August, 1845, to Miss Susan Long, she being a 
native of the "Palmetto State," and a daughter 
of James and Margaret Long. At the time of his 
marriage Mr. Brown only owned a horse worth 
about $40, but, with the push and energy for which 
he has always been remarkable, he set bravely to 
work, and with the aid of his intelligent and estima- 
ble wife he has become the owner of 1,400 acres of 
land in Izard County and 9li0 acres in Sharp Coun- 
ty, about 875 acres of which are under cultivation. 
He is a member of the Masonic lodge,i8 a Democrat, 
in his political views, and on the breaking out of 
the late war he enlisted in the First Georgia Cav- 
alry, under Col. Morrison, and his first hard fight 
was near Knoxville, Tenn. He was discharged at 
Jacksonport in 1865. He and wife are members of 



the Baptist Church, and are tiie parents of the fol- 
lowing children: Henry, Wiley, Jane and Mollie. 
W. A. Bruuiitt, farmer, Franklin, Ark. This 
successful farmer was born in Fulton County, 
Ark., in 1859, and when only eleven years of age 
started out to fight life's Ijattle for himself. He 
first commenced as a hired hand, and for his serv- 
ices was boarded and clothed the first year, but the 
second year the same man paid him $12 a month 
for his labor. He confinuod working by the 
month on a farm until seventeen years of age, when 
he began traveling, and thus enjoyed himself for 
about twelve months, visiting as far north as Illi- 
nois and Kentucky, and as far south as Texas and 
the Indian Nation. When eighteen years of age 
he rented land and farmed in Sharp County, and 
when nineteen years of age he farmed and ran a cot- 
ton-gin. After this he rented the Wolf mill and con- 
ducted that for two years, after which he embarked 
in the distillery business for twelve months. lu 18S4 
he bought his present property, consisting of 220 
acres, with eighty under cultivation, and had this 
farm cultivated until 1889, when he took charge 
of the place himself. He was married in Decem- 
ber, 1878, to Miss Rebecca Jack.son, a native of 
this county, and born on the farm where they now 
reside. They are the parents of four childri'ii; 
Lucy A., W. P., Clara and James H. Mr. Bru- 
mitt has discharged the duties of justice of the 
peace in his township, and is now director of the 
public schools. He is a self-made man in everj- 
sense of the word and deserves the esteem of all 
for his enterprise and perseverance. His educa- 
tional advantages, as might be supposed, were 
rather limited, but by reading and observation he 
has become a well-informed man. He is a Repub- 
lican and is alive to the j)olitical issues of the day. 
His parents were R. H. and Elizabeth A. (Morris) 
Brumitt, natives of Tennessee and Kentucky, re 
spectively. R. H. Brumitt moved to Arkansas in 
1857, entering land on Strawberry River, Fulton 
County, but only resided there three years, when 
he moved to Independence County, settling in the 
northeast part of the same. In 1862 he moved 
to Illinois, settling in Johnson County, and there 
I remained for four years. In 1867 hi' caim' b.'ick 



A 



S k^ 



934 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



to his farm in Independence County, remained 
there until 1869, when he moved to Sharp County 
and there bought a farm of 360 acres. In 1883 
he Bold this farm and moved to Izard County, 
locating near the center of the county ' on a farm 
of 340 acres. He has been married three times; 
lirst, to the mother of the subject of this sketch, 
and they became the parents of two childi-en: Na- 
thaniel (deceased) and W. A. Mrs. Brumitt was 
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
died in 1867, at the age of fifty-two years. Mr. 
Brumitt' s second marriage was to Mrs. P. M. 
Hotchkiss, nee Shanks, and they had six children, 
live now living: Martha, wife of William Fry; 
James F., resides in this county; Susan J., at 
home; Lucy F., Daniel H. and Mary A. (deceased). 
Mrs. Brumitt was a worthy member of the Baptist 
Church, and died in 1881. By his third marriage, 
to Mrs. Mahala Thompson, nee Richardson, he 
became the father of one child, Naomi A. Mr. 
Brumitt is a member of the I. O. O. F. lodge, 
and is still quite an active man. He is a Repub- 
lican, but does not take a very active part in poli- 
tics. Mrs. Brumitt is a member of the Primitive 
Baptist Church. 

Joseph L. Byler was born in Middle Tennes- 
see, in 1834, his father, John Byler, being also 
born in that State in 1797. The latter was a sol- 
dier in the War of 1812, and was the captain of a 
company, afterward being promoted to major, 
and this latter position he held until the close of 
the war. In the year 1820 he united in the bonds 
of matrimony to Miss Middia Adkinson, a daugh- 
ter of John Adkinson, and to their union seven 
children have been bom, two of whom are now 
living: Mary and Joseph L. He removed from 
Tennessee to Izard County, Ark., in the year 1847, 
and obtained a land warrant from the government 
for 160 acres of land, which he farmed with suc- 
cess up to the time of his death, in 1873. His wife 
died in Bedford County, Tenn. , in 1844. At the 
age of eighteen years Joseph L. Byler engaged in 
farming and stock raising, and in these two enter- 
prises, which have been his chief calling through 
life, he has met with marked success. He owns 
250 acres of land on Rocky Bayou, and has about 



ninety acres under cultivation, which he devotes 
principally to the raising of cotton, corn and small 
grain. In addition to this, he owns a large cot- 
ton-gin and gi'ist-mill, which he has operated for 
the past twelve years, last year putting up 166 
bales of cotton, and since 1887 he has been en- 
gaged in merchandising, and has a fair patronage. 
Since Cleveland's administration he has held the 
office of postmaster of Alder, and socially is a 
member of the Masonic and Odd Fellow's fraterni- 
ties. He is a thorough, enterprising business man, 
has a host of friends, and is recognized by all as a 
good citizen. In 1854 he was married to Rachel, 
the daughter of John and Elizabeth Gray, of Izard 
County, but she died in 1868, leaving him with a 
family of five children to care for: Augusta C, 
Mary E., Mentian, Sarah J. and Rachel R. In 
1871 he was married to his second wife, whose 
maiden name was Lettie W. Woody, she being a 
daughter of Joseph and Sarah Woody, of Izard 
County. They have a family of three children: 
Dixie E., Joseph G. and Edna. Mr. Byler served 
in the Confederate army under Capt. Gibson and 
Col. Shaler from 1861 to 1865, being in the in- 
fantry, and was a participant in a number of bat- 
tles. He is now a stanch Democrat in his polit- 
ical views, and for a number of years has been a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
William W. Campbell. The farm which Mr. 
Campbell now owns and conducts in such an enter- 
prising and industrious manner embraces 340 
acres of land, of which 125 are under cultivation, 
forming one of the neat, comfortable homesteads 
of this township. The improvements upon it are 
convenient and complete, and, no doubt, one 
reason of his success in this calling is the fact that 
from his earliest youth he has been familiar with 
the duties of farm labor. He was born in the 
"Old North State" in 1838, his father, William 
R. Campbell, also being born there, the latter's 
birth occurring in 1813. The latter received a 
somewhat limited education in his youth, but in his 
business enterprises was quite successful, and be- 
came the owner of 550 acres of land. He was 
married to Miss Mary Howard, a daughter of John 
Howard, of Iredell County, and to their union a 



^1 



IZARD COUNTY. 



family of eleven children were born, seven sons 
and four daughters: James A., William W., Sarah 
A., Faunie, Martin H. , Augustus W., Henry F., 
Samuel P., Mary, Preston B. and Alice. The 
family emigrated from North Carolina to 
Izard County, Ark., in 1856, and here Ijocame 
prominent citizens. The father purchased 200 
acres of land, which he devoted principally to 
raising corn and small grain, and during his life- 
time he was quite active in politics, and held the 
office of magistrate for some years. He volun- 
teered to serve in the Mexican War, but before he 
entered service peace was declared. He, as well 
as his wife, were active members of the Mission- 
ary Baptist Church, and his death occurred in 
Izard County, Ark., in 1883. William W. Camp- 
bell received a common school education in North 
Carolina, and, in 1859, began life for himself in 
Izard County, with the results above stated. Upon 
the breaking out of the Civil W'av he (>nlisted 
in the infantry, bxit later joined the cavahy, being 
under Gens. McCarver and Hardy, but was dis- 
charged while serving under the latter, at Poca- 
hontas. He next enlisted under Gen. Shaler, and 
was taken prisoner at Cape Girardeau, Mo., and 
was taken to St. Louis, where he was confined for 
six months. He served in all four years. He is a 
Mason, a member of the I. O. O. F., and is a man 
who enjoys an extensive acquaintance, and is 
highly respected. He has been married three 
times; fir.st, in 1860, to Miss Hiley J. Walker, a 
daughter of John Walker, of Izard County, but 
she died in 1863, leaving one child, Pierce W. 
She was a member of the Baptist Church, and was 
an estimable woman in every respect. In 1864 Mr. 
Campbell took for his second wife Miss Hiley J. 
High tower, Nathan High tower's daughter, but her 
death occurred in 1876, she having borne him two 
children, Sarah A. and Martha J. She was also 
a consistent member of the Baptist Church. Mrs. 
Caroline Smith became his third wife in 1883, her 
father's name being Andrew James. This mar- 
riage resulted in the birth of the following family: 
Patrick O. , Edward B. , Augustus A. and Maggie O. 
Henry F. Campbell is a native of North Caro- 
lina, born in 18-i8, and like the majority of the 



^^^=4^ 



native born residents of that State, he i.-< .■ii.>rg(tic 
and enterprising. A short history of his father, 
William R. Campbell, appears in the sketch of 
Milliam W. Campbell. Henry F. Campbell re- 
ceived the education and rearing which is usually 
given the farmer's boy, and after reaching man- 
hood was married in Izard County, Ark., to Miss 
Mary E. Helen, a daughter of George C. Helen, 
of this county. To them have been born the fol- 
lowing interesting family of children: James T., 
William C, Mary E., and Cornelia F. Like so 
many of the substantial citizens of this country at 
the present time, Mr. Campbell was initiated into 
the mysteries of farm life from the very fii-st, and 
this has since continued to be the calling to which 
his attention has been directed. He now owns and 
operates 240 acres of land in Izard County, and 
has sixty-five acres under cultivation, which he de- 
votes to the raising of cotton, corn and oats. In 
1880 he erected a cotton-gin on his farm, which 
has been in operation each succeeding year, and in 
1888 he ginned 140 bales of cotton. He built 
a substantial residence in 1881; and is one of the 
largest and most successful fruit growers in this 
section of the country. His marriage occurred in 
1874, and his wife lived until the 7th of March, 
1889, when she was called to her long home. She 
was a consistent member of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South, and Mr. Campbell belongs to 
the Baptist Church. His mother was born in 
North Carolina in 1816, her parents being also 
natives of that State, and they were the parents of * 
the following family of children; Martin, James. 
Polly, Sarah, Lemira iind Millie. 

John W. Cone, farmer, Newburg, Ark. Mr. 
Cone is one of the rejiresentative young farmers of 
Newburg Townshi[). and is closely a.ssociated with 
the agricultural affairs of the county. His birth 
occurred on the 5th of July, 1850, in Tenue.ssee, 
and his youth was passed in attending the common 
schools and in assisting his father on the farm in 
Tennessee. He came with his father to Arkansas, 
in 1870, and settled on the farm where he now re- 
sides. Four years later ho wedded Miss Mollie A. 
Freeman, a native of Tennessee, but who vnxa 
reared in Arkansas, this county. Four children 



— V 



k 



936 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



are the result of this union: George T., Cora E., 
Bosa H. and John B. Mr. Coue commenced farm- 
ing for himself at the age of twenty- one years on 
his father's land, and at the end of two years 
bought his present property, which then consisted 
of 140 acres, but he has added to this until he now 
has 260 acres with 160 under cultivation. Soon 
after arriving at his majority he commenced travel- 
ing, and journeyed over Tennessee, Kentucky and 
Illinois, and did not commence saving anything for 
a rainy day until twenty -five years of age. He is a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. , is a Democrat in his 
political views, and he and wife are members of 
the Christian Church. His parents, Bev. G. W. 
and Margaret (Howland) Cone, were natives of 
North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. G. 
W. Cone was a minister in the Christian Church, 
and followed this calling for forty years, although 
in connection he also carried on farming. He was 
married in Tennessee, in 1847, and lived there 
until 1870, when he moved to Izard County, Ark., 
and settled on the farm adjoining his son's (John 
W. Cone) tine tract of land. There he now resides 
and is in his seventy-third year, but is still active 
and in the enjoyment of comparatively good health. 
He was quite well off previous to the war, but lost 
the principal part of his property during that ex- 
citing period. He and wife reared a family of 
eight children, all living: Tennessee, wife of B. 
F. Smith, of this county; John W., J. B., resides 
in this county; Mary J., wife of W. C. Bounds, 
and lives in Texas County, Mo. ; I. N., wife of W. 
C. Aylor; Cassie M., wife of C. E. Jett; Maggie 
W. , wife of H. Lacy, and Thomas F., who lives in 
this county. The mother of these children is in 
her fifty- eighth year. The paternal grandfather 
was of Irish descent as was also the grandmother, 
whose maiden name was Norwood. The maternal 
grandparents of John W. Cone were John F. and 
Ellen (Miller) Howland, and the grandfather was 
a soldier in the Mexican War. 

J. M. J. Conyers deserves honorable mention 
as one of the successful agriculturists of Izard 
County, and, owing to his own enterprise and 
push, he has become the owner of 307 acres of 
land, with about 110 acres under cultivation, all 



of which is located in Dry Town Township. He 
was born in Hart County, Ky. , March 6, 1836, 
and is one of three sons born to P. C. and Eliza 
(Ralston) Conyers, both of whom were born on 
Blue Grass soil, and were there reared, educated 
and married. After the death of his wife, in 1838, 
he espoused Miss Tabitha Gouch, she also being a 
Kentuckian; their union was consummated in 
March, 1842. This marriage resulted in the birth 
of thirteen children, of which family three were 
boys and the rest girls. Seven of these children 
are now living. At the time of Mr. Conyers death, 
March 4, 1865, he was the owner of 240 acres of 
land. His widow -survives him, and resides with 
a son in Izard County, Ark. The father was a 
Mason, and a member of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. J. M. J. Conyers received an ex- 
cellent education in Henry County, Tenn., but in 
the year 1867, he removed to Arkansas, and was 
afterward married to Miss Nannie Billington, a 
daughter of William and Pemelia Billington, of 
Tennessee. To their marriage, which occurred on 
the 6th of February, 1867, have been born a fami- 
ly of eleven children (eight of whom are living): 
William P., Thomas A., Franklin M. , James A., 
Newton A., Nathaniel E. , Dora A., Nancy A., 
Mary E. , Jeptha A. and Sarah J. Mr. Conyers 
has held the office of Junior Deacon in the Masonic 
order, and in public life has been deputy sheriff 
of the county, and has also held the position of 
constable of his township. He and wife worship 
in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, of which 
he has been a worthy member since 1853. 

David Craige, proprietor of the Izard County 
Register, Melbourne, Ark. The name of Craige 
is honorably connected with the prosperity and 
happiness of Melbourne and the county of Izard, 
for his paper enters the homes of many, and with 
its progressive ideas and newsy articles, receives 
a ready welcome. This paper is the only one in 
the county. David Craige is a native of Rowan 
County, N. C, born in the year 1836, and is the 
son of John and Jane (Thomason) Craige, both 
natives of North Carolina, The father was a de- 
scendant of a Scotch family, and owned a number 
of slaves. He was a Democrat, but not active in 



-5.pr 



IZARD COUNTY. 



St:{7 



polities. He ilied aliunt 1847, at the ajije of forty- 
five years, ami bis wife died about 1840, at the age 
of thirty five years. The paternal grandfather 
served as a colonel dining the entiri> War for In- 
dependence. David Craige divided his time in 
early youth in assisting on the farm and in at- 
tending the common schools of his county. At the 
age of fifteen years he commenced serving an ap- 
prenticeship at the printer's trade in Lincolnton, 
N. C. , and after following this for some time, he 
came to Batesville. Ark., in lSr)2, and went to work 
on the Commercial Standard, run by John C. 
Claiborne. Mr. Claiborne only ran the paper a 
year, when he sold to Urban E. Fort, and the 
name and political status were changed from a 
Democratic to a Whig. It then became known as 
the Independent Balance, and was run under that 
name until the commencement of the war. About 
1855 Prof. M. Shelbj' Kennard assumed control of 
the paper, and through all the political changes 
Mr. Craige worked at this paper until the breaking 
out of the war. On account of poor health he was 
exempt from service, and during the war, and for 
a few years afterward, he was engaged in agricnl- 
tural pursuits on North Fork and Piney Bayou. 
In 1871 he returned to the printing business and 
worked on the North Arkansas Times, published 
by Charles Maxwell and Dr. ]M. McClure of Bates- 
ville, Ark., and Democratic in its principles. He 
continued with this paper until 1873, when he 
went to Jacksonport, and was engaged as journey- 
man on the Statesman, a Republican journal, 
edited by John Fagan. From 1873 to 1883 Mr. 
Craige merely rusticated, for his health was quite 
poor at that time. In 1883 or 1884 he took charge 
of the Sharp County Record for J. W. Buckley, 
and managed that for three years. In January, 
1887, he first leased the Register, but in No- 
vember, 1888, purchased the same, and runs the 
paper in the interests of the Democratic party. 
Ho was married March 20, 1887, to Jliss Elizabeth 
Campbell, daughter of Archibald Campbell, of this 
county, who was originally from Iredell County, 
N. C. , and is one of the old settlers of Izard 
County. Mr. Craige is now permanently located, 
having married in his fifty- first year, and with the 

59 



extensive circulation his paper has already ob 
tained, commands the respect and confidence of 
many of the reading pulilic. Politically he is. of 
course, a Democrat. 

Dr. John M. Creswell is a native of Izard 
County, and was born on the 20th of May. 1 857. 
being one of nine living members of a family of 
eleven children born to James C. and Martha 
(Mann) Creswell, the former a native of Arkansas, 
born in 1826, and the latter of Tennessee. James 
received a very limited education in his youth, and 
afterward followed the occupation of farming: and 
although he was badly crippled financially during 
the war, by diligent subsequent labors he was the 
owner of a good farm of 1(50 acres at the time of 
his death, on the 2l8t of March, 1881. In 18*58 
he moved to Bell County, Tex., but not liking the 
country he returned to Arkansas at the end of six 
months, and settled at Sylamore (now in Stone 
County), but two years later ciime to Izard County. 
He served in the Confederate army from 18(53 to 
1865, and was captain of his company, being under 
Gen. Price, and was with him on his raid through 
Missouri, participating in the battle of Pilot Knob. 
He surrendered at Jacksonport. Ark., June 5. 186r(, 
and then returned home. He was married in 1854. 
the following being his children, who are now 
living: John M.. Solon M.. Cyrus J.. James L. . 
Rufus C. Martha D. (wife of J. D. Denton), Will- 
iam D., HaiTiet E. and Homer Z. Mr. Creswell 
was a member in good standing of the A. F. & 
A. M. at the time of his death, and was a man who 
took great interest in all worthy public movements 
and gave his children good educational advantages. 
His widow survives him. Dr. John M. Creswell 
was reared on a farm but spent the most of his 
time in school, being an attendant of the La Crosse 
Academy from 1871 to 1878, the institution at this 
time being under Profs. H. C. Tipton and ^I. 
Shelby Kennard. In 1880 he entered the St. Louis 
Homtepathic College and gi-adnated from this in- 
stitution two years later, delivering the valedictory 
address at the commt>ncemi>nt exercises, and was 
honorably mentioned in Materia Medica and Surg 
ei"y. He has been engaged in practicing at his 
present location ever since, and lias won an envi- 



•*j N- 



938 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



able reputation among the medical fraternity of 
the county, and is acknowledged by all to be a 
successful physician. On the 7th of May, 1885, 
he was united in marriage to Miss Martha C. Peel, 
of Izard County, and by her became the father of 
one child, who is deceased. They are members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is a Royal 
Arch Mason, and a member of the I. 0. O. F. The 
paternal grandparents, James L. and Margaret 
(Laferty) Creswell, were very early settlers of 
Izard County, and here the grandfather died at 
the age of fifty-five years; four of his sisters also 
died when fifty five years of age. The maternal 
grandfather. Rev. John H. Mann, was a minister 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and 
came to Izard County from the State of Tennessee 
in 1830. His death occurred in 1872, aged sixty. 
Wiley Croom is a Tennesseean, bom in 1840, 
and a son of Denajah and Mary (Daniel) Croom, 
who were born, reared and married in North Caro- 
lina, the latter event taking place in 1825. The 
father was born in 1805, and about 1828 or 1830 
removed to the State of Tennessee, and was there 
engaged in farming up to 1849, when he came to 
Arkansas, and after renting land one year he re- 
turned to Tennessee. He continued to make his 
home in this State until 1854, and from that time 
until 1856 he was a resident of Lawrence County; 
then resided one year in Greene County, Mo., 
after which he again returned to Lawrence County. 
He here purchased 160 acres of land, which he 
was engaged in farming until 1863, at which date 
he removed to Illinois and farmed on rented land 
until 1866. From that time until his death, in 
1871, be was a resident of Lawrence County, Ark. 
He was a member of the Baptist Church, as was 
his wife, whose death occurred in 1870, she being 
a daughter of Owen Daniel, of North Carolina. 
Of sixteen children born to Mr. and Mrs. Croom, 
the following are now living: Nancy, wife of Eph- 
raim Sharp, of Lawrence County, Ark. ; Elizabeth, 
Mariah, wife of Whit B. Smith; Jesse, Wiley, 
Hiram, and Drucilla, the wife of John M. Smith. 
Wiley Croom, our immediate subject, began life 
for himself in 1865. farming on rented land for 
two years, and then purchased a farm of I'iO acres 



in Izard County, the tilling of which has since re- 
ceived his attention, but his acreage is now 185, 
and he has sixty -five under the plow. Since 1878 
he has been engaged in grist-milling in Oxford, at 
which time he erected a substantial mill, and in 
these two enterprises the results have been highly 
satisfactory. His union to Miss Sarah J. Pearson 
occurred in 1866, she being a daughter of Thomas 
Pearson, of Lawrence County, Ark. , and to them 
have been born five sons and three daughters : Mary 
M., wife of J. L. Smith, of Oxford; David F.. 
Hiram F., Ida J., wife of A. H. Caldwell, of Ox- 
ford; Denajah, Anna B., Thomas W. and Grover 
C. Mr. Croom is a Democrat. In 1861 he en- 
listed in the Confederate army, under Col. McCar- 
ver, find was in many important battles during his 
service. He was captured at Big Black, Miss., 
and taken to Fort Delaware, on the Delaware River, 
and was kept there until September, then being 
taken to Point Lookout, on the Chesapeake Bay. 
He was kept in captivity from May 17, 1863, till 
January, 1864, when he was released and returned 
to Arkansas. Here he again entered the service, 
this time enlisting under Capt. Wiley Jones, and 
served until the surrender at Jacksonport, in 1865. 
Marion D. Crutchfield was born in Orange 
County, N. C. , in 1846, and is a son of James W. 
Crutchfield, who was born in North Carolina, July 
6,1811. The latter first married Levina, the daugh- 
ter of Alex. Lashley, their union taking place on 
the 13th of March, 1836, but her death occurred 
the following year, she having borne one child, 
Salina. For his second wife he took, in 1841, a 
daughter of Acquilla Jones, her name being Sallie 
P., and three sons and three daughters have been 
born to them. Mr. Crutchfield emigrated from 
North Carolina to White County, Ark., in 1849. 
and here he took up government land to the 
amount of 160 acres, near Searcy, but the follow- 
ing year he moved to Newton County, and bought 
eighty acres and entered eighty acres more, and 
here made his home until his death in 1860, his 
wife, who was a member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, having died here a j'ear earlier. 
Marion D. Crutchfield, having learned farming and 
blacksmithing of his father, began doing for him- 



IZARD COUNTY. 



MQ 



self in 1861, and when the war broke out be joined 
tlie infantry, but afterward joined the cavalry un- 
der Capt. Harvey Lane. In 1868 he was captured 
in Newton County, Ark. , and at the end of about 
three weeks, after being kept at Springfield, was 
released, and joined the Federal army. After his 
return home he resumed farming and blacksmith- 
ing, and by his own good management has a fine 
farm of 580 acres, with 250 acres under cultiva- 
tion, his principal products being corn, cotton, 
millet and the small grains. He has a fine fruit 
orchard of about 500 bearing trees, and, take it all- 
in-all, he has one of the finest and best improved 
farms in the county. In connection with his farm 
work, he has also been engaged in blacksmithing. 
He is a Democrat, a member of the I. O. O. F., and 
he and wife, whom he married on the 7th of Jan- 
uary, 1869, and whose maiden name was Martha 
M. Cargill, are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Chiu'ch, South, and are the parents of the 
following children: Lueian E., Ida A., Elmer 
W. and Henry G. Those deceased are James P, , 
Florence I. and Marion F. His wife was born in 
Kentucky in 1846, and is a daughter of Mr. and 
Mrs. John P. Cargill, the former a native of North 
Carolina, born in 1812, and the latter of Kentucky, 
born in 1819. This couple became the parents of 
the following family: William, James, Mary E., 
Sarah M. and Susan S. ; and those deceased are 
Thomas C. , Jonathan and Louiza. Mr. and Mrs. 
Cargill are residing in Izard County, and the 
former is a member of the Baptist Church. 

Thomas P. Cypert was born in Wayne County, 
Tenn. , in 1820, his parents, Jesse and Jemima 
(Worthen) Cypert, being Virginians by liiiih. To 
them were born seven sons and four daughters: 
Nancy, Elizabeth, John, Zacharias, William, James 
W., Thomas P., Robert J., Jesse Newton, Sarah 
W. and Felicia Ann. At an early day the parents 
moved to Wayne County, Tenn., where thoy en- J 
tered land, and followed the occupation of farm- I 
ing for many years. The father served in the | 
War of 1812. and died in Tennessee in 1856, and 
liis wife in 1858. Thomas P. Cypert embarked in j 
life for himself in 18-12, following the occupation I 
of farming, and by energy and good management 



has become the owner of 160 acres of land, fifty 
of which are under cultivation and are devoted to the 
cultivation of corn, cotton and small grain. He 
also raises considerable stock. In 1861 he en- 
listed in the infantry under Capt. Deason, and was 
with the troops stationed at Bowling (ireen, Kv.. 
during that year, but after participating in the 
battle of Shiloh, the following year he was dis 
charged, and upon returning resumed farming, 
which occupation has since received his attention. 
He has been a resident of Izard County. Ark., 
since 1852, and is considered by all one of its in 
dustrious and enterprising citizens. The year 
1846 witnessed his marriage to Miss Temperance 
Brown, a daughter of Levi Brown, by whom he 
became the father of eleven children: John T. , 
Sarah A., Delphina. Mary. Levi J., Jesse N., 
Jemima C, Mack, Lydia. George W., Emma F.. 
Levi and Jesse (twins). 

William Davis is one of the old and highly 
honored residents of Izard County, and durinir the 
many years devoted to agricultural pursuits in this 
region he has become well and favorably known. 
His farm comprises 252 acres, of which eighty acres 
are under cultivation, and it is well improved with 
good buildings and orchards. Some portions of 
his land are underlaid with minerals and are con- 
sidered very valuable. He was born in Campbell 
County, Tenn., in 1815, and is a son of James 
Davis, who was born in Kentuck.y. The latter re- 
ceived a liberal education in his youth, and gave « 
his attention to the occupation of farming. He 
served in the ^\'ar of 1812, was a member of the 
Primitive Baptist Church, and after his marriage 
to Miss Sallie Cushenbury, of Tenue8.see, he re- 
moved to Kentucky (in 1829), where he purcha.sed 
land and reared his family of six sons and six 
daughters: Patsey, Nancy, Baxter, (teorge, Anna, 
James, Ursula, William, Ferroliy. Joseph, John 
and Emaiuiel. William Davis, the immediate sub 
ject of this sketch, was married to Miss Bethenia 
Dobbs, of Kentucky, in 1.835. but her death oc- 1 
curred in 1858, she having borne a family of 
eleven children, eight of whom survive: Mary A.. 
James, Emanuel, Ferrol>y, Simon, Mark, Ollie and 
Nancy. In the latter part of 1858 Mr. Davis took 






^ 



940 



HISTOEY OF ARKANSAS. 



for his second wife Harriet A., the daughter of 
Isaac Bettis, of Izard County, Ark. This union 
resulted in the birth of twelve children, seven now 
living: William A. Baxter, Rufus M., Martha E., 
Anthony W. , Tennessee and Minnie L. Their son, 
Rufus M., was married in 1888 to Miss Julia 
Cunningham, of Izard County, and they reside 
on the homestead with Mr. Davis. They have one 
child, Willie. The family attend the Missionary 
Baptist Church, of which Mr. and Mrs. Davis 
have long been members. 

W. O. Dillard. The family of which the sub- 
ject of this sketch is a representative, is one well 
known to the people of Izard County, for one or 
more of its members have been identified with its 
agricultural interests since 1849, when Alex. Dil- 
lard and his family located here. The latter was 
married to Delilah Legau, both being natives of 
Tennessee, and, throughout his entire life, he was 
engaged in farming and merchandising, following 
the latter occupations at Spring Creek and Flat 
Woods after coming to Arkansas. He served as 
justice of the peace and deputy sheriff of his coun- 
ty, and, during the time he served in the latter 
capacity, he transacted the greater portion of the 
business which should have been attended to by 
the sheriff. He was quite a wealthj' man prior to 
the war, and owned several negroes, but his losses 
during the rebellion were very heavy, and these 
he never fully regained. He died in 1867, at the 
age of fifty-nine years. To his marriage, which 
occurred in 1825, were born a family of seven chil- 
dren, three of whom lived to be grown, and two 
now living: J. A., a resident of this county, and 
W. O. John C. died while serving in the Mexican 
War, being sergeant of his company. Both par- 
ents were meaibers of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, and the mother's death occurred 
in 1837 or 1838. Mr. Dillard's second wife was 
Mary Wood, of Tennessee, and she is now the wife 
of John Anderson. W. O. Dillard remained with 
his father until twenty-seven years of age, then 
commenced for himself, farming on his own land, 
which was situated on White River, in Izard Coun- 
ty. This property he sold in 1806, and bought 
202 acres on another portion of White River, about 



eighty acres of which are under cultivation, and 
in addition to this owns 1,000 acres, the entire 
amount of his land under cultivation amounting to 
250 acres. In 1862 he joined the Confederate 
army as a private, but was afterward promoted to 
the rank of second lieutenant, and served three 
years under Col. Freeman, and was with Price 
on his raid through Missouri. He suiTendered at 
Jacksonport, Ark. , on the 5th of June, 1865, and 
returned home and resumed farming. From 1869 
to 1875 he was successfully engaged in merchandis- 
ing, and since that time he has been occupied with 
farming. He was married, in 1857, to Miss Aver- 
illa Jeffrey, but she died in 1868, after having 
borne four children, three now living: James L. , 
Nancy J. , wife of Neely Talley, and Alex. Mary 

E. is deceased. In 1869 Mr. Dillard wedded his 
second wife, she being a Mrs. Sarah Slavens, and 
to them three childi'en have been born: J. J., 
John C. and W. O. Mr. Dillard was called upon 
to mourn the death of this wife in 1879, and in 
1881, his third wife, who was a Miss Sallie Harris, 
also died, their marriage having been consummated 
in 1880. His marriage to his present wife, who 
was a Miss Adelaide Cantrell, took place in 1883. 
They have two children: George C. and Charley 
R. Mr. Dillard's first two wives were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, his third wife 
was a Cumberland Presbyterian, and he and his 
present wife belong to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. He is a Democrat, a member of the A. 

F. & A. M. , and is a man who favors and sup- 
ports all laudable enterprises, especially those con- 
nected with churches and schools. 

George J. Dillard is a native-born resident of 
Izard County, Ark. , and was born in the year 
1850. He is a son of Hill and Eliza (Creswell) 
Dillard, the former's birth having occurred in the 
"Old Dominion," in 1814. The fatherwasone of 
the leading farmers of the section in which he resid- 
ed, and during slavery times, owned a great many 
negroes. Although he received a limited early 
education, he possessed sound judgment and a keen 
and active intellect, and was a man who stood well 
in the estimation of all who knew him. The fol- 
lowing family wereborn to himself and wife: Eliza- 



■^s- 



■S k^ 



IZARD COUNTY. 



941 



betb, the wife of B. T. Roose; Martha, also married, 
Sarah, now Mrs. Billingsley, all of whom reside iu 
this county. Mr. Dillard removed to this county 
and State in 1836, coming overland, and entered a 
large tract of land, and, at the time of his death, 
owned about 1,000 acres. He built him a cedar- 
log hilt in the woods and in this primitive struct- 
ure, his son, George J. Dillard, was born. After 
making this county his home until 1863 he moved 
to the State of Texas, where he died two years 
later. George J. Dillard, like his father, has fol- 
lowed the occupation of farming all his life, and 
like him, has been successful. His farm, which 
comprises 264 acres, of which 130 acres are under 
cultivation, he devotes chiefly to raising cotton, 
corn and small grains, and throughout the county 
he is well and favorably known. Although he at- 
tended the La Crosse school for some time, which 
was under the management of Prof. Kennard, his 
early education was somewhat limited, but by read- 
ing and contact with the world, he is considered 
one of the well posted men of the county. In 1872 
be was married to Miss Rebecca Shell, a daughter 
of AVilliam and Catherine Shell, of Izard County, 
and l)y her has a family of seven children: Edward, 
William D. , Ollie, Elizabeth, James, Hul)l)ard and 
Catherine. 

William K. Estes, county and circuit clerk, 
Melliourne, Ark. In his present position as clerk 
of the county and circuit court of this county, Mr. 
Estes is proving himself to be efficient and popu- 
lar, and the manner in which he has acquitted 
himself has justly won him the name of being 
possessed of more than ordinary business aliility. 
He is a native-born citizen of this county, his birth 
occurring on the 5th of September, 1853, and he 
is the son of Thomas N. and Lucy R. (Johnson) 
Estes, and the grandson of Burris and Martha 
(Morris) Estes, natives of North Carolina. The 
grandfather came to Tennessee at an early day, 
and was there married about 1825. He was a 
leading agriculturist, and died near the close of 
the late war, leaving consideralile property in land 
and slaves. He was a member of the Baptist 
Church, as was also his wife, who died shortly 
after his death. The paternal gieat-grandfather 



of William K. Estes was an officer in the war for 
independence, and had in the same army with him- 
self eleven cousins of the same name and sons 
of one father. He drew from the government 
600 acres of land, and located his claim in 
Henry County, Tenn., where he passed his last 
days. Thomas N. Estes was born in Tennessee, 
but moved to this State in 1852, and was married 
that year to Miss Lucy R. Johnson, who bore hiui 
three children: W. K., John J. (who is a book- 
keeper at Evening Shade, Sharp Coimtj'), and Sam 
uel C. (who is clerking in a dry goods store, at Ash 
Flat, Ark.) The mother of these children died in 
1858. She was a member of the Baptist Church. 
Mr. Estes was married the second time, in 1869, to 
Mrs. Minerva R. Wilson, tiee Kimmins; both are 
members of the Baptist Church. The same year 
they moved to Izard County, where Mr. Estes has 
a fine farm of 200 acres, with thirty or forty under 
cultivation, and on which are good buildings, etc. 
In 1849 he crossed the plains to California, and 
after suffering untold hardships and after being 
on the road over six months, reached that State. 
He then followed mining until 1852, met with rea- 
sonable success and returned to Arkansas in the 
above mentioned year. He was countj' clerk of 
Fulton County from 1862 to 1864, and also served 
in the Confederate army. William K. Estes' early 
life was divided between assisting on the farm and 
in attending the common schools of bis county. At 
the age of twenty years he started out for himself 
by continuing the pursuit to which he had been 
reared, and followed this occupation uninterrupt 
edly for a long time. In 1879 be moved to the 
city, and served as deputy clerk from that timeun 
til 1884, when be was elected county clerk, though 
he had first been deputy clerk in November, 187<'). 
He tilled this ofiice in such a capable and efbcieiit 
manner, and so popular did be become, that be was 
complimented by being re-elected in 1886, serving 
until 1888. He has been twice married: first, in 
1873, to Mi.S8 Lurana E. Wilson, l)y whom he bad 
five children: Lucy E., Walter H., Jasper M., 
Allie M. and Ford W. Mrs. Estes was born on 
the 3d of March. 1855, and died on the 13tb of 
August, 18S6. She was a member uf the Baptist 



<S w_ 



942 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Church. Mr. Estes' second marriage was to Miss 
Nancy C. Kitchens, on the 30th of January, 1887. 
They have one child, Earl T. Mr. and Mrs. Estes 
are both church members, she of the Christian de- 
nomination and he of the Baptist. He is a member 
of the A. F. & A. M. and R. A. M. , and also a mem- 
ber of the Subordinate Lodge and the Encampment 
of Odd Fellows. In politics he is Democratic. 

James H. Garner was born in Tennessee, in 
1834, and is a son of John Garner, who.se native 
State was North Carolina, where he was born on 
the 1st of August, 1808. In his youth he re- 
moved to Tennessee with his parents, and in this 
State he received the advantages of the common 
schools, and as far back as he could remember he 
had been familiar with farm work. In 1831 his 
marriage with Miss Sarah B. Greer was celebrated, 
she being a daughter of Joshua and Polly Greer. 
Five sons and three daughters were born to John 
Garner and wife: William T. , Washington L., Ed- 
ward P. , John D. , Mary E. , Francis and Lucy C. 
Mr. Garner removed from Tennessee to Izard 
County, Ark., in 1858, and purchased a farm of 
eighty acres, which he successfully conducted un- 
til his death on the 21st of August, 1872. His 
wife, who was born in Tennessee, February 19, 
1816, still lives on the old homestead, and both were 
members of the Christian Church. James H. Gar- 
ner's youth was spent in his native State, and in 
1859 he followed his father to Izard County, Ark., 
and purchased a woodland farm of 120 acres near 
him. On this he built a house and established his 
family, and in time became able to purchase 280 
acres more, of which he has 150 acres under the 
plow. On this he raises corn and cotton, and as a 
large portion of his farm is underlaid with mineral 
ore it is very valuable. He has now in jirocess of 
erection a commodious frame residence on his Piuey 
Creek farm, and in looking over Mr. Garner's 
domains it can easily be seen that he thoroughly un- 
derstands his business and is thrifty and energetic. 
He was married to Miss Mary E. Murphy, a 
daughter of Gilston Murphy, of Illinois, and by 
her has a family of seven children: John It., Na- 
than F., William L., Jessie B. , James E., Henry 
B. , Thomas F. and Edwin L. When the war broke 



out he joined Company E, and was two years in 
the infantry under Capt. Gibson, and from that 
time until the close of the war he was in the cav- 
alry under Capt. Powell. He was at Little Rock, 
Independence and Kansas City, and surrendered 
at Jacksonport in 1865. He is a Democrat in his 
political views, and from 1872 to 1876 served as 
justice of the peace; in 1887 he was appointed 
deputy sheriff under R. L. Sanders, of Izard Coun- 
ty. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
having been Master of his lodge two years. 

B. F. Garner was born in the State of Tennes- 
see, in 1836, his parents, William P. and Harriet 
(Greer) Garner, being also natives of that State, 
the former's birth occurring in 1813. They were 
married in their native State in 1835, she being a 
daughter of Joshua Greer, and in 1859 they re- 
moved to Izard County, Ark., and purchased a 
farm of 240 acres, and here he was engaged in 
farming and i:)reaching (he being a minister of the 
Christian Church) up to the time of his death, in 
1870. His wife died in 1860, and three or four 
years later he wedded Miss Martha Murphy, who 
died the same year as himself. His first union re- 
sulted in the birth of twelve children, six being 
now alive: B. F., John L., Nancy E., wife of M. 
D. S. Laird, of Boone County, Ark. ; Eliza J. , wife 
of William A. Robins, of Izard County; Thomas 
H. , and Harriet L. , wife of J. J. Seers, of Fulton 
County, Ark. B. F. Garner removed to this coun- 
ty in 1869, having begun life for himself in his 
native State at the age of twenty-one years, his 
first business venture being to engage in saw-mill- 
ing. This enterprise he continued to follow until 
1864, when he turned his attention to farming. 
He was married there, in 1858, to Miss Elizabeth 
J. Wade, and by her has four children: William 
L., A. B., J. T. and U. S. The two eldest sons 
are engaged in saw-milling, on a large scale, in 
what is known as "Dry Hollow," Izard County, 
and are enterprising young business men. Upon 
coming to the State of Arkansas Mr. Garner entered 
and purchased land to the amount of 410 acres, 
and, with the exception of 100 acres, has divided 
his land among his sons. He has forty acres of 
his land under cultivation, and since 1879 has been 






-^ py 



IZARD COUNTY. 



«48 



engaged in the mercantile business, at Oxford, and 
does a business of about $4,000 per annum. He 
is also interested iu the mercantile business with 
his son, J. X., at Widoman. He supports the prin- 
ciples of the Republican party, and he and wife 
are members of the Christian Church, as are three 
of his sons: A. B. , J. T. and U. S. 

John D. Garner has spent his entire life in the 
occupation of farming, and the manner in which 
he has acquired his present possessions denotes 
him to be a man of energy, push and enterprise. 
He was born in Tennessee, in 1852, and since 1858 
has been a resident of Izard County, Ark., and 
here received a somewhat meager education in the 
common schools in his youth. In 1871 he mar- 
ried Miss Ellen Langston, a daughter of John 
Langston, of Izard County, and to them have been 
born two children: Lafayette and James E. Mrs. 
Garner died in 1876, and he afterward married 
Miss Sarah Niblett, a daughter of Samuel Nib- 
lett, their imion taking place in Fulton County, 
Ark., in 1878. Six children have been born to 
them: Lucy C, Silas M., Joseph, Coral. Harvey 
and Richard. After Mr. Garner's marriage to his 
present wife he resided for some time in Fulton 
County, but .is now located permanently in Izard 
County, and is negotiating for the farm he is now 
working. He raised a good crop this year, and is 
a thrifty and industrious farmer. He is a Demo- 
crat politically, and he and wife are members of 
the Christian Church. He is a son of John Garner, 
whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. 

Dr. Thomas K. Goodman, of the mercantile 
firm of Goodman & Schenck, of Calico Rock, was 
born in Polk County, Mo., in 1849, and is one of nine 
surviving members of a family of twelve children, 
eleven of whom lived to be grown, born to the 
marriage of Sampson Goodman and Sarah Lyngai', 
of English and French descent, respectively, and 
natives of Tennessee. The father removed to 
Polk County, Mo. , when the country was almost a 
wilderness, and resided in this county until hi.s 
death, which occurred in 1888, at the age of eighty- 
two years. His wife died in 1869. He was a 
farmer and stock raiser of moderate means, and, 
although a man of not much education, he pos- 



sessed sound judgment, and was an individual of 
more than ordinary intelligence. He and his wife 
were married in 1827, and were members of the 
Baptist Church for a number of years. Their 
children were as follows: F. M. , who died in 
Missouri, in 1888, leaving a family; Elizabeth, 
wife of George Slatten; John F., James, who went 
to California in 1852, and has not been heard from 
since; Isaac J., Newton J., Mary E. , wife of S. ('. 
Chumbley; Harvey C, Thomas K., Edward M. 
Dr. Thomas K. Goodmaa received his early educa- 
tion in the common schools of his native county, 
and afterward comi)leted his education in the 
academy at Greenfield, Mo., wbicli institution he 
entered in 1800. He began studying medicine at 
Springfield in the following year under Dr. \V. A. 
Hyde, and in the spring of 1879 graduated from 
the Homccopathic Medical College of Missouri, at 
St. Louis, but previous to graduating had prac- 
ticed in Newton and Izard Counties, Ark., having 
located in the latter county in 1872. He continued 
his practice here until 1885, when he embarked in 
the mercantile business with Dr. Schenck [see 
sketch |. Upon coming to this c(junty the Doctor 
was rather poor financially, but he now owns 248 
acres of improved land, and his interest in his 
mercantile establishment. He is a Republican in 
his political views, is a member of the A. F. & A. 
M. , and he and his wife, whose maiden name was 
Elizabeth Greenhaw. and whom he married in 
1871, are the parents of three children: Oliver S.. 
Homer H H. and Albert A. T. 

Robert Gray was born in Wilkes County. N. 
C, July 11, 1S38, and is one of twelve chil- 
dren, six living, born to Constant and Jane (Sale) 
Gray, who were also North Carulinians. and were 
there reared, educated and married. Mr. (iray 
was a successful farmer, and at his death, in 1862, 
owned 1,800 acres of good land. His wife died in 
1873, in the full faith of the Baptist Church. 
Robert Gray was educated in Uilkesboro, N. 
C, and in 1859 removed to .Vrkiinsas, settling 
in Izard County, he at that time owning but one 
horse and about $75 in money. He was mar- 
ried here on the 15th of June, IStJl, to Miss 
Rachel E. Gray, who was Iwrn in the " Old North 



944 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



State," but ker death occarred in January, 1864, 
leaving one son, William R. , who died on the 8th 
of February, 1875. June 14, 1868, Mr. Gray 
wedded his second wife, Martha Hinkle by name, 
she having been born in Tennessee; and of their 
family of twelve children, eleven are still living, 
and ten reside at home: Thomas J., Arena J., 
John, Mary E., Ida K. , Bertha L., James F. , 
Walter N. . Robert E., Amanda E. , Annie M. and 
Jesse A. Mr. Gray, like his father, has always 
been engaged in farming, and owns about 700 
acres of good land, of which 250 acres are under 
cultivation. He has been a member of the I. O. 
O. F. for the past nine years, and has held a num- 
ber of offices in the county, such as assessor, and 
while residing in Sharp County held the office of 
county treasurer for two years. In 1862 he en- 
listed in the Confederate army under McBride, 
and was severely wounded at the tight at Mans- 
field, losing his left leg and one linger on his left 
hand. He also received a shot in the left side, 
and received his discharge in 1865. He followed 
the occupation of school teaching for some time 
after returning home, but, as stated above,' has 
given the most of his attention to farming, at 
which he has been remarkably successful. He and 
wife worship in the Baptist Church. 

W. Grimmett, ex-county judge and farmer, 
Newburg, Ark. A plain untarnished statement of 
the facts embraced in the life of W. Grimmett, a 
man well known to the people of Izard County, is 
all that we profess to be able to give in this his- 
tory of the county; and yet, upon examination 
of those facts, there will be found the career of 
one whose entire course through the world has 
been marked with great honesty and fidelity of 
purpose, as well as sincere and effective service to 
those whom he has been called upon to represent 
in different capacities. Mr. Grimmett was born in 
the Blue Grass State in 1840, and his parents, 
Andrew and Mary (Wilson) Grimmett, were na- 
tives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. 
Andi'ew Grimmett came to Kentucky at an early 
day, worked as a farm hand, and was here married 
to Miss Wilson. He moved to Arkansas in 1855, 
settled first in Fulton County, and one year later 



moved to this county, where he remained for five 
years. He subsequently located in Van Buren 
County, resided there four years, and then re- 
turned to this county, where his death occurred 
in 1878, at about the age of sixty-six years. Mrs. 
Grimmett died in 1887, at the age of seventy-two 
years. They were the parents of these children: 
Harvey Watson (the subject of this sketch), Sam- 
uel (deceased), Wilson (deceased), Mrs. Elizabeth 
Reynolds, W. T., Mrs. Minerva Billingsley. Mrs. 
Grimmett was a member of the Baptist Church. 
At the age of eighteen years W. Grimmett com- 
menced life for himself by farming, and in 1858 
was united in marriage to Miss Sarah A. Ham- 
mond. He has followed agricultural pursuits ever 
since, with the exception of three years, when he 
was engaged in merchandising at Newburg (1876- 
78), but he soon closed out his business and re- 
turned to the farm. He has held the office of 
justice of the peace for two terms, four years in all, 
two terms county and probate judge, and has since 
resided on and attended to his fai'm. In 1862 he 
joined the Confederate army, Company C, Shaler's 
regiment, under Capt. Gibson, and served until 
the close of hostilities, when he surrendered at 
Jacksonport on the 5th of June, 1805. He was 
engaged in some severe skirmishes, notably Au- 
gusta and at Village Creek. After the war he 
came home, and went immediately to farming. 
Although starting with limited means the Judge 
has been quite successful, and is now the owner 
of 190 acres of land, with 100 acres under cultiva- 
tion. To his marriage were born the following 
children: Amanda M. , wife of J. O. Hammond; 
Caldona, wife of R. F. Lacy; Charles M. , Averilla, 
C. E., at home; George A., Amos J. and Joseph 
Roscoe. Judge Grimmett is a man who favors 
all public improvements, and is a great friend 
to education. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. 
lodge, and in politics casts his vote with the Dem- 
ocrat party. Mrs. Grimmett is a member of the 
Baptist Church. 

Sandford Hames, of the saw- milling firm of 
Hames & Kanky, was born in Georgia, in 1832, 
and is a son of Thomas H. and Annice (Robinson) 
Hames, who were born in South Carolina. Thomas 






spy 




^^.^^ 



(□CCEASEO) 

Mississippi Coumtv Ark ansas. 



Haines removed to Georgia at an early day, and 
there reared a family of ten children, three of 
whom are now living: John, Jasper and Sandford. 
The father was a soldier in the Mexican War, and 
was a miner by occupation, working in 'the gold 
mines of Georgia, acquiring considerable wealth in 
this enterprise. He passed from life in 1802, and 
his wife died in 1884. Sandford Hames was reared 
in a mining camp, and worked in the mines for 
some time before coming to Arkansas, in ISfil. 
He purchased the place where he is now living, 
which had then fifteen or sixteen acres under cul- 
tivation, but he now has seventy-five acres under 
the plow, and in excellent farming condition. 
Besides this he owns a one-half interest in a saw- 
mill worth at least $2,000, and also has a farm of 
216 acres in Fulton County, with fifty or sixty 
acres under cultivation and well stocked. He is a 
man who will assist in the advancement of any 
community in which he may reside, and gives lib- 
erally of his means in support of worthy enterprises. 
He is a member of the A. F. & A. M. , and in his 
political views is a Democrat. In 1855 he was 
united in marriage to Miss Rebecca Montgomerj', 
and by her is the father of seven children: Martha, 
wife of John Hagar; Mahala, wife of James Mar- 
tin; Thomas H. , William, Docia, wife of George 
Gray, and John. One child is deceased. J. M. 
Kanky, like his partner, is also a farmer, and since 
the age of sixteen years he has been fighting the 
battle of life for himself. He was first engaged in 
tilling his own land in Kentucky, but afterward 
sold out, and rented land for one or two years. In 
1873 he came with his father to Arkansas, and 
after renting land for one year he purchased a 
tract of land comprising' 1 30 acres, of which there 
were about twenty-five or thirty acres in a tillable 
condition. He now has sixty-five acres of land 
cleared, and also owns a one-half interest in the 
above mentioned mill. He was born in the State 
of Indiana, in 1852, and in 1882 was united in 
marriage to Miss Mekay Hames, who died in 18S8, 
leaving one child, Annie. Mr. Kauky is a Demo- 
crat, and is a son of J. M. and Annie H. (Davis) 
Kanky, whose native place was in the '•Olil 
Dominion." The father removed to Indiana in 



1845, and after removing to Kentucky was raarriiMJ 
in that State, in 1848. Of four children l)orn to 
them two are now living: J. M. and Thomas. Mr. 
Kanky removed to Arkansas in 1873, and in this 
State has since made his home. He is the post- 
master at Wideman, Ark., is a member of the A. 
F. & A. M. and the I. O. O. F., and has now at- 
tained the advanced age of seventy -five years, and 
although quite feeble in body his mind is still clear 
and active. His wife died in 1875. 

Andrew J. Hamilton has been a resident of 
Izard County, Ark., since the year 1871, and has 
become well known to the people of this section as 
a substantial, enterprising and industrious tiller of 
the soil. Of his farm, which comprises 300 acres 
of fine land, he has 125 imder cultivation, and this 
he devotes to the raising of corn and small grain. 
He was born in the "Palmetto State" in 182(». 
and was there reared and received his scholastic 
training in the common schools. He first em- 
barked in the battle of life for himself at the age 
of twenty-four years, and at that time emigrated 
to the State of Georgia, where he purchased a 
farm embracing 250 acres of land. On this he re- 
sided for about twenty-seven years, then, as stated 
above, coming to Izard County, Ark. In addition 
to the admirable way in which he conducts his 
large farm he is also one of the largest fruit grow- 
ers of Northeast Arkansas. While residing in 
Georgia he was married to Miss Mary M. Stand- 
ridge, in 1849, she being a daughter of Samuel 
Standridge, of that State, and their family include 
the following children: Lottitia, Andrew B. , He 
becca, Mary J., William H., Celia A. and Laura. 
The mother of these children is still living, she, 
like her husband, being a member of the Metho<list 
Episcoi^al Church. Mr. Hamilton has always 
honored the Democratic party by his vote, ever 
being interested in political affairs. He is a 
son of James C. and Nellie ((lilstrap) Hamilton, 
the former's birth occurring in 1876. and he is a 
grand.son of Hardy Gilstrap. To James C. Ham 
ilton and his wife were born these children: Edle_\ . 
Andrew J. , Lettie, Mary A. , David, Thomas and 
Nancy. Mr. Hamilton died in Georgia, in 1S73. 
and his wife in lS51t. in the same State. 



^^ ^ 

^ — ^.Iv 



946 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Newton L. Hamm. The estate which Mr. 
Hainm is now engaged in cultivating embraces 266 
acres of land, which are well adapted to the pur- 
poses of general farming, and in his operations he 
displays those sterling principles which are char- 
acteristic of those of Tennessee birth, industry, and 
wise and judicious management being chief among 
the number. He has 150 acres of his land under 
cultivation, it being well improved with good build- 
ings, fences, etc., and stocked with all the neces- 
sary farm animals for successfully conducting the 
same. He was born in McNairy County, June 24, 
1840, and is one of five surviving members of- a 
family of ten sons and seven daughters, born to 
William and Rachel (Hnggins) Hamm, both of 
whom were born on Blue Grass soil, the former's 
birth occurring on the 20th of October, 1799, and 
the latter' s September 13, 1798. They were til- 
lers of the soil, and at the time of the father's 
death, December 10, 1872, he was the owner of 
120 acres of land. He had attained a high rank 
in the Masonic lodge, having been a member of 
that organization from the time he was twenty- 
one years of age, and also belonged to the Hard 
Shell Baptist Church. He was followed to his 
long home by his wife on the 10th of January, 
1874. Newton L. Hamm's youth was spent in at- 
tending the common schools of Tennessee, and in 
assisting his father on the home farm. In 1855 he 
moved to Arkansas, and was married here on the 
Ist of November, 1863, to Miss Nettie Frizzell, she 
having been born in Henry County, Tenn. , and a 
daughter of Jason and Mahala Frizzell, and ten 
children have blessed their union, nine of whom, 
still living, reside at home with their parents: 
Carrol, William, Asa, Emmer, Joseph, Jason, 
Philip, Newton, Leroy and Adah E. In 1862 he 
enlisted in the Confederate army under Gen. Hind- 
man, and was at the battle of Prairie Grove. He 
was discharged at the surrender of Jacksonport. 
Like his father he is a Mason, and he is a member 
of the Baptist Church, his wife being a member of 
the Methodist Church. 

F. M. Hanley, attorney, Melbourne, Ark. 
Prominent among the comparatively young men of 
Izard County, Ark. , whose career thus far has 



been both honorable and successful, is the subject 
of this present sketch. He was born in Graves 
County, Ky., in 1845, and his parents, F. M. and 
Elizabeth (Mobley) Hanley, were also natives of 
the Blue Grass State. The parents were married 
about 1828, and the father was a successful agri- 
culturist in his native State. He died in 1845, and 
the mother died in 1854. Both were members of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he was Demo- 
cratic in his views. Their family consisted of five 
children, three now living: James E. (resides in 
Kentucky, and follows farming), Mary E. (wife of 
Joseph G. Henry, and resides in Kentucky), and 
F. M. The paternal grandfather was born in Tip- 
perary, Ireland, and came to America when quite 
a young man. The paternal grandmother was also 
a native of the Emerald Isle. The maternal 
grandparents were natives of Ireland, and were 
married there before coming to America. F. M. 
Hanley was left an orphan when quite young, and, 
at the age of nine years, he was taken to Todd 
County, Ky. , and bound out to Johnston Carr. 
He was reared on a farm, attending the subscrip- 
tion schools of his county until his fifteenth year, 
after which he entered the St. Joseph College, at 
Bardstown, and there remained two years. When 
seventeen years of age he enlisted in the Confeder- 
ate army. Company D, Second Kentucky Infantry 
Regiment, and served until the 7th of May, 1865, 
participating in the following battles: Fort Don- 
elson, Hartsville, Murfreesboro, Jackson, Chicka- 
mauga ami Missionary Ridge, and was in all the 
battles from Resaca to Jonesboro, where he was 
captured, on the 1st of September, 1864, but was 
retained only a short time. Previous to this he was 
captured at Fort Donelson, and was retained by 
the United States forces from February to Septem- 
ber, 1862. After being exchanged the last time 
his command was mounted. Upon coming home 
he attended school at Spring Grove Academy, 
Todd County, Ky. , and subsequently spent three 
years "teaching the young idea" and in studying 
law, under Williams, Turner & Williams. He was 
admitted to the bar, at May field, Ky. , in 1869, and 
engaged in the practice of his profession at that 
place. In 1873 he came to Phillips County, Ark., 



IZAllD COUNTY. 



SM7 



but, on account of poor health, only lomiiincd a 
short time there, and came to Izard County in 

1874. He located in La Crosse, and there remained 
until the county seat was located at Melbourne, in 

1875, when he moved here. He has since prac- 
ticed his profession at this place, and has met 
with flattering success. Ho was married, in Ken- 
tucky, in 1866, to Mrs. Willie Dallam, nee Overley, 
and they are the parents of three children: Lena 
(wife of T. P. Powett, of Melbourne), Moss (wife 
of E. C. Parsons), and Gussie (at home). In his 
political views Mr. Hanley affiliates with the Demo- 
cratic party, and he is a member of the I. O. O. 
F. lodge. Mrs. Hanley is a member of the Cum- 
berland Presbj'terian Church. 

Judge Henry H. Harris, Melbourne, Ark. There 
is one man within the limits of this county whose 
name, it might be said, is a household word with the 
people in the vicinity, for his long residence hero and 
his intimate association with its various material 
and official affairs, have gained for him an exten- 
sive acquaintance. Such a man is Henry H. Har- 
ris, judge of the county court of Izard County. He 
owes his nativity to Independence County, Ark., 
where his birth occurred on the 18th of January, 
1 8'26, and is the son of James A. Harris, a native of 
Georgia, who moved to Arkansas in 1820, and was 
there married, in 1822, to Miss Elizabeth Finley, 
also a native of Georgia. They first moved to 
Lawrence County, but a short time afterward went 
to Independence County and located east of Bates- 
ville, where they were the neighbors of John Miller, 
Sr. To their union were born two children, the 
Judge being the only one living. Mrs. Harris died 
in 1827, and Mr. Harris took for his second wife 
Miss Ester Ruddle, of Arkansas, in 1828. One child 
(deceased) was the result of this union. ,Mrs. 
Harris died in 1830, and Mr. Harris was again 
united in marriage to Miss Ann Carter, of Virginia, 
by whom he had four children, all deceased after 
arriving at maturity. The third Mrs. Harris died 
in 1846, and Mr. Harris' fourth marriage was to 
Miss Ellen Holoman, who bore him one child (de- 
ceased). After living in Independence County and 
tilling the soil until 1834, Mr. Harris moved to 
Izard County, and settled on White River, in 



Kickapoo iiuUoiu, wliicli is known as Harris Hut 
tom, and now in Stone County. He here purchased 
160 acres of land and improved a farm of about 
100 acres in the Bottom. In 1840 he was elected 
sheriff, serving in that capacity for two years, and 
at a time when it required some little courage to 
successfully fill that position, as Col. Lewis had 
recently left with his Cherokee Indians, and every- 
thing was wild and unsettled. Later he was 
elected county and |)robate judge, which position 
he tilled in a creditabh' maimer for two years. He 
was very successful as a farmer, and popular as an 
officer. He had acquired considerable property, 
and owned at the time of his death, which occ\irred 
in 1848, several negroes, besides a good improved 
farm. Of all the children born to James A. Har- 
ris, Judge Harris is the only one now living. During 
his boyhood days he assisted on the farm and re 
ceived his education in the subscrijition schools of 
the county, but later supplemented this by a course 
at Mount View, where he paid 7)0 cents a week for 
board. Though not a graduate of any school, the 
Judge is quite a scholar, and is held in the high- 
est respect by all for his sterling integrity, sober, 
sound judgment, broad intelligence and liberal 
progressive ideas. His decisions are not made 
without care and painstaking, and all feel that he 
can be relied upon. At the age of eighteen he 
ventured out in life for himself and first engaged 
in the calling to which he had been reared, but in 
connection was also a horse drover and trader. He 
was married on the 22d of November, 1849, tS 
Miss Lucy A. Dillard, a native of the Old Domin- 
ion, but reared in the State of .\rkansas. To 
them were born nine children, seven now living: 
Virginia E. (wife of Dr. D. T. Powell, of Thayer. 
Mo.), James A., Arkansas (widow of A. J. Kainey, 
of Powhatan), George D., Henry H. Jr.. Ruth L. 
(wife of S. R. Hinkle, of Melbourne), and H. D. 
In 1852 he was elected county and circuit clerk of 
Izard County, served for two years, and, in 1850, 
was elected the second time to the same position, 
holding that office imtil 1M60. He was then 
elected county and pro\)ute judge, ser^etl alwnt a 
year, and then sent in his resignation from Bowling 
Green, Ky., wIhti' he had joined the Confi'diTate 



iiL 



948 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



army, Company G, Eighth Arkansas Infantry. 
He served east of the Mississippi River and was 
VFOunded in the battle of Shiloh, after which he 
came home to remain there three or four months. 
After this he went east and served until the close 
of the war. He was a daring and fearless soldier 
and participated in some of the closest engage- 
ments. He was at Shiloh, Perryville, Murfrees- 
boro, Chickamauga, also Franklin, where he was 
wounded the second time, and was from Dalton, 
Ga. , to Jonesboro, of the same State. Aside from 
these he was in many minor engagements. He 
surrendered at Meridian, Miss., in ]865, and re- 
turned to his home, where he continued farming 
for some time. He was then employed to carry the 
mail and followed this for seven years, after which 
he embarked in mercantile pursuits, and was thus 
occupied from 1871 to 1872, when he moved to La 
CroBse, and there continued the same business for 
two years. In March, 1877, he was again elected 
clerk of this county and served for seven years. 
From 1884 to 1886 he was deputy clerk, and in 
the last named year he was elected county and pro- 
bate judge, being re-elected in 1888. The Judge 
and wife have reared a family of which they may 
wellbe proud, for they are all honorable men and 
women. Politically, the Judge is a very decided 
Democrat, and was one among the prominent men 
of his county that the reconstruction act did not 
leave out in the cold. He was then, as he is now, 
among the most prominent men, and is desirous 
of the welfare of his county. He is a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, also the I. O. O. F. , and 
he and wife are members of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South. 

W. E. Hill is a successful merchant and farmer 
of Franklin, Ark., and is one of the oldest native 
residents of the county, having been born here in 
1841. His parents, Thomas R. and Rachel (Bur- 
lisson) Hill, were born in Kentucky and Indiana, 
respectively, and the former came to the State of 
Arkansas in 1836, settling in Izard County. Here 
he entered and purchased about '2,000 acres of 
land, which he owned and operated until his death. 
This country at Urst was very thinly pojsulated, 
and Mr. Hill was compelled to go from ten to 



twenty miles to mill. He was married twice, and 
of his first family only four children are living: 
Mary A., widow of Lewis Williams; J. B., of Ful- 
ton County, La. ; Elizabeth F. , wife of Samuel 
Vannatta, and W. E. Two children died in in- 
fancy and three after reaching mature years: 
James W., Thomas J., Erasmus, Benjamin and 
Eliza. Mrs. Hill, who was a devout member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, died in 1849, 
and in 1851 Mr. Hill married Mrs. Eliza (Colwell) 
Orr, widow of Dr. Orr. This wife was a Baptist, 
but he, like his first wife, was a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Hill died in 
1876, at the age of sixty-eight years, his wife's 
death occurring in 1874, at the age of sixty-four 
years. W. E. Hill has been familiar with farm- 
ing fi-ora his earliest youth and secured a good 
education in the common schools of his native 
county. At the age of twenty one years he began 
farming for himself, but continued to make his 
home with his father until twenty six. When the 
Civil War began he espoused the Confederate 
cause and joined C. A. Shaler's battalion, but only 
served a short time when he was discharged on 
account of sickness. After remaining at home 
one year he again joined the army and served un- 
der Capt. Wolf until the close of the war, being a 
participant in all the fights with Gen. Price in 
Missouri. He surrendered at Jacksonport, Ark. , 
June 5, 1865, and returned home and began farm- 
ing on his father's land. In connection with him 
he built a mill, which he operated six years, and 
diiring this time his father gave him his present 
home farm, which consists of 274 acres. There 
were ten acres cleared, but it was in a worse condi- 
tion than if it had not been touched. He now has 
175 acres improved, and on it is erected one of the 
finest farm houses in Northern Arkansas. His 
barns are also very commodious and will accom- 
modate forty or fifty head of horses. He has forty 
acres of improved land in Jefferson Township, be- 
sides his home place and 155 acres of unimproved 
land. His wife owns fifty-five acres of her father's 
old homestead, a portion of which is improved. 
In 1867 Mr. Hill married Miss Margaret J. Bill 
ingsley, a daughter of Samuel Billingsley, one of 



ft ' v» 



IZARD COUNTY. 



y4ii 



the old settlors of Izard County, and the lollow 
ing are their famil}-; Elizabeth A., W. E., Jr., 
Thomas R. , Samuel B., James M., John W. 
Joseph E. and Stella W. Mr. Hill and his wife 
belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
and he belongs to the A. ' F. & A. M. , and is a 
Democrat politically. He is associated with Mr. 
Billingsley in the mercantile business at Franklin, 
and they do an annual business of about $18,000. 
Robert H. Holland has been familiar with the 
intricacies of farm work from his youth up, but 
since the year 1871 has been engaged in business 
for himself, and by unremitting toil and judicious 
management he has become the owner of 820 acres 
of land situated on Rocky Bayou, about fifty acres 
being under cultivation. He is one of the wide- 
awake agriculturists of the county, and he and his 
worthy wife, whom he married in 1883, and whose 
maiden name was Mary J. Kerwin, are noted for 
their hospitality and liberality. His native birth- 
place was Independence County, Ark., where he 
first saw the light of day, in 1850. He is a patron 
of all enterprises of a worthy character, and has 
shown his approval of secret organizations by be- 
coming a member of the I. O. O. F. He married, 
in 1885, Miss Mary Jane Taylor. He is a son of 
William Holland, who was born in the State of 
Tennessee, in 1819, and was reared to a farm life, 
removing with his mother to Illinois, during the 
early settlement of that State, and coming with her 
to Arkansas, in 1829. her death occurring in In- 
dependence County, Ark., when she was about 
ninety years of age. His father was a soldier in 
the War of 1812. William Holland received a 
limited education in his youth, and when about 
twenty-one years of age began the battle of life for 
himself. He was married, in Independence Coun- 
ty, to a Miss Henderson, who bore him two chil- 
dren, James W. and Reuben L., and after her 
death he was united in marriage to Martha J. 
Dickson, of the same county. Six children are the 
result of this union: Benjamin F., Robert H. (our 
subject), Mary J., William M., John and Sarah 
E. The mother of these children died in Inde- 
pendence County, in 1866, she having been an act- 
ive member of the Missionary Baptist Church for 



many years. Catherine Fiilks l)ccaiiH' liis wife in 
18*')7, and by him the mother of these children: 
Charles C, Martha J., Nancy A., Joseph S. and 
Margaret. This wife's demise occurred in 1882, 
and he is now living with his fourth wife, who was 
formerly Mrs. Jane Fullbright, of Izard County. 
He served in the Mexican War, and he and wife 
are members of the Missionary Baptist Church. 

Prof. I. K. Hoojjer. The education of the youth 
of our country being a matter of great importance, 
it is just and proper to make honorable mention of 
Prof. Hooper, for he is one of the able educators of 
' the county. He was born in Hall County. Ga. . on 
the 31st of December, 1854, and is one of seven 
surviving members of a family of nine children 
born to Edward and Eveline Hooper, the former's 
birth occurring in South Carolina, in 1799. The 
father was married three times; first, to Anna 
Bowen, who died after having borne three sons 
and four daughters; next, to Mary Steppe, a native 
of Georgia, who bore him two sons and three 
daughters; and then to Eveline Owen, who was 
also a native of Georgia. This last union resulted 
in the birth of nine children, six sons and three 
daughters, seven of the children being still alive. 
Tin? father was a farmer by occupation, and owned 
500 acres of land at the time of his death, in De- 
cember, 1880. He and wife were in communion 
with the Baptist Church, she being now a resident 
of Georgia, making her home with her daughter. 
Prof. I. K. Hooper received his education at La 
Crosse Collegiate Institute, of Izard County, and 
at Fayetteville, Ark., in the Industrial University, 
and while at school was a bright and industrious 
student. On the 25th of October, 1882, after his 
return home from the University, he was married 
to Miss Mary T. Bishop, a native of ^\jkansas, ami 
a daughter of William and India Bishop, who were 
Tennesseeans. Prof. Hooper and wife have an in 
teresting little family of three children: Edward 
C, Lillian G. and Cyril L. Prof. Hooper has al 
ways been a patron of education, and has been 
successfully engaged in teaching .<chool for some 
time, and his labors in this direction have won 
golden opinions for himself. He has been a mem 
ber of the T O () F fur nbout three months, and 



950 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



in his religious views is a member of the Methodist 
Church. His wife is connected with the Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church. 

P. M. Jeffery was born in Izard County, Ark., 
June 14, 1887, and is a son of Daniel JefFery, who 
was born, reared and educated in the State of Ten- 
nessee, moving to Arkansas in the year 1816, and 
took up his abode in Izard County, where he was 
married to Miss Mary Bowcock, a native Virgin- 
ian, their union taking place in 1824. The result 
of their marriage was the birth of eleven children, 
seven sons and four daughters, only one of whom 
is now living, P. M. Jeffery, our subject. The 
father was an active politician, and besides hold- 
ing the offices of sheriff and county judge, one 
term each, he was elected to represent this county 
in the State legislature in 1846, and discharged 
the duties of this position with honor to himself 
and to the satisfaction of bis constituents. He 
was also justice of the peace of his township one 
term. He and wife were active workers in the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church at the time of 
their resj)ective deaths in September, 1862, and 
February 22, 1863, and left a fine property to be 
divided among their children, consi.sting of 320 
acres of fertile land. P. M. Jeffery, the immedi- 
ate subject of this sketch, has spent his life in his 
native county, and received his education in the 
schools near Melbourne. From earliest youth he 
has been familiar with farm work, and of his 200 
acres of land, tifty are under cultivation. In con- 
nection with this he is engaged in preaching the 
gospel, being a minister of the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian Church, his wife and all his children 
being also members of that church. In Septem- 
ber, 1861, he enlisted under W. J. Hardy, for a 
war experience, his first hard light being at Shiloh, 
he being wounded in the head in this engagement 
by a fragment of shell. He received his discharge 
at Jacksonport. On the 30th of April, 1865, he 
wedded Miss Dorinda Arnold, a daughter of James 
and Annie Arnold, and to them have been born 
seven children, six sons and one daughter: James 
E., Albert S., Willie M., Philip A., Daniel P., 
Henry K. and Annie M. 

P. H. Jeffery, farmer, Mount Olive, Ark. Mr. 



Jeffery is a representative of one of the oldest and 
most respected families of Arkansas, and was born 
in Izard County in 1851. His parents, Miles and 
Sarah (Williams) Jeffery, were natives of Missouri 
and Arkansas, respectively, the former having 
been born in Mis.souri, while on the way to Arkan- 
sas, in 1818. His father, Jeohiada Jeffery, came 
to Arkansas in 1818, settling on White River, near 
Mount Olive, and was one of the very first settlers 
of the county. He purchased a little claim, im- 
proved it, and accumulated considerable property 
previous to his death, which occurred sometime 
in the 50' s. His wife was originally Miss Polly 
Wair, and they reared a large family of honorable 
men and women, who are scattered throughout 
Izard County. Jeohiada Jeffery was one of the 
first justices of the peace of his county after the 
State was admitted. He was in the War of 1812, 
and was in the battle of New Orleans, under Gen. 
Jackson. Miles Jeffery was reared to farm labor, 
and was not an educated man, although he had 
better advantages than most boys at that day. He 
was married, about 1836, to Miss Williams, and to 
them were l)orn fifteen children, ten of whom lived 
to be grown, and eight are now living: Ambrose, 
Asa, Robert E., Attie, Mary, P. H., Finis E. and 
R. J., all of whom live in this. Independence and 
Stone Counties. Miles Jeft'erj' represented Izard 
County in the legislature two terms before the war, 
in 1856 and 1858, and also filled the position of 
sheriff in 1844. He was a strong Democrat, and 
took an active part in politics. He was a member 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and was 
an honest, upright citizen, having a host of friends. 
He died in 1868. The mother died in 1876, at 
about the age of fifty-five years. She was an ex- 
cellent woman, firm and decided in her views. 
P. H. Jeffery, like his father, was reared and edu- 
cated in this coimty, although his education was 
rather neglected, on account of the breaking out of 
the late war. When eighteen years of age, he 
started out on his own responsibility, rented land, 
and tilled the soil for three years. He then pur- 
chased a farm of 345 acres, with twenty-five under 
cultivation, and still owns this tract of land. He 
now has about fifty acres cultivated, and is deeply 



IZARD COUNTY. 



951 



interested in stock raising. His land is on White 
River, and is excellent for stock raising. By Lis 
marriage, wbich was consummated in 1876, to 
Miss Carrie E. Perrin, be became the fat.b(>rof five 
cbildren: Henry E., Frank P., Charles E., Rich- 
ard R. and Sallie. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffery are both 
members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and he is Democratic in his political views. 

John W. Jones, M. D., is one of the oldest 
aiid best known physicians in Izard County, Ark., 
and was born in Giles County, Tenn., on the 1st 
of March, 1832. He inherits Welsh blood from 
his paternal ancestors, his grandfather, Wiley, and 
his great grandfather, John Jones, having been 
born in that countrj-. They came to America a 
short time prior to the Revolutionary War, and 
John took an active part in that struggle, taking 
sides with the colonists in their struggle for liberty, 
serving throughout the entire war as a private. 
He afterward settled in Virginia, near the North 
Carolina line, but after these two States were 
divided his home was found to be on the North 
Carolina side, and in this State he died near Char- 
lotte in 1807. Wiley Jones and his wife, who was 
also born in Wales, removed to the State of Ten- 
nessee at a very early day, and there he reared his 
family and engaged in farming, being the owner 
of a large amount of property, both personal and 
real. He died in 1827. His son Ceberu was born 
in North Carolina, and in his youth learned the 
boot and shoe maker's trade, which business he 
conducted in Nashville from 1803 to 1871, his 
death occurring in the latter year. He was mar- 
ried, in 1827, to Miss Selina W. Mealor, and their 
marriage was blessed in the birth of four children, 
John W. and William being the only ones now 
living, the latter a farmer of Greene County, Mo. 
The mother's death occurred in 1837, and Mr. 
Jones took for his second wife Miss Sarab Stephens, 
their union resulting in the birth of four sons and 
three daughters: ^larj' A., the widow of James 
Cash; Sarah A., Christina, George W., Thomas 
N., Newton J. and Louis E. Mr. Jones and this 
wife were divorced, and he espoused his third wife 
in Nash^dlle, Tenn. He was a member of the Old 
School Presbyterian Church, and in his political 



views was a W hig. Hi.s son. Dr. John W. Jones, 
was reared to farm life, but lived in the villages of 
Louisburg and Connersville; receiving his early 
.scholastic advantages in the schools of those 
places and Jackson College, at Columbia, Tenn., 
which institution ho entered when seventeen years 
of age, remaining one term. Upon leaving school 
he learned the harness maker's and saddler's 
trade, but after following this occupation two years 
he came to Arkansas in 1855, and settled in Inde- 
pendence County, whore he was engaged in teach- 
ing school, following this occupation in Polk Bayou, 
and afterward in Searcy County. During his days 
of podagoguing his leisure moments were devoted 
to the study of medicine with the view to making 
it his calling through life, and in ISfiO he entered 
upon his practice continuing until the opening of 
the rebellion, when he joined the Confederate 
forces as a private, and after serving one month 
was promoted to the position of assistant surgeon 
and filled the position three years. He took part 
in a number of battles. Pea Ridge, luka and Cor- 
inth being among the number. He was taken pris- 
oner at Port Hudson, but after being kept in cap- 
tivity for sis days he was ]>arolod and returned to 
Searcy County, Ark., where he again resumed the 
practice of his profession. In 1865 he located at 
Evening Shade, and after teaching school for 
twenty months he again entered upon the practice 
of medicine, being in partnership with Dr. Hill. 
but this connection only continued a short time.. 
He moved to near La Crosse in IStJS, but in 1N73 
he came to Izard County and settled on the old 
Langston place, where he remained seven years. 
He purchased his present property at the end of 
that time, and l)y adding forty acres now has a 
farm comprising 100 acres, with about twenty acres 
under cultivation. Prior to the war, in 1S(51, he 
attended the Medical College, of St. Louis, Mo., 
but owing to some disagreement between Prof. 
McDowell and some of his German and Irish 
students the institution was closed. Dr. Jones 
is a member of the A. F. & A. M., the I. O. O. F., 
and in his political views is a Demo<Tut. He was 
married in October. 1866, to Miss Martha H. Tay- 
lor, of Izard County, and by her is the father of 



952 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ten children: Mary F., wife of Robert Guest; 
John W., Cebern S., James T., Margaret J., Sam- 
uel T., Wiley N., Martha C, Nancy A. and 
George R. Mrs. Jones is a member of the Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church. Dr. Jones is a 
physician of acknowledged merit, and an excellent 
proof of his ability is shown in the extended terri- 
tory over which he goes to alleviate the sufferings 
of the sick. 

Prof. Michael Shelby Kennard is principal of 
the Collegiate Institute at La Crosse, Ark., an in- 
stitution established by him in 1868, which has be- 
come noted as an excellent business training school, 
and is largely patronized by the best youth of which 
the State of Arkansas can boast. Prof. Kennard 
was born in Sumter County, Ala. , in 1833, and 
is the son of George W. Kennard, who was born 
in Williamson County, Tenn., in 1801, which 
State he made his home until 1821, at which time 
he emigrated to Alabama. Up to this date, owing 
to his services being required on his father's farm, 
he had received a limited education, but in 1848 he 
began studying for the Baptist ministry in his adopt- 
ed State, was ordained in 1847, and in 1852 emi- 
grated to Arkansas, and located in Batesville, where 
he continued to reside until his death, which oc- 
curred in May, 1864. He was an earnest and 
faithful minister of the Gospel, and his influence 
in the Baptist denomination was widely felt. He 
was a member of the Masonic order for some thirty- 
five years. He was married in Perry County, Ala. , 
in 1828, to Eliza Hopson, a daughter of Bluford 
and Nancy Hopson, whose death occurred in Bates- 
ville, Ark., in 1860. They had two children: 
Octavia C. and Michael S. The latter, the subject 
of this sketch, had the best advantages in obtaining 
an education that his native State afforded. He 
graduated with honor at the University of Alabama, 
in 1852, at the age of nineteen, and some years 
after received from that institution the degree of 
A. M. In September, 1852, he was married, in 
Sumner County, Tenn., to Mary E. Saunders, 
daughter of Joseph P. and Ellen D. Saunders, of 
that county. In 1852-53 he was engaged in teach- 
ing in Louisiana and Mississippi, part of the time 
as private tutor in the family of Gen. Minor, of 



Natchez, Miss. In 1854 he removed fi-om Missis- 
sippi to Arkansas and settled at Batesville, where 
he spent two years in teaching, in the meantime 
pursuing the study of law. He was admitted to 
the bar in 1856, but soon abandoned the law to 
engage in the newspaper business. From 1857 to 
1861 he was the editor and proprietor of the Inde 
pendent Balance, a newspaper published at Bates- 
ville. When the war broke out he joined Sweet's 
Cavalry regiment, and served as adjutant, with the 
rank of major, and participated in many skirmishes, 
until January, 1863, when he was severely wound- 
ed in the head by a fragment of a shell, at the bat- 
tle of Arkansas Post, and was made a prisoner of 
war. At the close of the war he determined to de- 
vote the remainder of his life to teaching, and en- 
gaged in the work of that profession again, at 
Batesville, but in 1868 he moved to La Crosse, 
where, as stated above, he established the Colle- 
giate Institute. He has been principal of the same 
since that time, with the exception of five years, 
spent in Bradley County, Ark. He is a member 
of the Masonic fraternity, in which order he has 
advanced to the Council, and has filled the offices 
of Worshipful Master and High Priest of the Royal 
Arch Chapter. In earlier days he was a follower 
of the Whig party, but since the disruption of that 
party has been a stanch Democrat. His children 
are as follows: Mary E., wife of T. B. Childress, 
of La Crosse, Ark. ; George S., who was first mar- 
ried to Miss Maud Cunningham, a daughter of 
Hon. J. F. Cunningham, but after her death, in 
1884, he married Miss Annie Collins, of Van 
Buren, Ark. ; he is a graduate of the Southern 
Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Ky. , 
and is now pastor of the Baptist Church at Ben- 
tonville; John F., who married Miss Mary Wat- 
kins, a daughter of Dr. O. T. Watkins, is engaged 
in the mercantile business at Fort Smith, Ark. ; 
Ralph E., who married Miss Henry Lee Powell, a 
daughter of Judge R. H. Powell, of the Fourteenth 
judicial district, is adruggi-st at La Crosse: Joseph 
A. married Miss Carrie W. Hunt, a daughter of 
Dr. O. T. Hunt, of La Crosse, and Edward L. , 
Ruth and Robert S. are still unmarried. 

Dr. J. A. Kerr, physician and surgeon. New- 



burg, Ark. Among tho younger ruemljors of Ibo 
medical profession in Izard Couuty, Ark., is he 
whose name heads this sketch, already well estab- 
lished as a physician and siu'geon of merit and 
true worth, and regarded with favor by those older 
in years and experience. Ho is a native of this 
State and county, and is one of nine children, 
seven now living, born to John and Ann (Meiinox) 
Kerr. The children are named as follows: G. W., 
resides in Izard County; J. A., Mrs. Mary J. Hays, 
of this couuty; Mrs. Indiana Evans, of this county; 
John M. , of this county; T. J., resides in New- 
l)urg; Mrs. Maggie Stroud, wife of D. J. Stroud, 
of this county; Benjamin F., died in 1809 at the 
age of eleven years, and one that died when quite 
young. The parents were natives of Ireland, and 
the father came to America about 1843. He landed 
in New York, but immediately made his way to 
Nashville, Tenn., where he remained for seventeen 
years, and where he was engaged in tb(> carpenter's 
trade exclusively. He was there married to Miss 
Mennox, who came over from Ireland when he did, 
and who settled in Nashville, Tenn. Both he and 
wife were orphans, and came over from the old 
country with an old man and his family. In 1860 
they settled at Batesville, Independence County, 
remained there for some time, the father engaging 
in the carpenter business, and then moved to Izard 
County, where he still continued his trade up to 
1870, after which he embarked in the mercantile 
business. In 1884 he retired to private life on his 
farm, and there received his linal summons, in 
1886, at the age of liftysix years. Mrs. Kerr still 
survives and resides on the old homestead. Mr. 
Kerr was a member of the Masonic fraternity, and 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
of which his wife is still a member. Dr. J. A. 
Kerr received his education in the j)ublic schools 
of his county until 1880, when he entered the 
Medical College at Louisville, and attended regu- 
larly until 188"J, when he graduated. He then 
returned immediatel)' to Izard County and entered 
ui)on the practice of his profession at this place, 
and his reputation as a physician and surgeon, as 
well as in private life, is an enviable one. The 
Doctor is vet a voung man. as his birth occurred 



in hS-JT, and he was married in 1882 to Miss Emma 
^\■ood, of this county. The fruits of this union 
have been four children, three now liviug: Clarence 
E. (deceased), Neely T. , Oscar and Roscoe (twins). 
Mrs. Kerr was bom in 1863, and is the daughter 
of William and Sarah (Benbrock) Wood, natives 
of Tennessee, who came to Izard County at an 
early day. When Dr. Korr tirst commenced the 
practice of medicine his financial resources were 
rather limited, a horse, saddle and bridle, and a 
pair of pill bags, filled, completed his outfit. He 
is now the owner of some 500 acres of land, with 
iibout 135 acres und(>r cultivation, and is also the 
owner of property in Newburg, consisting of house, 
store-house, office, vacant lots, and, besides, plenty 
of personal property. He is Iniilding on his farm 
a fine residence, and already has a good barn 
and out- buildings. The Doctor has made all this 
within the last ten years, and by energy and per-^e 
verance. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. , and 
politically he is Democratic. Mrs. Kerr is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

. Rev. H. T. King, minister, Melbourne. Ark. 
This much revered and esteemed gentleman is only 
one of the many citizens of Izard County, who owe 
their nativity to Tennessee, where his birth oc- 
curred in 1853. He is the sou of John A. King, 
a native of Virginia, who. when a young man. was 
united in marriage to Miss Dedama Sutton, also a 
native of the Old Dominion. The parents moved 
to Tennessee at an early day, and here the father 
purchased land, which he tilled until 1850. after 
which he moved to Crittenden County, Ky. He 
remained in that State for four years, and then 
settled in Randolph County. Ark., but, not being 
particularly satisfied, he moved from there to Clay 
County, 111. , thence to Jefferson County, where his 
death occurred in 1873, at the age of sixty-.seven 
years. He was a member of the Christian Church. 
Mrs. King still survives and resides in Baxter 
County, this State. She is a member of the 
Christian Church, and a pleasant, agreeable wo 
man. They were the parents of eleven children, 
four now living: Nancy J., widow of John Welch, 
is now liviug in Fulton County, Ark.; Sarah A., 
wife of (i. W'. Sel]>h. resides in Baxter County; 



r 



MJ- 




Rebecca M. , wife of G. W. Lundy, resides in Bax- 
ter County, and Rev. H. T. The father of these 
children waa fairly educated, and during his life- 
time had accumulated considerable property, the 
principal part of which was lost during the late 
unpleasantness between the North and South. 
Rev. H. T. King acquired but a limited educa- 
tion, as during his boyhood days he only attended 
one month at school, and this was all the education 
he received until after his marriage, when he at- 
tended school two terms. He is quite studious, 
and applies himself to his books at home, and is 
now probably better informed than many who have 
had every advantage. He expects to attend school 
during the fall and winter of this year (1889), and 
is now studying law with a view to making it his 
profession. At the age of twenty -one years Mr. 
King commenced life for himself, and at that age 
was united in marriage to Miss E. E. Taylor, by 
whom he had six children, five now living: W. C, 
K. J., Auscar and Oscar (twins), and Mary L. 
Mrs. King died in 1884, a devout member of the 
Christian Church. Mr. King took for his second 
wife Mrs. Mary A. Harlin (Conklin), a widow. 
She was a member of the Christian Church, 
and died in 1880, at the age of thirty-seven years. 
By her first marriage she became the mother of 
nine children, eight sons now living: James P., 
W. T., J. H., Joe E., L. D., C. C, J. C. and Frank 
H. Mr. King moved to Arkansas in 1876, settling 
in Baxter County, and there remained until 1887, 
when he moved to this place. He had very little 
means when first coming to this county, but he is 
now the owner of a tine residence with some three 
or four acres of land worth about $1,000 or 11,200. 
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, R. A. 
M. , and is also a member of the I. O. O. F. In 
politics he is a Republican. He is a minister in 
the Christian Church, and was ordained in 1881. 

K. J. Lacy, blacksmith and farmer, Newburg, 
Ark., came originally from Tennessee, his birth 
occurring in 1830. Mr. Lacy has won an enviable 
reputation as a farmer, and none the less is his 
reputation established as a first-class blacksmith. 
His father, Robert Lacy, was a native of North 
Carolina, born in 1793, and came to Tennessee 



about 1813 or 1814, where he was united in mar- 
riage to Miss Annie Miller, in about 1816. He 
was a farmer by pursuit, and was also a minister 
in the Methodist Church. After remaining in Ten- 
nessee until 1861, he settled on White River, in 
this county, but after a residence there of only 
one year, moved to Knob Creek, where he pur 
chased a farm. There he closed his eyes to the 
scenes of the world in 1870. He still continued to 
preach after coming to this State, and was asso- 
ciated with the American Tract Society for a num- 
ber of years previous to his death. He was a 
Democrat in polities. His wife was a native of 
Georgia, and died in 1870 at the age of seventy- 
three years. She was also a member of the Meth - 
odist Episcopal Church. In their family were 
the following children: AV. Mc. , Mrs. Mary A., 
wife of George Bussey; Mrs. L. J., widow of 
John Bussey; Kibble J. (the subject of this sketch), 
and James W. The paternal grandparents were 
fi-om Ireland and England, respectively. The 
maternal grandfather was a German by birth, and 
came to this country when a boy. He served 
during the greater portion of the War for Inde- 
pendence. At the age of twenty years K. J. 
Lacy began learning the blacksmith trade, and at 
that age he commenced life for himself, doing 
joui'ney man's work in Tennessee for fifteen years. 
In 18G0 he came to Arkansas, and took charge of 
Col. Black's farm on White River, where he was 
overseer of the negroes for one year. He then 
went to Lunenburg, opened a shop, and con- 
tinued there until 1870. He joined the army in 
1862, but was discharged on account of disability. 
He was conscripted two or three times afterward, 
but succeeded in being released, and was taken 
prisoner one time by the United States soldiers, 
but was soon released by the Confederates. In 
1870 he rented a farm from Dr. Watson on ^^'hite 
River, and remained there for ten years, when he 
bought a farm on Knob Creek. At the end of four 
years he sold out, purchased another farm, im- 
proved the same, and built good houses, barns, etc. 
He made two tratles afterward, one for the farm 
on which Judge Grimmett now lives, and the other 
for his present property. This farm consists of 100 



«<^ 6" 



-^j>v 



IZARD COUNTY. 



sinr 



acres with thirty-five under cultivation, with fair 
houses, etc. Mr. Lacy has been twice married; 
lir.st, on the 15th of November, 1858, to Miss Mary 
E. Hairendon, and four children were the result, 
three now living: William H. , lives in this county; 
Robert ¥., James M. , and Sarah J., wife of Ole 
Brown, and lives in this county. Mrs. Lacy died 
in 1870, and was a consistent member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Lacy's 
second marriage was to Mrs. Martha A. Womack 
(Wolds), and two children have been born to them: 
Laura B. and George T. Mr. and Mrs. Lacy are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. Socially he is a member of the A. F. & 
A. M., and the I. O. O. F., and Encampment of 
that order. He has filled the oflBce of Worshipful 
]Master in the Masonic fraternity, and nearly all 
others of this order, and has held the office of N. 
G. in the I. O. O. F. He is a Democrat. 

R. L. Landers, sheriff, Melbourne, Ark. R. 
L. Landers, was born in Bedford County, Tenn., 
in 1845, and is the son of George T. and Jane 
(Browning) Landers, natives, respectively, of North 
and South Carolina. The parents came to Ar- 
kansas in 1851, and settled in Izard County, 
where they reared a family of five children, four 
now living: Robert L. , Nanny J., wife of Guston 
Rose; Mary T.. wife of J. F. Driskill; and G. 
R. , a farmer of this county. The father, George 
T. Landers, only lived three years after com- 
ing to Arkansas. He was Democratic in his po- 
litical principles. When he came to this State, 
he brought with him fourteen negroes and consid- 
erable money, and was quite successful, financially, 
after coming here. The mother died in 1885. R. 
L. Landers was early taught the principles of farm 
life, and a limited education was ol)tained in the 
subscription schools of Tennessee, and Izard 
Connty, Ark. When seventeen years of age he 
superintended his father's plantation, and at the 
age of twenty-one. he commenced life for himself. 
In 18(52 he enlisted as a private in Company E, 
Forty-seventh Arkansas Infantry, under Capt. 
Gibson, and served west of the Mississippi River, 
until 1804. He was sergeant of his regiment at 
the time he was discharged. After the war he 



commenced tilling the soil, which occupation he 
followed until 18(i'.), when ho was elected sheriff, 
and held the office until 1875. He then returned 
to the farm and cultivated the soil until 1881, 
when he was again elected sheriff, and held this 
position for one term. In 1886 he was again chosen 
to discharge the duties of this office, and is the 
present incural)ent. Mr. Landers seems to have a 
peculiar fitness for this position, and his long ser 
vice in this capacity has proven that he is surely 
the right man in the right place. During 1884 
and 1885, he served as justice of the peace. By his 
marriage, which occurred in 1804, to Miss Sarah 
E. Shannon, were i)oru the following living chil- 
dren: Mary E.. wife of A. E. Feltz: W. T., G. R., 
Frances T. and Rosa L. Mr. Landers is the 
owner of about 500 acres of land, with 140 acres 
under cultivation, and also has considerable town 
property. He is Democratic in his political views, 
is a Royal Arch Mason, and is also a member of 
the Odd Fellow order. He and wife are members 
of the Missionary Baptist Church. 

E. G. Landers, mi'rehant, ^Melbourne, Ark. In 
publishing an account of the industries and mer- 
cantile resources of the town of Melljourne, the 
house of Mr. Landers' must not be forgotten, as 
it constitutes a most important factor in the com 
mercial fabric of the town. Mr. Landers was born 
in Bedford County, Tenn., on the 7th of May. 
1840, and came with his parents to Arkansas in 
1854. He attended the subscription schools, buir 
only received a limited education, and at the at'e 
of twenty-two started out in life for himself, first 
as a laborer in a gin. He then followed the car- 
penter's trade for some time, and in 1804 joined 
the Confederate army, remaining in service until 
June, 1805, when he surrendered at Jacksonport, 
Ark. He was witii Gen. Price on his raid through 
Missouri, in 1804 and 1805, and particii)ated iti 
nearly all the battles fought on the raid. In 1877 
he engaged in merchandising at Lunenburg, under 
the firm title of Landers & Bros., and continued 
thus until 1880, when his brother sold out and a 
new partner, S. R. Hinkle, took his place. The 
firm is now Landers & Co., and do the largest busi 
ness in the place. They carry a stock of goods 



« w. 



956 



HISTORY OF AEKANSAS. 



that invoices at about $10,000 at the least, enjoying 
an annual trade of about $40,000. When first 
starting out in this business the firm had a capital 
of $1,5(0, Mr. Landers putting in $750. Aside 
from his flourishing mercantile business, he owns 
about 400 acres of land and considerable town 
property. His marriage was consummated in No- 
vember, 1867, to Miss Martha A. Hinkle, and by 
her he became the father of six' children, five now 
living: Leanora (wife of William Blair), Robert 
O. (deceased), Maggie, EfiSe G. , J. H. and Maudie. 
Mr. and Mrs. Landers, with the two eldest chil- 
dren, are members of the Missionary Baptist 
Church, and he is a Democrat in politics. Mrs. 
Landers is a member of the lady's department of 
the Masonic fraternity, and also of the Odd Fel- 
low's order. Mr. Landers started with very little 
means, but he is now one of the most successful 
men of the county. He is the son of Roland and 
Martha G. (Landers) Landers, natives of North 
Carolina. The father was born in 1810, and died 
in 1878, and the mother's birth occurred in 1813, 
and she died in February, 1884. Roland Landers 
was coroner of Izard County for several years, 
and was a cabinet maker Ijy trade, although in his 
latter years he was engaged in tilling the soil. He 
accumulated considerable property previous to the 
war, but was not a slave holder. By his marriage, 
which occurred in Tennessee, he became the father 
of these children: Rebecca J. (wife of W. Joe 
Arnold, of Melbourne), Sarah A. (wife of G. W. 
Gray), Mary Frances (wife of G. W. Owens), H. 
B. (farmer), Charlotte T. (wife of T. H. Adams), 
E. G., Genora D. (wife of W. Z. Craig), George 
W. (of Batesville), John F. (farmer), and Joe L. 
(farmer). 

Nathan J. Langston is one of the oldest native 
residents of Izard County, and when his parents, 
Nathan and Patty (Weir) Langston, made their 
first settlement in this region, Arkansas was a ter- 
ritory. They came here from their native State of 
North Carolina in 1814, and Mr. Langston and Col. 
Stewart erected the first mill in the county, he and 
four brothers being the ones to build it. They 
caiTied the logs on their shoulders, and had the 
mill completed in six days, and although it was a 



very rude construction, and only ground about a 
bushel of corn a day, yet it was sufiicient to supply 
the demand, as the settlers at that day were very 
few. Nathan Langston, Sr. , was only connected 
with this mill for about six months, when he turned 
his attention to farming, at which he was fairly 
successful, and in early days he also carried the 
mail for twelve years from Mount Olive, in Izard 
County, to Thomasville, Mo., a distance of IfiO 
miles, there being only foiu' oflices on the entire 
route. According to Mr. Langston the first post- 
office in this county was at North Fork, which was 
also the first county seat. In 1838 it was moved 
to Calico Rock, afterward to Athens, at the month 
of Piney Bayou, nest to Mount Olive, and thence 
to Melbourne, where it now is. When Mr. Lang 
ston first came to Arkansas Batesville consisted of 
two pole cabins, and from Batesville to the mouth 
of the Big North Fork there were only five families 
living on the east side of the river. The west side 
was inhabited by the Indians, who were very nu- 
merous at that time. The first year of his location 
Mr. Langston had to goto Helena, Ark., for flour, 
and to Little Rock, Ark., to attend circuit court. 
He died in 1870, at the age of seventy-nine years. 
He was married twice, and by his first wife became 
the father of sixteen children, and by his last, 
three. Those living are Absalom, Thomas B. 
and Nathan J., whose name heads this sketch. 
The latter was born in the year 1830, was reared 
to a farm life, and at the early age of nineteen 
j years was married to Miss Rachel Adams, who died 
1 in 1856, leaving four children, three of whom are 
! living: Alex., Mary, wife of Johnson Holfora, and 
I Matthew R. Mr. Langston married his second wife 
in 1859, she being a Miss Lucy A. Churchill, and 
five of their eleven children yet survive: Luvinia 
J., wife of James Brothers; Dempsia M. , Rebecca 
A., Acenith B. and Albert W. Mr. and Mrs. 
Langston are members of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church, and in his political views he is a 
Democrat. He owns a good farm comprising 120 
acres, and has twenty-five acres under cultivation. 
Among his numerous acquaintances and friends the 
respect shown him by them is in full keeping with 
his well-established reputation for honesty of pur- 



■^1 ^^ 



pose and hospitality. Mr. Langston remembers 
many interesting facts connected with the early 
history of this county, which the limited nature of 
this volume will not admit of insertion. 

William Lawrence, farmer, Melbourne, Ark. 
In the early settlement of Izard County, Ark., Mr. 
Lawrence bore a prominent jiart in developing and 
opening the way for civilization and is one of the 
representative men of the county. He was born 
in Alabama, in 1823, and is the son of James and 
Cynthia (Franks) Lawrence, natives of Tennessee. 
James Lawrence moved to Alabama, in 1822, set- 
tling in Marion County, and after remaining there 
a short time removed to Fayette County, where he 
remained until 1839. From there he journeyed to 
Louisiana, entered land and followed farming for 
about two years, when ho moved to Izard County, 
Ark., and settled in Sylamore, now in Stone Coun- 
ty. After a residence there of two years, he moved 
to the western part of the county, where he im- 
proved some government land. Two years later he 
moved to the eastern part of the county and re- 
mained there until a short time previous to his 
death, when he went to live with his son, William 
Lawrence, and died there in 1859, at the age of 
sixty-live or. seventy years. He had held the office 
of justice of the peace in the county for four years, 
and was an excellent citizen. He was twice mar- 
ried, his first wife being a Miss Tucker, who bore 
him five children, two sons and three daughters, all 
living at last accounts. They are named as fol- 
lows: Martin, Edward, Sai'ah, Catherine and Mary. 
His second marriage was to Miss Cynthia Franks, 
and to them were born nine children, two now liv- 
ing, William and James, who reside in this county. 
Mrs. Lawrence died in 1865. Both were members 
of the Baptist Church, and in politics he was a 
Democrat. William Lawrence was married in his 
twenty third year, and commenced work for him- 
self by farming on his own land, which ho had pur- 
chased in the central portion of the county. He 
sold this farm in 1850 and entered his present 
property, which he has improved and which con- 
sists of 200 acres. He now has about seventy or 
seventj'-five acres of cleared land, all the result of 
his own efforts, unassisted by any of his family. 



In 1802 he joined tlie Coufedenitc army and served 
under Gen. Thompson and Capt. C. C. Cook until 
the close of hostilities, when ho returned to his 
farm. He has lieeii three times married, his first 
wife being Elizabeth King, whom he led to the 
altar in 184t), and the fruits of this union were six 
children, all living: James, G. W., John, Isaac, 
Thomas and Edward. Mrs. Lawrence died in 
1859, a worthy member of the Baptist Church. His 
second marriage took place in 1801, to Miss Eliza 
both Clark, who liore him five children, all living: 
Henry, Cynthia A., wife of J. VV. Freeman; Mary 
F., at home; Rebecca J., at home, and Walter, also 
at home. The mother of these children was a 
member of the Baptist Church, and died in 1879. 
Mr. Lawrence's third marrijigo was to Mrs. A. N. 
Ivins (Bryant), a member of the Christian Church. 
He is a member of the Baptist Church, belongs to 
the Masonic fraternity, and in his political vifws is 
a stanch Democrat. 

Dr. Samuel M. Lewis, farmer and physician 
of Izard County., Ark., was born in Bledsoe 
County, Tenn., December 14, 1832, his parents. 
Reason and Patience (Peters) Lewis, being also 
natives of that State, the former's liirth occurring 
in Bedford County, in 1809. Their union took 
place in Bledsoe County, and to them were born 
four sons and five daughters, seven of their fam- 
ily being now alive, and all residents of the State 
of Tennessee except our subject. The father 
yet lives in Tennessee, and owns COO acres of as 
good land as there is in the State. He is a meirf 
ber of the Baptist Church, as was his wife, who 
died in 1875. Dr. Samuel M. Lewis, after acquir 
ing a good common school education, entered the 
Hamilton College with the intention of studying 
medicine, having chosen that profession as his 
calling through life. After his marriage, which 
was celebrated on the 19th of Septeml>or, 1858, to 
Miss Margaret Turk, he remained in his native 
State until 1807, at which time he settled in Max- 
field, Sharp County, .\rk.. but for a long time has 
been a resident of Izard County. He has been 
very successful in his practice, and has always 
commanded a large anil paying patronage, and 
occupies an iMivinbli' place among the medical 



'*Pr 



9 k^ 



958 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



brotherhood of Izard County. In addition to this 
work he has been engaged in farming, and is now 
the owner of about 640 acres of land, with about 
330 acres under cultivation, of which 150 are in 
Sharp County. He has shown his approval of 
secret organizations by becoming a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, and in this order has held the 
highest office. He and wife are classed among 
the worthy citizens of the county, and are consist 
ent members of the Methodist Church. Their 
children are as follows: Charles W. , Henry R., 
James J., George T., Joseph R., William D., 
John R. , Aque M. and Lora A. Mrs. Lewis is a 
daughter of George and Malinda Turk, both na- 
tives of Tennessee. 

Capt. Ransom "\V. Luther was born in the 
•'Keystone State" in 1837, and is a son of Enoch 
Luther, whose birth occurred in Sugar Creek, 
Penn., in 1787. The latter received a limited ed- 
ucation, and when quite a youth, learned the car- 
penter's trade, which occupation he followed for a 
number of years, then learning the wheelwright's 
trade. He was married in his native State, in 
1807, to Miss Polly Bennett, her father being 
Elisha Bennett, and to them a large family of 
seventeen children were born, ten of whom are 
living at the present time : Rosweir, David, Enoch, 
Elliot, Ransom, Burton, Laura, Mary, Angeline 
and Adaline. Mr. Luther served in the War of 
1812, and after hostilities had ceased, he returned 
home, and entered a tract of land embracing 160 
acres, which lie farmed for several years; then 
erected two large saw-mills and a grist-mill, which 
have been rebuilt, and are in good condition at 
the present time. For services rendered in the 
War of 1812, he received a grant to 160 acres of 
land in Knox County, 111., from the government, 
and at the time of his death, on the old " Luther's 
Mill Farm," in Pennsylvania, in 1859, he was the 
owner of 300 acres of laud. Capt. Ransom Luther 
received a good business education in the ' ' Luther's 
Mill Farm" school, and he has since put the 
education he acquired in this institution to the best 
use. He learned the millwright's trade under his 
father, afterward worked at the carpenter's trade, 
and in time became a very tine architect, although 



in more recent years he has given his attention 
principally to milling as his chief calling. He is 
an experienced carpenter and builder, and many 
evidences of his ability and skill in this direction 
are to be seen in his native State, Illinois, Iowa 
and Ai'kansas. He has always been of an enter- 
prising disposition, and in 1856 started out in life 
for himself, and moved to the State of Hlinois, but 
two years later went back to his old home, and 
was married there, in 1859, to Miss Sarah Knapj), 
a daughter of Charles Knapp, by whom he had 
one child, Alice. He wedded his second wife. 
Miss Edna C. Scott, of Cherokee, Iowa, in 1871, 
and two interesting children, Eugene W. and 
Maud S. , have blessed their union. Capt. Luther 
removed from the State of Iowa to Benton County, 
Ark., in 1878, and purchased eighty acres of land 
near Maysville, which he used as a small cattle 
ranch. From this place he went to Eureka Springs, 
in 1880, and erected a neat little cottage on Spring 
Street, near the Crescent Spring, his place being 
generally known as ' ' Eagle Cottage, ' " and it is 
of his own architecture. Here he resided until 

i 1 883, when he sold out to Dr. Swartly, of Chicago, 
for $2,350. After this the Captain and his family 
traveled for some months, and visited various 
places of interest in Missouri, Illinois, Dakota and 
Arkansas, and in 1884 returned to this State, and 

I located on Lafferty's Creek, six miles west of 
Barren Fork, where, with his brother in-law, Mr. 
Scott, he erected a large saw-mill, which has been 
of great benefit to the surrounding country. In 
1889 he sold his interest to Mr. Scott, and erected 
a grist-mill and cotton-gin just south of his former 
place of business, and at the present writing he is 
preparing to erect a commodious residence, and 
build a large dam to afford water power for his 
mill. In 1888 he ginned 150 bales of cotton, and 
in his new mill he expects to bale at least 300. 
Capt. Luther is a jovial and hospitable gentleman, 
a thoroughly capable business man, and is ever 
ready to assist any good cause, either practically 
or financially. He approves of secret organiza- 
tions, and is an active member of the I. O. O. F. 
His wife and daughter, Alice, are consistent mem 
bers of the Baptist Church. In 1861, upon the 



r 



bursting of the war cloud, which had threatened 
the country for some time, he enlisted in the in- 
fantry, under Col. Dodge, of Pennsylvania, and 
was in the battles of Williamsburg, Four Oaks, 
Richmond and Melbourne, and was also in the 
seven days' retreat at Harrison's Landing. He 
entered as a private, but for gallant services ren- 
dered, he was promoted to the rank of captain. 
He was honorably discharged, in ISfio. 

James McCuistion is one of the men of this 
section who has won life's battles, and by enerey 
and pluck, which are so necessary to success in any 
pursuit, he has become one of the leading agri- 
culturists of Izard County. He was bom in Jef- 
ferson County, East Tenn. , in 1815, and is a son 
of Joseph and Rachel (McGuire) McCuistion, the 
former's birth occurring in North Carolina, in 
1775. In 1789 he removed to Tennessee, with his 
parents, and in this State received a fair educa- 
tion in the common schools. In 1809 he entered 
160 acres of laud, and lived on it until 1S;]8, when 
he sold out and moved to Bays Mountain, where 
he died, in 1862, being followed to his long home 
by his wife in 1868, both having boon niembers of 
the Old Presbyterian Church. The children born 
to them were Catherine, James and Elizabeth. 
James' youth was spent in attending the schools of 
Tennessee, and in 1842 he was married, in Jeffer- 
son County, of that State, to Miss Mary Ann, a 
daughter of John Kimbrough: and Lafayette, Eve- 
line, Rachel A. (who died August 7, 1889), Vir- 
ginia, Francis (who has been dead some twenty 
years), Mary E. and Josephine are their children. 
Mr. McCuistion emigrated from Tennessee to Izard 
County, Ark., in 1850, and took np 299 acres of 
land, of which be has now about fifty-five acres 
under the plow. His first house was a log cabin, 
wliich he has since converted into a comfortable 
frame residence. His land is devoted to raising 
eottou, corn and the small grains, and he has plenty 
of good fruit. He and his wife and children are 
all members of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and he has given freely to public institutions for 
the good of his fellow-men. He has twenty four 
grandchildren, ten boys and fourteen girls, and 
two great-grandchildren, both boys. 



Alfred N. McNairn was born in Georgia, in 
1842, and is one of seven sons and four daughters 
born to Alfred T. and Prudence (Horton) Mc- 
Nairn, and is a grandson of Edwin Horton. Al- 
fred T. McNairn was born in North Carolina, De- 
cember 15, 1813, and was reared on a farm, but in 
1826 moved to Georgia, where he followed the oe 
cnpation of farming; he was also engaged in preach- 
ing the Gospel, being a minister of the Missionary 
Baptist Cluirch, and there reared his children, 
whose names are as follows: Larkin H. , Spencer 
B., Edwin B., Joseph U., William L., Alfred N.. 
Alvin C, Martha J., A. L., Eliza M. and Rosa 
A. Both parents died in the State of Georgia, 
his death occurring in 1870, and hers in 1868, at 
the age of fifty-eight years. Alfred N. McNairn 
emigrated from Georgia to Izard Coimty, Ark., in 
1869, and was here married, in 1872. to Miss Nancy 
E. Dureu, a daughter of James E. Duren. Of the 
eight children born to them the following are living: 
Thomas E., Mary L.. Francis P. E.. Dolores A., 
Zef R. and Newton A. In 1873 Mr. McNairn 
purchased eighty acres of woodland, but he now 
owns 100 acres of good land, with forty-eight acres 
under cultivation, it being well improved and fur- 
nished with one of the finest fruit orchards in this 
section of the country. He and wife are memlters 
of the Missionary Baptist Church, and he belongs 
to the I. O. O. F.. and in his political views is a 
Democrat, and always supports the men and mea 
sures of that party. He espoused the cause of the 
Confederacy during the rebellion, and in 18ft2 
enlisted in the Fifty-second Georgia Infantry, and 
served until the close of the war, when he surren 
dered at Kingston. Ga. He was a member of 
Company I, under Capt. Russell, and was in a 
number of hard fought battles. ^ 

A. A. Marchant, farmer, Melbourne, Ark 
Among the leading men'of Mill Cn-ek Townshij) 
none arc more prominently identified with the 
farming and stock raising interests of the same 
than Jlr. Marchiint. who by his industrj-, perse- 
vereuce and integrity, is considered one of its 
tirst-clasB farmers. He was born in Bedford 
County, Tenn., in 1S41, and when iiinet<>en years 
of age started out in life for liiniself, his first ven 



l^, 



'J60 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



ture l)eing to hire out to one man as a farm hand 
for two years. When twenty-one j-ears of age he 
donned his suit of blue, and enlisted in the First 
Arkansas Infantry, United States Army, Company 
C, and served for six months, when he was dis- 
charged at St. Louis, Mo., in December, 1863. 
After this he drove a team for the government, 
and acted as guide until 1864, when he enlisted in 
the Forty- eighth Missouri, Company E, for twelve 
months, and served only nine months, when he 
was discharged again at St. Louis, on the 1st of 
July, 1865. At the close of the war he was at 
Chicago, 111. , guarding the prisoners. After ces- 
sation of hostilities he came home and engaged in 
farming, which he followed on rented land until 
1871, when he bought land in Baxter County. 
He only remained on this land one year, but con- 
tinued in the county until 1874, when he moved to 
Izard County, and, in 1879, bought his present 
jiroperty consisting of 163 acres, with about 100 
acres under cultivation. At the close of the war 
he had only about $50 or $60 in money, and not a 
horse, hog or cow. On the 16th of July, 1865, 
he wedded Miss Amanda F. Dixon, a native of 
Izard Count)-, although they were' married in Mil- 
ler County, Mo. They became the parents of 
these children: W. B., lives in the Choctaw Na- 
tion; T. J. (deceased); J. W., at home; Rufus, at 
home, and Minnie M. Mr. Marchant is a member 
of the I. O. O. F. , is a member of the Christian 
Church, and is a Republican in his political views. 
Mrs. Marchant belongs to the Baptist Church. 
The parents of Mr. Marchant, W. B. and Nancy 
(Byler) Marchant, were natives of Alabama and 
Tennessee, respectively. After reaching manhood 
W. B. Marchant went to Tennessee, but left that 
State in 1850, and came on a flat-boat to Napoleon, 
thence by steamer to Little Rock, and from there 
with teams over- land to Izard County. He settled 
on Hidden Creek, bought an improved piece of 
land and there resided for six years. He then sold 
out and bought a farm close to where Melbourne 
now is, remaining there only two years, when he 
traded his farm for one close to Calico Rock, in 
Izard County. In 1862 he joined the* United 
States Army, and was sent to St. Louis, where he 



died in the hospital. He was married three times; 
first, to Susan Cox, who bore him four children, 
three living: W. B. , Minerva and T. J. After 
her death, Mr. Marchant married Miss Nancy 
Byler, mother of the subject of this sketch. Three 
children were born to this marriage, only one, A. 
A., now living. Mrs. Marchant died in 1844, at 
the age of twenty-eight years. She was a mem- 
ber of the Missionary Baptist Church. In 1845 
Mr. Marchant married Miss Ena Taylor, of Ten- 
nessee, and by her became the father of nine 
children, eight now living: W. S., Richard E., 
Mary T., Silas A., Joseph E., Martin B., Susan 
A. and A. M. The oldest child, Martha, was 
killed on the road from Little Rock to Melbourne, 
having accidentally fallen out of the wagon, by 
which she was ran over. This was in 1850, and 
she was buried in White County. Mr. Marchant 
was an old line Whig, but was not active in poli- 
tics. He was once a member of the Know- 
Nothing party, was a member of the Baptist 
Church, and at one time was constable of Rocky 
Bayou. His last wife still resides near Calico 
Rock, and is a member of the Baptist Church. 
The maternal grandfather of A. A. Marchant, 
John Byler, was a private in the War of 1812, 
and was in the battle of New Orleans. He died 
about 1871, at the age of eighty-live years. 

T. J. Mathews is a merchant and farmer, re- 
siding at Calico Rock, and was born in Benton 
County, Tenn., being a son of Capt. R. C. and 
Nancy (Migell) Mathews, who were also Tennes- 
seeans, and came to the State of Arkansas in ] 860, 
settling in Izard County. Capt. Mathews em- 
barked in merchandising in the house in which his 
son T. J. is now doing business, and he was also 
engaged iu farming. In the spring of 1861 he 
moved to Pineville, where he conducted a general 
store for about one year, then joined the Confed- 
erate army, and was elected captain of his com- 
pany. After serving for one year, he was taken 
sick and returned home, and here continued during 
the remainder of the war. After the cessation of 
hostilities, he again embarked in merchandising, 
and continued this occupation with success for 
twelve or thirteen years, when he sold out to his 



V 




*, 






(deceased) 
Mississippi CouHit,ARHAH5AB . 



^ 



IZARD COUNTY. 



'.If, I 



son, S. E. Mathew.s, iuul turned his attention to 
farming and stock raising, on the property where 
he now lives. His business ventures have been at- 
tended with good results, and the property he now 
owns has all been acqiiired since the war, as his 
losses during that time were very heavy. He was 
married about 1835, and his children's names are 
as follows: Margaret E., wife of W. McNeil; S. 
E., a merchant of Pineville; Clarissa E., wife of 
Dr. J. A. Schanks; Mary A., wife of Rufus P. 
Jones; and T. J., the subject of this memoir. 
Mrs. Mathews died in March, 1879, having been a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
for many years, her death occurring on her birth- 
day, at the age of sixty years. Mr. Mathews is a 
Democrat, and belongs to the F. & A. M. T. J. 
Mathew's birth occurred on the 6th of September, 
1855, and his early education was received in the 
schools ot La Crosse, Prof. M. Shelby Kennard 
being his instructor, and at the age of twenty-five 
years he began life for himself as a merchant, this 
being the occupation to which he was reared. He 
has continued to follow this business up to the 
present time, and has been remarkably successful, 
for, on starting for himself in 1880, his stock of 
goods amounted to $160, and his annual sales now 
aggregate between » 12, 000 and !?1 0,000, and he has 
an excellent tract of land, amounting to i)'SH acres, 
with nearly 164 acres under cultivation, all of 
which he has earned by good business management 
and industry, since the above-given date, and with 
the aid and assistance of his worthy wife. Her 
maiden name was Mollie Wood, their union taking 
place on the 30th of October, 1879, and they have 
an interesting little family of four children: Henry 
H., born October 4, 1880; Shelby S., born Decem- 
ber 15, 188'2; Troy G., born February 3, 1885; 
and Winford F., bom May 23, 1887. Mrs Math- 
ews was born in Izard County, on the 28th of 
November, 1863, and she and Mr. Mathews are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, and he belongs to the F. & A. M. . and is 
a Democrat politically. 

Dr. R. H. Morton, Franklin. Ark. Dr. 
Morton is one of the oldest j)ractitioners of Frank- 
lin Township, and one of the oldest in the county. 



He owes his nativity to Bedford County, Tenu.. 
and is the son of Jacob and Annie (Fisher l 
Morton, natives of North Carolina. Jacob Mr)rton 
received an average education in his native State. 
and came to Tennessee at an early date. He pur- 
chased a farm in Bedford County, and was one of 
the tirst settlers of Shelbyville. In connection 
with farming he also carried on the blacksmith 
trade, liut bis principal occupation was tilling the 
soil, which he gave his attention until his death in 
1857. He was married in Tennessee, and he and 
wife commenced housekeeping on Duck River, 
where they reared a large family of children, eight 
now living: Minerva, wife of B. F. Whitworth: 
Sophronia (deceased) was the wife of Micliael Shof 
ner; G. W. C. (deceased), whose family resides in 
Bedford County, Tenn. ; Daniel C. resides in Cof- 
fee County, Tenn. ; Nancy, wife of Edward Whit 
worth; Christina, wife of W. Tune; Emily, wife 
of Newton Neal; Ann, wife of B. F. Smawling. 
D. E. resides in Bedford County, Tenn. ; Dr. R. 
H., Jessie E.. wife of T. N. Smith: Elijah A. re- 
sides in Bedford County, Tenn., and Martha (de- 
ceased), wife of T. N. Smith. The father of these 
children served in the War of IS 12. as a private, 
and participated in the battle of New Orleans. 
Mrs. Morton died about 1869. Both were members 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Mr. 
Morton took an active interest in politics, and was 
a very strong supporter of Old Hickory. Dr. R. 
H. Morton divided his time in early youth between 
assisting on the farm and in attending the free and 
subscription schools of Tennessee, where he re- 
ceived a good English education. He atten<l<>(l 
medical lectures at Nashville, Tenn., in 1856 and 
1857, and opened his first office at Poplin's Cross 
Roads, where he practiced for two years previous 
to graduating. He was then located in Missouri, 
from 1858 to 1861 (Texas County). In the spring 
of the last mentioned year he served in the Con 
federate service as surgeon, and thus continued 
until 1863, when he resigned and located in Izanl 
County, where he has since resided. He gradti 
ated at the American Medical College, at St. Louis, 
in 1878, and is the oldest practicing physician in 
the county. He has almost al)aiuloned the prac 



® W- 



>^, 



962 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tice of his profession in late years, and is now in- 
terested in agricultural pursuits. The Doctor was 
married in Septembor, 1857, to Miss Emma A. 
Nichols, of Tenn., but they have never had any 
children. He is quite well fixed financially, and 
enjoys life to the fullest extent. He is a member 
of the A. F. & A. M. , is also a member of the I. 
O. O. F. , and has been Treasurer of the former 
lodge, holding the position of Vice Grand. Com- 
mander, and others in the latter lodge. He is a 
Democrat in politics, but has never been an office 
seeker. He is a member of the Christian Church. 
The Doctor owns considerable land, and has on his 
home place about seventy-five acres under cultiva- 
tion. He has good barns, outbuildings, etc. His 
residence is one of the finest in the county, and 
there he entertains his friends in the social pleas- 
ant manner peculiar to him, and the stranger also 
meets with a ready welcome from the Doctor and 
his agreeable wife. Although children were denied 
their union, the Doctor and wife have reared sev- 
eral who were left orphans. 

Jacob Mosier, Sr., was born on the Potomac 
River, in Lincoln County, N. C, in 1821. His 
father, Barnett M. Mosier, was also a native of 
that State, his birth occurring in 1799, and was 
married there to Margaret, a daughter of Corb. 
Gobble, their union taking place when he was 
eighteen years of age. In 1832 he removed with 
his family to Independence County, Ark., and 
purchased and entered land there to the amount of 
320 acres, which land he was engaged in farming 
lip to the time of his death, in 1864. His children 
are: Mary J., Allen B., George W., Henry A., Ja- 
cob and Jack. Jacob Mosier removed to Arkansas 
with his parents, and on his father's farm, in In- 
dependence County, he learned the details of farm 
work, which occupation has received his attention 
up to the present time. He is one of the leadinc 
husbandmen of this vicinity, and has 250 acres of 
well improved and well cultivated land. He was 
one of tlu^ pioneers of the State, and during its 
early history he carried the surveyor's chain 
through this section, this being some fifty years 
ago. He is one of the hard working men of Izard 
County, and owing to his many worthy characteris- 



tics, chief among which may be mentioned his gen- 
erosity and honesty, he is respected and esteemed 
by all. In 1854 he took a trip to California. He 
was married, in 1846, to Miss Melissa A. Romenor, 
by whom he has a family of seven children: Mary 
J., William H., Jacob, Charles M., Cordelia. Sarah 
A. and Martha. Mr. Mosier and his wife are 
members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 
and he belongs to the I. O. O. F. 

James H. MuUins was born in the "Old Do- 
minion." on the 18th of March, 1839, and is a son 
of Hiram R. Mullins, who was born in North Car- 
olina, in 1794. and was educated in that State. 
He moved to Tennessee in 1815, and was there 
married to Nancy Singleton, a native of Virginia, 
and to their union eleven children were born, six 
of whom are living, three being residents of Ar- 
kansas and three of Kentucky. The father was 
one of the honest sons of the soil, and uj)on his 
death, in 1850, was the owner of 220 acres of pro- 
ductive and valuable laud. His wife died in 
Arkansas, August 13. 1886, both having been 
members of the Methodist Church, and be a mem- 
ber of the Masonic lodge. James H. Mullins was 
educated in Tennessee, near Tazewell, but being of 
an energetic and enterprising disposition he deter- 
mined to seek his fortune in what he considered a 
more favorable locality, and accordingly, in ] 8(53, 
moved to the State of Arkansas and engaged in 
business for himself, his capital consisting of a 
span of horses and the energy and pluck which 
nature had bestowed upon him. He immediately 
engaged in farming, and that he has been success- 
ful is shown when the fact is mentioned that he 
owns 250 acres of land, with about 125 acres under 
cultivation. Notwithstanding that he was severely 
wounded in the left wrist, in the year 1862, at the 
battle of Oak Hill, being left a cripple for life, he 
has succeeded far beyond his expectations, and can 
look back over a useful and well spent life. He 
and wife, whose maiden name was Minerva King, 
and whom he married on the 23d uf June, 1863, 
are worthj' and consistent members of the Baptist 
Church, and both areliberal contributors to all char 
itable and other worthy enterprises. He is a Mason, 
has been postmaster of Evening Shade for three 



- > n >*- 



IZARD COUNTY. 



years, constable two years, and deputy sheriff six 
months. His children are: Eliza A. (Mrs. T. D. 
Starkey), Albert F., Hiram R., Josephine, Robert 
C, Nancy M., Sarah R. and William C. In the 
late war Mr. Mullins served from 1862 till No- 
vember, 1864, under Col. Greene. 

William S. Nail was born in Lawrence County, 
Tenn. , in 1820, and his father, Archie, was a na- 
tive of Alabama, but was married in Tennessee to 
Miss Morrow, by whom he reared a family of four 
children: William, Franklin, Thomas and Mary 
A. Archie Nail was a soldier in the War of 1812, 
and died in the State of Tennessee, in 1830, he 
having followed the occupation of farming and 
blacksmithing all his life. William S. Nail 
learned these occupations of his father, and in ad- 
dition to farm work, which has always received 
his attention, he has been faithful to the hammer 
and anvil also. In 1845 he removed from Ten- 
nessee to Mississippi, and was there engaged in 
blacksmithing until 1856, when he came to Inde- 
])endence County (now Izard County), Ark., and 
purchased land to the amount of 120 acres, and in 
1867 built a cotton-gin on this farm which has 
been in operation ever since. His land now com- 
prises 280 acres, seventy- tive being in a tillable 
condition, and a portion of his mountainous land 
is underlaid with valuable minerals. He raises 
cotton, corn, and small grains on his cultivated 
lands, and is acknowledged l)y all to be one of the 
most reliable and enterprising citizens of Lafferty 
Township. In 1840 he was married to Miss Me- 
linda, the daughter of Thomas Williamson, of Mis- 
sissippi, aud of eight children born to them, the 
following are living: Thomas, INIary E., Catherine 
F. and Charley L. Mr. Nail belongs to the I. O. 
O. F. , aud he aud wife are members of the Pres- 
byterian Church. 

Thomas A. Nail is one of the industrious farm- 
ers aud law abiding citizens of Izard County, Ark., 
and has a good farm of 100 acres, which he has 
acquired by his own energy and good management 
since the close of the Civil War. His property is 
located on Lafferty' s Creek, and is considered very 
valuable, as it is underlaid with mineral ore in 
paying quantities. Twenty-five acres are under 



the plow, and are in an exceedingly fertile con- 
dition. Mr. Nail was l)orn in the State of Missis- 
.sippi, in 1842, aud at the early ag(^ of eighteen years 
ho was united in the Ijonds of matriuKjny to Miss 
Sallic Brown, a daughter of Levi Brown, of Izard 
County. T(j them were born u family of three 
children: William A., Mary F. and Charles F. 
When the Civil War broke out he, in 1862, joined 
the cavalry under Capt. George W. Rutherford, 
now of Independence County, Ark., and was in 
many important engagements during his service. 
! He surrendered at Jacksonport and returned home, 
and has since given his attention to farming with 
the above mentioned results. He is a son of Will- 
iam S. Nail, whose sketch precedes this. 

Joel D. Patterson has been familiar with farm 
work from his earliest youth, aud is now ranked 
among the prosjjerous farmers of Izard County. 
He was born in North Carolina in 1826, and is a 
son of David and Mecca ( Holder ) Patterson, who 
were also born in the "Old North State.'" In 
1846 David Patterson removed to Kentucky, 
where he engaged in farming, having previously 
worked at house carpentering and cabinet making 
in his native State. He was also married there in 
1825, and to him and wife were born eight children, 
five of whom are living: J. D., Caroline, wife of 
La Fayette Wright, of Kentucky ; Susan, wife of 
M. V. Belma, of Kentucky; Francis M.. a black 
smith, also residing iu Kentucky, and Mary, wife 
of C. C. Ashworth. of Tennessee. Mr. Patterson 
voUmteered, but did not serve in the War of IS12. 
He died on the 16th of May, 1855, at the age of 
sixty six years, followed to his long home by bis 
wife in 1883, her death occurring at the age of 
seventy-eight years. They were meml)ers of the 
Baptist Church, and were worthy and honored 
citizens. Joel D. Patterson attended the common 
schools of North Carolina, and, after his removal 
to Kentucky with his parents, he gave his atten 
tion to agricultural jmrsuits. with the exception 
of two years, when he worked in a wagon shoji. 
In 185i) he moved to Izard County, Ark., aud en 
tered ll'id acres of land near the town of Philadel 
phia. where he resided two years, then, upon \\w 
opening of the Civil War, he returned to K<'n 



J^! 



^^ 



964 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



tucky, where his attention was given to farming 
for four years. He then came back to his farm in 
Izard County, but about two years later traded it 
for another place, but also disposed of this at the 
end of two years. He then pui'chased and has since J 
resided on his present farm (which amounts to i 
277 acres, with eighty acres improved, with good 
buildings and under cultivation), with the excep- | 
tion of about twenty months, when he resided in 
Fulton County. He was married, in ]8r)8, to Miss 
Miranda Egbert, of Kentucky, and five of their 
eight children are now living: James R. , who is 
now residing in Smith ville, Ark. , but expects soon 
to go to Texas; Joel B. , residing in Indian Terri- 
tory; Francis L. , Marcus L. and Hiram E. Mr. 
and Mrs. Patterson are members of the Baptist 
Church, and he is a Democrat politically, and is 
decidedly in favor of all movements which prom- 
ise to benefit the community in which he resides. 
E. S. Pearson is a member of the mercantile 
firm of Sanders & Pearson, of Oxford, Ark., and 
also of F. AV. Pearson & Co., of Thayer, Mo., 
both of whom carry a varied assortment of goods, 
which can not fail to satisfy every want of their 
patrons. He was born in McMinn County, Tenn., 
in 1829, and is a son of Edmond and Cynthia E. 
(Hardwick), natives of South Carolina and Alabama, 
respectively. The father removed to Tennessee in 
1824, where he farmed, in connection with preach- 
ing the Gospel, and for ten years he was an elder 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 
1832 he settled in Jackson Covinty, Ala., but he 
afterward moved to Talladega County, where he 
died in the fall of 1847, at the age of fifty-two 
years, having been a minister of the Gospel for 
twenty-eight years. He and wife became the par- 
ents of the following children: Charles D. (who 
died, leaving a family in Texas), F. A. (deceased, 
left a family in Mississippi), B. T., F. C. (a min- 
ister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
residing in Texas), F. C. (also a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in Texas, besides 
engaged in farming), Martha C. (wife of Marion 
Simmons, of this county), Cynthia E. (the de- 
ceased wife of Carroll White, her family residing 
in Mississippi), Mary C. (wife of D. B. White, of 



Texas), Watson H. (a Methodist minister, residing 
in Izard County), and W. W. (deceased, was also 
a minister of the Methodist Church, and died in 
Mississippi, in 1871). E. S. Pearson was reared 
on a farm, and educated in the schools of Alabama. 
Upon reaching the age of twenty-one years he be- 
gan farming on land which he owned, but this 
work he gave up, on the breaking out of the war, 
to enlist in the Confederate service. He joined 
Company F, under Gen. Forrest, and served as his 
commissary for three years, and, in 1865, surren 
dered at Corinth, Miss. He then returned to 
Mississippi, where he had located in 1850, and be- 
gan farming and merchandising at Houston, but, 
four years later, he moved to Lee County, and en- 
gaged in farming. He took up his abode in the 
State of Arkansas, in 1889, and, after residing for 
some time on a farm of 400 acres, he sold out and 
went to Newburg, where he was engaged in the 
mercantile business for three years. From that 
time iintil 1880 he again farmed, and then followed 
merchandising once more. He sold this establish- 
ment to Garner & Richardson, and up to March, 
1889, his attention was given to agriculture alone. 
He has since followed merchandising, and has also 
managed his farm of sixty- five acres. His home 
place is also under cultivation, and in the two enter- 
prises to which he has given the most of his at- 
tention he has met with flattering success, and, 
besides the income which he derives from his farm, 
the sales in his mercantile establishment will 
amount to about $12,000. He was married, in 
1850, to Miss Ellen Morris, of Pontotoc County, 
Miss. , and by her he became the father of eleven 
children, seven of whom are living: C. Elizabeth 
(wife of John M. Smith, of Polk County, Mo.), 
F. W. (a merchant at Thayer, Mo.), Alice M. 
(wife of Joseph Harklerood, a farmer of Fulton 
County, Ark.), Mary E. (wife of Jasper Rader, of 
Fulton County), Emma (wife of W. Martin, a 
farmer of Izard County), Thomas W. and Josie 
L. (the latter two at home with their father). 
Adolphus L., the eldest child, died in 1SS8 (he 
wedded the daughter of Judge Hunter, of Fulton 
County); W. W. died in his twenty-third year, in 
1876, and two died in infancy. Mr. Pearson was 






IZARD COUNTY. 



iKjr 



called upon to mourn tho death of his wife ia 
1879, she having been an earnest member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and, in 1880, 
he wedded Mrs. Sarah J. (Hancock) McCollough, 
a daughter of Joel and Sarah (Hall) Hancock, na- 
tives, respectively, of Kentucky and South Caro- 
lina. Mrs. Pearson was reared in Ohio, to which 
State her father was taken when he was a small 
boy, and from this State her father enlisted in the 
War of 1812. He was a fanner, and he and wife 
were the parents of the children whose names are 
here given; Robert T. (of Oliio), L. B., J. K., 
J. H., J. B., J. R., Harriet (wife of Ezra Clark, 
of Indiana), and Sarah J. (Mrs. Pearson). Mr. 
Hancock died in 1803, and his wife in 1875, both 
being earnest members of the United Presbyterian 
Church at the time of their deaths. Mrs. Pearson 
was first married, in 1848, to Aaron Michael, in 
Ohio, soon afterward emigrating to Arkansas, and 
settling in Jackson County, where Mr. Michael 
died, in 1857. In 1874 Mrs. Michael was united 
in marriage with William McCollough, who died in 
1878. He was a Confederate soldier, and was with 
Price on his last raid through Missouri. He was 
a member of the Baptist Church, and belonged to 
the A. F. & A. M. Since 1884 Mr. Pearson has 
been a licensed minister of the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian Church, with which church he united in 
1880. While residing in Mississippi, in 1868, he 
became a licensed minister of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Politically, he is a Democrat. 
Mrs. Pearson has in her possession a bed-spread, 
with a double-woven top, in blue and white, and 
on the under side is the year (1837) in which it 
was woven, and also the name of the weaver, she 
having herself spun the thread, of which the bed- 
spread was made, when a girl. 

James Perrin is one of the wealthy agricult- 
urists of this region, and at the present time is the 
owner of a fine tract of land consisting of 900 
acres, of which there are about 100 acres under 
cultivation, all being the result of his energy, de- 
termination and attention to details. He was born 
in Lexington, Ky., December 1, 1844. but was ed- 
ucated in Independence County, Ark., to which 
place his parents moved at an early date. He was 



there also married, his wilV' licmg .i .Mis> Eil.-u 
Street, and a daughter of \\illiam and Anna Street, 
their nuptials being celebrated on the "Jd of March, 
1869, at Batesville. To them were born four sons 
and three daughters, the following of whom are 
living: Jessamine, Claud B., Horace, and William 
F., all residing at home. During the rebellion 
Mr. Perrin served in the Third Arkansas Cavalry 
from 1862 to 1865, the first hard Imttle in which 
he participated being at Helena. After his return 
home he engaged in grist- milling, and now in ad- 
dition to his farm work he is furnishing railroad 
timber supplies, such as telegraph poles and ties. 
He and wife belong to the Presbyterian Church 
and are worthy and honored citizens of the county. 
He is one of three surviving members of a family cf 
two sons and three daughters born to the man-iagi' 
of David Perrin and Nancy M. Baldwin, the 
former a native of Michigan, born in 1786. He 
was also educated in that State, but moved to Ohio, 
and was there married, his wife being a sister of 
Rev. S. D. Baldwin, who was the author of the 
"Baldwin's Prophecy," and was pastor of the Me 
Kendry Church at Nashville. Tenn. Mr. Perrin 
was a millwright by trade, and was a member of 
the Masonic lodge, and at the time of his death, 
on the 2d of April, IS69, he was buried with Ma- 
sonic honors in the cemetery at Batesville. He re 
moved from the State of Indiana, where he had 
resided for some time, to Arkansas, in 1850. settling 
near Batesville, where he erected the first bridge 
ever built over Polk Bayou. His wife died May 
28, 1877, both being members of the Old School 
Presbyterian Church. 

Judge R. H. Powell, Melbourne, Ark., is one 
of whom it can be said: 

" With an equal scale 
He weiijhs the affairs betwi.xt man and man ' 

He is a prominent man of Northern Arkansas, 

and judge of the district in which he resides. His 

' birth occurred in Sussex County, Va. , on the Sth 

of April, 1827, and he is the s<m of Thomas P. and 

Jaue P. (Roland) Powell, both native.s of the OKI 

Dominion, the former born in 1808 and the latter 

in 1806. The father was of Welsh descent, and 

was reared and married in his native State. Hi- 



oon 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



moved tn Tennessee in 1832, settling in Bedford 
County, and was a very successful tiller of the 
soil, being the owner of ahowt thirty negroes, and 
some fifteen or twenty field hands. He was a 
Whig, and a very decided partisan, although he 
never held office. He split off from the Demo- 
cratic party in 1834 and joined with the Clay fac- 
tion. His first Whig vote was cast for Hugh L. 
White and Baily Peyton. He bade a final adieu 
to this world in 1853, and died as he had lived, an 
honored, upright citizen, one universally respected. 
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, of which his wife was also a mem- 
ber. She died in 1840 or 1841. To their mar- 
riage, which occurred in 1824, were born nine 
children, all of whom lived to maturity, and eight 
still survive: Dr. R. J. (resides in Izard County), 
R. H. (subject), Mary A. (wife of Dan Morten, and 
makes her home in Tennessee), Martha H. (wife of 
J. W. Nailer, resides in Tennessee). Margaret V. 
(wife of S. H. Winston, resides in Stone County, 
Ark. ), Miranda (wife of James McCuistion, resides 
in Izard County), W. S. (deceased), Sarah J. 
(widow of Dr. David Deason, resides in Tennessee), 
and Harriet T. (wife of Town Scruggs, resides at 
Bell Buckle, Tenn. ). The paternal grandfather of 
these children, Robert Powell, was a native of 
Virginia, and was a boy at the surrender of Lord 
Cornwallis, but was present on that auspicious oc- 
casion. The youth of Judge R. H. Powell was 
passed in laboring on his father's farm and in at- 
tending the common sub.scription schools. When 
twenty- one years of age he entered the Salem 
Academy, remained there but three or four months 
and then engaged in teaching school, which pro- 
fession he followed until about twenty-eight years 
of age. He then attended law school at Lebanon, 
Tenn., under Judge Abram Caruthers and Judge 
Greene, and after passing a very rigid examina- 
tion received his license. He subsequently com- 
menced practicing at Louisburg, Marshall County, 
Tenn. (1855), and there remained until 1860, 
being first a partner of Gideon B. Black, of Ten- 
nessee, and later a partner of James H. Thomas, 
of Columbia. In 1860 he came to Batesville, Ark., 
remained there but a short time, and then moved 



to Izard Countj', in 1861. He was first married to 
Miss Jane Temple, in June, 1849, and the fruits 
of this union were six children, who lived to be 
grown: Dr. Dempsey T. (resides at Thayer, Mo., 
and is an assistant surgeon of the Kansas & Mis- 
souri Railroad), Robert T. (attorney at Greenwood, 
Ark.), Nancy J., Mary W. (wife of John W. Woods, 
who is an attorney in Melbourne), Henry Lee (wife 
of Ewing Kennard, who is a druggist at La Crosse), 
and William W. (an attorney). In 1862 Judge 
Powell joined Company B, Freeman's battalion, 
Shaler's company, and, although entering the 
ranks as a private, he was afterward elected by 
his company to the position of first lieutenant, in 
which capacity he served until December, 1868. 
He was taken prisoner near Batesville, and was 
sent to Little Rock, Ark. At the time he was taken 
prisoner he had been assigned to duty as commis- 
sary and quartermaster, by Gen. Price, and had 
in his possession some valuable papers and about 
$1,500. The United States forces secured the 
papers but failed to get the money. Mrs. 
Montgomery (sister of Capt. James Ruther- 
ford, of Batesville) managed to slijs the money 
from the outside pocket of his overshirt, and 
sent it to Col. Freeman. After being sent to 
Little Rock, he was shortly afterward removed to 
St. Louis and quartered in the McDowell Col- 
lege, in February, 1864. The following April he 
was removed to Johnson's Island, and was there 
retained until the Oth of January, 1865. On the 
29th of the following month he was exchanged and 
then came home on a sixty days' leave of absence, 
and had started back to rejoin his command, when 
he heard of Gen. Lee's surrender. He surrendered 
at Jacksonport on the 5th of June, 1865, and after 
returning home engaged in agricultural pursuits, 
which he continued until 1866. He then began 
practicing his profession in this and surrounding 
counties. In 1862 Judge Powell was elected to 
represent his county in the legislature, and this 
was the first legislature that met after the seces- 
sion of the State. In 1866 he was elected judge of 
this, then the Seventh circuit, and served until 
after the reconstruction of 1868, when he was dis- 
fi-anchised. From 1868 to 1874 he was interested 



><^(5 r- 



V 



' J£ 



IZARD COUNTY. 



007 



ia mercantile pursuits, and followed this business 
in La Crosse, Lunenburg and Newburg, Izard 
County, and at Paraquet Bluff, Independence 
County. He lost his wife in 1870. She was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
In 1873 the Judge wedded Mrs. Harriet Herbert 
{nee Harris), and two children were the result of 
this union, both of whom died while small. Mrs. 
Powell died in 1870. She was also a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Judge 
Powell was again married in 1878 to Mrs. Elizabeth 
Davidson, widow of Dr. Davidson. Her maiden 
name was Gardner, and she was a native of Ten- 
nessee. Two children were born to the last union: 
Guy and Ruth H. In 1874 Judge Powell attend- 
ed strictl}' to the practice of his profession, and 
for four years remained thus engaged. In 1878 
he was elected judge of the Third circuit, and tilled 
that position until 1887, when there was a division 
iu the circuit, and he was placed in charge of the 
Fourteenth judicial circuit. He has been judge 
ever since 1878 (now twelve years) without any in- 
termission, and his term expires in 1890. He is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity. Blue Lodge, 
R. A. C. , and Council, and is also a Knight Templar. 
He is a straight Democrat in his political views, and 
he and wife are members of the Methodist Episco- 
pjil Church, South. 

William M. Ray removed from his native State 
of Tennessee (he being a native of Bedford County, 
born in 1828), to Independence County, Ark., in 
1858, and purchased and entered the land on which 
he is now residing, which comprises 300 acres, 100 
acres being under cultivation. The tillable por- 
tion of his land he devotes principally to cotton, corn 
and small ffrain, and the manner in which he con- 
ducts his farm shows him to be well posted on all 
matters pertaining to the work. He was reared, 
educated and married in his native State, the latter 
event taking place in 1850, and jjeing to Miss 
Nancy J. Holland, a daughter of William Holland. 
Seven of their nine children survive: Alexander, 
Joseph R. , George F. , Sarah J. , James, William 
M. and Dorinda. Mr. and Mrs. Ray are members 
of the Christian Church, and he is an active mem- 
ber of the I. O. O. F. During the Civil War he 



espoused the cause of 1\h< Confederacy, and served 
in the infantry and cavalry for about six months 
during 1802. His parents, Alexander and Isabella 
(Scott) Ray, wore born in North Carolina and Ten- 
uessee, respectively, and were married in the lat- 
ter State, in 1810, to which State ho came with his 
parents, when near twenty-six years of age. Ho 
was badly crippled when al>out twenty years of 
age by white swelling, but notwithstanding this 
drawback he became quite well-to do, and was the 
owner of 240 acres of land in Tennessee. Of the 
seven children born to himself and wife, only one 
is now living, William M., our subject. He died 
in Tennessee, July 30, 1850, his wife, who was a 
daughter of John Scott, of Tennessee, dying at the 
age of thirty-five years. 

T. H. Ray is a Tennesseean, born in Wayne 
County on the 10th of March, 1845), his father, E. 
W. Ray, being born in Warren County of that 
State, in 1812. He was reared, educated and 
married there, the latter event being to Miss Eliz 
abeth Ford of the same State. Of four sous Ijorn 
to them, two are still living, and both reside in the 
State of Arkansas. E. W. Ray was a fairly suc- 
cessful agriculturist, and died in the "Lone Star 
State" in 1881, his wife having died in Tennessee 
in 1855. Mr. Ray moved from Tennessee to Ar- 
kansas in 1860, and at the time of his death and 
that of his wife they were members of the Presby- 
terian and Methodist Churches, respectively. T. 
H. Ray was educated in Flat Woods, Tenu., but 
after reaching manhood was married in the Staly 
of Arkansas to Miss Sarah A. Moser, she being a 
native of the State, and their union was consum- 
mated on April 11, 1809. Of a family of seven 
sons and three daughters born to them, there are 
but six children living, all of whom reside at home: 
Mary F. , Ida T. , Heury J. , Oscar H. , Lemon B. 
and Delbert A. Mr. Ray has Ijeen engaged in the 
occupation of farming from earliest boyhood, 
learning the details of the work from his father, 
who was an enterprising agriculturist. He owns 
an excellent farm i n Dry Town Township, compris 
ing 124acres,of which about ninety areunderculti 
vation. He has always been fou ml ready and will- 
ing to support iMiti-rprises of a worthy character, 




and as a citizen and neighbor, is highly esteemed 
and respected. His wife is a communicant in the 
Presbyterian Church. 

K. W. Kector, farmer, Arkansas. No worthy 
reference to agricultural affairs oi this county 
would be complete witliout mention of Mr. Rector, 
among others engaged in tilling the soil, for, al- 
though young in years, he has already attained an 
enviable position in the ranks of the farmers. He 
owes his nativity to Izard County, his birth occur- 
ring on the farm where he now resides, in 1858, 
and he is the son of J. W. and Ann E. (Cooper) 
Rector, natives of Kentucky. J. W. Rector came 
to Arkansas in 1852, settled in Izard County, on 
the place where his son, K. W., now resides, and 
tilled the soil for many years. He was at one 
time surveyor of the county. During the late war 
he was a lieutenant in Capt. Cook's company, and 
served four years, participating in a number of 
battles on the east side of the Mississippi River, 
where he was on duty a part of the time. He sur- 
rendered at Jacksonport, Ark. , on the 5th of June, 
1865, after which he immediately came home, and 
engaged in farming to replenish his fortune, near- 
ly all of which had been lost during the war. He 
owned, at the breaking out of strife, quite a num- 
ber of negroes, and a large number of stock of all 
kinds, which he lost. He was also the owner of 
about 800 acres of land. This was a very thinly 
settled country when he first located here, and he 
suffered many inconveniences, his nearest neighbor 
being about live or six miles distant, and the near- 
est mill ten miles away. After the war he tilled 
the office of supervisor, or county judge, which 
position he occupied only one term. He was mar- 
ried in 1850, and to him and wife were born nine 
children, eight now living: J. M. (resides in this 
county), Mrs. Mary Richardson, G. S. (resides 
in this county). Miss Ellen J. (resides in Van 
Buren County), K. W., Mrs. Sarah E. Sheid (re- 
sides in Texasj, J. L. (resides in this county), 
Nancy E. (makes her home with her father, in 
Texas) and Joseph I. (with his father). J. W. 
Rector moved to Texas in January, 1885, and 
bought land in Palo Pinto County. He is a mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity, and he and wife are 



members of the Baptist Church. He was born on 
the 3d of December, 18'2(), and Mrs. Rector was 
l)orn on the 30th of August. 1830. Both are en- 
joying good health, and bid fair to live many 
years. At the age of twenty- one years K. W. 
Rector l)egan life for himself by farming, and this 
occupation he has since followed. He was mar- 
ried, on the 25th of September, 1879, to Miss 
Martha C. Bigham, of this county, and they are 
the parents of tive children: Margaret E., born 
September 12, 1880; Samuel B., born September 
15, 1882; Effie J., born March 8, 1884; Joseph 
L., born March 3, 1886, and Rufus S. , born Sep- 
tember 5, 1888. Mr. Rector started life with little 
capital, but with the assistance of his life companion 
is now the owner of about 400 acres of land in one 
tract, and with fifty or sixty in another, consider- 
able stock, and is one of the leading farmers of 
the county. He has about 145 acres under culti- 

I vation, with good buildings, outhouses, etc. Mrs. 
Rector in the daughter of Samuel and Susanah 
(Woods) Bigham, natives of Tennessee, who came 
to this county at an early day, and here reared a 
family of four children, three now living: James 
W., Mary B., Mrs. Martha Rector (wife of the 
subject of this sketch), Ursulla C. (wife of Rufus 
Landers). Mr. Bigham was killed during Gen. 
Price's raid through Missouri, in 1864. He was 
a member of the Christian Church. Mrs. Bigham 
was married the second time, in 1867, to Joseph 
H. Russell [see sketch]. Mr. and Mrs. Rector 
are both church members, he a member of the 
Baptist Church, and she of the Christian. In 
politics, he is Democratic. Mr. Rector is a man 
who is in favor of all public improvements, and is 
deeply interested in educational matters. 

William S. Richardson ia one of the oldest 
pioneers of' Izard County, and was born in Craw- 
ford County, Mo., in 1828, being a son of Joshua 

' and Mary (Stafl'ord) Richardson, who were fi'om the 
State of Maine. The father removed to Missouri 
about 1816, and entered land in Crawford County, 
the country at that time being in a very wild and 
unsettled condition and thinly inhabited. Here he 
was married in 1827, and made his home until 
1844, when he moved to the farm in New Hope 




Township, Izard County. Ark., on which his >(.i,. 
William S., is now residing, and here he passed 
away in 1S73, at the age of seventy-three years, his 
wife having died iu Missouri in 1830. Of six chil- 
dren born to this union only William S. is now liv- 
ing, and after the motlier's death Mr. Richardson 
married a second time, his wife being a Mrs. Sarah 
Romine {nee Barley), who bore him eleven chil- 
dren, the following of whom are living: Alex., 
James C, Francis R., Martha (wife of James Stub 
bletield), Nancy (wife of James Smith), Sarah (wife 
of Richard White), and Wilmoth (wife of John 
Smith). The mother of these children died in 
1872, and both she and the first Mrs. Richardson 
were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
although Mr. Richardson was a minister of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. William S. 
Richardson was reared on a farm and educated in 
the common schools of Izard County, and after at- 
taining his majority he began farming for himself 
on his own land in Izard County. When the war 
Iwoke out he dropped his farming implements to 
engage in the struggle between the North and 
South, and joined the Union forces at Rolla. Mo. , 
enlisting in Company G, Phelps' regiment of Mis- 
souri Volunteers, and at the end of six months en- 
tered the Missouri State service for six months. In 
1805 he returned to the State of Arkansas, and 
after serving for some time as first lieutenant of 
his company, he was promoted to the rank of cap- 
tain, and held this office until his company was 
disbanded. He was at the battle of Pea Ridge, 
and at this engagement had a brother killed. 
After the war he served as courier for the Freed- 
men's Bureau, in Izard County, for some time. 
After his return home he found nothing left to 
show for his earl}' toil, except his land, all his per- 
sonal property having been destroyed, but he im- 
mediately resumed his farming operations, and has 
since increased his acreage from 1(50 to 270, a large 
portion of which he has under cultivation. He is a 
Republican in his political views, and is a liberal 
contributor to all charitable enterprises, educa- 
tional and otherwise, and he belongs to the A. F. 
& A. M. He and wife, whom he married in 1851, 
and whose maiden name was Elizabeth U ells, are 



incmluMs of the Ciinilierlaiid l'resl)ytenan Church, 
and of a family of twelve children born to them 
they have reared five: Alex. S., Fannie J. (wife of 
John Largeant), Ellen. Emma, Net(ie V., Catlierine 
(the deceased wife of James B. Byr.l), and Martha 
(the deceased wife of John Fuller). 

Joab M. Rodgers, a prosjierous farmer of this 
region, was born in Georgia, in |.sr)4, and is a son 
of Avery Rodgers who was a Tennesseean, and a 
farmer by occupation. The latter was luanied to 
Miss Polly A. McCuUum, a daughter of Joab Mc 
Cnllum, their union taking place about 1840, and 
to their mamage the following children have been 
born: William, John B.. Mary A.. Sallie E. and 
Joab M. Averj' Rodgers enlisted in the Confed- 
erate army in 18(51, serving in the infantry, and 
was killed in 18(58. In 1807 his wife married 
William Anderson, of Georgia, by whom she be 
came the mother of three children: Hardy L., 
Doney and Clinton, and in 1K70 they moved to 
Izard County, Ark., and are here now living, both 
being consistent members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South. Joab Rodgers, the subject 
of this sketch, was married to Miss Sarah M. 
Wethers, of Dade County, Ga., in 1873, she be 
ing a daughter of Johnsey Wethers, and four 
daughters and three sons have been the result of 
their union: Effie. Leter P., Veronia, Hattie B., 
Ward J., Garland and Benjamin. Mr. Rodgers 
removed with his mother and ste]) father to Arkan 
sas, in 1870, but since his marriage has been doing 
for himself, and by industry, economy and good 
management, he has become the owner of 11? 
acres of land, forty -six of which are under culti 
vation and well improved. He built a commodi 
ous and substantial residence in ISSS. has a fine 
fruit orchard, and in connection with his farming 
he is engaged in stock raising to some extent. He 
and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

Reuben Rogers was liorn in the State of Ten- 
nessee, in 1820, his parents, William and Klizal)eth 
(Hicks) Rogers, being natives of Alabama and 
Tennessee, respectively, the former's birth occur 
ring in 1795. He was familiar with the duties of 
farm life from earliest boyhood, and in |S81 was 



"Th 



970 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



married to Miss Hicks, by whom he became the 
father of six children: Reuben, John, Peter, Allie, 
Sarah and Ada. From Tennessee Mr. Rogers re- 
moved to Independence County, Ark., in 1843, 
where his death occurred the following year, he 
being a member of the Baptist Church at that 
time. His widow married Henry Newman, of In- 
dependence County, in 1845, and to them three 
children were born: Henry N. , Matilda and Annie 
E., all of whom reside in Izard County. They 
own eighty acres of land, and both are members 
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Reuben 
Rogers was married to Miss Nancy Newman in 
1869, a daughter of Henry Newman by his former 
wife, and their union resulted in the birth of two 
children: William R. and Reuben F. In 1854, 
becoming possessed with the ' ' gold fever, ' ' Mr. 
Rogers took the overland route to California, to 
seek his fortune, and like a great many others in 
those days, failed to find it and returned to 
Arkansas in 1868. After living on eighty acres 
of land in Independence County, until 1876, he 
moved to Izard County, and purchased the place 
where he is now living, consisting of 160 acres, a 
portion of which is mountainous, and is finely 
adapted to grazing. The rest is in the valley and 
about fifty acres are under cultivation, well watered 
and improved with good buildings, orchards, etc. 
He and wife have been members of the Cumber- 
land Presbyterian Church for a number of years, 
and he is one of the men who has assisted largely 
in making Izard County the fine agricultural re- 
gion which it now is. Mr. Rogers is a severe suf- 
ferer from cancer of the stomach. 

Joseph Ruminer was born on Blue Grass soil, 
in Hickman County, June 22, 1835, his father, 
John Ruminer, having been born in Bedford Coun- 
ty, Tenn. , in 1809. The latter was educated in 
his native State and county, and was married there 
to Miss Elizabeth Harris, who was a Kentuckian, 
their union resulting in the birth of six sons and 
five daughters, only one, Joseph, being now alive. 
Mr. Ruminer was a farmer by occupation, and at 
the time of his death, in 1862, was the owner of 
seventy seven acres of land. He held the office of 
justice of the peace for two terms, and was a man 



whom all respected and esteemed. His wife, who 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
died the same year as himself, but a few months 
afterward. Joseph Ruminer received a very lim- 
ited education in his youth, but this defect he has 
remedied in a great measure by reading and con- 
ducting the business affairs of life. After reach- 
ing manhood, he was married on the 24th of Feb- 
ruary, 1859, to Miss Sarah Coalson, whose birth 
occurred in the State of Mississippi. Although 
the family born to them consisted of ten children, 
only five are now living: Mary E., Samuel R.. 
Sheffield, Robert and Harris H. Mr. Ruminer is 
a successful agriculturist, and his farm consisting 
of 368 acres is one of the best in the coiinty, with 
about seventy-five acres under the plow and twenty 
acres cleared of wood and brush, with which it 
abounded. His first purchase of land was some 
forty acres, but as can be seen he has been remark- 
ably successful, and now ranks among the first 
farmers of the county. He enlisted in the army in 
1863, and his first hard fight was at Helena. He 
was a member of Dobbins' regiment, but when the 
rest went to Jacksonport to surrender he returned 
home. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. and he 
and wife worship in the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church. 

J. H. Russell, farmer, Melbourne, Ark. Mr. 
Russell is one more of the many residents of Izard 
County, Ark., who were originally from Bedford 
County, Tenn., and who, since their residence in 
this State, have become leading men in whatever 
calling in life their tendencies have led them. Mr. 
Russell was born in 1821 and is the son of Joseph 
D. and Mary (Hightowor) Russell, natives, respect - 
ively, of North Carolina and Tennessee. The 
father was born in 1777 and the mother in 1800. 
They were married in Hickman County, Tenn., 
about 1820, and afterward removed to Bedford 
Coimty, of the same State, where they remained 
until 1829. They then located in Scott County, 
Mo. , and after stopping there for several years 
went to Webster County, of the same State, and 
here the father passed his last days, his death 
occurring in 1847. He was twice married, first to 
a lady whose name is not remembered, and by her 



IZARD COUNTY. 



5)71 



became the father of two children: William B. 
and Daniel D. By his second marriage, to Miss 
Mary Hightower, he became the father of five 
children, four of whom lived to be grown: J. H. , 
subject of sketch; Louis, was killed during the 
war with Mexico and after being discharged, it is 
supposed by Indians; Louisa (deceased), was the 
wife of John Cox, the family living in Missouri; 
John W. (deceased), whose family reside in Fulton 
County, and one who died in infancy. Mrs. Rus- 
sell died in Kentucky, in 1827, while Mr. Russell 
was on his way to Missouri. She was a member of 
the Baptist Church, of which Mr. Russell was also 
a member until about six or eight years before his 
death, when he joined the Christian Church and 
died a member of the same. He was a school 
teacher, farmer, and also a carpenter, but followed 
the teacher's profession principally after reaching 
mature years. He was an old line Whig, but not 
active in politics. He was well-to-do while living 
in Tennessee, but lost nearly all he had by going 
security for his fi-iends. J. H. Russell had very 
poor chances for an early education, but this he 
made up to a great extent by observation and read- 
ing. In 1862 he moved to Arkansas, settled in 
Izard County, and still continued to till the soil, 
the occupation he had followed while living in 
Missouri. While residing in Howell County, of that 
State, he was appointed one of the three to organ- 
ize the county, and served as county judge, being 
elected to that position afterward (or one of the 
associate justices), and was once elected justice of 
the peace of his township. He was first married to 
Miss Elizabeth Sweet, of North Carolina. His 
second marriage was in 1807, to Mrs. Susanah (Big- 
ham) Woods, a native of Tennessee, who bore him 
one child, Margaret L., who died in infancy. 
Mrs. Russell was the mother of four children by 
her tirst marriage (three now living): James (de- 
ceased), Mary E. (at home), Martha C. (wife of K. 
W. Rector), and Ursula C. (wife of G. R. Lan- 
ders). Mr. Russell has one son; his name is 
Robert F. He is now in his twenty-third year. 
At the time of the Mexican War Mr. Russell joined 
the army at Spriugtiekl, Mo., but the company was 
not received, although he was very anxious to go, 



and had hired a man to run his farm. He was 
suffering with poor health during the late war. 
He bought 400 acres of land in Izard County, in 
1868, and resides on that farm at present. There 
were about forty acres improved at that time, and 
he now has 135 acre? und'M" a fine state of cultiva- 
tion, with good buildings, barns, etc. He and wife 
are both members of the Christian Church, and he 
is a memlier of the Masonic fraternity. In his po- 
litical views he atKJiates with the Democratic party, 
and was originally a Whig. 

W. E. Sanders, M. D., of Oxford, Ark., was 
born in the " Palmetto State" in 1846. and is one 
of six living members of a family of seven children 
born to the maiTiage of Dr. W. R. and F. H. 
(Simons) Sanders, the former of whom removed to 
Georgia in 1851. He wiis a graduate of the 
Charleston (S. C.) Medical College in 1838, and 
was an extensive and successful physician. He 
was married in 1839, and died in 1853. being a 
member of the Old School Presbyterian Church, 
and a member of the A. F. & A. M. In his po- 
litical views he was a Democrat. His wife died in 
1809, at the age of fifty-two years. Dr. \V. E. 
Sanders attended the graded school of Newman. 
Ga. , up to the breaking out of the late war. and at 
the early age of fourteen years and eleven months, 
he joined Company E. Twentieth .Vlabama Infan 
try, and was an active participant in forty-six hotly 
contested engagements, among which were Baker's 
Creek, Chickamauga. Lookout Mountain. Mission- 
ary Ridge, Raymond, Dalton. Vicksburg. and ^s 
in all the battles from Dalton to Atlanta, Ga. At 
the battle of Franklin lie was wounded l)y a bay- 
onet, while he and his comrades were trying to take 
possession of the Federals' ditch. Thirty days 
afterward he took part in the l)attle of Nashville, 
although he had not fully recovered from his 
wound. He surrendered at Greenstoro, N. C. 
He served as a private, and on five different occa- 
sions, when the color be:irer was shot. Dr. Sanders 
carried the colors of his regiment out of the en- 
fafements, and was offered the position of color 
bearer bv his colonel, but declineil, saying he would 
rather carry a gun. .\fter his return home he 
becan the study of medicine, and for some time 



w 
^ 



972 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



before entering college he was engaged in practic- 
ing, and was well fitted to perform the duties of a 
physician from the fact that his father and all his 
brothers were practicing physicians. At the age 
of twenty years he entered the Medical University 
at New Orleans, but at the end of one term en- 
tered the Medical College of Philadelphia, gradu- 
ating therefrom in 1868, and immediately began 
practicing in Clinton, Ala. At the end of five 
years he moved to Fayette County, Texas, and 
three years later settled in Independence County, 
Ark. In 1878 became to his present location, and 
the same year opened a mercantile establishment 
in Union, Fulton County, Ark., but removed bis 
goods to this county in 1884, and formed a part- 
nership with J. E. Ford. This partnership was 
dissolved in 1888, and the Doctor has since been 
connected with E. S. Pearson, the style of the 
firm being Sanders & Pearson. They ai-e doing a 
prosperous business, and fully deserve the patron- 
age which they are receiving, for they are honest 
and upright in all their dealings, and are accom- 
modating and agreeable gentlemen. The Doctor 
was married, in 1876, to Mrs. Addie Hodges, of 
Independence County, but a native of Tennessee, 
and to them have been born four children : Mary 
A., William C, Edward C. and Kittie. Dr. and 
Mrs. Sanders are members of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, and he is a member of the 
I. O. O. F., and is a Democrat politically. He 
is now examining physician for the Pension Bureau, 
and a thoroughly reliable, successful physician. 

Dr. Joseph A. Schenck is a leading physician 
of Calico Rock, and in connection with tiis prac- 
tice is also engaged in merchandising. He was 
born in Owen County, Ky. , in 1847, and is a son 
of Julius P. and America (Applegate) Schenck, 
natives of Kentucky. The father was a captain 
on a steamboat plying between Cincinnati and New 
Orleans, and he was also engaged in farming and 
merchandising, following the latter occupation in 
Vevay, Ind., while at work on the river. He 
owned a one-half interest in the "Switzerland," 
which was the name of his boat, the other half 
being owned by Jesse Teets, and they were also 
the proprietors of several other boats which plied 



on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, in the interests 
of the Government during the war. He died in 
1862, leaving his family well provided for, but 
during the war much of their property was lost. 
He was married about 1842, and he and wife be- 
came the parents of eight childron, four of whom 
are living: J. P., who is a merchant of Worthville, 
Ky. ; Delia, the wife of Dr. J. F. Costillo, resides 
in Kansas; Amy is the wife of James Grubbs, a 
telegraph operator, and J. A., the subject of this 
sketch. Mrs. Schenck died in 1887, having 
been a worthy member of the Christian Church 
for many years, her husband being a member of 
the Baptist Church. He was a Democrat politi- 
cally, and belonged to the I. O. O. F. Dr. Joseph 
A. Schenck received his early schooling in Vevay, 
Ind., and in 1873 he took his first medical lectures 
in the University of Louisville, Ky. , and gradu- 
ated from this institution in 1880. He had, how- 
ever, begun practicing in Jackson County, Ark., 
in 1874, but at the end of one year removed to 
Izard County, Ark., and has been a successful 
practitioner at Pineville ever since. Since 1885 
he has been engaged in merchandising, in part- 
nership with Dr. T. K. Goodman, their paid 
up capital upon starting in business, amounting 
to about $300, but on the 6th of October, 1886, 
they were burned out with, a loss of about $1,600, 
their insurance reaching the sum of 11,000. They 
opened their store on the 12th of the same month, 
with a stock of goods worth $200, and have since 
been very successful, and are now doing an 
annual business of $18,000. In addition to this 
property Dr. Schenck owns 288 acres of valuable 
land, with 150 acres under cultivation, and all 
this property he has earned since coming to the 
State of Arkansas, as he then (in 1874) only 
owned a horse and saddle and about $150 worth 
of drugs. The Doctor still continues to practice 
his profession, but not so extensively as formerly. 
He was married in 1876 to Miss Ellen Matthews, 
a daughter of Capt. R. C. Matthews. She was 
born in Tennessee in 1849, and by Dr. Schenck is 
the mother of the following family: Amy D., Reua 
Z., Joseph E. and America E. (twins), Lunford 
P. Y., Carrie M., Julius P., John M. and Robert 



IZARD COUNTY. 



«73 



C. Mrs. Schenck is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, and the Doctor belongs 
to the A. F. & A. M. and I. O. O. F., having ad- 
vanced to the Encampment in the latter order. 

John Sharp, farmer and stock raiser, Evening 
Shade, Ark. Originally from Independence Coun- 
ty, Ai'k., Mr. Sharp's birth occurred on the 15th 
of September, 1843, and he is the son of Hon. i 
William and Catherine (Barnes) Sharp, the former 
born in Indiana, and the latter in Ohio. William 
Sharp came to Independence County, Ark. (near 
Sulphur Rock), in 1838, and engaged first in farm- 
ing, which occupation he continued for two or 
three years. He then embarked in the tannery 
business, and established the second yard in the 
county. It is now known as the Gelpin (anyard. 
Mr. Sharp was a practical tanner, and followed 
this pursuit until 1852, when he moved to what is 
now Sharp County, and settled close to Evening 
Shade. He purchased a mill, rebuilt it, and it is 
now known as Sharp's mill. This business he fol- 
lowed until his death, which occurred in 1804. 
In 1860-61 he represented Lawrence County in the 
legislature, was a member when the State seceded, 
but was opposed to secession. During 1863 and 
1864 he was at home attending to his mill, and 
was also engaged in tilling the soil. He was one 
of the old land-marks in the early settlement of 
Northeast Ai'kansas, and was one of the prominent 
men of his section of the county. He was a man 
well read, and although he had never attended 
school but about three months, he was a much bet- 
ter informed man than many who had every advan- 
tage for schooling. He died in his fiftieth year. 
He was a Democrat in politics. He was married 
in Ohio, about 1835, to Miss Catherine Barnes, 
and eight children were the fruit of this union, 
five of whom lived to be grown: Isaac E. died in 
1875, and was quite a prominent man in Northeast 
Arkansas after the war; Zaccheus (deceased), Mary 
(deceased), John, Rachel, wife of E. Berry, resides 
in Dent County, Mo. ; Margaret, wife of William 
Martin, resides in Independence County; Elijah 
resides in Dent County, -Ai-k.. and Ephraim (de 
ceased). Mrs. Sharp died in 1855, in full commun- 
ion with the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 



1857 or 1858 Mr. Sharp married Mrs. Louisa 
Simpson, nee Douglas, and they became the par- 
ents of four children, one now living, Samuel, 
residing in Wasliingtoii Teiritory. The second 
Mrs. Sharp died in 1864. John Sharp, the sub- 
ject of this sketch, joined the Confederate army in 
1861, under Capt. Nunn, and served cast of the 
Mississippi River until after the fall of Vicksburg. 
He was engaged in two prominent battles, Cham 
pion's Hill and Black Rivi-r Bridge. He was taken 
prisoner at the last named place the day before the ' 
siege of Vicksburg, and was sent to Fort Delaware, [ 
thence to Point Lookout, Md. , and was retained 
from the 17th of October to the 24th of December, 
when he was paroled. He then returned home, 
remained there until 1864, when he enlisted the 
second time as a private under Capt. Huddleston, 
and served the remainder of the war, surrendering 
at Jacksonport on the 5tb of June. 1865. He wa.'^ 
with Gen. Price on his raid through Missouri in 

1864, and after the surrender he returned home, 
where he worked in the mill until 1867. He then 
engaged in tilling the soil on his present farm, 
which now consists of 800 acres, with 300 under 
cultivation. Part of this is in Sharp County, but 
all joins except one tract of 253 acres, which is, 
however, within one-fourth of a mile from the 
home place, with eighty-five acres under cultiva- 
tion. Mr. Sharp was married the first time in 

1865, to Miss Catherine Summers, and they be 
came the parents of these children: William, mar 
ried and resides on the farm; Anna, wife of I^au. 
T. Taylor, resides on the home place; Mary E., 
wife of Jeff. Davis, resides in this county; Emma 
died at the age of nine years; Robert I., at home, 
and one unnamed. Mrs. Sharp died on the 13th 
of December, 1876. She was a member of the 
Baptist Church. Mr. Sharp's second marriage 
was to Miss Susan J. Yeager. in 1878. and they 
have a family of five children (two l)eing de 
ceased): Katie, Prussia, John C. Frank and one 
unnamed. Mr. Sharp is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity and the Knights of Honor. He and wife 
are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
He is a Democrat politically, but though well 
posted, does not take nn active interest in politics. 



974 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



J. M. Shaver ranks among the successful 
farmers of Guthrie Township, Izard County, Ark., 
and is now residing on the farm on which he was 
born in 1853, his parents being John S. and Mary 
(Cox) Shaver, Tennesseans by birth. John Shaver 
came to the State of Ai-kansas in 1851, and pur- 
chased the farm in Guthrie Township, in connection 
with which work he was engaged in merchandising. 
Here he made his home until 1862, when he was 
killed by Federal soldiers, he having previously 
served in the Home Guard Confederate service. 
He was also a soldier in the Mexican War, holding 
the rank of captain, and when returning home 
came via New Oi'leans. He was married in 1848, 
and he and wife became the parents of seven chil- 
dren: D. C, Marietta (wife of J. R. Metcalf), J. 
M., Mattie (wife of E. A. Taylor), Addie (widow 
of T. H. Montgomery), Hattie (wife of Will Col- 
lins), and Belle (wife of C. E. Taylor). Mrs. 
Shaver still survives her husband, and makes her 
home with her children. She is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Capt. Shaver 
was a member of the A. F. & A. M., and in 1858 
was elected to represent Fulton County in the 
State legislature. J. M. Shaver, the immediate 
subject of this memoir, received his early school- 
ing in Izard County, and made his home with his 
mother and sisters until 1884, when he was mar- 
ried to Miss Georgia Smith, and made a home for 
himself. He has now seventy-five acres of his 
land cleared, and besides making a good living, is 
slowly but surely laying by capital for a rainy day. 
He was at one time engaged in merchandising in 
Oxford, but has given his attention to farming only 
for some time. He is a Democrat politically, and 
on that ticket was elected to the office of deputy 
sheriff of the county for four years. He is also a 
member of the A. F. & A. M. His wife belongs 
to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and 
they are the parents of two children: John S. and 
Mamie L. Mrs. Shaver is a daughter of S. J. 
and Levica (Chastine) Smith, natives of Georgia. 
John J. Shultz was born in the State of Illi- 
nois on the 16th of August, 1851, and like the 
majority of German-Americans is one of the sub- 
stantial residents of the county, and is industrious ] 



and frugal. By energy and close attention to the 
details of farm work he has become the owner of 
160 acres of good land, and of this there are about 
fifty acres under cultivation, well improved and 
well stocked. He is now tilling the office of justice 
of the peace, which position he has occupied for 
the past fourteen years, and he and wife, whose 
maiden name was Mary E. Bean, and whom he 
married on the 11th of October, 1865, are mem- 
bers of the Christian Church. Of six sons and 
five daughters born to them nine are still living, 
and all reside at home: William A., Walter E. , 
John M., Caswell B., Mordecai M., Mary E., 
Amanda V. , Albert F. and Maggie E. Mr. Shultz 
is a son of John Shultz, a native German, born in 
1784, he being educated in his native land. He 
was also married there to Holy Homsan, by whom 
he becanie the father of seven children, sis sons 
and one daughter. Six of this family are still 
living, three being residents of the State of Kan- 
sas, two of Illinois and one of Arkansas. The 
father was a farmer, and at his death, in 1838, he 
owned a good and fertile farm of 160 acres in 
Illinois, he having moved from Germany to the 
United States in 1832. His wife died in 1871, 
both belonging to the German Lutheran Church. 

William C. Sims is worth)- of being classed 
among the many prosperous farmers of Izard 
County, for by his own exertions he has become 
the owner of about 420 acres of fertile land, of 
which 300 are in Izard County and the rest in 
Sharp County. One hundred and seventy acres of 
this farm are under cultivation, and in addition to 
his farm work he gives much of his attention to 
raising a good grade of stock. He was born in 
Itawamba County, Miss., on the 7th of Septem- 
ber, 1844, and is a son of Gray and Marinda 
(Mann) Sims, who were from the State of Ala- 
bama. Of two sons and four daughters born to 
them, the two sons only are living. The father, 
at the time of his death, was the owner of 160 
acres of good land. He and wife were members 
of the Baptist Church, and after his demise, in 
1846, his widow became the worthy companion of 
John Pressley, to whom she bore a family of four 
sons and three daughters. The mother's death oc- 



Tl 



>y 



% 



iL. 



IZARD COUNTY. 



fl75 



curred on the 22d of June, ]8fi3. William C. 
Sims was educated in Mississippi, and at the age 
of fourteen years moved to Van Buren County, I 
Ark., remaining there until 1861. Thonhevolun- i 
teered in the Confederate army, and was mustered 
into service on the 14th day of July, 1861. After 
the war he located in Sharp County, and was mar- 
ried to Mrs. Sarah C. Waiiiwright, who was a Ten- 
nesseean, their marriage being consummated Sep- 
tember 4, 1867. This union resulted in the l^irth 
of eleven children, three sons and eight daughters, 
but only two of the family are now living. After 
the death of Mrs. Sims, on the 18th of March, 
1881, Mr. Sims was married, August 10, of that 
year, to Miss Sallie P. Haile, a Mississippian. He 
has attained a high rank in the I. O. O. F., and he 
and wife are members of the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. 

Ephraim Sipe has been a resident of his pres- 
ent well cultivated and fertile farm of 240 acres in 
Izard County, Ark., since 1857, and has about 100 
acres in an excellent state of cultivation. Like the 
majority of German-Americans he is thrifty, indus- 
trious and enterprising, and his property has been 
acquired through his own good management and 
business ability. After remaining single until 
1865, he was united in marriage to Miss Betsey 
Deal, their union taking place in Independence 
County, Ark. Fom- children are the result of their 
union: Martha M., Malinda E., Ephraim and Rob- 
ert R. He and wife belong to the Missionary Bap- 
tist Church, and he is a member of the I. O. O. F. 
He is a son of Jacob Sipes, who was also born in 
Lincoln County, N. C. , his wife, Mary Delp, being 
also born there. John, Jacob, Joseph, Abraham, 
Ephraim, Peter, Franklin, Noah and Susan are 
their children. The father died in 1846. Our 
subject's wife was a daughter of Robert Deal and 
wife, the latter of whom was born in North Caro- 
lina in 1806, and is still living, and makes her 
home with her daughter, Mrs. Sipe. Although 
she has passed her allotted three-score years and 
ten, she is still active, and bids fair to reach one 
hundred years. 

E. F. Smith, farmer and miller, Melbourne, 
Ark. All his life Mr. Smith has followed, with 



substantial success, the occupation to which he 
was reared and in which he is now engaged — farm- 
ing — but in connection has also been largely inter- 
ested in the milling business. He was born in 
Massachusetts, in 1S88, and is the son of Roswell 
and Jane E. Smith, who were also natives of Mas- 
sachusetts. Roswell Smith was a farmer by occu- 
pation, and was a man of only limited education. 
He was drafted in the AVar of 1812, but was not 
in any engagements. He was married about 1807 
and became the father of fourteen children, twelve 
of whom lived to be grown, E. F. Smith being the 
only one residing in the South. At the age of 
seventeen the latter came to this part of the United 
States, located first in Tennessee, and later, or in 
1859, in Arkansas. He was employed on the 
Memphis & Little Rock Railroad, and after that 
was finished he settled in Jacksonport, where he 
followed the carpenter's trade. In 1S61 he joined 
the Confederate army under Gen. Hindman, and 
served on the west side of the Mississippi River, 
participating in the following battles: Pea Ridge 
and Pleasant Hill, and was in the (juartermaster's 
department. He surrendered at Marshall, Tex., in 
1865, returned home and located at Evening 
Shade, where he engaged in merchandising, and 
which he continued for two years. He then re- 
sumed the carpenter's trade, which he followed un- 
til 1880, when he commenced farming. He bought 
his present property, consisting of a merchant 
mill and cotton-gin combined, with a nice resi 
dence. He owns, besides this property, two farms 
in the county, with about eighty acres under cul 
tivation, all the result of his own labor since the 
war, for at the close of that eventful period he 
had but $2. He was married on the 18th <>f 
October, 1866, to Miss Melissa J. Wasson, and 
they are the parents of two children: Ella G., at 
home, and Leander G.. also at home. Mrs. Smith 
is the daughter of Lee and Jane (Matliews) Was 
son, natives of Tennessee. Mr. Smith votes the 
Democratic ticket, is a member of the A. F. & A. 
M., and he and wife are members of the Mi>thod 
ist Episcopal Church, South. 

Dr. James L. Smith lias acipiired an envialile 
reputation in Izard County, Ark., as an nbli' j)hy 



^1 



976 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



sician and surgeon, and the extensive territory 
over which he travels to alleviate the suffering of j 
the afflicted is a sufficient proof of his popularity, i 
He was born near Melbourne, and is a son of S. 
R. and Jane (Walker) Smith, the former a native j 
of Tennessee, and the latter of Arkansas. In I 
1849 S. R. Smith came to Arkansas, and settled 
on the farm with his mother, near where he is 
now residing, live miles southwest of Melbourne. 
He served in the Confederate army during the re- 
bellion, and was with Price on his raid through | 
Missouri, but in 1864 he was severely wounded by 
a gun-shot, which resulted in the loss of his left 
leg. He was captured and taken to Alton, 111. , 
thence to St. Louis, and received his parole from 
this city in 1865. He returned to his farm in 
Izard County, only to find it destitute of buildings, 
fences and stock, but he set manfully to work, and 
by good management he is now in comfortable 
circumstances. He and Miss Walker were mar- i 
ried in 1855, and moved to the farm where he is 
now living, and eight of the nine children born to 
them still survive: James L. , Joseph M. , Mary 
E. P., wife of J. P. Gray; W. T. (deceased), W. 
A., Jeff. D., John H. , Solomon and Robert L. 
Mr. Smith has been constable of Lunenburg 
Township for several years, and is a member of ■ 
the I. O. O. F. His wife belongs to the Chris- 
tian Church. The paternal grandfather was a sol- 
dier in the Mexican War, and bore the name of 
James. His wife was a Miss Orphia Byler. The 
maternal grandparents were Joseph and Sarah 
(McCubbin) Walker. Dr. James L. Smith re 
mained with his father on the home farm and at- 
tended the common schools until 1S7(), when he 
engaged in farming on his own responsibility, con- 
tinuing two years, and in. the meantime he was en- 
gaged in the study of medicine under Dr. J. K. P. ' 
Black. In 1880 and 1881 he attended his lirst 
course of lectures in the Hospital Medical College 
of Memphis, Tenn., and in 1881 entered upon his 
practice, continuing until 1887, when he again re- 
turned to Memphis and graduated from the same 
institution in 1888. He has been very successful, j 
and is held in high esteem by the medical brother- | 
hood of Izard County. The Doctor is a Democrat, j 



a member of the I. O. O. F. , and he and wife, 
whom he married in 1883, and whose maiden name 
was Mary Croom, are members of the Christian 
Church. Dr. and Mrs. Smith have three interest- 
ing little children: Robert O. , Bertha J. and 
Erskin. Mrs. Smith was born in Izard County, 
January 28, 1865, and is a daughter of Wiley and 
Sarah J. (Pearson) Croom, both Tennesseeans, 
and the parents of nine children : Mary, D. F. , H. 
F., Ida J., wife of A. H. Colwell; Benage, Susan 
E., Annabel, Thomas W. and Grover. 

William A. Spence is one of the enterprising 
agriculturists of La Crosse Township, and since 
1868 has been the owner of an excellent farm of 
187^ acres in Izard County. He was born in 
Davidson County, N. C, in 1837, but in his youth, 
which was spent in that State, he received a limited 
education. Upon emigrating to Arkansas, in 1862, 
he settled in Independence County, but since 1868 
he has been a resident of the farm on which 
he is now residing. In 1857 he was married to 
Miss Emily C. Grills, a daughter of William D. 
Grills, and by her he is the father of six children: 
Mary, Harriet G.. Martha T. L., Ive T., James 
D. and William E. Mr. Spence is one of the live 
farmers of his community, and the success which 
has attended his efforts is fully deserved, for 
throughout life he has been industrious and frugal. 
He and his wife are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. He began doing for himself 
in 1857, in Wright County, Mo., where he home- 
steaded eighty acres of land, but in 1862 moved to 
Independence County, Ark. , as above stated. He 
is a son of Joseph Spence, who was born in North 
Carolina, and the latter was married in his native 
State to Miss Rachel, a daughter of James Hurley, 
and by her became the father of three children. 
Their union took place in 1834. In 1855 Mr. 
Spence moved to Wright County, Mo., and was 
engaged in farming there until 1863, at w'hich 
time he moved to Independence County, Ark. , and 
bought 160 acres, which he farmed successfully 
for several years. He died here in April, 1878, 
at about the age of seventy-three years. 

O. P. Stroud is a prominent farmer and stock 
man of Izard County, Ark., and is one of the old 





^. 



<S*<^y-«<^ 0<_-<, 



LAWRENce County, Arkansas 





W 



IZARD COUNTY. 



977 



settlers of Guthrie Township, having come here in ' 
1851, and has been residing in the house in which 
he now lives since 1857. He was born in Tennes- 
see, August 10, 1820, and was reared on his 
father's farm, receiving a common school education, 
and at the time of his location in this State the 
country was almost a wilderness, and wild game 
was quite abundant. Mr. Stroud was fond of 
hunting, and on one of his hunts killed six deer in 
one day, this being in 185(), when the snow was 
very deep. At one time he took fifty-three deer 
hams to Mount Olive, to market, receiving for them 
$53. The woods abounded with wild turkeys, and 
Mr. Stroud says they were easier killed than the 
common domestic fowl of to-day. Although he 
did not take an active part in the Civil War he 
served in the commissary department for two 
years. He lost heavily during the war, principally 
in personal property, however, but owned 800 
acres of good land. He now has 400 acres, with 
about 140 acres under cultivation, furnished with 
good buildings and otherwise well improved. He 
was married in 1844 to Miss Martha Jourdan, of 
Mississippi, and to them have been born a family 
of fourteen children, eleven of whom are living: 
John A., William L. , George II., Martha E. (wife 
of W. Pierson), James M., Lawson R., O. H., 
Mary F. , Richard A. , Robert H. and Taylor M. 
Mrs. Stroud is a daughter of John and Edith 
(Alexander) Jourdan, who were born in the State 
of North Carolina, and became the parents of 
nine children. Both parents died in Texas in 
1856. Mr. and Mrs. Stroud are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and he is a 
Democrat in his political views. His parents, 
Thomas and Lucy (Jarvis) Stroud, were of Ger- 
man descent, and were born in the "Old North 
State. " At an early day Thomas removed with 
his father to Tennessee, and was there reared to 
manhood on a farm. He served in the War of 
1812, under Jackson, and was in the battle of 
New Orleans, his father also being in service in 
that war. Gen. Jackson was an intimate friend 
of the Strouds, and made thoir house his home 
a great portion of the time, and lived with them 
during the period he was making the race for the 



presidency. Thomas Stroud became a wealthy 
man, and to his marriage, which occurred in 181!i, 
a family of fourteen children were born, ten of 
whom are now alive: Sarah, wife of William Mc 
Spade; A. L., O. P., ElizHl>eth, widow nf John 
McAfee, Thomas J., Resi, Marcus L., Fannie, 
widow of William Sapp; Hettie and Minerva, wif»< 
of Robert Henderson. In 1872 Thomju* Stroud 
died on the same place he settled wlien he first 
came to Tennessee. His father's death occurred 
in 1840, at the age of seventy-four years. The 
maternal grandfather was in the Revolutionary 
War, being severely wounded in one of the battleti. 
He settled in Tennessee, also, and there died. 

J. A. Stroud is one of the rising and energetic 
young agriculturists of Izard County, and was born 
in Mississippi in 1840, being a son of O. P. Stroud, 
whose sketch precedes this one. In 1851 be re- 
moved to Arkansas with his father, and remained 
with him, assisting on the farm until he was twen- 
ty-one years of age. Besides working at farm labor 
his youth was spent in attending school, and he 
acquired a fair practical education in the subscrip- 
tion schools of Izard County. Upon attaining his 
majority he began fanning on rented land, contin- 
uing for two or three years, then purchased his 
present property, which consists of 230 acres. 
There were only aliout ten acres of this improved, 
and on the land were no buildings, Vjut by industry 
he hjis put sixty-five acres in good farming condi- 
tion, and has erected a good frame residence and 
barns. His property is also further improved by a 
small orchard, which will in time bear an afcuii 
dance of fruit. Mr. Stroud is a Democrat, a mem 
ber of the A. F. & A. M., and donates freely to 
churches and educational institutions. Like his 
ancestors, he is quite fond of hunting and fishing, 
and, as good spwrt can still be had in the vicinity 
of his home, he freijuently indulges in thesp amuse- 
ments. Miss Euphemia Guest became his wif»« in 
1874, and by her he has an interesting family of 
five children: Jeffie A.. Lillie B. , Doroth«'8 N.. 
Perry L. and Fannie C. Mrs. Stroud was born in 
Tennessee, and is a daughter of Morgan and Eliza 
(Dennison) Guest, who wern alsoTenni'sseoans. In 
1859 they came to Arkansas, and from this State 



978 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



Mr. Guest enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
died during the war. Of the four children boi"n to 
them Mrs. Stroud and Robert M. Giiest are living. 
Mr.s. Guest still survives, and makes her homo with 
Mr. Stroud. 

John K. Suttle is a well known merchant of 
Izard County, Ai'k. , and was born in Henry Coun- 
ty, Tenn., September 24, 1850. His father, Ed- 
ward J. Suttle, was born in Pennsylvania County, 
Va. . and he was reared and educated in that State, 
being also married there to Mintie Marrow, a na- 
tive of the Stat(>. The ten children born to them 
(five sons and five daughters) are all living, and four 
reside in the State of Arkansas. Mr. Suttle removed 
from Vii;ginia to Tennessee, and from that State 
to Arkansas, in the fall of 1854, locating in Big 
Spring Township, Izard County, where he entered 
a large tract of land, consisting of 460 acres, on 
which he made his home until he was called from 
earth October 20, 1862. He was followed to his 
long home by his wife October 23, 1873, they hav- 
ing been earnest members of the Hard Shell Bap- 
tist Church for many years. The father served 
for a short time in the Confederate army during the 
rebellion, and after his death his property was 
divided among his children. John K. Suttle was 
educated in the Mountain school house, in Izard 
Coimty, his early days being employed in assist- 
ing in tilling the home farm. In March, 1873, 
he was married to Miss Sarah Edwards, a daughter 
Wiley and Martha Edwards, and a native of Ten- 
nessee. Of four daughter and three sons born to 
them, only three children are now living: Ora A., 
Dee E. and Archie. Mr. Suttle has been engaged 
in merchandising at Barren Fork, for some time, 
and his stock of goods will invoice at about $1,500, 
his annual sales netting him a fair income. His 
wife is a member of the Baptist Church. 

James J. Vest was born in Alabama, in 1821, 
and is a son of James and Sallie (Harvey) Ve.st, 
the former a native of Georgia, born in 1791, and 
to their union, which occurred 1809, a family of 
eight children were born: Albert, James, John, 
George, William, Lucy, Martha and Nancy. The 
mother of these children died in Alabama, in 1827, 
she having been a worthy member of the Method- 



ist Episcopal Church for many years. Mr. Vest 
wedded his second wife, Margaret Canady, in 
1828, she being a daughter of Felix Canady, and 
the following childi-en were bom to their union: 
Henry, Martin, Jonathan and Sarah. Mr. Vest 
from earliest boyhood was reared to a farm life, 
and received his early education in the common 
schools of Georgia. He served as a captain in the 
Alabama State Guards, State Militia, and in 1833 
was elected to the office of constable of Morgan 
County, Ala. , and after remaining in office for sev- 
eral years he was (in 1838) elected sheriff of the 
same county, holding the position until 1840. Two 
years later, he was elected to represent Winston 
County, Ala., in the State legislature, and died 
in this county in 1868, followed by his wife two 
years later, and they lie side by side in the Old 
Mount Nebo Cemetery, Ala. James J. Vest re- 
ceived his early instructions in farming from his 
father, and in 1857 removed to Izard County, 
Ark., fi-om which State he enlisted in the Confed- 
erate army in 1862, under Gen. Price, and after 
serving for a short time in the infantry, he joined 
the cavalry, and was a participant in all the prin- 
cipal battles which occurred west of the Missis- 
sippi River. He surrendered at Jacksonport on the 
25th day of June, 1865. When a young man in 
his native State, he studied for the ministry, and 
in 1838 was licensed to preach in the Methodist 
Church, and was a minister of that denomination 
for several years. In 1865 he was ordained to 
preach in the Baptist Church, and although he 
was the owner of a tract of land, he has divided it 
among his children, and devotes his time to the 
cause of Christianity. He is a stanch Democrat, 
a Royal Arch Mason, and also belongs to the I. 
O. O. F. His wife, who was formerly a Miss De- 
laney Kent, and whom he married in 1840, was 
born in the State of Alabama, and she and Mr. 
Vest are the parents of the following family: Al- 
bert, James, William, Martha and Mary living, 
and John, Malviney and Sallie deceased. 

James A. Walker is a native of Izard County, 
Ark. , born in 1849. His father, who was born in 
the State of Kentucky in 1807. was reared to a 
farm life, and after he attained his majority, he 



^, 



IZARD COUNTY. 



979 



learued the blacksmith's trade. As earlj' as 1820 
he removed to the State of Arkansas with his 
parents, the country then being a territory, and 
from that time up to the day of his death was 
engaged in farming, becoming one of the leading 
agriculturists of this region. He owned an ex- 
cellent farm of 200 acres, the principal part of 
which he devoted to the raising of cotton, corn and 
tobacco. He was married, in 1830, to Miss Sarah 
McCubbins, whose people were residents of Marion 
County, Ai'k., and to their union a family of ten 
children were born, six sons and four daughters, 
all of whom lived to maturity : Eobert T. AV. , Will- 
iam M., John A. W., Greene, James A., Jane, 
Phoebe, Elizabeth, Harriet C. and Mary L. In 
1869 James A. Walker married a daughter of Jo- 
seph and Sarah Woody, of Izard County, but Ten- 
nesseeans by birth. Her name was Izora E. Woody, 
and by Mr. Walker she became the mother of four 
children: Lillie, Leroy, Oleen and Charley. Mr. 
Walker has devoted his attention to farming from 
his youth up, and by paying strict attention to 
his work, and being ever ready to adopt new meth- 
ods, he has met with good results, and now has a 
fertile farm of 127 acres on Rocky Bayou, the fifty 
acres which are under the plow being devoted to 
the raising of cotton, corn and small grain. Mr. 
Walker is a gentleman who possesses many worthy 
qualities, and ho and wife make the best of neigh- 
bors, and are very hospitable. They are members 
in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and he belongs to the I. O. O. F. 

T. J. Williamson is a man who seems to be es- 
pecially iitted for the occupation of merchandising, 
for he has met with more than the average degree 
of success, and his earnest and sincere endeavor to 
succeed in life is well worthy of imitation. He 
was born in Independence County, Ark., Decem- 
ber 22, 1852, and is a son of R. P. and Catherine 
(Bowman) Williamson, who were born in Franklin 
County, Tenn., and North Carolina, respectively, 
the former's birth occurring November 15, 1819. 
He was educated in Hardeman County, Tenn., near 
Bolivar, and after his removal to Arkansas, in 1849, 
he settled in Independence County, and was there 
married. He and wife became the parents of 



two sons and two daughters, and being people of 
wealth and position, they have given their children 
good educational advantages. They own aboat 
1,500 acres of land, and have some 750 under cul 
tivation. The mother is a member of the Cumber 
land Presbyterian Church. T. J. Williamson, 
their son, was educated in Bellefonte, Boone 
County, Ark., and ho was married there to Miss 
Sarah Murray on the 20th of December, 1877, 
she being a native of that State, and a daughter of 
Alfred Murray, who was a Tennesseean. To Mr. 
and Mrs. Williamson were born seven children, 
of whom four are still living: Clarence R., Kittie 
N., Pauline and Alexander; those deceased are: 
Oscar W., who died June 14, 1889; Viola, who 
died October 5, 1888; and Elloena, whose death 
occurred on the 14th of September, 1888. Mr. 
Williamson has been engaged in merchandising 
since he was twenty-one years of age. He holds 
the highest office in the I. O. O. F., and has been 
a delegate to the Grand Lodge. He and wife are 
members of the Methodist Church, and are well 
known and highly esteemed citizens. 

W. H. Winkle was born in Iredell County. N. 
C, July 8, 1838, and is one of five surviving mem 
bers of a family of ten children born to Harvey and 
Sarah Winkle, who were born in Tennessee and 
North Carolina, the former's birth occurring in 
1806. Harvey Winkle was educated in his native 
State, and his occupation through life was that of 
a farmer and mechanic. His death occurred 
March 24, 1866, and his wife's in April, 1850, she 
l>ein<' a member of the Lutheran Cljurch atethe 
time of her death. After receiving the advantages 
of the common schools and attaining manhood on 
his father's farm. W. H. Winkle wiis marrie«l on 
the 14th of February, lfS61, to Elizal)eth Ful- 
bright, who was bom in the State of Arkansas, 
but her death occurred on the 2Sth of September. 
1868, she leaving him with an infant daughter, 
Mary Jane, to care for. His second wife, Sarah 
Jackson, was also born in the State of Arkansas, 
and their marriage was consummated on tlie 24th 
of January, 1866, his wife l)oing a daughter of 
John and Mary Johnstin. The second union also re- 
sulted in the birth of one daughter, who ilied on 



►^ 



'-^ 



980 



HISTORY OF ARKANSAS. 



the 19th of November, 1872. Mr. Winkle pos- 
sesses an exceedingly fertile farm of 160 acres, of 
which eighty acres are under cultivation, and 
much of his attention is given to raising a good 
grade of mules and other stock. He has attained 
a high rank in the I. O. O. F., and in every en- 
terprise in which he engages he is progressive and 
energetic, and consequently is successful as a rule. 
He and wife belong to the Cumberland Presby- 
terian Church. 

James B. Woods, farmer, Melbourne, Ark. 
Among the prominent young farmers of Izard 
County appears the name of James B. Woods, 
who, like many others of the representative 
men of the county, is h native of Bedford Coun- 
ty, Tenn. His parents, John and Luciuda (Rich- 
ardson) Woods, are natives of the same State. 
John Woods came to Arkansas in 1854, settling 
in Izard County, and bought a farm near Mel- 
bourne, or rather near the present site of Mel- 
bourne, where he resided until his death in 1860. 
He was in his twenty -ninth year at that time, and 
was a member of the Christian Church. He had 
always taken an active interest in politics. In 
1858 he had been elected sheriff of the county, 
and had just retired from office at the time of his 
death. The mother died in 1879, at the age of 
forty-eight years. To their union were born six 
children, four now living: Margaret, wife of Alex. 
L. Sublett; James B., Mary, wife of W. L. Stroud; 
Sarah J. (deceased), wife of Joseph E. Freeman; 
Thomas R. (deceased), and Martha C. , wife of 
Daniel S. Freeman. James B. Woods was born in 
February, 1852, and was reared to agricultural 
pursuits in this county. He received a good, prac- 
tical education in the subscription and free schools 
of Arkansas, and when twenty-one years of age 
started out to fight life's battles for himself. He 
first tilled the soil on his mother's farm, but two 
years later bought a house in Melbourne, moved 
there, but rented land and still cultivated the soil. 
In connection with this he also teamed and fol- 
lowed the carpenter's trade for two years, after 
which he sold out and bought his present property. 
This (consists of 151 acres, with about forty or 
fifty acres cleared, and with good buildings, etc. 



He was married, in 1874, to Miss Fannie Dixon, 
daughter of \V. C. and Eliza (Clarada) Dixon, na- 
tives of Tennessee. To this marriage have been 
born five children: Ora A., Lillian A., Owen D., 
Robert L. and Margaret. James B. Woods is 
among the prosperous young farmers of the county 
and deserves especial credit for the start he has 
made in life. He is public-spirited and takes an 
active interest in educational matters as well as all 
other public enterprises. He and wife are both 
members of the Christian Church. In politics he 
casts his vote with the Democratic party. Socially 
he is a member of the Masonic fraternity. 

S. H. Wren is the oldest living pioneer of Izard 
County, and was born in Warren County, Ky. , 
(near Bowling Green) in 1824, and at the age of 
six years was brought by his parents, James and 
Elizabeth (Hightower) Wren, to Izard County. 
I James Wren was born in North Carolina, and in 
1 1819 moved to Kentucky, and settled in Warren 
County, where he engaged in farming, and lived 
until the above mentioned date, at which date he 
located in Arkansas, near Lunenburg, and gave 
his attention to farming. He served as justice of 
the peace of the county several terms, and held the 
office of county judge from 1842 to 1847, having 
no opponents during this time. He was also 
elected to the office of county trustee, to distribute 
the international and school fund for the purpose 
of improving the public roads, there being three 
candidates, and Mr. Wren received every vote 
polled in the county with the exception of one — 
the only case of the kind on the county records. 
He was popular with all, and justly so, for he 
' was ever very public-spirited, and his efforts in 
aiding in the improvement of the county will al- 
ways be highly appreciated. His death, which 
occurred on the 28th of April, 1888, at the age of 
ninety seven years and twenty-eight days, was 
much regretted by all who knew him. He had 
! been a member of the Missionary Baptist Church 
h'om the time he was thirty two years of age until 
his death, and in his political views was a Jeffer- 
sonian Democi'at, and during the war a loading 
I Secessionist. His wife, who was born in the "Pal- 
! metto State," died on the 6th of June, 1883, at 



71® 



^v- 



IZARD COUNTY. 



'.IS I 



tlie agi> of t'ighty-piglit years. Tlieir son, S. H. 
Wreu, bogaji life for liimsolf at tbo age of twonty 
years, first as a farmer, and October 6, 1845, ho 
moved to the Platte Purchase, in Missouri, remain- 
ing there about one year. Upon his return to 
Izard County, Ark., ho was engaged in rafting 
lumber for two years. In 1861 he was living in 
Fulton County, Ark. , and was a candidate on the 
Union ticket for a seat in the convention opposed 
to secession, and was victorious over his opponent, 
biit the county clerk gave the certificate of election 
to the defeated candidate. The race was made 
three times, and each time Mr. Wren secured the 
greatest number of votes, but before the case was 
finally settled the State seceded. Owing to the 
views held Vjy Mr. Wren in regard to secession, he 
was arrested and tried for treason to tlie Confed- 
erate government, the trial being held at Little 
Rock, before Judge Ringo, but he was ac(juitted 
after they had examined two prosecuting witnesses. 
He then returned home, in February, 1862, and 
remained here until the arrival of Gen. Curtis, 
when he went to Rolla, Mo., and remained con- 
nected with the Union army for two years, selling 
goods at Batesville. After his return home, at 
the close. of the war, he found all his buildings 
and fences destroyed, but he set to work to again 



improve his property, and now lias hin fnrin, which 
consists of 120 acres, well impn.ved with gotjd 
buildings, and has eighty one acres under the 
plow. He has owned 1,2(1(1 acres, but has lost 
the most of it in going security for his friends. 
His wife owns 146 acres, with 1(10 acres under 
cultivation. He was elected to the oftice of justice 
of the peace two terms, making six years in all, 
and during that time did not have a decision re 
versed or a change of venue taken, and not a cent 
was charged up to the State of Arkansas. He is a 
Republican in his political views, but usually votes 
for whom ho consid(>rs the best man, regardless of 
party. He has been twice married, the first time 
to Miss Nancy J. Hayley, in 1854, and of six chil- 
dren born to them, three are deceased: .Tanies M. . 
William C, and Martha .J. (Mrs. .James Cole) living 
in Franklin County, Ark. Mrs. Wren was a mem ■ 
ber of the Missionary Baptist Church.'Tjnd died in 
1865. Mr. Wren's second union took place on the 
24th of November, 1867. his wife being a Miss 
Margaret Evans, and of nine children liorn to 
them, four are living: W. G., S. R.. Thomas H. 
and Mai-}' C. Mrs. Wren is a member of the 
Christian Church, and he is a member of the I. O. 
O. F., and the Agricultural Wheel, taking a warm 
interest in commendable enterprises. 




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